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There's an old joke about if there's one thing that two dog trainers can agree on, it's that the third one is doing it wrong. But if you know me at all, you know I hate online squabbles; I don't participate in digital fights about training methods or tools. That said, I think I've found something that very nearly ALL dog trainers agree on, and that I will defend anywhere, anytime, and it's this: Retractable leashes have no place in dog training.It almost reaches the level of a joke: If you go to a dog park or almost any gathering of dog people and their dogs, the worst-behaved dogs will be the ones on retractable leashes. It's sort of a chicken or the egg thing: What came first, the poorly behaved dog or the leash that teaches him nothing?

A few months ago I was horrified to learn a that my good friend (and frequent model for WDJ articles, Berkeley trainer Sandi Thompson) was giving a dog she has owned for five years the first bath he's had since she rescued him – literally rescued him, as a volunteer during the historic floods in Thailand in 2011. This summer, Sam had his first encounter with a good old American skunk, which prompted the bath (and cute photos), but I was incredulous: How can that possibly be his first bath in more than five years??

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a message from Patty, a massage therapist I know. I'd call her my" massage therapist

After spending a couple days in the heavily dog-populated San Francisco Bay area recently, I found myself wondering: Why is it so hard for people to walk their dogs on a leash?Dogs are so numerous in that area that I'd estimate I saw at least 300 human/dog pairs or groups out walking. (I had my young dog Woody with me, and so I was out walking him, too. And on the last day there, I picked up my son's dog, Cole, and we stopped at a large, well-known off-leash area for dogs, Point Isabel, where one can observe at least 100 dogs at any given time of day.) I'd guess that a full 85 percent of the dogs I saw were either pulling or dragging their owners down the street. About half of these pulled steadily ("Come ON, let's GO!"), and the other half pulled intermittently ("Wait, I need to sniff this! Okay, let's go! Wait! I need to sniff that! Okay, let's go!").

This past week, we've had some terribly windy days. In the wee hours of Monday morning, I woke up to a strong smell of smoke in the air. I stepped outside; the odor was strong but I couldn't hear sirens nor see the glow of a fire anywhere. I turned on my computer, and was immediately able to find news about the source of the smoke: a wildfire had broken out about 10 miles north of my town. Another was burning about 20 miles to the east. My town was safe - but oh my word, there were also enormous fires burning 100 miles away, in the heavily populated areas of Napa and Sonoma Counties. And the wind was still gusting at 50 and 60 miles per hour, spreading burning embers far, wide, and fast.

As I type, tens of thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes and businesses, and hundreds of homes and businesses have burned to the ground.

This morning, I was talking to my husband, while standing in the doorway of his office, which is located in a little outbuilding behind our home. I was watching my dogs Otto and Woody, as they stood with their backs to me, looking alertly at something through the chain-link fence that separates our backyard from the front yard. Suddenly, Otto lifted his head and let out a howl of frustration (it's more like the noise that Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars makes) and quick as a wink, Woody neatly lifted his nose, unlatching the gate, and both dogs pushed though the gate and ran into the front yard after something.Obviously, I abruptly left the conversation with my husband, yelled "Hey! Come!" and ran in the direction of my dogs. To their credit, both of them ran back toward me, gaily and immediately, but looking over their shoulders at a little dog, who looked like a Shih Tzu-mix and who was standing, loose, uncollared, and unaccompanied, at the foot of my driveway. When the dog saw me, he started trotting down the sidewalk.

Hello, and sorry I've not posted for a few weeks. Our publishing headquarters staff ran some older blog posts in place of fresh content from me, as I took a couple of weeks off for surgery - yikes!Long story short: I had my first-ever routine colonoscopy, and it found a large mass! Crazy, because I had no symptoms of any sort of digestive, elimination, or any other health problem. But the surgeon said it had to be removed, along with the 10 or so inches of colon and small intestine it was attached to. So, the day after I shipped the October issue of WDJ to the printer in early September, I had laparoscopic abdominal surgery, and spent six days in the hospital. I got fantastic news regarding the mass on the day I was discharged: the thing was benign, so no further treatment will be needed.Fortunately, I had a couple of weeks between the colonoscopy and surgery to figure out what to do with my dogs.

It started as a joke: I take so many cell-phone pictures of Woody sleeping in ridiculous positions that my cloud back-up folders online are packed full of these photos, so I started telling people I was going to launch an Instagram account consisting of just Woody-sleeping pics.

Since making landfall Friday night in Texas, Hurricane Harvey has caused widespread destruction and record flooding in large parts of the state. Over 50 inches of rain have fallen in some areas.With the severe flooding, and people struggling to keep themselves and their families out of the water, dogs (and cats) are in dire straits. People are being evacuated as fast as possible, and many of them are not permitted or able to take their pets. News reports show animals on roofs and in trees, and few volunteers are available to help rescue, house, and care for them. Abandoned animals and permanently homeless animals alike are fending for themselves in the flooded city.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, life with dogs is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get.In early May, my adolescent Pit/Lab-mix, Woody, started coughing and gagging dramatically. It seemed like he had something stuck in his throat, and though I looked in his mouth and throat I couldn't see anything. It called for an immediate trip to the veterinarian.

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a room in the house where I have my office (editorial office of WDJ) to a super nice 19-year-old guy who has an adorable, three-year-old mixed-breed dog, MJ. You'll start seeing her picture in WDJ; we always need new models! But one of the deals I made with MJ's owner was that MJ would get spayed. He said he had been meaning to get it done - especially after MJ had an accidental litter of puppies last summer - but as a full-time student who works, he had lacked the time and means ...the surgery hadn't risen to the top of his priority list yet. I really like this young man and I really like his dog. I donate money to my own local shelter and foster puppies for them frequently. It was a no-brainer to offer to pay for MJ to get spayed.

I'm slowly making friends with my neighbors over my back fence. They moved into that house about seven years ago... but we got off to a bad start. They had two dogs, which they kept in the backyard 24/7. The dogs had a wooden dog house to sleep in, with absolutely no bedding whatsoever. When the people weren't home, the dogs barked and barked and barked.Worse: One of the dogs was a really old Rottweiler who had the funkiest-looking tumors literally hanging off her body. One of the tumors was about the size of an orange - and looked like an orange that someone stuffed into a stocking. It swung from side to side when she walked and, later, dragged on the ground. We had one conversation about the dogs over the back fence shortly after they moved in, but when I asked about the tumors, the people got kind of chilly and simply said that the dog had been seen by a vet and she was fine.