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I just found the ideal dog park. It's in Grass Valley, California, in a gorgeous public park called Condon Park. It's large, and set in a forested setting, with tall pines overhead, and the footing is thick with pine needles. It has two separate areas, with a smaller section (but still quite good-sized) reserved for small and shy" dogs. I love that the folks who set it up did not specify small dogs only. What do you do when you have a dog who needs to really run and romp and get tired

If Otto is on one end of a seven-foot sofa, and I (or anyone) sits on the other far end, he will give that person a sort of dirty look and leave the sofa. If I am sitting on a couch and pat the cushion next to me, and encourage Otto to come on up, he will come and stand close, and wag his tail and blink his eyes … Nance

Barbara Dobbins, my friend and frequent contributor to WDJ, once wrote a post for this space that described how her senior Border Collie, Daisy, had earned...

Not long after my husband and I bought our house in 2006, we were introduced to another couple who, unbeknownst to us, shared our home address: a pair of skunks. They had a den under the house, and emerged shortly after dusk to wander through the neighborhood, foraging for fallen fruit from ornamental and backyard fruit trees, digging for grubs and worms in freshly watered lawns, and helping themselves to cat food on various porches where some people feed cats (feral and otherwise).

The difficulty and importance of supervising kids and dogs. We’ve had lots of articles in WDJ about kids and dogs: choosing when to get a...

Someone sent me a link to this news story about a Texas dog owner being caught on video (taken inadvertently by a neighbor’s Ring...

According to a news release from the American Kennel Club (AKC), more French Bulldogs were registered with the organization than any other breed of...

The older we get, the more we need a backup plan for our dogs, in the event of our deaths.

Last month, my sister-in-law and my almost-13-year-old niece, Ava, spent two weeks in France, visiting my sister-in-law’s mother and stepfather, who live in Paris....

Life with dogs has ups and downs, and I thought I’d share some of the recent happy and sad outcomes to some of the stories I’ve shared with you this year, starting with the most recent and going back in time.

When you have a career that involves dogs, everyone you know sends you memes and articles about dogs. Unfortunately, those little gems, meant to...

Before you jump all over me, I totally understand why MY dogs jump and bark and run in circles when MY doorbell rings; the sound is a reliable predictor of visitors, both strange and wonderful. Most of the time when my doorbell rings, my husband or I get up and things start to happen.

But how do you explain that the majority of dogs not only respond to the sound that their own doorbell makes, but also to the sound of doorbells that are CLEARLY not in their home, as when a doorbell rings on TV? You can't tell me they don't know the difference; most dogs can tell the difference between the cellophane on a new sponge versus the new bag of treats - from the middle of a sound sleep!