Dear Clueless Mother:
Perhaps you don’t realize how close you came to spending your oh-so-special day in the emergency room. You need to pay far more attention to that precious little one of yours. You see, the fruit of
your loins chased us quite a ways before you tuned in. Was it my yells that finally broke you out of your brunch-induced stupor? I’m not the bad guy here. Remember, we were the ones making a hasty
retreat.
…
I really have no idea if I gave useful answers during our interview last Friday. But, here’s what I remembered to say. …
The second part of our video interview was more about gathering footage of Lilly playing (or whatever) that they can use (I’m assuming) with audio from me talking about her. Since
regular readers know that it’s hard to get Lilly to “play” in public, I decided to go with tricks instead. …
From a training perspective, I’ve got to say that the Relaxation Protocol and
ideas from Leslie McDevitt’s book, “Control Unleashed,” helped me give Lilly some context for what I was asking during our video
interview for this Power of Paws campaign.
…
As I mentioned last week, Lilly and I got invited to take part in a media thing. It’s partly because of the blog, but it’s mostly because of my contacts from years of working for
national humane and veterinary organizations. The media campaign, called Power of Paws, promotes the benefits of pet ownership. It’s being
done by a firm in NYC for Del Monte, which owns Milkbone and a bunch of other brands. The primary use for these videos and interviews is online, but the extensive release I had to sign says they can
use our audio and …
I’ll write more next week … I promise. But, suffice it to say that our video interview went really well. I can’t vouch for myself. I have no idea if I did OK or not, but Lilly was a
total STAR.
…
I tagged this as a brag, but that remains to be seen. This morning, Lilly and I will be interviewed about our relationship for a campaign, promoting the benefits of having a dog or cat
in your life. It’s called The Power of Paws. I have no idea how it will go. She could be amazing, or she could completely freak out. …
While wallowing last week over setbacks, I posted a plea elsewhere for ideas on what to do when you get discouraged. My question … How do you keep your spirits up? The discussion
included the concept of mantras. I’ve been using a couple phrases in my head relating to work. (Remember, I get things stuck in my internal audio easily.) So … I figured how about one for training?
Here’s what I wrote. What do you tell yourself? …
Recently, I wrote about Lilly getting herself stuck inside a trash bag and later
cereal bag. I found it very upsetting, but some people I know played down the danger as if Lilly could have gotten herself unstuck, if I hadn’t found her. As this sad example shows,
that’s not necessarily the case. The following cautionary tale comes out of another online agility community. It came with permission to cross-post, so here it is: …
I had to toss her the stick and quick snap the picture to get this shot. She would NOT for the life of me hold the darn thing while I took aim with the camera. As you can see, this is a
much loved stick. Perhaps the caption should read, “If I close my eyes and bite down really hard, maybe Mommy will stop taking pictures of me.” …
