George, my current favorite dog at the shelter

My previous favorite Sara, the Black Lab Border Collie mix, was adopted rather quickly. I got to talk to the people who adopted her and told them what a sweet, well behaved 6 month old puppy she was, and I guess they sensed it too, and took a chance on her. It's always helpful to have first hand insight into a dog by someone who has spent time with the dog. This is George, a large German Shepherd mix with a dash of something wire haired, making his coat soft and smooth, but a tad wiry and perhaps less prone to shedding. He looks like a German Shepherd that someone stretched upward and outward. He's about 2 years old. His hips look good as far as I could tell, and he is sweet, playful, charming and loves to be paid attention to. He also enjoys playing fetch. He was not officially the shelter's dog yet, so I played with him in his kennel instead of taking him for a walk.I'm guessing no one will claim him as he was found abandoned in the dog park across the street from the shelter, but you never know.

Update-Luckily for the dog, I guessed wrong. As it turned out George's owner came and got him. Once again, someone's worst fears that the dog was killed by coyotes, because they found his collar but not the dog, prevailed. So one unhappy emotional roller coaster ride, and at least three days later, the people thought, why not call the shelter just in the off chance the dog landed there despite the fact it was some distance from their house. Lo and behold the dog was just sitting at the shelter waiting to be claimed by his people. It always amazes me that people will follow the lead of their worst fears before ruling out other possibilities. I wonder what that impulse is in human nature, to immediately assume the worst outcome and eliminate other scenarios? Well at least there was a Happy ending for all. If the dog had been micro chipped the owners would have been contacted right away, so despite the fact that a dog has a collar and i.d. on, they can end up lost and without identification, so it pays to micro chip as well.

On a side note on- The Hazards of Hi- tech clothing-(not a brand name, just style of sportswear) I had a scary experience with a pair of Hi- tech cross country ski pants recently. Idaho has had a cold and rainy spring, so I wore my ski pants out while dog walking, and then stood in front of the wood stove to warm up and dry off. I was about a foot away from the wood stove and had a funny sensation, and noticed that the pants, which did not look particularly synthetic, so I was not intuitively conscious of their hazards, started melting while I was wearing them. I quick took them off, and luckily they had been big on me to begin with so I was uninjured. It was quite the scary experience to have my clothes melting on me while I was wearing them and none of the other clothes I was wearing melted at that time and distance, so I kind of freaked out a bit. I called the company and got a snotty, non nonchalant, Oh yeah that will happen, and there was a tag on the pants when you bought them, too bad for you, response. I was sort of expecting an apology and maybe some coupons. Mind you they were about $100 ski pants and I told the woman that I also owned another pair of her company's expensive pants. I know, as my husband said, it was probably my fault. I guess I just have to be super conscious at all times or adopt a philosophy of wearing only natural fiber clothing that will be on the whole, less hazardous to my health. I think in the future, I will just keep my $100 and next time knit myself a pair of wool leggings or get some old kind of natural fiber ski clothes. I just thought I'd tell my story so other people don't get injured and/or ruin their expensive clothing. I was not touching the stove, and like I said, the pants looked more like stretchy cotton pants, so it was not foremost on my mind that they could melt like nylon. I also have a few other hi- tech, natural looking, sports wear, items of clothing which I will be more careful about. So be aware, that some hi- tech clothing is not reliable around wood stoves or heating devices, whether or not you think you are a reasonable distance away from the heat source. The woman representing the company also stated that the pants have melted in the dryer, so use caution with this type of clothing.

Another fun filled afternoon with shelter dogs

I was able to spend a good hour and a half today walking shelter dogs. This little Shih Tzu is Drew, a 1 year old male. He was a stray and has been at the shelter for a few days without being claimed. How could someone not know he was missing, unless no one cares. If he is not claimed, in a few more days he will become available for adoption. He is so sweet, and loved being held in my arms. For the most part I am a big dog person, but this little guy just tugged at my heartstrings. If you are interested in him you could contact the shelter and place a hold on him http://www.humanesocietyofthepalouse.org/

















The Black lab with my Blue Merle Aussie is Lady again. We had a nice hour long walk through town. My dog has this" why are you taking my picture, you know I am camera shy" look on his face"






































