Miscues (or Missed Cues?)

The other night, Elka asked to go out, so I sent her to the back door. We have a routine, she sits and waits, and I either snap the leash on and have her wait some more, or I let her blast out the back door. I thought maybe I'd seen a deer or something out back, so I wanted her to wait after the leash was on. Typically, we hold up a finger, like "wait a minute", for signal purposes. I held out my palm instead.

(just a picture of Elka sitting, not from "The event")

Practically Human, But Better

By now, you've probably heard or even read the article "Dogs are people, too" in the New York Times (in the opinion section, despite the usages of Science™ to carry out the experiment. That's telling, n'est-ce pas?) If you haven't, in a nutshell, the neuroscientist on the case, Gregory Berns, trained (with positive methods and help from a dog trainer) a team of 12 dogs to voluntarily go into an MRI, wearing a pair of noise blocking headphones, and stay there perfectly still for the duration of a brain scan wherein they confirmed brain activity that is indicative of canine emotions.

Alpha? No, that's just not how I roll.

Fewer things are more alarming to me when I see one faceless person on the Internet say to another "Make sure you maintain your Alpha position. Your dog must be submissive to you. On his back or on his side. Bring him down and hold him there until he submits to you."

Paraphrased, but you get the gist. You probably have heard of the "alpha roll" before, but if you haven't, it's as physical and improbable as it sounds: you physically roll the dog onto his or her back. And hold him or her there until the dog submits to your dominance. Sound like a bad idea? Yeah, I think so too. Have I ever "alpha rolled" Elka? No. And I never intend to.

See the joy in this face? I don't want to crush that.

Book Review: A Dog Named Boo, by Lisa J. Edwards

I had the honor of being approached by a publicist at Harlequin to read and review the book, A Dog Named Boo: How One Dog and One Woman Rescued Each Other, and the Lives They Transformed Along the Way, by Lisa J. Edwards. Intrigued, both because I'm a sucker for dog books and because I thought Harlequin only published romance novels, I accepted. I'm glad that I did!

To kick off Lisa Edwards' blog tour, I've read and reviewed A Dog Named Boo, and have copies for giveaway!