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Meeting the Neighbor Dogs

I’ve blogged before about my neighbor’s dogs, the ones she lets roam free through the neighborhood. Sometimes I see them in our yard. Yesterday while I was working, I noticed one of them, the tan one, out the window. I went outside to greet it, as I always do whenever I see any of the neighborhood pets. They all, cats and dogs included, run away from me. This dog did the usual, but I thought of something: I called for it to come here. I didn’t think it was a dangerous dog, because our neighbor said he isn’t. He also … Continue reading →

Stolen Minutes To Find Yourself Again

The homeschooling mom often neglects herself. She is busy trying to maintain a balance of a clean happy home and well educated children. It can be quite a challenge for her to find the time to sit quietly and read a book or get her hair done in the midst of grading a spelling test, folding laundry, making dinner, and setting up a science lab. She seems to run on a force of unending energy until she finally burns out and falls flat on her face. When she finally regains awareness she realizes her nails are broken, her hair is … Continue reading →

Do Dogs And Babies Mix?

“Don’t worry – our dog is GREAT around children.” “Your baby can play safely on the floor while our dog walks around. He would never hurt a fly.” “Sure, she can pet him. He’s never bitten anyone.” How many times have you heard phrases like this when dogs and babies are in the same room? I’m an animal lover. I was never allowed to have a pet, but I made friends with all of the neighborhood animals. I’ve never had a bad experience with any animal, let alone a dog. I think raising animals teaches children valuable lessons in responsibility … Continue reading →

How Dogs Can Train Each Other

In my home there are three teenage girls, three cats, a rat, and two dogs. The cats are the least amount of trouble since all they require is food, water, a clean litter box and love-on-demand. I’m not very fond of the rat, but he was about to become homeless since his owner packed up and moved out of state, so “Spock” now lives with us. The teenage girls? Well, that’s where my gray hairs and stomach ailments have come from, though for the most part our home is fun, if not slightly disorganized. This brings me to our dogs. … Continue reading →

Do Your Kids Need a Manners Makeover?

One of my preschooler’s favorite animated shorts on Playhouse Disney is called “Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?” In it a little boy is challenged with the task of teaching his pet alligator Al how to behave properly. Young viewers help Mikey to instill good manners in his scaly sidekick by answering questions, such as: What should Al do when playing on a slide at the park? A. Shove the other kids off, so he can have a turn B. Sit at the bottom of the slide to prevent anyone else from going down C. Take turns My daughter loves … Continue reading →

21 Ways to Make Your Dog Smile

The last time we went to have a Murph post-op paw check-up at the surgeon’s office, we were placed in a room that had artwork in it this time –in the form of a cute poster titled “21 Ways to Make a Dog Smile.” It was a long, skinny one with three columns seven rows deep of 21 different smiling dog faces. Above the pictures were captions that suggested such smile-invoking activities as “Play catch,” “Make it a Blockbuster night,” “Do you want to go for a…WALK?!,” “Joyride!,” “Bring your dog to work day,” and “Teach your dog to smile…literally!” … Continue reading →

Do You Ever Feel Your Dog’s Not Living Up to His Full Potential?

I get both really inspired and really down on myself after I interview people like Beth Terrell or Joani Ascher. Inspired because they’re doing neat things with their dogs, like teaching them how to dance or grooming puppies to be Seeing Eye dogs. Down because Murph’s one of the smartest dogs I’ve ever had. I often wonder if I’m holding him back from living up to his full potential. At the beginning of this year I resolved to change that. I was determined to look into enrolling Murph and myself in a pet therapy program. Then my mom got sick … Continue reading →

Teach Your Dog to Stay

Stay is a command that is useful in many situations — introducing your dog to new people, keeping your dog away from spilled food, and more. This can be a difficult command for young dogs; puppies often have a very short attention span and are easily distracted! Be patient with your dog and stick with positive reinforcement. If you’ll be using food rewards (most dogs really like food rewards) it might be a good idea to practice your tricks before mealtime — your dog will be hungry and more likely to pay close attention to you and the treats. Here’s … Continue reading →

Working with a Dog with a High Prey Drive

One of the main obstacles to cats and dogs living together in harmony is the dog’s prey drive. Basically, that’s the instinctive urge to chase things. Especially moving things. After all, wild dogs need to be good hunters in order to survive. Our domesticated pups still have that instinct. Training will be your greatest asset if your dog(s) and cat(s) don’t get along. Basics you’ll want your dog to know are: Sit (sit down on command) Stay (stay in one place until you allow them to get up) Leave it/Release (give up the thing they’re after — be it a … Continue reading →

The Dog at the B&B

Last week at the cats only boarding facility, I had a quick refresher on computer stuff — how to add a new client to the system, how to input various charges, how to check someone out, how to put a guest on the schedule. For practice, we pretended that I was a new client and added me to the system. Of course, you may notice that I don’t have any cats to add. So we used Moose. To my surprise, the computer program the boarding facility uses already has codes for dogs. It must be a program that any animal … Continue reading →