These days, you’ll find me squished somewhere between my goal for things to get back to normal work-wise and to give Lilly more than just what’s left of my time and energy. That means balancing three veterinary trade magazine deadlines this week and life. To that end, I used my “lunch” time yesterday to take a long walk with Lilly up the road and back. …
As you likely heard on TV and from other Colorado bloggers, it snowed for three solid days last week and resulted in about three feet of snow around here. Unfortunately, the storm coincided with my first real week of work (after nonstop family medical drama) in a while, so Lilly found herself feeling more than cooped up. So, for your amusement, I present to top two signs your border collie has cabin fever. …
While we’re revisiting our behavior modification and training plan for Lilly, it seems like a good time to revisit some of what got us here in terms of our long absence from formal agility training — group, private, or otherwise. I made many mistakes because I didn’t fully understand how fearful Lilly was and how many things contributed to her negative reaction to an agility course (and the monsters she thinks live there). …
In response to last week’s Training Update, my professional writer and dog-loving friend Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell (who blogs about living large in a little house) asked for some background on why exactly I would work so hard and continue to put so much effort into training Lilly. Here is my best attempt at answering that question, which is bigger than I suspect Kerri ever imagined. …
Sure, we’re still recovering from the heartbreak and training loss when Lilly’s best, best dog friend Katie, the borzoi, got rehomed. However, there appears to be some additional fallout from the loss of our fast-running pal … in the form of an additional of a few pounds. Now, I could blame the weight gain n a bunch of things, but not having Katie to chase a few times a week is affecting Lilly’s leanness, and that’s for darn sure. …
A puzzling news item came to me via a fellow writer/blogger last week. Stephanie Stiavetti, who blogs about gluten-free cooking over at Wasabimon, alerted me that the October issue of Behavioural Processes (a journal of animal behavior research) includes a study that seems to show dogs CANNOT detect deception in people. Here, many of us are thinking that our oh-so-sensitive and instinctual canine pals are good judges of character, but in the study’s set-up, dogs did not distinguish in any significant way people who were being honest with them (about the location …
In response to last week’s Training Update, my writer and blogger friend Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell (who writes about living large in a little house) asked for some background on why exactly I would work so hard and continue to put so much effort into training Lilly. Here is my best attempt at answering that question, which…
Last week Tom took a trip with friends to Moab, Utah, to explore sections of the Kokopelli Trail. This time he rode a motorcycle, but on previous trips he covered major sections on a mountain bike. He knows the area well and loves it. As much as we miss him, who could deny their favorite boy a much-needed getaway? These photos show how nearly unreal the whole area is. And, since we’ve had about enough of the real world around here lately, I thought I’d share. …
Thanks to the earlier Lilly and Lulu and trick progress videos and updates this week, let’s instead circle back to our behavior consult from a few months back and check our progress against goals and the second phase behavior modification plan that builds upon work we started with Lilly way in summer of 2008. Our saga, of course, predates even that original consult by several years, but here is a recap of our current training orders from our certified applied animal behaviorist. …
Allow me, please, a brag. In just a few clicker sessions, Lilly learned a new trick we call CLEAN UP. We were inspired by this video of a ridgeback putting away his toys. Lilly got the idea in just one session, but she tossed the toys into the basket with such oomph that they bounced out, which was against the rules. She caught on fast, though, and began holding the toys down with one paw, which is just about the cutest thing. …
