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WDJ contributor/freelance writer Barbara Dobbins sent me a text from the waiting room of a busy veterinary practice the other day:"Sitting at the veterinary specialist and watching all the traditional cones go by. Why don't they offer or even discuss alternatives? Sigh."The classic cone offered at most veterinary practices is made of very heavy, stiff , opaque plastic. Most dogs suffer more from the cones than whatever wound they have that is being protected. They are often bigger than they have to be to protect the dog's wound site, and because the plastic is opaque, the wearer often bashes into doorways and table legs, trying to move around his house.

Ack! As I type these words, it's the day before Thanksgiving, and I have less than an hour to write this. I had a different topic in mind for this week's blog post, but it's going to take more time to write it, and I've run out of time.

I overslept this morning. My husband and I were up too late, tidying up the house, getting ready to have houseguests for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Ordinarily, I would put them up at the house where I have my office, two blocks away, where they would probably be more comfortable, with their own bathroom, but the comfort I'm working to preserve is that of - you guessed it - dogs!

I'm fostering a (heartworm-positive) mama hound and her seven puppies for one of my favorite breed rescues, the American Black and Tan Coonhound Rescue. It's my first foray back into puppy-fostering since the epic Great Dane mama and litter of 11 fostering experience, which wiped me out in terms of time, energy, and even spare cash for a while. After that litter, which came to me underweight and sickly, and had to undergo treatment for coccidia and giardia, I took a break from fostering puppy litters for a while.

But I couldn't resist this bunch: They came from an open-admission shelter north of me by 90 miles or so, and were "pulled" by the ABTCR, whose Western-U.S. coordinator is about 90 miles south of me...I was in the middle, see? I had to help!

There's an old joke about if there's one thing that two dog trainers can agree on, it's that the third one is doing it wrong. But if you know me at all, you know I hate online squabbles; I don't participate in digital fights about training methods or tools. That said, I think I've found something that very nearly ALL dog trainers agree on, and that I will defend anywhere, anytime, and it's this: Retractable leashes have no place in dog training.It almost reaches the level of a joke: If you go to a dog park or almost any gathering of dog people and their dogs, the worst-behaved dogs will be the ones on retractable leashes. It's sort of a chicken or the egg thing: What came first, the poorly behaved dog or the leash that teaches him nothing?

A few months ago I was horrified to learn a that my good friend (and frequent model for WDJ articles, Berkeley trainer Sandi Thompson) was giving a dog she has owned for five years the first bath he's had since she rescued him – literally rescued him, as a volunteer during the historic floods in Thailand in 2011. This summer, Sam had his first encounter with a good old American skunk, which prompted the bath (and cute photos), but I was incredulous: How can that possibly be his first bath in more than five years??

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a message from Patty, a massage therapist I know. I'd call her my" massage therapist

After spending a couple days in the heavily dog-populated San Francisco Bay area recently, I found myself wondering: Why is it so hard for people to walk their dogs on a leash?Dogs are so numerous in that area that I'd estimate I saw at least 300 human/dog pairs or groups out walking. (I had my young dog Woody with me, and so I was out walking him, too. And on the last day there, I picked up my son's dog, Cole, and we stopped at a large, well-known off-leash area for dogs, Point Isabel, where one can observe at least 100 dogs at any given time of day.) I'd guess that a full 85 percent of the dogs I saw were either pulling or dragging their owners down the street. About half of these pulled steadily ("Come ON, let's GO!"), and the other half pulled intermittently ("Wait, I need to sniff this! Okay, let's go! Wait! I need to sniff that! Okay, let's go!").

This past week, we've had some terribly windy days. In the wee hours of Monday morning, I woke up to a strong smell of smoke in the air. I stepped outside; the odor was strong but I couldn't hear sirens nor see the glow of a fire anywhere. I turned on my computer, and was immediately able to find news about the source of the smoke: a wildfire had broken out about 10 miles north of my town. Another was burning about 20 miles to the east. My town was safe - but oh my word, there were also enormous fires burning 100 miles away, in the heavily populated areas of Napa and Sonoma Counties. And the wind was still gusting at 50 and 60 miles per hour, spreading burning embers far, wide, and fast.

As I type, tens of thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes and businesses, and hundreds of homes and businesses have burned to the ground.

This morning, I was talking to my husband, while standing in the doorway of his office, which is located in a little outbuilding behind our home. I was watching my dogs Otto and Woody, as they stood with their backs to me, looking alertly at something through the chain-link fence that separates our backyard from the front yard. Suddenly, Otto lifted his head and let out a howl of frustration (it's more like the noise that Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars makes) and quick as a wink, Woody neatly lifted his nose, unlatching the gate, and both dogs pushed though the gate and ran into the front yard after something.Obviously, I abruptly left the conversation with my husband, yelled "Hey! Come!" and ran in the direction of my dogs. To their credit, both of them ran back toward me, gaily and immediately, but looking over their shoulders at a little dog, who looked like a Shih Tzu-mix and who was standing, loose, uncollared, and unaccompanied, at the foot of my driveway. When the dog saw me, he started trotting down the sidewalk.

Hello, and sorry I've not posted for a few weeks. Our publishing headquarters staff ran some older blog posts in place of fresh content from me, as I took a couple of weeks off for surgery - yikes!Long story short: I had my first-ever routine colonoscopy, and it found a large mass! Crazy, because I had no symptoms of any sort of digestive, elimination, or any other health problem. But the surgeon said it had to be removed, along with the 10 or so inches of colon and small intestine it was attached to. So, the day after I shipped the October issue of WDJ to the printer in early September, I had laparoscopic abdominal surgery, and spent six days in the hospital. I got fantastic news regarding the mass on the day I was discharged: the thing was benign, so no further treatment will be needed.Fortunately, I had a couple of weeks between the colonoscopy and surgery to figure out what to do with my dogs.

It started as a joke: I take so many cell-phone pictures of Woody sleeping in ridiculous positions that my cloud back-up folders online are packed full of these photos, so I started telling people I was going to launch an Instagram account consisting of just Woody-sleeping pics.

Since making landfall Friday night in Texas, Hurricane Harvey has caused widespread destruction and record flooding in large parts of the state. Over 50 inches of rain have fallen in some areas.With the severe flooding, and people struggling to keep themselves and their families out of the water, dogs (and cats) are in dire straits. People are being evacuated as fast as possible, and many of them are not permitted or able to take their pets. News reports show animals on roofs and in trees, and few volunteers are available to help rescue, house, and care for them. Abandoned animals and permanently homeless animals alike are fending for themselves in the flooded city.