The black and white guy with his tongue sticking out is Augustus, my new favorite. He doesn't usually have his tongue sticking out but the dogs have been cooped up lately and it's been hard to get decent photos of them with them being happy to be outside and all, so this wasn't a half bad picture, so I included it. He's on the large size of medium sized dogs, very sweet and well behaved considering he has not yet been neutered. If he's this nice pre neutering, he'll only become more calm and nice after. He needs to put on at least 5 lbs.
Augustus is typical of my favorite type of dog, sort of plain, non-descript but with a heart of gold. I love these big easy going guys, unfortunately I am only half of the household decision making process or I would have 5 dogs, but one often makes compromises in relationships, so in a way, the compromise is what keeps me coming back to help more dogs

Cash's first day on the job, do you think he was nervous?

So here we are with my new dog Cash, the Aussie Shepherd, and two of the shelter dogs. I wanted to see how he was going to do, walking and helping to train the shelter dogs and so far he is fine with it. He got along with the dogs and despite his lack of leash training, although he is good off leash, he was able to walk comfortably and help set the pace and relaxed tone. I think he will do just fine in his new role of helping to train and make comfortable the shelter dogs. Both these dogs seemed quite relaxed with Cash although it took some doing to get decent photos of them as they kept turning in different directions, so I kept taking shots as we walked hence the photos of the dogs relaxed in the street as I was not so relaxed but watchful and hoping to get a good photo while shepherding two dogs and my camera hand to safety. The big black dog, Honey was an unusual sort of case. Most shelter dogs can't wait to go for walks, and stay out of the noisy shelter. Honey got about 3/4 of a mile away from the shelter and then made an abrupt turn and kept pulling me back in the opposite direction that we were trying to walk in. At first I thought that perhaps she was spooked by the two male joggers behind us on the bike path so I pulled the dogs aside and told them to wait, but the joggers just passed by and the dog wasn't bothered by them but kept turning back and pulling me. I then thought that maybe she was trying to tell me that she recognized some landmarks and perhaps wants to try and go "home" to wherever she has lived before. I just decided that trying to wrestle a big lab mix who was determined to go in the opposite direction, wasn't going to be fruitful so we turned around and walked back to the shelter. As soon as we headed back she relaxed so I'm guessing that she liked the shelter, felt comfortable there and familiar with the staff and regular feeding. I was thinking," strange, she looks well fed and happy otherwise, why was she so scared to be away from the safety of the shelter?" We took Honey the big black lab out again, a week later, and she was really worked up and pulling while I tried to get her out of the shelter gates and I was using my stern training voice when one of the shelter employees said " you do know that Honey is deaf don't you?" " Actually no, this was the first I'd had heard of it" so that bit of info threw me for a loop. The last time I took her out she seemed fine, listened to my commands and or body language as well as that of my dog Cash's body movements, and we had a nice walk before she tugged and wanted to turn back. Maybe being hearing impaired made her more insecure when she got too far away from the shelter, often times it is the dogs who are super frightened or have been abused that are more comfortable in the shelter than outside of it but for most dogs they prefer to be out walking around.

The yellow Heinz 57 variety dog is Jake
Jake seemed pretty relaxed around Cash as well

