We are quite late in publishing a few corrections and small announcements, so we’re taking this space to catch up. The corrections are most important:
In our article, “Best in Bags,” published in the February 2001 issue, we listed an altogether incorrect web site address for Flint River Ranch. The address given was for another dog food company that has no affiliation with Flint River; we simply had a momentary loss of reason, and we apologize for any confusion we caused.
We’d love to list the correct address for Flint River here, but there are (no kidding) hundreds of them. You see, the company does not have its own, central web site, but allows its independent distributors to publish their own sites, and many of them do. Nor would it be fair for us to list one, or a few of these independent distributors’ sites; it would be extremely unfair to all the other distributors. Our suggestion for all you web-surfing dudes and gals? Just type the words “Flint River” and “dog food” into the Internet search engine of your choice and then step back! You’ll find everything you are looking for and more.
Next, an incorrect sequence of events was described in the very last paragraph of “The Cop and the Clicker,” published in the March 2001 issue. Author and trainer Robin McHale-Ehn has explained our editing error to us quite thoroughly, but we still fail to appreciate the fullness of our technical lapse.
We appreciate Ms. Ehn’s patience with us (she’s a professional trainer, after all, and we’re not), and wish to make it clear that she knew what she was doing with the dog she was training – something about building a behavior chain. In a ruthless effort to get the article to fit in its intended space, we put clicks where they didn’t belong, and maybe left one out. Anyway, the dog turned out fine. Ms. Ehn is available to explain what really happened in that last paragraph to people who know what behavior chains are; she suggests interested readers contact her via email: carepaws@shasta.com. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?
Multiple kudos to Pat Miller
The following announcements are grievously overdue; we should have been bragging about them long ago.
Regular readers are familiar with the work of WDJ’s Training Editor, Pat Miller. Way back in October 2000, we were honored to be sitting with Mrs. Miller at the awards banquet held during the annual meeting of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), held in Houston, Texas. Yes, it’s true, we’ve shared more than one vegetarian meal with Pat, but this was special. Twice, our friend had to stand up and accept awards from the APDT Board (and there we were, at the edge of the spotlight!). Pat received the APDT’s John Fisher Scholarship Award for an article that most perfectly met the selection criteria of “teaching others to seek a deeper understanding of our companion dogs, their motivation, and how and what they learn.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Pat was honored as the APDT’s “Outstanding Member of the Year,” awarded to the APDT member who is judged to have made the greatest contribution to APDT through volunteer work on behalf of APDT and within the animal community.
And finally, in December, the APDT announced that Pat had been elected to the APDT Board by a vote of the membership. Congratulations, Pat! It’s great to see you getting recognition for your positively awesome body of work.
Another WDJ author wins editorial award
More recently, the Dog Writers Association of America announced their 2000 editorial excellence awards, and we were surprised and happy to see an article from our July 2000 issue, “Hidden Killers in Dog Food,” take a prize for best individual feature article in a general interest dog magazine. Congratulations to author Cindy Cramer, who found little to celebrate as she experienced the events she recounted in the cautionary article. She very nearly lost her beloved German Shepherd, Xeus, to a mold-based toxin that had infected the commercial food she was feeding at the time, and attempts to gain information about the food and the toxins brought unexpected brickbats from fans of the food manufacturer. Cindy, Xeus, and (hopefully) the food are all fine now.
If you weren’t a subscriber last July, that issue is worth ordering from our publisher (you can contact our customer service department at 800-424-7887 or customer_service@belvoir.com).
WDJ readers are the best!
Back in October, we ran a short news piece about Greg Tilford and Mary Wulff-Tilford, authors of Herbs for Pets (1999, Bowtie Press) and well-known in the holistic animal care community for their research into using herbs to treat animals. The Tilfords lost their (uninsured) home and herb gardens in the wildfires that swept rural Montana last summer. Perhaps most deeply felt was the loss of their lifelong collection of herb books and decades of research material.Their herbal tincture manufacturing business, Animals’ Apawthecary, located in another part of Montana, was unharmed.
We asked if people might be able to help the Tilfords with donations of money or herb books to help replace a fraction of what they lost. WDJ readers came through with $2,400 in donations and piles of books, and Grey and Mary were quite overwhelmed and appreciative.
