I got this email the other day from a friend who had told me she was getting a new dog — in response to my query: What kind? We’re getting a yellow lab. We went back and forth on purebred vs. rescue and it was a really tough decision. My dog is a rescue and…
Training Tuesday: Batboy Forever
This is the conclusion of the formal interview that I’ve been conducting with trainer Irith Bloom about Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT), which was created by Grisha Stewart. The first week we covered the basic theory and techniques. In the second, we got into some more esoteric issues like “negative punishment,” which turns out not to…
Friday Focus: Pet Travel Peeves
Most of the people who read this blog have either traveled with their dogs or considered it. And those who travel often have definite opinions on what they do and don’t like about restaurant, hotel, and airline policies — to name just a few basic categories. So this week’s question is less academic and theoretical,…
Friday Focus: When Pet Food Switching is a Problem
I asked the question on Sunday: Why can’t you vary your dog’s diet — so long as you keep it healthy — or switch it quickly? As it turns out, my question conflated two issues. You often can and should vary your dog’s diet (but not always; more on which in a minute). It’s only…
Really shameless nomination request
It’s bad enough to request that people nominate you for a blogging award. It’s even more shameless when the idea to make the request on your blog comes from a competing blogger, my pal Roxanne Hawn. But it’s all for a good cause: The “Petties” (pet blogger awards), presented by DogTime, are all about helping animals,…
Road Trip: San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter
Frankie and I are headed over today to DogJaunt.com, where we explore San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, which we recently visited. There are many reasons I wanted to write about this dog-friendly neighborhood of one of my favorite cities for one of my favorite blogs — as opposed to, say, for this one. I owe Dog…
Training Tuesday: Batboy Continues
Forgive me. I needed to get this video out of my system and since I don’t have any serious footage to accompany this week’s post on Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) it seemed like the perfect fit. *** BAT was created by Grisha Stewart, and is being discussed here by her fellow trainer and BAT expert…
Friday Focus: Switching your dog’s diet
Occasionally something I’ve accepted as a given — and which has been confirmed in respected places, including my own extremely well-researched book — strikes me as odd. That’s what happened when I contemplated changing Frankie over from one type of kibble to another. I remembered the so-called truism: You have to shift your dog’s diet…
Your Dog Won’t Hate You. This I Know.
When you have a blog with a name like mine, you get a lot of hits from dog owners doing a Google search for “dog hates me” or similar terms. Naturally, it’s only people who care about their dogs who worry about such things. Last week, I got this email from a woman named Dawn:…
Training Tuesday: Batboy begins
As I mentioned last week, my trainer Crystal suggested that Frankie and I try Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) — not only because it’s a good technique but because it’s a good fit with Frankie’s diabetes. That is, although the technique can include food rewards, it doesn’t rely on them. I wanted to learn more about…