Search Results for: blog a dogs social life or lack thereof

The Pets Blog Week in Review for May 12-18

What sort of personal anecdotes, as well as helpful info and animal folktales, did Aimee and I share with you last week? If you can’t answer that because you missed any days, check out the handy Week in Review below. Monday, May 12 Since the stroke, my mom’s being talking about “going home.” I wondered when it’s time for me to “go home” who will be waiting for me? Aimee told about her Mother’s Day and the nice things her friends (and dogs) did to make it special. Tuesday, May 13 An article Aimee read led her to ponder the … Continue reading →

A Dog’s Social Life (or Lack Thereof)

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I read an article recently in Prevention magazine about how dogs need friends. Not just human friends, but dog friends, too! You may have seen it before: your dog has a special canine buddy. They get SO excited to see them! They act differently (in a good way) around them. Looking at my dogs, I’m hard-pressed to think of really good dog friends they’ve had. For Lally, I think the last dog she really loved was an ex-boyfriend’s terrier mix named Jester. Jester (AKA “Pest”) was the dog who showed Lally how to fetch: after watching him do it, she … Continue reading →

The Dog Park Conundrum

Having a local dog park is the dream of every dog owner. It’s a municipally-maintained safely-enclosed spot to take your dog where it can run around to its heart’s content and receive plenty of interaction with other dogs. Today I want to ask: do you take your dog to dog parks? To start off, I’ll share my experience with them. Our initial trips to the dog park ended up being unexciting. I first went in the middle of the day during the week, and so no one was there. Still, I thought this could be a good experience for Chihiro: … Continue reading →

What Makes a Great Dog Park?

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The dog park here in town recently got remodeled… and it’s great. Not that it wasn’t nice before — a large, securely fenced area with a spigot for the dogs to have fresh water while they played. But it’s even better now. Improvement #1: an “airlock” style gate. Before the remodel, the park just had a gate for people and dogs to go in and out. Dogs who were already inside could crowd around the gate, and possibly escape when the gate was open. Now the gate opens into a small fenced area so you can secure the outside gate … Continue reading →

Homecoming: Casey

I was home in New Jersey for a few days, and had the opportunity to visit some friends. One stop I couldn’t miss was the home of my friends M. and L. and their dog Casey. Casey has appeared in the Pets Blog before. I used to be the first choice pet sitter when M. and L. went away for a weekend — she would happily romp in the yard with my dogs Moose and Lally. I’ve known her since she was just a puppy, and was with L. when she picked Casey out at a pet adoption event. When … Continue reading →

How Do You Help Your Dog Make Friends?

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Yesterday, I was thinking about my dogs and their social life… or lack thereof. They don’t have any super close puppy pals at the moment, though we have had them in the past. I realized that we do have two likely candidates for friendship right here in the building. Our next door neighbors have an adorable little Chihuahua mix named Brownie — Moose and Lally have met the little guy before and seem to like him. I’ve seen Lally making the play bow at him, which is a good sign. She wants to play with him. I think the little … Continue reading →

Animal Instincts: Love at First Sight Does Exist

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved –for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves. ~-Victor Hugo-~ Between Aimee’s article today and a story I was telling my mom about when Tabby came into our lives and how she instantly took a shine to Murph, I got to thinking about love at first site. How it really does exist. I’ve seen it happen! First Greeting: Tongue in the Mouth Aimee recalling the pals in her dogs’ lives that they’ve most loved brought to mind the first time Murph met Tucker, the dog destined to be … Continue reading →