Helping fearful dogs

It may be the human condition, this striving to achieve relevancy in our lives, at least for some of us anyway. Fortunately for us it's not too difficult to become relevant to the life of a dog. Some lovely evolutionary twists and turns seem to have practically written our relevance to them in their genes, and maybe theirs in ours. Alas the system can go ...

One of the most touching moments in my life (yes it was dog related) occurred when I was out hiking with a group of neighborhood dogs. I loved watching the dogs interacting with each other, racing off after the chirp of a chipmunk and splashing in the streams we crossed. At one point I found myself alone, the dogs all out of sight, but as ...

Barking. There's nothing quite as annoying as a dog that barks when he's not suppose to. Trouble is that dogs don't know that when we think it's ok for them to bark, may be different from when they think it's ok to bark, or how long to bark. Add to the mix the fact that dogs bark for different reasons; to alert us to changes ...

This is another post in my series to help newly adopted dogs. You can help by 'liking' Pedigree's Facebook Fan page, and/or write a post yourself and submit it here. Pedigree is donating food to shelters for each new fan and post. You'll get some exposure yourself when your blog is added to the Blog Hop. There are many things that dogs need to learn, ...

This post has been created in affiliation with Pedigree and their 'Write a Post Help a Dog' Campaign. For every blog post written by anyone (pet blogger or otherwise!) about this campaign, Pedigree will donate a 20lb bag of their new formula dog food to a shelter. For each person who 'likes' their Facebook Pedigree Adoption page a of bowl of food will ...

Here are ideas for helping fearful dogs learn to walk politely on a leash.

Dogs are remarkably resilient. Anywhere you travel to in the world you will find them. In some places they sleep on beds cuddled next to adoring owners, or are kenneled until called upon to do the job they were bred for, while in other places they huddle under abandoned cars struggling to survive from one day to the next. But survive they do. Indeed they ...

This post is part of the Never Shock A Puppy campaign for Be The Change For  Animals Punishment is any consequence that increases the likelihood that the behavior preceding or accompanying it, will decrease. It's been the foundation of modern dog training for decades. Dog pulls on leash, make pulling so unpleasant that the dog stops. Dog lunges at strangers or other dogs, yank, yell ...

My nephew and his wife asked me to take care of their shy Klee Kai Polaris while they went on vacation. I was happy to help them out and to learn more about a breed that I was not familiar with. As it happened I was also invited to attend the upcoming Blog Paws West conference in Denver under the sponsorship of Pedigree to help ...