I took Lilly to class for the first time in seven weeks on Sunday. She did great, even though we did not know the majority of dogs and many of them were young and somewhat wild. She did snark at one dog whose self-control is still under construction, but that’s no surprise. This pup was straining at the end of the leash, hopping around and looking right at Lilly. …
Really, Ginko? You ate the entire ham-and-cheese sandwich I made for your Daddy? It was on a plate, on the counter, which surely does not look anything like your bowl on the floor. And, neither of us were around to give you the green light to have people food. Are you in on this conspiracy to ruin my mood after a nice walk? What a knucklehead! …
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). …
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 …
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. …
This New York Times Magazine article on anxiety chronicles pioneering research, going back some 20 years, into the innate tendency of some people to be more anxious than others. A few things revealed in the article amused me, including the commonalities I see between parenting an anxious child and training an anxious dog. And, here is the kicker … dog people like us know the “right” answer. …
To compensate for concentration gaps lately, I really should keep notes on what I want to report each Friday. So often, the good ideas get lost in the hubbub of the week. What on earth did I want to share? Hmmm … This is all I can remember.
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