Close encounters of the Border Collie kind

This was a very sweet border collie mix that showed up at the shelter and was adopted after about 2 weeks.I had one who looked pretty similar show up at my house once. I was sitting in my pottery studio throwing pots when my husband came back from town. He opened the door to my studio and the conversation went something like this;
" what's up with that one?"
me "what's up with that one what?"
"that dog you brought home"
me "what dog, what are you talking about?"
"you don't have to try and hide it, that dog, sitting on the front porch"
me "what dog sitting on the front porch?"
and with that I got up, washed the clay off of my hands and went out to see what he was talking about. On my front doorstep , which is covered by part of my wraparound porch, was a very sweet, very frightened, border collie Heeler mix(she looked similar to the dog in these photos) soaking wet and trembling. I brought her in, toweled her off, offered her food and water and proceeded to try and figure out who she belonged to.
She didn't look familiar, as I walk about a 3 mile radius from my house in many directions and had a pretty good idea of who the dog owners were and what kind of dogs they had.
I called the Humane Society and asked if anyone called in missing a dog of her description and no one had, so I left my contact info in case any one called in looking for her. She was an older dog, about 9-10 years old about the same age, weight, and height, as my Blue Heeler.
I put "found dog" fliers up at the post office and the library, asked the post man and U.P.S. man if they knew who she belonged to and got no answers. No one seemed to be missing her, or knew who she belonged to, so I decided that someone must have dumped her off as she was an older dog, and people often dump off their unwanted pets in the country thinking that they'll go live on a nice farm. She was a very sweet well behaved dog, and quickly fit into our routine. My blue heeler actually seemed to like her which was unusual as he is for the most part rather indifferent to the foster dogs and shelter dogs, preferring his position as my special dog, the others are just visitors in need of training. Pascual would frolick and play with her in an older dog kind of way,and seemed pleased with her company. One day my husband and I were out planting trees, a quarter mile down the property. It was a muddy day and I didn't want the dogs getting wet and muddy so I left them in the house. After twenty minutes, I see Molly the name we gave the border collie mix, and my dog, trotting down the driveway with Molly out in front, and Pascual sheepishly following behind her. I turned to my husband and said" I knew I shut the door" sure enough she had figured out how to open it. I went back and shut the door and then let them stay with us as they seemed to want to be outside with us. I was very nice and kind to Molly and having decided that after two weeks had gone by where no one had called to claim her I would just keep her, so she was swaddled in affection and got to sleep on the rug. I have many of my handmade hooked rugs all over the house that are particularly soft for the dogs, and I also had dog beds out for her so she just fit comfortably into our household. She bonded quickly and liked to sleep on the porch and would do 5 foot guard duty shifts, rotating around the porch like clockwork. At first I was thinking "where's Molly she was laying there a minute ago?" and then she would be five feet further down the deck. So she got used to us and we got used to her habits. At first I thought she was a bit daft or had a touch of senility, but then there seemed to be some sort of guarding method to her madness. Now, I have a very smart dog, an Australian Cattle dog a.k.a a Blue Heeler but he is a tad lazy or perhaps smart enough to know that he doesn't have to work that hard to get his needs met, but this Border Collie/Heeler mix took the cake. She was the smartest dog I had ever had first hand experience with. She could open doors, and then she really spooked my husband because she started closing them behind her( they could have been blown shut, but who knows, it happened often) I watched her do it once, she looked around first to see if anyone was looking and then jumped up and opened it with her paws. She didn't know I was watching her. Then she started opening drawers in the kitchen," hey Pascual, look it's the garlic and onion drawer" and my dog would trot over. I was starting to get a little annoyed, wondering if I was going to have to padlock the fridge, and then I stopped one evening and just looked at her. She looked back at me with a "so here I am what is it you want to know about me" look on her face and I just let go of the annoyance and then marvelled at her presence, spirit, and intelligence, and had a much deeper respect and admiration for her after that. I worked in the inner city some years ago, with disadvantaged youth and recall a 14 year old girl with an exceptional level of intelligence. When I was in my early twenties and college educated, this young girl had an intellectual grasp of subjects from History to Politics to Art and seemed like more of a peer than a student. One day I was able to see her in action with her mother, and was saddened to see that her mother appeared to have no clue as to what an exceptionally intelligent daughter she had. The mother seemed exasperated,and treated her daughter with derision as if she was just an insolent smart mouthed kid who needed to be put in her place and respect adult authority. It was so sad to me that there was such a huge perception gap and that the daughter had to live with someone who put her down for her talents and didn't recognize what an intelligent gift her daughter possessed. I just feel that it's so important to try and understand pets and people for their uniqueness, and see and work with what actually is there rather than what we expect or project on our pets or fellow human beings.

