Listening to Silence

Listening to Silence

by lennearbNo Comments
Your new puppy has been running you ragged all day, or, really, since before the day began, since she asked to go out at 3am and was ready for breakfast and the start of a new day at 6am. On your day off. In the couple of hours you've been up, you've already rescued a stray sock from her and stopped her from chasing the cat. By the time she collapses in a momentary exhaustion onto her dog bed, all you can think of is tiptoeing by so you can get a chance to fold the laundry, make a grocery list, and clean the bathroom before she wakes up again. But wait! What does it teach your puppy if she earns attention by chewing sneakers and barking at other animals and gets ignored when she lies quietly on her bed? Unfortunately, she will quickly learn that calm, relaxed behavior does not get attention, but that attention can be earned by what we...
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Big Noise and Baseball

by lennearbNo Comments
"Play Ball!" I'm a huge baseball fan, and I consider this one of the most exciting phrases in the English language. I have also written previously about how much I like to take Sirius Black out and about with me, so you might think that the increase in dog-nights at baseball stadiums would be a perfect fit. Not so fast. One of the most important elements of taking your dog out is to select the right places to go. By all the reports I have heard, most of these events are well-run, and the money raised from "dog tickets" goes to support good causes, but that doesn't mean these events are well-suited to all dogs. They definitely are not a good match for Sirius Black. Sirius hates loud noises. Nationals Park holds over 40,000 fans at full capacity, and on non-dog days at least, they have fireworks for Nationals home runs. In fact, I once attended (without a dog) a dog-game at a minor...
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Anything Dog Can Do…

Anything Dog Can Do…

by lennearbNo Comments
Most of us focus most of our training attention on our dogs. I do this just as much as others. I balance talking about training my dog with discussing cute things my cat does: sit in boxes; climb on my shoulders—sometimes while I am trying to brush my teeth; sit on my hands while I'm typing. But in doing this, I am selling my cat short, and you may be doing the same to yours. Cats, like most animals, are perfectly capable of being trained to do a number of things. Since most of us have cats that are smaller—and quieter!—than our dogs, we are often able to ignore a great deal more of their obnoxious behaviors. But I encourage you to pull our your clicker and treats with your cat in mind. I would guess that you would be shocked at how much your cat can be trained to do. That old adage that you can't train a cat is...
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Road to the “Peaceable Kingdom”

by lennearbNo Comments
This post tells a personal story. In subsequent posts, I will address some of the details of introducing new pets and dealing with conflicts. A lot of people ask me how long it will take to reconcile their new or newly conflicting pets, especially their cats or their dog and cats. People would really like a timeline, a “drop-dead” date by which they will no longer have to engage in the complicated ballet of managing multiple pets who do not get along, must be kept separated, requiring two separate routines and extensive demands on people’s time. People would also like to know when they can expect to see progress, and how much they can expect to see, what it will look like, and so on. I call this process—the process of moving from managing multiple pets who are in major or minor conflict to one in which everything is running smoothly in an integrated household—the road to the “Peaceable Kingdom” (a phrase...
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Reflections on a Life

by lennearbNo Comments
This note originally appeared on my personal Facebook wall on June 9, 2010. Sydney passed away on June 8, 2010 (aged approximately 14 years) from kidney failure. She had lived with my family since August 2007. When we adopted her, we were told the kidney disease would probably give her only 6 months to a year to live. That, more than anything else, motivated us to enjoy every day with her and truly see her time with us as something special. I'm reposting this here today in honor of several family members and friends who have recently lost pets, or learned of their beloved companion's terminal illness, including, once again, my own family, in Sydney's steady companion/seeing eye dog/hearing ear dog Bailey. She came to us like most shelter dogs - some good, some bad, but mostly unknown. But her Beagle pride and quirky personality soon shone through, in her tolerance for Bailey's wildly waving tail, her penchant for cat poop and...
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