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Information on living with, training, and loving Dogs

Two Essential Questions

/ Dogs in General, Funnies, Life / By / 9 Comments

A friend with dogs and kids sent me one of those “Been there, done that” emails. It read:

Life really boils down to two essential questions.

1. Should I get a dog? Or…
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2. Should I have children?

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I’d have to say on behalf of those of us who have “been there and done that,” having a dog first definitely helps to develop important skills you’ll need later as a parent.  At the very least, there’s a good likelihood your … Read More

Birds of a Feather

/ Cait and Me, Finnegan the Coon Cat, Life, My Dogs and Me / By / 5 Comments

Yes, time flies — and those of us, ahem, over a certain age know exactly just how fast. Seems every time I turn around another one of my animals has just turned another year older. Just this week Finnegan and Wink have traveled around the sun one more time.

maine coon catFinnegan is 6 years old now — the longest I’ve had a cat live.  He tells me he’s going to live to be 16. I’m choosing to take him at his … Read More

The Case of the Dog Food Mouse, the City Mouse, and the Country Mouse

/ Cait and Me, Funnies, Life, My Dogs and Me / By / 1 Comment

So goes a recent phone conversation between Cait at home after school, and Andrew and me at work. Cait calls. Andrew picks up the phone.

Cait: Dad, there’s a mouse in the dog food drawer. How do I get it out?

Andrew: Yell at it.

Cait: Yell at it?

Andrew: Yeah, that’ll scare it out.

Cait: Is Mom there?

Andrew (handing me the phone): Cait wants to talk to you .

Me: Hey honey, what’s up?

Cait: Mom,there’s a mouse

… Read More

10 Ways to Marry a Dog Lover

/ Dogs in General / By / 3 Comments

So you’re thinking you might want to throw in with a dog lover? Let me share a few helpful DO’s and DON’T’s to help smooth the way.

  1. Do marry thinking that your dog lover (DL) will want to share with you all the myriad ways in which DL’s dog is the most amazing, the most astounding, the most intelligent, the most funny, the most lovable thing since fill-in-the-blank.
  2. Don’t marry thinking that eventually you’ll be able to change DL’s behavior
… Read More

Living With a Dog Who Speaks English

/ Funnies, My Dogs and Me / By / 10 Comments

Kiera, my Australian Shepherd, has a vocabulary of a hundred or so individual words and a couple dozen expressions — last time I counted. On the one hand it makes life much easier for me. For instance, I can just tell her to go get Cait for dinner, instead of yelling upstairs. Or I can ask her to help me find my other shoe that Graidy, my Border Collie mix, has hidden somewhere. The “helpful” list goes on and on. … Read More

Part 2: What You Can Do to Avoid Getting Bitten By a Dog — Learn How to Read a Dog’s Body Language

/ Dogs in General, The Mail Bag / By / 12 Comments

Continuing with Andrew’s question for The Mail Bag: In my last post, I talked about some of the different factors that could trigger a dog to bite when on its own property. It boiled down to roughly three categories: a dog protecting its turf (including people, objects, and food); a dog undersocialized and/or uncertain or afraid of novelty (whether processed through smell, sight, or hearing); a dog in pain.

More than 4.5 million people get bitten every year, in … Read More

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