Boone & The Squirrel: Recall When Your Dog is Distracted
Dog trainers like to say that our dogs do what works for them. The thought behind that concept is that dogs are extraordinarily good...
Dog Breed Biases: We All Have Them (Admit it!)
Are there breeds you love and breeds you don’t get the appeal of? I think we all do – though I would be the...
Dogs Know When We’re Stressed: Here’s How
It always makes me happy when scientists substantiate something about dogs that any loving dog owner already knows – but it’s icing on the...
“Two cups a day!” How much are you REALLY feeding your dog?
Ask any owner who feeds kibble to their dog how much they feed to their dog, and you will invariably get the amount expressed...
Are Dogs Good With Chickens?
When I was about five years old, my parents moved our family from the San Francisco Bay area to a rural farming area about...
Canine Adolescence: The Great “Unconsidered” Life Stage
The other day the New York Times published an excerpt from canine behavioral researcher and author Alexandra Horowitz’s newest and most excellent book, The...
Otto is still here
Last week, I was 100% sure I would be having Otto euthanized at today’s appointment with a veterinarian who provides hospice and home-euthanasia services....
End of life decisions
Three years ago I wrote a blog post about “how to know when the time is right for euthanasia.” A the time, I had...
The secret to dog-training success
One of my ex-boyfriends from many, many years ago had a sort of dad-joke he’d tell at least once daily. Any time he saw...
Urgent warning for dog owners: Parvo-like illness spreading in Michigan, killing dogs
Recently, a dog was admitted to a veterinary hospital in northern Michigan with symptoms that looked just like those of canine parvovirus type 2...
Monkeypox and your dog
A single reported case of transmission of monkeypox from a human to a dog has prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...
Cultural differences (and what are we doing wrong?)
Last month, my sister-in-law and my almost-13-year-old niece, Ava, spent two weeks in France, visiting my sister-in-law’s mother and stepfather, who live in Paris....
Latest Blog
No, You Can’t
Of all the “third rail” topics concerning dogs, here’s one I never could have guessed would make some people incensed: A passerby putting a bag of dog poop in their garbage can. Ack! Apparently, this makes some homeowners angry enough that they put signs on or next to their garbage cans, set up security cameras in order to identify and eventually confront the offenders, or threatening penalties for the alleged “theft of services” (using someone else’s garbage service).