Category Archives: Uncategorized

Who came to visit today? To help answer that, a Lansing, Michigan, hospital is producing trading cards with the faces of therapy dogs who visit patients. The process is similar to therapy teams who train with us distributing bookmarks for children who read to the dogs in Reading to Rover programs. http://goo.gl/FdOxlf

Even if one never intends to compete in agility matches, introducing one’s dog to the agility exercises and helping the dog accomplish a course, can have wonderful, positive benefits for the dog’s behavior in other situations. See how these two German Shepherds appear to enjoy running a course after just a few play sessions https://youtu.be/-1jSH02mcxY

 “Everything spawns from obedience, because if they won’t sit when you tell them to sit or heel when you to tell them to heel, they won’t do anything else,” Mike Dowling, former military dog handler, is quoted in this article. The article presents interesting and important information about dog training. The article also links to a video of his TEDx talk about dog training. http://goo.gl/huS8yI The accompanying picture by USAF Master Sergeant Adrain Cadiz.

This Associated Press story describes the seven breeds newly added to the list of accepted breeds by the American Kennel Club. All will complete at next month’s Westminster Dog School in New York City. This picture by Mark Lennihan shows a Bergamasco, a sheepdog and one of the newly accepted breeds. Westminster has also opened its competition in agility and obedience to non-registered dogs. See detail and other pictures in this article:  http://goo.gl/xDMgTx

Dogs like jobs — ones you create for them or ones they make for themselves. The former is better. In this picture Ace is to find the ‘object’ inside one of the boxes. Here is a link to a blog post from Becky Lovejoy about other ways to engage your dog. It reduces problem behavior caused by boredom. Think of a dog’s senses — sight, smell, hearing, touch — what activities will put those to work. Hide and seek?

http://goo.gl/Wu5a19

Before you put away the lights and other decorations, take a few minutes to drape them around your dog, or get the dog to pose in other situations.  You’ll have fun and already have some pictures for next year’s holiday card.  Of course, you can then start setting up pictures at other occasions during the year.

What is the impact of a family pet on children? Those of us with pets and kids believe there are many positive benefits. Now, this UK health care publisher summarizes formal research on that subject that suggests children with pets have less stress. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/303276.php

We are mourning the death and celebrating the life of dear Moss, Senior. He died November 28th on his farm in Dalguise, Scotland, at age 12. He is the father of our Border Collies [https://dogschooling.com/about-us/our-border-collies/]. In our visit in 2012, we got a demonstration of his remarkable herding skill on a rainy August afternoon — https://youtu.be/yay2IY29VVs

These Border Collie puppies demonstrate they are beginning to understand what ‘down’ and ‘stay’ mean.  They take a break during wagon practice.  Compliance with the ‘remain in place’ exercises builds a dog’s time-on-task behavior — one of the major goals of training in the context of having fun and learning by doing work.

Here is an interesting short article on detecting old from very old dog sculptures from the Palm Beach Post. Seems the technique of creating the pottery has changed and the process differences produce clues to the age of the piece. http://goo.gl/SzrBDD