One thing that never sat right in my mind was the fact that Molly the dog, showed up at my door with a brand new pretty purple collar on but with no identification tags or rabies tag on the collar. I kept wondering why would someone leave a new, seemingly expensive collar on a dog that they were going to dump off, that didn't make sense. Months went by and she fit right into our routines. She was pretty low maintenance, easily trained, spent hours on the porch and then came into the house and was comfortable with my heeler. Even though she was older, she still went for 2 and a half mile walks around the neighborhood with me, Pascual, and my friend with her dog and horse. Molly got along with everyone and I had grown to love her and respect her intelligence. I often take my dogs with me in the car if the weather is good so I noticed every time I drove past a certain place about 4 miles from my house Molly would get antsy and jump around in the car. When she first showed up I had called everyone I knew in about a 3 mile radius asking them if they knew whose dog it was, and no one did. I took her to my vet to get shots and they hadn't recognized her. I also did everything possible putting up signs, asking delivery men if they knew who the dog belonged to. I knew one guy who lived in that area where the dog got excited, and he worked in town and I just so happened to be at his place of business, on a sunny afternoon while I had my dogs in the car with the windows down. I said hey J, do you know whose dog this is?, she seems to get excited around your house" Hey says no, and then "wait a minute" apparently there were some newer people who had moved in next to him and the woman had lost her dog. I asked for her name and then mulled over whether I should call her or not.The thoughts went through my mind"why didn't she call the humane society looking for her dog?" "why didn't she put signs up?" "what kind of person, what kind of scenario would make a person not look for their beloved pet?"why didn't she have Identification on her or a rabies tag?" So all these thoughts are going through my mind, and I'm wondering why I didn't think about all this before I asked the man for the womans phone number, and then sometimes things have a way of getting ahead of you and taking their own course. I asked my friend who is a good judge of human nature and an animal person what did she think about a person who didn't look for her dog, and she seemed to think that maybe it wasn't a good owner who didn't deserve their dog back so all this was going through my mind but I sort of allready started the ball rolling so I thought I should just call and talk to her and try and figure out what to do from there. I called the woman and was thinking to myself; if she's o.k and has some kind of reason for not looking for her dog, then I would return the dog. I was,however, going to ask for my $50 dollars back, that I spent getting the dog vaccinated at the vets office. I felt that it was only fair for me, the person who went through all the trouble and proper procedures trying to locate the pets owner, and then upon thinking I would adopt it, went to get the dog vet checked and vaccinated. I called the woman and explained that I had talked to the neighbor and thought that I had her dog. She was somewhat shocked, emotional and mistrustful all at the same time. I agreed to meet her at her house, which in hindsight probably wasn't a good idea and not something I would do in the future. I drove over there and the dog got out and seemed very happy, jumping and running around familiar territory and visiting with the woman. The woman was still pretty reluctant, unfriendly and dare I say, annoyed. I explained to her that the dog had shown up in the middle of a thunderstorm, and she said that the dog was always spooked by thunderstorms and that, that explained why she had run off and apparently kept running. I told her that I went to a certain veterinarian 15 miles away, for the examination and vaccinations and she was annoyed because she said that the dog allready had those shots and why did I go to that veterinarian's office, the vet in town was less expensive. At that point I was getting a little more than miffed.There I was, a good samaritan, taking your dog in for 3 months, caring for it extremely well, feeding it, taking it to the veterinarians and getting it vaccinated, going to all this trouble trying to reunite the dog with it's rightful owner and all you can say is in an annoyed tone" why did I go to that vet, it's so expensive, and the dog had allready had the shots?" Well how was I to know? what am I psychic? The dog didn't have any identification on it and no rabies tag. If she had only spent the 5 to 10 dollars to get identification on the dog she would have had it back the afternoon it showed up, at no cost. My own dog is microchipped, as well as having identification tags and a rabies tag on him. I had checked Molly for a micro chip at the Humane Society, but she wasn't chipped.

