Human Focus

Most trainers would agree that it helps immeasurably to be very clear about what you are asking for when you work with a dog – even to the point of visualizing in your mind the behavior or movement you are seeking from your dog. Unquestionably, your focus will help you communicate your wishes to your dog, making it easier for him to interpret and understand your cues. Life is demanding and stressful for many people these days. We rarely have enough time to be as reflective as we’d like. But as you work with and care for others, including your dogs, take a moment to focus purposeful thought on your tasks.

A healthy home is a happy home. We can all agree on that. How can you make your home healthier for you and your animal companions? We can tell you 20 ways, right off the top of our heads. We’ll divide our suggestions into four areas: Cleanliness, Diet, Environment, and Lifestyle.

When shopping for a veterinarian, how can you tell whether one doctor or another will be the best practitioner for your pet? Well, it’s a trick question; there isn’t any way to guarantee that any particular individual is the best. The emphasis should be on the first part of the question: shopping. Only through rigorous research can we possibly find the best-equipped facilities, with the most receptive staff, and the most communicative and skilled veterinarians. It may be possible to luck into finding the ideal veterinary practice by picking a name out of the yellow pages, but with your dog’s health (and sometimes, his life) depending on your decision, it’s best not to leave your choice to chance.

Twenty-five years ago, a friend of mine found two abandoned black-and-tan coonhound pups by the side of the road. He took them home and immediately called a real estate broker, thus beginning his search for a house with a fenced yard and ending his years as an apartment dweller. This same dog owner recently purchased the car of his dreams, only to discover that his dog's crate wouldn't fit in the back seat. He returned the car the next day.

Two stunning standard poodles, one pure white, the other charcoal gray, were wandering loose on Santa Cruz’s Seacliff Beach in early June, not far from a busy road. Jeff, the concerned citizen who corralled the dogs, was dismayed to find they had no tags, so he was unable to return them to their home. He put a “Dogs Found” ad in the newspaper and kept the dogs for three days, sure that someone would be looking for such wonderful animals, but no one called. With some ambivalence, he loaded them into his car and delivered them to the nearby Santa Cruz SPCA. They are obviously well-loved dogs, he reassured himself. They will be safe; the owner will come for them.

Sure there are a small percentage of people out there who want to win no matter what the cost. But for the most part the people that I meet at shows love and care about their dogs. In fact some of them care so much about their dogs, they forget about the breed! In 15 years of showing dogs, my dogs are always pets first, then show dogs. We compete in obedience, conformation, agility, tracking and field. I would never consider hurting some one else’s dog to help my dog win, nor illegally alter my dog.

Summer is here! Whether you are packing your bags for a luxury cruise or making a glass of lemonade and heading for the chaise lounge in the back yard, it’s a great time to grab a couple of good books and catch up on your reading. As we all know, dogs are hot – and not just in the panting-in-the-sun sense. An excess of books about dogs have been published in the last year, with numerous titles on dog training, care, psychology, and more. But while you can find something interesting in almost any dog book you read, we prefer to spend our precious free time reading those that have lots of useful information.

We have four dogs and two cats. Pet hair is omnipresent in our lives, especially since housecleaning never seems to get very high on our list of priorities. However, we know enough other dog owners to know that we are not alone. With the possible exceptions of the short list of “non-shedding” breeds, anyone who allows dogs in the house (which is where, in our opinion, dogs belong!) has to deal with dog hair. We vacuum. We sweep. We brush. We cringe in embarrassment when we glance at our clothes in public and see the plethora of hairs that our clothes brushes missed.

As we were going to press with this issue, we received a report of a dog’s death due to ingestion of a small part...

By volunteering at an animal shelter, you can directly increase the number of dogs that win" the contest of their lives. Shelters are almost always under-funded

In previous issues Whole Dog Journal reviewed products designed to make picking up dog poop easier. We also compared some commercial poop bags

We don’t generally “name names” when criticizing training techniques we don’t approve of; after all, it’s the methods, not the trainers who use them, that we want people to consider. But in this case, who the people are is important to the story. Many, many people are under the impression that there can’t possibly be a more peaceable trainer than a monk. And if monks wrote a book about dog training, wouldn’t you imagine it would advocate only nonviolent training techniques? But the Monks of New Skete do advocate the use of some physically forceful training methods, anathema to WDJ’s philosophies on training.