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I took Otto and Tito to the veterinarian yesterday for wellness exams (and heartworm tests and blood tests) and spent $500. I had priced things beforehand, and knew what I was in for, but it’s still quite a bite.

One of my favorite things about my dog, Otto, is that he loves and apparently cherishes his squeaky toys. Unlike dogs I’ve known who feel that the only good squeaker is a dead squeaker, Otto has had squeaky toys that have lasted for years with nary a squeak-ending puncture. Sadly, this trend seems to have ended.

I went to a very large benched dog show recently. I haven’t been to one for five or six years, so it was slightly overwhelming. So many dogs, so many people, so much stress! But it was interesting to observe the event in a neutral way; I didn’t know anyone there, and wasn’t attending with a specific task in mind. I took my camera, took some pictures (to use as stock photos for potential use in WDJ), and took my time with whatever I wanted.

I was recently in the San Francisco Bay area for a few days, attending a couple of dog-related events. I stayed at some friends’ house – the same friends who adopted Mickey, a dog who had lingered in my local shelter for months without finding a home.

Recently, a couple ordered a Wisdom Panel Mixed Breed Identification Test – a DNA test that purports to offer insights as to a mixed-breed dog’s origin. The results indicated that their is at least half Poodle, with Borzoi detected with “low confidence.” Hmmm.

Pet food labels can tell you a lot about a company. Of course, it’s my mission to educate dog owners to read the ingredients list and the guaranteed analysis, and understand those parts of the label well. But it’s also informative to see what OTHER text companies include on the label. Is it instructive? Accurate? Or just marketing crap, full of fuzzy logic and euphemisms? Also, is it easy to find the company’s contact information, and is there a toll-free phone number and website included? Or just a city and state? Is there a date/code that lists the date of the food’s production, or just a “best by” date (which indicates the food’s suggested expiration date – but without a date of production or the knowledge of how many months the maker suggests the food is good for, this is “soft” information). So, even if I have had all my questions answered about “what’s in the bag” by the company’s website and representatives, seeing the bag is helpful, too.

An article that discusses the health effects of spay/neuter surgery appears In the February issue of WDJ. It's a topic that's overdue for discussion in WDJ, but one that can get people upset, for different reasons. From the perspective of those of us involved with shelters or rescue, any discussion of delaying or foregoing sterilization for all but the best individual dogs from impeccable bloodlines is practically verboten. Some of these people verbally attack anyone who questions the wisdom of pediatric spay/neuter, and insult anyone with an intact male dog who is not a conformational and behavioral paragon of his breed standard.

My sister-in-law and I were talking on the phone a day after our whole family had been together for a holiday event at my house. She said, “The funniest thing from my view in the living room was seeing you repeatedly scoop up your sister’s dogs and lock them in the big cage in the bedroom, and seeing your sister repeatedly come through and let them back out!”

So, a couple of weeks ago I wrote about going to the grocery store late one Sunday evening and being completely bummed about a couple who was selling puppies (who looked too young, and not well cared for) in front of the market. I thought about all the things I should do and say at that time – though at the time, I did nothing. I was too tired and hungry and it was rainy and late . . . But the memory of those chilled puppies, numbed by the intake of too much stimulation, has stayed with me.

Nights with typical winter temperatures are finally arriving here in Northern California. (Sorry! I know that many of you have been experiencing freezing temps at night for weeks – months? – already.) And with the cold comes Tito’s reluctance to go outside and potty on any schedule other than his own.

When you or I took guitar or violin or piano lessons as children, we were reminded that we needed to practice each day between lessons in order to retain competence. Those of us that didn't embrace this advice tended to give up the lessons for other pursuits. The flute or clarinet was returned to the rental store, the guitar went back to the closet to gather dust.But again and again I hear from people who took their dog to a puppy class or to a beginning obedience class and then expected the dog to know how to behave from then on. When I explain that reminders and practice and new skills are good for all dogs, I often hear resistance.

Last week, I was approached by someone who works with people I know. She wanted to know if I could help her with a dog that she was considering adopting. She told me: The dog was adopted as a 12-week-old pup by someone else. That person has a full-time job, two young kids, and is suffering from an as-yet-undiagnosed but painful back problem. The dog failed to get housetrained and after three months, she is declared…