I suppose my annoyance was showing back, then she said I'll pay you your 50 dollars, which I thought was actually reasonable. The only reason I didn't go to the vet in our small town is that she is so rarely open and never seemed to have any vaccines on hand, that I stopped going to her years ago and forgot she was even there. Upon calling later, I realized that this vet was even more expensive for the vaccinations so I don't know what this woman was even talking about. The woman agreed to pay me and I told her she needed to switch the name on the rabies tag call number from ours to hers. She said her young son loved the dog and would be so happy that it was back, and she told me that the dog had run off years ago and came back to them from some 40 miles away so she thought that this time the dog, being older had just run off to die, that's why she didn't look for it. I thought that's strange that someone's projections of their worst fear would keep them from actually verifying whether it was fact or not, but whatever. So I gave the dog back, got reimbursed for the vet bill and went home feeling angry, annoyed, and unsettled but glad that at least a little boy would be reunited with his dog. Upon reflecting upon all this I remembered that I had met the woman in the summertime while riding my bike. The family was new to the neighborhood and I had remembered that the farm was for sale. I had to walk my bike past her place and saw her out with a horse. I said" hello" as I am rather friendly and most people out here are friendly and they were new to the neighborhood, but the woman seemed crabby, annoyed, and not wanting to be bothered. So I just thought the heck with you, here I go being friendly and she was just this side of rude which explained her demeanor when I returned her dog. So strange, that a young person with a kid, new to a neighborhood would be so standoffish and unappreciative of all that I had done for her dog, but whatever. It takes all kinds I guess, maybe that's why she moved to the country, to get away from people. When I drove past her house,and saw her with the dog, I waved a few times, but she would just look the other way, so I don't bother any more. This whole interaction also brought to mind a strange phenomenon I have observed where a few standoffish people I have casually known, had friendly, happy dogs. Most of the time the dog adapts to the personality of it's owner, that is a friendly person has a friendly dog, a wary, shy person has a wary dog etc.., I have run into a few people who have dogs that don't really match their personalities. I wonder if the dog in this scenario is some kind of benefactor, come to help the people with the difficult personalities. Oh well, just another theory to pursue. As for myself it is often the difficult people like this who make me turn to help the dogs as I find the dogs so much more pleasant and less complicated to deal with. I kept wondering why the dog didn't just walk back to it's home, as I had left her unattended for hours at a time on the porch while I was inside the house(I don't leave them out when I'm not there) We all easily walked close to the same distance around the neighborhood, and it would have been fairly simple for her to have walked a straight line home. I guess Molly was happy with us, she had a husband in my Blue heeler, a horse to walk with in my friend's horse. I guess her life was similar to what she had been used to, and I made it very comfortable for her. So there I was again, down to one dog who seemed to miss his special girlfriend, at least he had the pleasure of a partner bond for a little while. At times they looked like an old married couple together, where the woman was a little smarter than the man. Perhaps it's all part of pondering the imponderable, participating in a grander plan. For now I keep going, helping the dogs, trying to understand the people, trying to make sense of it all, and marvelling at how these stories unfold. People, dogs, community,non verbal communication, and time, strange ingredients in this recipe of life with dogs.

My East Coast, Tough Guy, dog training voice

I've found my dog training voice, sort of like how a writer finds their writers voice. Since I grew up in New Jersey it is a sort of "Hey you, I'm talking to you" East coast, tough guy vibe with a bit of an edge to it , along the lines of what you may have heard on a Soprano's TV show episode. I'm frequently in this mode when I have to convince a dog that is 2/3rd's my size to listen to me, and pay attention to me. With the dogs that are not quite so big or stubborn, I primarily use a crabby edgy tone to my voice that breaks through to them when giving commands, but doesn't scare them. How many times have I heard people talk to dogs in a non specific, flurry of words (without any specific energy behind them), kind of way that just sounds like so much mumbling to a dog. If you are specific, consistent and clear in terms of throwing your voice in an-I mean it- edgy way, like if your kid is about to get near a fire or something dangerous, you can get the dog's attention and respect. You are stopping them in their tracks with your voice and a command. You are basically communicating in tone first, that's what gets their attention.You are grabbing them with your voice. Tone with a consistent command will instill the behavior.To further grasp the concept I had a friend say negative things to her dog in a happy voice" Oh you're such a bad, naughty, dreadful dog" but all said in a happy tone, the dog wagged it's tail and just assumed she was happy and everything was great. The dog is listening to the tone, and reading your emotion and body language. In happy talk tone the dog thinks" oh things are good everyone's content" if you are talking to them in command tone they think" Oh I'm supposed to be focusing and doing something here" if you use the growly, deep, stop them in their tracks tone they think"oh I messed up" they stop and then you can re- direct them with a " come" and then praise, in happy talk tone. The dogs don't really understand words said without tone, tone gets their attention, gets them to think and key in, then the command tells them what to do.

