This week thousands of excited children will be given a new puppy for Christmas, just like in this scene from a recent McDonald’s commercial. What could be more adorable than puppies and kids? Too often it turns out poorly though when the realities set in. Here are three tips to help improve your new puppy’s odds of making it. 1.… read more →
Snoopy and Lassie tell us a lot about the dramatic changes in the status of the family dog that began in the mid-twentieth century. Snoopy has his famous dog house. He lives outside. He is fed outside. This is consistent with the life of most family dogs up to the time that Charles Schulz began drawing his Peanuts strip. Dogs… read more →
Beetle Bailey is an old school comic strip and it shows! This strip may illicit a cynical laugh, but we know better. It’s humor is predicated on outdated notions about dog intelligence. “Dumb dog” is an uninformed invective. As pointed out in this blog, in The Heart of Your Dog, and elsewhere, dogs are surprisingly intelligent and perceptive animals. Now,… read more →
The Stinky command is a new one. It’s not in the book. Like other commands you can pick your own term. “Stinky” happens to be the euphemism I used when my kids were little. It stuck in our family. When my boys come back from walking our dog I always ask if she made a “stinky”. It’s important to keep… read more →
If dogs run free, then why not we Across the swooping plain? If humans never interfered, dogs would run free. It’s their instinct. It is a higher need. We prevent dogs from running free. It would be a messier and more dangerous world for humans, if we suddenly let all dogs run free. So, we’ve bred them over centuries to… read more →
“Smartest Dog in the World” is quite a claim. Chaser seems to back it up though. In case you missed his appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes you can view it here http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/cucSLY74AU2N8tLukKHWqFnN1JluvEjw/the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/ Psychology professor, John Pilley, Chaser’s companion, proves the natural communication ability of dogs. Chaser understands over 1,000 toy names. Pilley has been working with Chaser up to 5… read more →
(Painting by Louis-Michel van Loo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) In the beginning humans domesticated dogs for utilitarian purposes. Dogs helped as hunters, herders, protectors, and pack animals. It was only later that they became emotional companions. Owning a dog primarily for personal reasons was a luxury. Since most people spent their lives in extreme poverty, who could afford an… read more →
Your dog is relaxing. Suddenly your dog hears you moving. The immediate reaction is to find your face and perk up its ears. That look is a great sign that you are on the right track. You can know that your dog is tuned in. Your dog’s instinct is to pay attention to what you are doing and/or to what… read more →
With all the attention on the family violence NFL players have inflicted on their wives, girl friends, and kids, we shouldn’t forget the family dogs. No doubt, lurking beneath the surface there are many dogs being abused by football bullies. We just don’t see that side of the evil. It is easy to overlook the silent suffering that millions of… read more →
The more we connect with our dogs, the more we need to be aware of separation anxiety. Several years ago, I was on a tough schedule and had to be away at work for long hours. Each morning I would give my dog a biscuit, as I left for the day. Like most dogs, he loved biscuits. My reasoning was… read more →