The “My Doggie Says…” show helps listeners gain a deeper appreciation for “Man’s Best Friend.” The show is broadcast live from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights, on KFNX 1100, Phoenix. It is streamed live on www.1100kfnx.com. Host Fred Haney interviews experts on all aspects of dogs and dog ownership. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes. Go to the iTunes store, click on “Podcast,” and search for “My Doggie Says…”
Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category
Carla Genender, Author of "Dog Sense," on the "My Doggie Says…" Show
Monday, November 24th, 2008Karen Klingberg, of the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, on the "My Doggie Says…" Show
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008The “My Doggie Says…” show helps listeners gain a deeper appreciation for “Man’s Best Friend.” The show is broadcast live from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights, on KFNX 1100, Phoenix. It is streamed live on www.1100kfnx.com. Host Fred Haney interviews experts on all aspects of dogs and dog ownership. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes. Go to the iTunes store, click on “Podcast,” and search for “My Doggie Says…”
Dave Reaver, of Adlerhorst International, Talks About K-9 Training on the "My Doggie Says…" Show
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008The “My Doggie Says…” show helps listeners gain a deeper appreciation for “Man’s Best Friend.” The show is broadcast live from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights, on KFNX 1100, Phoenix. It is streamed live on www.1100kfnx.com. Host Fred Haney interviews experts on all aspects of dogs and dog ownership. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes. Go to the iTunes store, click on “Podcast,” and search for “My Doggie Says…”
Interpreting Dog Talk: How Your Dog's Breeding Can Help You Figure Out What It's Saying
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008A dog’s behavior can be rich with messages. The challenge, sometimes, is to figure them out.
Does your dog do wierd or unexpected things some times? If so, there’s a pretty good chance it’s trying to tell you something. If you want to improve your dog-listening skills, look for these “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments. And, then, scratch your head and get busy trying to decode the message.
One of the first clues can be your dog’s breeding. What was it bred to do? Retrieve? Hunt? Run fast? Herd sheep or other animals?
A lot of Jamie’s “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments became pretty obvious when I reminded myself that she was a Golden Retriever and bred to retrieve. One of my favorites is featured in “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie.”
One morning, my wife and I were jogging home, with Jamie, and I was carrying several rolled up newspapers. Jamie kept looking back at me. At first, we couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. My wife said, “She wants you to pay attention to her.” So I stopped and gave her a friendly ear scratch. But she kept looking back at me.
Finally, my wife said, “Maybe she wants to carry the newpapers.” I gave Jamie the papers, and that was it. She held her head up high and carried the rolled up bundle` the rest of the way home. But of course, she’s a retriever.
Another of Jamie’s “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments was to stop — as in “freeze!” — in the middle of our morning jog. Again, her breeding was usually (but not always) the clue. She was asking permission to retrieve a stick or a pine cone. Once we said “OK,” she would grab the object in her soft mouth and nestle it there until we got home — or until she got tired of it.
So next time your dog does something unexpected, ask yourself, “Why did he, or she, do that?” What is my dog trying to tell me? What was my dog bred to do? Maybe that’s a clue.
We’ll talk about other clues in future posts.
BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been doing a lot of work on the site. Some of the interviews from the “My Doggie Says…” Radio Talk Show (KFNX 1100, in Phoenix, 8:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights) are posted as MP3 files. Soon, we hope to have them set up as a podcast, so you can subscribe and hear the “My Doggie Says…” Show on your own schedule.
This Dog Finds Money — Callie, Golden Retriever, Finds More Money
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
My Golden Retriever, Callie, is slowly getting rich — on money she finds on her morning doggie jog. I wrote, on March 24, that Callie found a five dollar bill. Well, she’s moving in the right direction; this time she found ten bucks!
Callie is making some progress with the “leave it” command. “Leave it” is a really good command, because, if you’re fast enough, you can tell your dog to “leave it” before it picks something up, like a piece of trash along the road.
Callie’s morning jog is about three miles long on a pleasant road near a golf club. It’s not like the road is littered with trash, but there are occasional tid-bits that are very attractive to a doggie — especially Callie, it seems. Sometimes, a doggie’s mouth is faster than a person’s eye! Once in a while, Callie stabs at a candy wrapper, or a grass divot, before we can say “leave it” or pull her away from the offending article.
