“Invites Decrease Bites.” Making Dogs and Young Children Safe
Dogs. Babies. Adorable. Unless you're a trainer or behaviorist, and cover your eyes while watching some of the "cute" on line videos, showing young children at risk of being bitten because the dog was radiating discomfort while the parents cooed and laughed. People like me, CAABs (Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists), Veterinary Behaviorists, and a whole lot of great trainers have been working hard to try to prevent dangerous interactions between dogs and young children for years. One of the best in the business is Jennifer Shyrock of Family Paws, who graciously gave me an hour of her time based on her extensive experience helping families keep dogs and young children happy and healthy Read More
Memorial Day 2021
As always, Memorial Day feels hard to wrap my head around, or maybe it's my heart. It's a day of the beginning of summer and BBQs and, this year especially, celebrations of finally being able to be with friends and family. And it's a day of mourning and respect and gratitude for those who have lost their lives because of their service in the military. My uncle, Lynn Dodwell, according to my mom, his sister, was the only survivor of his squadron of 52 RAF pilots in WWII (Royal Air Force). Every other young man was shot down and lost while defending England. Even though he didn't die himself, I don't think he ever recovered from survivor's guilt--it always felt like part of him died. On Read More
Dogs, Anger, and Anger About Saying That Dogs Can Get Angry.
So I don't bury the lead, here's where I'm going today: Why does the concept that dogs can get angry make some people angry? I was reminded of that when I was looking something up in For the Love of a Dog (I often forget where I wrote what . . .) and ran into the introduction to the chapter on anger. That brought me back to an incident years ago, in which someone became enraged at my suggestion that dogs could get angry. I wrote about this briefly in a November 2008 post, relating my experience at a day-long meeting at the National Institute of Health on the human animal bond. I was one of several speakers, in the company of zoo-anthropologist Dr. James Serpell, Dr. Sandra Barker and Dr. Read More