House-training BeeBee has caused me to realize that there’s room for yet another dog-training book even with the gazillions already out there. I came to this conclusion when BeeBee started giving me her, “I have to go” look. The problem was that we were in my upstairs office and, call it sympathy pains or post-menopausal bladder, I suddenly realized that I really had to go, too. I immediately picked her up and carried her downstairs, fully intending to take her outside immediately. Unfortunately, my bladder had other ideas. Even more unfortunately, I couldn’t recall a single training book that
Read more →It’s been almost exactly one month since BeeBee joined my household and, during that time, defining her and our relationship seemed like a particularly pressing task. I say this, not because I felt any pressing need to do this, but because others did. And I admit, there is something comforting about assigning such labels. Somehow doing so implies a certain amount of control. One common view is that BeeBee is broken and everything that can be done should be done to fix her. Another sees her as impaired and in need of some sort of environmental and bond bubble to protect her from the real world at all
Read more →In the past ten years, there’s been an increase in the numbers and sources of street dogs being adopted by Americans as pets. In a moment of fancy, I found myself thinking about what might go through these dogs’ minds relative to the human species when they make this transition. I imagined myself a young street dog living by my wits in a culture that avoids or seeks to harm me because I could carry rabies or other micro-organisms (now including bird flu) that might harm them or their children. If these people address me at all, it’s in
Read more →Stop by the website in October and meet my new addition, BeeBee, and get the inside scoop on why I decided to give her her own category. Then watch this space as the saga unfolds.
Read more →I recently was introduced to Billy Collins’s poetry and, naturally, was attracted to that related to animals in some way. Among these, his poems about dogs particularly caught my attention because they captured the true essence of the human-canine bond. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy the many poems that romanticize the subject. I find the latter a pleasant diversion when the real world of human-animal interactions threatens to overwhelm me. And yet… Collins’s dog-related poetry isn’t nearly so predictable. Nor is it always comforting. What it is, though, is real. One poem written in the voice
Read more →Several weeks ago I was in WalMart’s huge parking lot in Claremont, NH around 7 a.m. That morning was what is becoming a typical December one in that it was damp, grey and foggy. As I trooped from my distant parking space toward the store, I heard geese overhead, but I couldn’t see them. As I continued walking, the fog thinned and the noise became louder and louder. Periodically I could see what at first I thought was the leading edge of a group of migrating geese. However, these geese weren’t migrating anywhere. They were circling and honking above
Read more →Given that this is the season of hope and joy, and especially miracles, a good friend’s dog is in the process of having puppies as I write this. I was at her place yesterday and experienced that feeling of awe like no other as I laid my hands on that dog’s abdomen and felt the lives within. We both readily agreed that there was do word to describe it but “miracle”. And when my friend, a vet tech, called while ago to tell me the first pup had been born, she used the same word. As I pondered this
Read more →Permit me to engage in a bit of pre-holiday Grinchness in response to yet another of those news articles about people who let their dogs run loose, then sue others for the consequences of their own irresponsible behavior. These owners routinely remind us that these beloved animals were like their children and thus possessed value far above and beyond the value of the animal him/herself. I have no problem with that kind of thinking up to a point. For sure, every one of my pets is worth far more to me than I paid for them, and even more
Read more →it’s always fun to teach animal behavior during an election year and see how humans measure up to animals when it comes to picking leaders. The most glaring difference is that Nature and evolution reward those who get the job done using the least amount of energy. That got me thinking about two things. One is the way humans often use money as a substitute for energy. The second is the ever-increasing cost of political campaigns with so little in the way of returns for society. Because it seems highly likely that politicians will find reasons not to pass
Read more →As I was putting together the information for the telecourse on history-taking, I had a flashback to my veterinary education years ago. At that time, a fair amount of time was spent on anamnesis. Never heard of it? Well, I bet you’ve heard of one of its opposite’s forms: amnesia. Whereas amnesia refers to forgetting, anamnesia refers to remembering. Although getting a comprehensive history before establishing a diagnosis and formulating any treatment would seem the obvious way to go, two human factors conspire against it. The first is that much of animal behavioral and veterinary medical education is still
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