Author: Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related. I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs

Weekly Training Update (June 26)

Last Saturday, we met with Jennie (our behaviorist) for a follow-up consult. We first saw her in summer 2008. I had hoped to check in earlier this year, but time and financial constraints made that impossible. So, we spent a year doing the behavior modification work that many people do in 2-3 months. We’re working on a new plan to take Lilly’s training to the next level — with an eye toward returning to agility training (and maybe possibly competing, even though we’d be the oldest novice team in history). I’ll be reporting on the various details in …

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Close Call With Thunder

Toward the end of our behavior consult last Saturday, a storm with plenty of lightening and thunder rolled across the mountains. I’ve never had to help Lilly cope with a storm away from home. I guess I should have planned better, but here is how we got through it. …

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Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs

Weekly Training Update (June 19)

I managed to crank out a LOT of work earlier this week, which means everything sat on others’ desks come Wednesday. I do have a few revisions and new things pending, but I’m waiting on input from clients and sources. Wednesday was the first real sort-of-summer-like day we’ve had in a while, so Lilly and I loaded up and went to class. Here’s how it went. …

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Info-Share | Musings

Guilty Looks, Shock Collar Warning,

Thanks to my dog friends on Twitter, I learn about some interesting dog news. Here is a round up of things I thought you might enjoy, including when dogs look guilty, shock collar warnings, a good background piece on how dogs learn, and a dog who knows lots of tricks. …

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Dog Photo

Tired Dogs: The Katie Visits Edition

My deadline-soaked and worry-filled pace continues, but two days last week I felt less like my head would explode. Decent weather meant I could write outside, so I ran up and grabbed Katie (Lilly’s best, best friend — the borzoi) to visit. I got a remarkable amount done those days, despite having three goofball dogs racing around all … day … long. …

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One Game: Three Cues

Playing fetch with your dog is a good idea for a bunch of reasons. It burns off lots of monkey energy. It lets dogs exercise the chase part of prey drive. In Lilly’s case, it also lets her exercise the gathering instinct since border collies are a herd fetching breed more than they are a driving breed, like our Australian shepherd pal Pitsch. But, maybe the best part of playing fetch is that you can practice three training cues in the process. …

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Info-Share | Musings

The Dog Training Classes We Take

On Friday, Mary over at Cowgirl by Proxy wondered about the dog training classes we take. I wrote a long, detailed response in the comments, which promptly got eaten by my blog software. I’ll do my best to recreate those thoughts here. For several years now, we have trained exclusively with Gigi Moss in Boulder, CO, who is the ONLY dog trainer who did not give up on us because of Lilly’s fears. We are very loyal clients and would be completely lost without her support, wisdom, and patience. …

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Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs

Weekly Training Update (June 12)

We finally made it to class on Sunday. We hadn’t been since the middle of March, and it showed. Lilly was relatively shut down at times. Gigi (our trainer) thought Lilly did well, considering it’d been so long and that there were so many new dogs. …

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Entirely Off Topic

2009 Wildflower Report

All winter we had virtually no snow. Then, came spring, and it would not stop snowing. Now that it’s essentially summer, we’re getting rain most days. It’s the greenest it’s been around here maybe ever. So, here are a few shots I thought you might enjoy. (P.S. We had a big bear run through our back pasture, mere feet from our back door last night, but my camera is s-l-o-w to turn on, and I missed getting a shot of it before it ran off. Very cool, though. I’ve never seen a bear before.) …

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Dog Gripe | Musings

Canine Fear Confusion

Sometimes I feel l like the more I read the more confused I get about training a fearful dog and what can go wrong if you reward the wrong things. Essentially, I believe you cannot make a real fear worse by comforting a fearful dog. Despite what the tough-love people want us to believe, my understanding is that using classical conditioning makes fears better, not worse. Yet, I read some things in Dr. Nicholas Dodman’s book The Well-Adjusted Dog that have me doubting myself again. Help!?! …

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