Training Dreams

Because of the nature of my Google alerts, an article on dog training at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center. Because I am super smart, I both went "Hey, working dog center?" and "are they the same people that do PennHip?" (yes, they are. ish. It's at the University of Pennsylvania, anyway. And they have the same little ikon in the Chrome tabs that I'm looking at. Good enough for me!). Of course my next question was "Well, what kind of working dogs?", and that took me a surprising amount of time to figure out (a fail on my part, not theirs)

Spreading the Good Word

I work at the library, and often, though perhaps not as frequently as you might thing, I have opportunity to talk with other dog owners. Today I had a particularly fulfilling conversation.

A woman came to the desk, looking slightly lost. She said "I've tried to look this up in the catalog, but maybe I'm spelling his name wrong? It's a dog trainer. Cesar something..."

As you might imagine, from reading my blog, I flinched a bit. But, I looked him up, and explained that the name wasn't spelled like "Julius Caesar". I gave her a piece of paper with the call number, took a breath, and said "That's where you'll find his books, but may I make a few suggestions? I find his methods to be more coercive than strictly necessary, especially depending on the breed you're interested in. I have a Doberman, and they're just so smart, that kind of thing isn't necessary, and might backfire."

Book Review: Reaching the Animal Mind, by Karen Pryor

It took me a long time to read a Karen Pryor book (though not as long as it did to read a Temple Grandin book, geeze). I'm glad that I finally did, and that I read her most recent book, Reaching the Animal Mind. It's a longer book than her perennial classic, Don't Shoot the Dog, but includes, I feel, more information, and more valuable information.