Turns out our stars are not crossed!
I’m a pragmatic New Englander and although many of us won’t admit it, we take pride in not being like our footloose, compatriots who occupy the other coast with their year round tans, Esalen retreats and anything to do with colon cleansing. So when my fearful dog Sunny, who had spent his early life in ...
Rewarding reactivity
It's interesting to look back at my life and see where the paths of knowledge or interests I've followed began. When I was in high school, back in the seventies, I was having a tough time getting myself to classes despite the fact that I was capable of getting good grades. A creative ...
Two concepts
When speaking recently with a trainer/friend who I helped out with a shy dog class, she told me that one of the participants, a skilled dog handler who had worked for years with rescue dogs, mentioned that she learned two important concepts in the class. 1. You do not reinforce fear in a dog; by ...
What is it about dogs?
There are probably as many reasons as there are relationships addressing why people feel as strongly as they do about their dogs. I have my own theory about it (though will readily acknowledge that I am probably not the first to come up with it) and it goes along with the 'mindfulness' theme I touched ...
Yuck! Do I have to??
As a kid did you ever have an older relative that sort of creeped you out? Maybe they smelled funny, looked weird to you, liked to grab you, pinch your cheeks and leave wet spots where they kissed you? Your parents encouraged you to go 'say hello' and gave you warning stares as you scrunched ...
Calm attentiveness
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” Jon Kabat-Zinn One of the most important things I think we can do with our dogs is attend to them. Our shy dogs who, without words to tell us what they are feeling and what their next move might ...
Novel ideas
A light bulb moment occurred for me in regard to my fearful dog Sunny when I understood that he was limited in his abilities by his brain. It wasn't that he was choosing not to come to me, or that he refused to move out of the corner, as conscious choices, it was that given ...
Sometimes the choice should be theirs
Years ago when I studied martial arts I was being instructed by a black belt in the class. I was trying to learn how to grab someone by the wrist and flip them over my shoulder. The instructor would grab me by the wrist, turn her body, put my forearm on her shoulder, bend over ...
Progress happens, for many reasons
I have to admit that after living with this dog for over 4 years, I'm not very good at assessing the causes affecting his progress. I came to the conclusion that I'd have to have the training and the inclination of a field biologist who noted details, keeping track of behaviors, when they occurred, where ...
