Dog Life

  • No praise for you

    Being a full-time freelance writer means working from an internal stash of motivation and drive (and lots of chocolate) because there certainly isn’t anyone popping by my home office giving me pats on the back. In fact, most of the feedback I get from day to day, week to week, is about what needs improvement. That *is* editing, after all. So, it’s not like I’m the kind of gal who needs a lot of hand-holding. Yet, early in our agility career, derision felt like the norm in training. And, it wore me down.

  • The power of “NO!”

    I stopped mid-sentence with my fingers poised above the keyboard when several things registered in my mind at once. Ginko was sprinting toward the upper pasture. The thing he wanted to chase was Lilly. She was outside the fence, sprinting low and hard toward the road. And … there were cars coming.

  • From scared to scholar

    Once I got Lilly out of the car at her first official obedience class, I had a hard time convincing her to get up off the ground. Once I got her off the ground, she didn’t want to go into the building. Once I got her in the building, she hid under my chair and bared her teeth (in fear) at anything that moved. She was about 9 months old, and things looked dismal.