I’m Little And Adorable. Don’t Make Me Bite You.
I'm little and adorable and I might bite you. Because you pick me up and sweep me into the air when I least expect it and it scares me and I hate it and no matter what I do I can't seem to stop 2-legs from doing it to me all the time like some monster out of a horror movie. What else am I going to do to protect myself? Call my lawyer? Okay, I, the writer here, could never be described as little, my husband occasionally tells me that I am adorable, but, well, he's my husband, and I have never bitten anyone in my life. Nor have I threatened to. (No promises about the future.) But surely that's not a bad approximation of what tens of thousands of little dogs are wanting to tell us. A Read More
Cats, Dogs and Thunder
I was finishing up reading the Sunday paper yesterday, while thinking about which topic to choose for today's blog. I always have several lists of potential topics, scattered hither and yon, one usually tucked under the To Do list that begins "Be More Organized." Almost done with the newspaper, skimming through the Parade section, I came across Marilyn vos Savant's column, Ask Marilyn, and Presto Chango, a new topic was chosen. In the column, a reader asks why dogs are more afraid of thunder than cats, given that "dogs seem more intelligent." Marilyn's response was that, indeed, cats are far more intelligent than dogs, and being smarter, have learned that thunder won't hurt them. Oh Read More
Sheepdog Trials Explained, and Unabashed Gushing Over Maggie
We're just back from the Nippersink Sink or Swim Sheepdog Trial, and I'm still glowing over Maggie's work. Don't get me wrong here--we neither won nor came close to it, but my goal has been to progress in the Open class such that I felt we belonged there, and it is starting to feel like we do. Last season, we ran 4 trials on an Open course, had a few great moments, but lots of, uh, learning experiences. But we both did indeed learn a lot, and Maggie and I got used to barely being able to see each other when working 350 or 500 yards apart. A few weeks ago we had our first competition of the season, and we again had some ups and downs. I made several mistakes, Maggie got overwhelmed by Read More