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When, back in March, I scheduled a week-long vacation for early July, I of course had no way of knowing a huge, dog-related story was going...

A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to visit a former coworker/friend I hadn’t seen for a decade or more. He had...

I've said it before and I will say it again: There is nothing as valuable as a best dog friend" (BDF?) for your dog – particularly when you have a young

I know it’s low-hanging fruit to criticize people for misuse of retractable leashes – but there are an awful lot of first-time dog owners...

Not that anyone asked, but my favorite tree in the whole world is the oak tree. We have dozens of species of oaks in...

Something I noticed while on the elliptical machine at the gym (while trying to notice anything but my heart and respiration rate): There are...

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

Shelter workers are some of the hardest working people who deal with dogs, and we are thankful for all their hard work.

My “very mixed-breed” dog, Otto, turned 12 years old at some point in the past couple of months. For a big dog (currently 72 pounds),...

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.

Yesterday, I met a friend in a town about halfway between her house and my house, which are about three hours apart. We both had things to do/people to visit in that midway city, and then she - and her darling, 30-pound moppish-mixed breed dog - were going to follow me home and spend a few days visiting. We met outside a Whole Foods store/restaurant, and I proposed we go in and eat lunch before driving the rest of the way to my house. My friend said, "Can we take turns going in and selecting our food? I don't leave my dog in the car." My mind boggled. If it was hot (or even warm) or freezing out, I would immediately understand, but it was about 50 degrees - a pretty much perfect dog-in-the-car temperature, in my view. So I had to ask, what's up with that? I had a foster dog chew through the front seat belts in my car once; was it about separation anxiety, or something?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a story that had been widely shared on social media about mixed breed dog DNA tests....