When Callie’s mouth beats us to the punch, the next command is “give!” Yesterday, Callie beat Barbara to the punch. Barbara knew Callie had grabbed something, but she didn’t know what it was. So, bravely, she pried open Callie’s very strong Golden Retriever mouth, reached way into it, and pulled out a ten dollar bill.
I guess, if dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs and people, it should be possible to train them to sniff out money. Right? So how do we train Callie to go after the really big stuff, like one-hundred dollar bills? Is a Golden Retriever supposed to retrieve gold?
Calming Callie, a Golden Retriever puppy (an Update)
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008Callie is now over 16 months old, and she’ calming down noticeably – in nice ways.
She’s always used her “Stinky†(small stuffed doggie), which is down, now (because of Callie’s chewing), to two front legs, and a head – no ears, no tail and no hind legs. But the remainder of “Stinky†seems to be pretty solid, after some serious repair work by the local dry cleaning people. Since the last repair job, Callie has been extremely gentle with “Stinky.†She seems to understand that “Stinky†can’t take any more hard chewing.
“Stinky†is still Callie’s preferred security object. Almost every evening, she tracks “Stinky†down and uses it to unwind from her busy doggie day. Here’s a recent photo of Callie with “Stinky.†Notice how totally relaxed Callie is.
But, in general, Callie is spending more time relaxing and less time bouncing off walls, chewing on rugs, or getting into trash. Check this out. Does this look like an up-tight dog?
I’ve noticed, down through the years, that dogs are about as good as people at using soft fluffy things, including pillows, like pillows. Callie seems to be especially good at it. Sometimes she uses her puppy pad as a pillow for her head, instead of as a bed. Other times, she uses a toy like a pillow. And sometimes at night I wake up to discover that I’m sharing my fluffy, down-stuffed pillow with Callie.
Here’s another photo.
I think Callie is more pillow-conscious than Jamie was. After all, Jamie invented “tired puppy paws,†which was her way of using her own paw like a pillow – much like you would if you lay down on the floor and used your arm like a pillow. Except Jamie turned her paw backwards to make a comfy little joint for her nose to rest. Here, from “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie†is Jamie doing “tired puppy paws.â€
Callie Creates Another "Why-Did-My-Dog-Do-That?" moment
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008“Why-Did-My-Dog-Do-That?” moments are the essential ingredient of understanding dog-talk. Whenever my dogs do something I don’t quite understand, I’ve learned to ask myself, “Why did Callie do that? What message is she trying to send me?” My personal objective is to never let a doggie-message go unheard, although I’m sure I miss a few.
This morning, Callie and I jogged our morning jog together without Barbara, who had an early business meeting. When we got to the golf club road, Callie pulled me in that direction, which didn’t surprise me, as we often jog down the driveway into the golf club parking lot.
But then Callie went on a “sit-down” strike. She just stopped running and sat her feathery puppy butt down on the asphalt.
I probably should have known right away why she did this, but I didn’t put two and two together fast enough. So I started through my mental checklist: “Does she want to go pee or pooh? Is there someone or somedog she wants to visit with? Does she have some bark or twigs caught in her hind puppy feathers? Is she hearing a strange noise or smelling a strange smell?”
Satisfied that the answer to all of these questions was “no,” I dug a little deeper and finally “connected the dots.” Callie was sitting in front of the stone wall that supports the golf club sign, and Barbara always lets her jump up on the wall and walk along the top until she has to hop back down to the driveway.
So I walked Callie over to the wall, and, sure enough, she jumped up and walked tightrope-style along the top as far as she could — a happy puppy because she sent a message and I (finally) heard it and did something about it.
To me, this is an important part of building a strong relationship with a dog — getting the message and showing my dog — by my actions — that I understood.
If You Want Your Kids to Have Fewer Allergies, Get a Dog?
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008Have you ever known parents who were so concerned about their kids’ health that they created a sanitary and pristine environment for them at home? There are people who have white carpets, or no carpets, in every room and insist that family members and guests remove their shoes at the front door. They may also keep windows and doors closed all the time, in order to keep out all germs. Some of these people insist on a healthy dose of hand-washing, too.
