Life is good
Genie does know how to git down!!
Read moreAuthor Archives: Averill
When Pigs Fly – a seminar
I audited a Jane Killion seminar a couple of weeks ago at Love on a Leash in Harrisonburg VA. Just received the book yesterday from Amazon (should have read it before so I’d know what to ask, hate to ask questions that are covered in a book that I should have read). Jane was wonderful. Maybe I’ll always be impressed by the experts. Maybe? Certainly. They are experts, of course. That’s why we pay them the big bucks for the
Read moreOf Mice and Dogs and Brown Sugar
This morning when I got up I discovered that THE MOUSE (and his 86,279 relatives) had discovered a taste for brown sugar and had eaten two opposing sides of the plastic bag containing it, so when I picked up the bag it dumped brown sugar all over the contents of my “baking center”/plastic bag/aluminum foil/plastic wrap repository cupboard (including IN all the open boxes of wrapping stuff) as well as the floor outside the cupboard. This was of course at
Read moreDogs can break your heart
but we know that. These days, people live for 70 to 100 years. Dogs are alive for 8 to 16 years. The difference in the numbers is so great that there’s no real correspondence. WHY would a human bring a dog home to share home and love for 10 years (I’ll use that as median, ok?)? Gee, here’s this crazy, wild puppy, who we’ll manage with great sacrifice to raise to become a calm, faithful adult in 2 or 3
Read moreGenie prevails
Not to brag or anything – actually pretty much anything BUT bragging in this case, because I was shocked and overjoyed when Genie and I went to her second puppy class on Thursday evening. She was a different dog from her first class, far improved and just wonderful! And it wasn’t anything I did. I fully expected her to act similarly to her first class two weeks ago; I had spent a week on vacation, away from home, returned on
Read moreRevelations from Puppy Kindergarten
I’m a dog trainer with many years’ experience. I’ve taught puppy classes, basic and competition obedience, beginner and advanced agility. I’ve studied dog behavior extensively. I’ve observed thousands of dogs and their human partners in countless situations. I’ve watched both dogs and their humans become happy, sad, thrilled, impatient, excited, bored, ecstatic, confused, astonished, overwhelmed, pleased, angry, embarrassed – pretty much the entire gamut of vertebrate emotion. In all of these situations, the dogs act as dogs do – quite
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