This article is a version of one that originally appeared in Your Dog, the newsletter of The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. You will be seeing several more of these articles in the coming weeks, as Will My Dog Hate Me moves towards its final days. I’ll continue to mention this countdown…
Vaccinating Your Dog, Part 1: The Basics
The story of an adverse canine vaccination reaction detailed in recent weeks in my friend Roxanne Hawn’s Champion of My Heart blog inspired me to go back to a piece I wrote for Your Dog newsletter in late 2010. It’s long, so I broke it into two parts. Part 1 puts the larger issues of…
How Dogs Read Us, Part I
You pretend to throw a Frisbee in one direction, then toss it in the other. Your dog swiftly shifts gears to catch the disk in mid-air. Or you’re in a bad mood and your pup intuits that a sloppy kiss will cheer you right up. All dog owners have experienced, and likely marveled at, such…
Shelter Medicine: Veterinary Challenges & Solutions
I recently did a series about how the Shelter Pet Project is working to change the image of shelter pets. As discussed in the final installment — see Shelter Pet Project Pt. 3: The Future — that’s only one part of the equation: In order to promote adoption and end the killing of healthy animals,…
How to find a good dog trainer, Part 1
After another bout of a mystery intestinal problem — apparently not related to his diabetes, fortunately, but still worrying — Frankie’s feeling much better, and expressing himself through enthusiastic doggie flatulence. It’s a good thing he’s little. And that I wasn’t planning any dinner parties. So, as promised, I’m beginning my series on how to…
Dog trainers, behaviorists & dupes, oh my!
Somehow, my post on how to find a good dog trainer keeps getting sidetracked, and I’ve begun to realize why. It’s not just that I felt the need debunk the most popular notions of training so as to put the subject into context. It’s also that training is unregulated, and therefore difficult to discuss without…