The other observation I have about training comes from my initial introduction into true dog training by Barbara Woodhouse. Before watching the English Dog trainer at work in a video I used to think that training was sort of a mechanical, going through the motions, rote learning, repetitive act. In the program I saw, they asked Barbara Woodhouse why she was so good at dog training. She passed her hand lovingly over the dogs head and then answered"because I love them so much" This was eye opening to me. I made the connection that training is first about the loving bond you develop playing with the dog, caressing it, getting the dog to think you are the most wonderful exciting thing in it's life, and treating the dog like it's such a wonderful important part of your life. When you talk to a dog saying how cute and wonderful it is, and you mean it, most of the time you can see a beaming with pride or adoration reaction in them, for instance; a devoted look, tail wag, full body wiggle or a dancy little "I'm so cute" walk. If the dog is spacing out or not paying attention You might want to work on this bonding process. Also repeat the commands at various times of the day, in and outside of the house and then praise. A lot of people don't emphasize the happy praise enough. They seem to think the dog did what I wanted so I'll just say" good" and pat it on the head in a lackadaisical manner and that's enough. Well if you get the response you want that may be enough but if you want to have a dog pay more attention to you, you have to make it fun and exciting and up the emotional ante. Just some advice I've arrived at through reading training books, trial and error and experience, hope it helps those out there that need it. One of the books that helped me a lot in training dogs is
Good Owners Great Dogs http://www.amazon.com/Good-Owners-Great-Brian-Kilcommons/dp/0446675385

This is the only Mike Marino video I could find without cursing in it but you'll get an idea of the accent. He's one funny Comedian, a New Jersey born Italian with attitude. If you don't mind the cursing you can find more of him on Youtube

Here is my favorite dog trainer Barabara Woodhouse again for those who missed the previous post

what my book "Tails from the Shelter" is about

I walked both these dogs today, along with Mongo and Lenny. The brown dog is Sophia a new Chesapeake Bay retriever, her sister who is a tad darker is also available for adoption. The black dog is Chewy, he is the one who likes to stand on top of his modernist dog house, he's in the post on the modernist doghouses.

http://tailsfromtheshelter.blogspot.com/2010/04/modernist-dog-house.html

This is basically the query I sent to a publisher. I'm open to any feed back on my query anyone would like to offer. I also sent a sample chapter.This particular publisher didn't pan out. I'm wondering whether I should self publish or continue looking for another publisher.

I started volunteering at our local no kill animal shelter 10 years ago after losing my beloved Labrador retriever. The book I wrote is the book I was looking to read and could not find, when I first started volunteering. I was unable to find information explaining how to work with frightened and disheartened dogs that had been abandoned and traumatized, except for some general information and one particular chapter in the wonderful book, “Beyond Obedience” by April Frost . http://www.aprilfrost.org/book.html This is an authentic telling of the stories of my working with the frightened, abused, neglected and harder to place dogs. The cute, adorable, young and purebred, the small to medium sized, spectacular and unique looking dogs get adopted relatively quickly, the larger, older, impaired, neurotic, average looking and black dogs take longer. My book is the true life story, with some altered identities, of the behind the scenes goings on of my local no kill animal shelter which is located in a small college town surrounded by a rural farming community in North Idaho. The story is also somewhat of a memoir that parallels my story of overcoming eating disorders as it relates to and overlaps with my being drawn to work with abused and neglected dogs. It is a story of triumph, of overcoming through giving, of reaching out to the dogs and helping them through. I have included a variety of stories differing in tone that give a representation of the humor, sadness, success, and both positive and negative outcomes of the dogs and people in my community. Although they are primarily stories of the dogs, they also relate the nature of the human beings that the animals come in contact with so they tell of the positive and negative intersection of animal /human ties. I have also included a lot of observations and training tips for both working with this special subset of dogs and for volunteering at animal shelters in general, as well as a spiritual approach to basic obedience training. I cover the stories of the different dogs I worked with including everything from; frightened, abused, neurotic, handicapped, dogs that were returned multiple times, a dog with anorexia, and heroic dogs that helped the people around them. I spent from 5 to 15 hours a week, volunteering to walk and train and spend time with the dogs. They are the stories of dogs and people on the edge, some turn around, some do not. My book also sheds light on the hard work performed by the dedicated staff and volunteers of our Humane Society, and the difficulties they encounter working in a no kill shelter as well. Inspired by the books of the late Caroline Knapp, particularly, the book, Appetites. I pick up where she left off, delving a little deeper into multi generational family dynamics, healing the self through helping abandoned dogs, performing a community service and helping to reconnect people and dogs while tying together stories over a ten year period in a small semi-rural college town community . The book was written in the spirit of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com/home/ , living in the moment making observations finding out what the individual dogs needed in a Zen Buddhist spirit of witnessing. I feel that the book has broad appeal on two fronts; 1) telling the stories and giving insight into the dogs adopted from the no kill shelter, many have adopted from shelters. This gives them an idea of what some of the dogs have gone through prior to being adopted. 2) It is my story of finding a positive way of overcoming a dysfunctional family and overcoming eating disorders in a way that helped both me, and the neglected dogs. I see this as a philosophy of efficiency, meeting the many needs, of all involved at once, on both a physical and psychological level. So although the book runs the gamut of emotions all in all it is a positive real life story of overcoming on many levels, by reaching out to help others in a spirit of community service. Raw, deep, humorous, profound, both heartwarming and heart wrenching, this book has it all. Thank you for giving it a chance

