Lifestyle

His real name is Blake, but his nickname is Batman – a handsome gentleman, ready to swoop in on a moment's notice to fight crime in his own special way. Blake is a gorgeous, three-year-old Labrador Retriever employed as a courthouse dog for the Pima County Attorney's Office in Tucson, Arizona. Trained by Assistance Dogs of the West (ADW), and partnered with victim advocate Colleen Phelan, Blake provides support to victims and witnesses of crime as they navigate the vagaries of the judicial process.

I assume that most Whole Dog Journal readers are as upset as I am when I see someone treating a dog badly. What should you do when you see someone being rough with their dog? Hard as it may be, I urge you to be calm and take several deep breaths before you act. Then . . .

prior to her diagnosis with end stage renal disease. Williams was an avid bodybuilder

Meet Lulu. Lulu is a Havanese-mix puppy, just about a year old. In many ways she is a typical adolescent pup: outgoing, social, and full of enthusiasm for life. But there is something special about Lulu. She is in training to be a service dog. When Lulu is fully trained, she will be a hearing-alert dog for her human companion, Sara Walsh.

The dog's nose is an amazing organ, with abilities and features far superior to our own in many ways. First are the physical adaptations of the nose itself. The inside of the dog's nose is lined with many folds of tissue (called the olfactory epithelium), which in turn contain hundreds of millions of olfactory receptors, specialized cells responsible for detecting odors. Because of the increased surface area caused by these folds, the dog's nose contains a ridiculously high number of receptor cells when compared to the human nose; on average, the dog has about 220 million, while our noses harbor a paltry 5 million. This difference contributes to the dog's ability to detect almost impossibly minute concentrations of compounds, by some estimates in concentrations as low as parts per trillion.

We currently have three dogs. We lost our Scottie a few months ago to cancer, and our Australian Shepherd last year to old age and failing health. This is the fewest number of dogs we've had in our family for as far back as I care to remember, and while I grieve Missy and Dubhy's absence every day, a part of me feels some guilty relief that the canine chaos and caretaking load has lightened somewhat. Still, while I know it won't be for a while yet, another part of me contemplates the next potential pup-addition to the Miller pack . . . which leads me to contemplate the complexities and challenges of bringing home a new dog.

Dogs can change our lives. Little did Laurel Braitman know how much one Bernese Mountain Dog would change hers. Not long after Laurel had adopted Oliver, the 4-year-old dog began to exhibit anxious behaviors, soon culminating in his exodus from the window of her fourth-story apartment. A young neighbor boy witnessed Oliver's fifty-foot fall and screamed, Mom! A dog fell out of the sky!" …"

now a successful K9 Nose Work dog, Handel.üHandel recently got his first (and we suspect, not his last) title in K9 Nose Work.üCanine Good Citizen Enzo.üHelen of Troy, a rescued pit bull, is deaf, but that hasn't hindered her training for good manners, agility, or as a therapy dog – nor has it lessened her enjoyment of being read to, in service as a reading dog for elementary school children at a library in Rensselaerville, New York.

Life with any dog has its moments of agony and ecstasy. The ecstasy happens when our dogs' behaviors are top notch, and all systems seem to run smoothly. The agony happens when our dogs have an oops" moment