River dog in summer light
Genie, who hates the feel of water on her tender Princess skin… (click on photo to reveal it all)
Read moreGenie, who hates the feel of water on her tender Princess skin… (click on photo to reveal it all)
Read moreAugust 18, 2009, was the day our puppy Zip learned that she could swim – and liked it!
Read moreI 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 moreNot 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 moreI’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
Read moreIt’s now January 2008. Joon’s last entry was on January 15, 2007. Shame on me! Just because I haven’t written in her blog, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t worked with the dog. I just haven’t shared. We’re not where I want to be, considering it’s been a year, but then there’s life that gets in the way. So it did, and does. If I look at Joon’s Checklist, we’ve made progress. One thing I’ve learned when working with dogs,
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