But maybe the answer is to get a dog and let it have free run of the house. This suggestion would probably horrify some health-conscious parents, but there is scientific evidence that having a dog around the house reduces allergies in kids.
The theory is that having a dog around increases the infant’s levels of antibodies to common allergens.
So open the windows and doors, put on your shoes, and let Fido come and go as he pleases. It might make your kids healthier.
Crash! (A Children's Book About A Golden Retriever Puppy)
Friday, May 16th, 2008I don’t read a lot of children’s books, but I had to read Crash!, by Mayra Calvani, with illustrations by Anna Pylypchuk. It’s a cute story about a young boy, Marcelo, and the Golden Retriever puppy his parents gave him for his fifth birthday. I’m a total sucker for anything related to Golden Retriever puppies!
One thing I liked about the book is that Marcello’s parents were wise enough to let Marcelo figure out the best name for his puppy. They even told Marcello that the puppy’s name should “reflect his personality.” So Marcelo did lots of things with his puppy for a few days. He bathed and brushed it. He watched it chew on shoes and toys and tennis balls. And he played tug-of-war over a newspaper.
Marcelo learned a lot about the puppy’s personality, but he still wasn’t sure what to name his new-found friend. Until he noticed that the puppy kept crashing into the wall every time he chased a tennis ball down the hallway. So Marcelo announced to his parents that his puppy’s name would be Crash!
There are some very sweet messages here. Marcelo’s parents wanted him to “tune in” to the puppy personality in order to name it. And, even though the book is short, you can see the bond building between Marcelo and Crash! At one point, Marcelo says, “I want to cuddle with you forever.”
Another thing I found remarkable about this book is that the very illustrative drawings were made by Anna Pylypchuk, a Ukranian citizen, is only sixteen years old. She’s been drawing most of her life, and her illustrations bring Crash! to life, as they should for a lovable Golden Retriever puppy.
A great gift for children & grandchildren. You can visit Mayra Calvani’s web site by clicking here.
Are Dogs Natural Swimmers? Callie learns to swim (again!)
Sunday, May 11th, 2008I would have thought that dogs were natural swimmers. That teaching a dog to swim would be like teaching a bird to fly. But not quite so. Apparently some dogs do need a little encouragement and training.
Last summer, when Callie was five months old, she started learning to swim in Lake Arrowhead. It didn’t come all at once, as she had to overcome some fear of the small waves lapping at the shoreline. And she was apprehensive about getting into water over her head. But finally, with a little coaxing, she worked through it and became an “adequate” swimmer.
We kept her on a long leash, though, because we didn’t want to risk her swimming out into the main part of the lake, where there can be a lot of boat traffic.
Here’s some video of Callie swimming last summer, after she overcame her initial fears:
It’s spring at Lake Arrowhead, so we decided the water was warm enough to take Callie swimming for the first time this year. Again we kept her on her leash, not because there’s so much boat traffic this time of year, but we don’t quite trust her to “come” when we call her yet.
But Callie had to work through her little fears all over again. There’s a very nice stone stairway that lets her walk right into the water. She took the first few steps, and she obviously wanted to retrieve the small pine stick I had tossed into the water. But she did not jump in (as I had thought she might). She didn’t even walk in. It was as if she forgot everything she learned last summer, including how much fun it can be to swim. She kept shying away from the water — wanting to dive forward, but then pulling back.
Finally — again with a little encouragement — she took a few dog-paddles and then she leveled out her sleek Golden Retriever body and swam like a Golden Retriever should swim. Very graceful and confident in the water.
So Callie had to work through her fears all over again, but she did it, and, when it was time to go, of course, she wanted to stay and swim!
Here are two good articles about teaching your dog to swim:
How to Teach Your Dog to Swim – Part 1 – Catherine Forsythe at Lockergnome.com.
Teaching Puppies to Swim, Butch Goodwin, northernflight.com.
Dogs love to swim and play in the water, but some of them need help. It’s a great gift to give your dog, though, and it will be eternally grateful.