And so it goes

A beautiful sunny winter day, no snow on the ground, and Mongo is cooperating, wowza, I'm a happy camper. I even got a brief couple of connecting moments with him. Maybe it had something to do with my Barbara Woodhouse dog trainer imitations. I told you I had to pull out all the stops, so there I go saying "Walkies" down the street with my put on English accent, but anything to help the dogs. Poor Lenny got bypassed because I didn't have enough time to take him today. When Mongo and I came back I saw a shelter employee playing ball with Lenny, so at least he was getting some exercise and attention. So such are the vagaries of working with shelter dogs. I didn't even have time to let Mongo run loose today and yet he was better. Maybe it has something to do with his diarrhea being under control, or the fact that the dogs can hang out in the outdoor pens, which are bigger than the indoor ones, but things were definately better today. The following video is of Barbara Woodhouse, my favorite dog trainer. One of the men being interviewed is Brian Kilcommons another wonderful trainer with an excellent book on dog training called " Good Owners, Great Dogs"
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Owners-Great-Brian-Kilcommons/dp/0446675385

progress in leaps and bounds

Maybe it had something to do with the rain mellowing out the dogs who were kept in their indoor kennels,because, when I took Mongo out he was relatively relaxed. I wasn't even able to let him run loose first in the off leash dog park as other people were there, and that would be against policy, so I was surprised that we got on so well today. I was even able to hold the leash in only one hand for half of the walk, which was darn good considering his overall situation, and having only worked with him 5 times. He does have an odd way of hearing without listening. I tell him things like"wait" or "this way" to change directions and he complies, but when I whistle and call his name and say "come" he acts like he hears something far in the distance and basically ignores me which seems odd, given that he was an owner surrender and Mongo had been his name for 3 years. Well, such are the mysteries when trying to understand a dog who doesn't speak your language. I'm just grateful that we are making progress and will observe the other behaviors and see if they become more understandable. He's had diahrrea since I've worked with him and is on medication for it , I wonder if that's nerves or part of his agitated state, but he's being well taken care of so all we can do is continue to help him and hope we(meaning myself and the shelter staff) make his life easier.

Don Pascual patron saint of the kitchen-my dog

Meet Pascual, patron saint of the kitchen. Other aliases; Blue, Blueberry, Blueberry muffin dog, Hullabalue,Panzon, Pascualito, Little Pascual, Bubba on occasion. It's funny how we come up with nicknames for our dogs. Blue was rescued out of the Boise Idaho shelter ten years ago by a wonderful woman named Jackie who then gave him to us. We have had Pascual for eight wonderful years now, we changed his name but, he had been Blue for one whole year prior to getting him and he knew that name well, so we have two names for him, at times more .

Born to run

Here is Dash, Mr. Dashwood, available for adoption. As all wound up, cooped up dogs, he was not one to sit still while I got my expensive camara out to photograph him, with fingers crossed as to not drop the camara or lose the dog the leash, which I wrapped between my knees. I was a little nervous because the main road is close by, parallel to the bike path we were on. This was a long walk today, a good hour and a half. Luckily we both got tired after the first hour. At times it feels like a gentle war of attrition. I sure had my upper body workout today, using my body like a martial artist, with counter moves to his 1 year old lab/hound never been socialized energy.