I had a moment of pause the other morning when I went to feed the dogs their breakfast. I rattled the dog kibble in their bowls. It was still early morning and Scout, the female wirehaired pointer, and her yellow lab confederate, Drake, were both Johnny on the spot. Our geriatric male Clumber spaniel,...
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I first heard this oft-quoted saying from a dear friend and fellow dog lover and trainer and writer, Bill Tarrant. Turns out it was originally written by Sir Walter Scott and goes as follows: “I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied that...
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“Nice leather sofa you got there…would be a shame if something happened to it.” Their eyes carry the intensity of a protection racket courier picking up the weekly envelope of cash. We have rituals at our house. The day starts with the making of the oatmeal, which includes adding blueberries to the mix. Frozen...
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There are practical things to consider when scheduling a rattlesnake aversion training session. A common question I hear is, “Why does the training take so long?” In our highly scheduled and demanding world in which people have jobs and appointments to get to, scratching this essential dog training session off the list is more...
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Today Morning Perimeter Report Good morning, Big Yellow Dog here reporting for perimeter duty. Both the girl dog and I were ready at dawn, but the humans lingered in their sleeping chamber. I suspect they may have been feigning sleep in an attempt to stall the important work of property patrol. I can not...
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I see lots of different types of dogs in my training sessions. I often have a very brief window of time available to interact with and assess those dogs. The trick is to find a way to communicate effectively with each individual dog. Out of necessity, I have found an approach that works well...
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I often get questions about training older dogs- people wonder just how successful one might be trying to train an old dog? My experience has been that when you have lived with a dog, there comes a turning point. Yes, early on you are training the dog, but not too far down the road...
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I tend to be careful about the things I choose to react to…I once heard a line in a cowboy Western years ago, where the lead character admonished another person with the line, “I let people kill their own snakes.” I’ve tried to live by those words of wisdom, letting others fight their own...
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Drake, our yellow Lab, took a flyer yesterday. I had him out for pigeons the morning before. We were set up under a flight path of feral pigeons flying into a food source. I managed to scrape down a few for Drake and Scout to retrieve. He woke up the next morning figuring that...
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How many dogs? That’s a question folks need to ask themselves. I had a conversation the other day with a friend who just brought a second dog into his family. This was after an older dog had recently passed, bringing their family dog number back down to one. As parents, they were very careful...
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