Lots of Shame to Go Around Our friends at Kol’s Notes and My Brown Newfies have turned the tables on the popular dog shaming website. Yep, it’s Human Shaming time. The dogs finally get their say. And it seems we are not worthy to live in their worlds. Would your dog …
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The Puppiness Project – Learn to Focus
Gretchen Rubin wrote in The Happiness Project about the year she spent “test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy.” The Puppiness Project is my attempt to learn the same from Honey, my Golden Retriever. A Dog With a Job Honey always has to work …
When a Foster Dog Goes Home…
When a foster dog goes home from our house, we: go somewhere because it sounds and feels too empty with one dog missing sigh in relief because we’ve just uncomplicated our upcoming trip out-of-town keep looking at our dog to see if she feels as sad as we do bring out the high value …
Dog Training Fail – A Comedy of Errors
Ignoring Good Advice Do you ever fail to listen to those little voices in your head? Not the voices that say the government is reading your thoughts and you need to protect yourself with an aluminum foil hat (although substitute Google for the government—I don’t think they’re smart enough to pull it off—and they might …
When A Less Adoptable Dog is More Adoptable
The Less Adoptable Dog If Chérie, our foster pup, had found herself in a shelter making tough decisions about how to use their resources, she would not have made it out alive. She had a few strikes against her. Chérie was in heat, necessitating a more challenging spaying surgery feared everyone and everything and was nearly …
The Puppiness Project – You’re Gonna Stink; Do It Anyway
Gretchen Rubin wrote in The Happiness Project about the year she spent “test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy.” The Puppiness Project is my attempt to learn the same from Honey, my Golden Retriever, and Chérie, our visiting Foster Pup. Learning Dog Tricks Honey will …
Fostering Dogs – It’s About the Love, Not the Loss
[This post has its own soundtrack. Let it play in the background.] Falling in Love Again Do you remember the first time you fell in love? You were happy just to sit and think about the object of your affections. And when he walked into the room, your world lit up. Who wouldn’t want that …
We’re All the Same When We Love a Dog
When I was in high school, we didn’t have the World Wide Web to send shocking, funny, or touching video to the four corners of the earth. But some things became viral anyway. The video below, from 1981, is one of them. I did not see the original show on which Jimmy Stewart read his …
Is a Dog as Good as a Child?
The Question No married woman of a certain age has escaped the question: So, when are you going to have kids? If having a child is your greatest, unfulfilled desire, words can’t express the pain those words must cause. And writer Kristin Henderson reveals that pain with brutal honesty in her touching memoir, Driving by …
Supporting Change for Companion Animals
I’ve changed a lot since I first brought Agatha and Christie home from the Philadelphia SPCA in 1991. Yes, I’m fatter and older. But not just that. I’ve learned so much about building a relationship with my dog. It’s made living with dogs one of the most satisfying aspects of my life. But the reason …