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I was looking through my Google photo storage, trying to find a picture to go with an article about a veterinary topic for WDJ....

I have been struggling for a few months to reduce my dog Woody’s weight. He turned 8 years old in November, and it was about that time that I first noticed he was looking a little pudgy.

One minute, my husband and I were having a perfectly ordinary conversation in the kitchen. In the next moment, I was ripping off my sweatshirt, my...

On November 2, the FDA announced a voluntary recall by Nutrisca pet food. Three sizes of a single variety of Nutrisca dry dog food, Chicken and Chickpea, was found to contain dangerously high levels of vitamin D. The FDA also announced a voluntary recall by Natural Life Pet Products, whose Chicken and Potato dry dog food in 17.5-lb. bags was also found to have dangerously high levels of vitamin D.

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.

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Think about your dog’s microchip – he HAS an implanted identification microchip, doesn’t he? Is it currently registered with a microchip registration company? If so, does the registry have your current contact information

So, there's an expression that was coined in 2013, and which is defined by Wikipedia as "a term for a facial expression (or lack thereof) which unintentionally appears angry, annoyed, or irritated." More to the point, it's usually used to describe a woman who looks annoyed, and is sometimes shortened to its initials, "RBF." You can guess what the "B" is for. It rhymes (more or less) with the headline.The thing is, the usual defense against being accused of having or making a Resting B**** Face is, "It's just my FACE! I'm not doing anything!" In other words, sometimes people (often women) are accused of looking irritated, but, in fact, they may be completely un-irritated, just spacing out. It's just their face.

My trainer friend Sarah Richardson, owner of The Canine Connection in Chico, California, recently attended a conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with a world-renowned...

Doggie Language: A Dog Lover’s Guide to Understanding Your Best Friend is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about canine behavior, whether they are 8 years old or 80.

Warning: This post talks about dog poop. If you are sensitive regarding discussions about dog poop...maybe you don't actually have a dog, and shouldn't be reading this blog at all! Just kidding. Not about the poop, just about the dog-owning part.

Have you ever found a dog poop that has been out in the rain for a while, and observed (as you were picking it up) that it looked like it was full of what looked like bits of white sand? Only, the "grains of sand" were slightly bigger than actual grains of sand? It might take a good week or so of rain, or a poop that started out on the soft side, for you to see this. I found a few in this condition the other day, and it surprised me, because I hadn't seen it for a while - but I knew why that was.

WDJ Training Editor Pat Miller wrote an article for the June issue of WDJ about unconventional or unintentional cues - things that people taught their dogs that are far from the ordinary sit, down, stay-sort of behaviors. In the article, she and other trainers describe how they taught their dogs things such as locating a pile of poop that needs to be picked up, standing in a certain place and a certain pose that's convenient for grooming, and coming when it's time to take a daily medication. My favorite was, "You're not going!" - which is what Pat taught her Kelpie, Kai, to indicate he shouldn't get excited about going for a car ride, because he's not invited on that impending trip. Pat asked readers to send in descriptions of the unconventional cues and behaviors they had taught their dogs. I'm going to post some over the next couple of weeks; we're getting a lot, thanks! You guys are an unconventional bunch, apparently! And Pat will be selecting one – perhaps by random, because there are so many great ones to choose from! – to win a prize.