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A short blog post today, to remind myself (and perhaps others) of something so simple I forget it all the time: When a dog is having trouble learning something, pose the question" differently!Case in point: I'm fostering a puppy

We all have different breaking points as dog owners. I’m currently fostering a dog who is really barky – whose immediate, reflexive response to...

Ages ago, I edited a horse magazine, and for a time, published a column written by the noted animal communicator Penelope Smith. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to Smith each month, and as we discussed the column, we’d sometimes veer off into a talk about a general topic having to do with animals and our relationships with them. Despite my preconceptions of someone who purports to “talk to the animals” as being nutty, I found Smith to be incredibly insightful, wise, and humorous. She was empathetic and yet practical. I bought several of her books on “interspecies communication” and was fascinated by her accounts of experiences with hundreds of animals.

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Readers, dog owners, can I ask you a question? Or, actually, a few related questions: If you had to put a dollar figure on it, what would...

As I said in last week's blog post, we have received lots of submissions from readers - descriptions of cute, fun, and useful behaviors they have taught their dogs, or that their dogs have taught them! We will post a bunch of these over the next few days. Maybe you will be inspired to teach your dog a cool new behavior!

My Lab-mix LOVES to play fetch. She's so great at chasing a tennis ball anywhere. She will always come running back with it and kind of toss it back at me to throw it again. If we're playing in the backyard and I'm sitting down and she tosses it out of reach, instead of getting up from my chair and getting the ball I simply say, "Can't reach it." She has learned that means I can't reach the ball to throw it to her again. When I say, "Can't reach it," she will go and get the ball and drop it right at my feet so that I can reach it and throw it for her again.

It’s probably self-evident that most writers and editors enjoy reading. We read professionally, and also for fun. Lately, though, my reading has been getting in...

A warning from the FDA about a recently reported spike in the number of dogs developing dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) (linked here again) and a possible connection between DCM and the inclusion of peas, lentils, legumes, and potatoes in the diets of a majority (not all) of the dogs means we are going to be talking about diet a lot for a while.

In the winter of 1997, the town where I live now, Oroville, California, had a big flood. I didn't live here then. But that year, the Feather River, which (usually) flows tamely right through my town, was threatening to massively flood the town. There is a dirt levee that separates the river from the main streets, and it seems like an historic artifact most of the time - a thing that was built by pioneers to try to keep the Feather from flooding the town again and again. It seems quaint now, because since 1968, the town has been more significantly protected by the Oroville Dam, with a huge reservoir (Lake Oroville) behind it - the combination that meters out the Feather at a safe and sane rate, protecting the town and much of the Sacramento Valley below from flooding. But with truly historic rainfall, like in 1997, the operators of the dam can't help but let out so much water that the river swells to capacity, and suddenly our old historic levee is important once again, holding back the Feather from flooding Oroville.In 1997, with the Oroville Dam letting out maximum quantities of water, and the Feather crazily high, the levee started seeping. County officials called for an immediate evacuation of Oroville. If the levee burst, they said, the town would be covered with 12 feet of water.The local animal shelter lies about a mile and a half from the river, in the prehistoric flood plain of the Feather. Wild-eyed police officers gave the then-director of the shelter 15 minutes to get her staff and herself out of the shelter.

I've read articles about people who got hit by a car and killed while trying to help a wounded or simply frightened animal on the highway. I've warned people against doing this - stopping their cars and getting out on a freeway to try to capture a panicked dog. And yet, when a scared dog is running in front of YOUR car, how do you not stop and try to help?

Just over a year ago, the first article I ever had to write that mentioned COVID-19 was published in this space. It seems like...

I was really hoping to not write this post this year. But here we go again: There are wildfires in my neighborhood, and in...