I’m forever relieved that my humans don’t use these pesticides on me, WOOF! I’m very glad I get a truly holistic approach to my care but don’t buy into the buzzword of “holistic” – look it up in your dictionary so you know what it means, truly means. And then apply that knowledge. I [...]

Several months ago, I wrote a blog post with tips on what to do if your dog shows aggressive behavior. It’s become one of the more popular articles, so I just made a video, which is on Youtube, about dog aggression, based on that article:

If you want to read the original article, it’s here: Nine tips if your dog becomes aggressive.

For more on the topic, here’s a book at Amazon. Clicking on the image takes you to it:

I still can’t get video to embed on this blog so here is a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaS37E3gKOU

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As an akita owner I am HUGELY conflicted about this movie coming out. (I should say again -the original was made in Japan with english subtitles of which I have a copy) It looks like they did a beautiful job on it. I just worry that it will create a demand for them and they simply are not the dog for everyone. Akitas rescues are always full as it is. Check any of them out for yourself. (http://www.akitarescuewny.com/) The dog in the movie is stunning and I fear there will be morons out there looking to cash in on the movies popularity and begin back yard breeding ventures. (heck some probably already are sad to say) I just hope like hell they have something in the beginning of the movie stating something about the breed not being for everyone. I do TRY to be an optimist.

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Another part of the issue is that people think breeds shown in movies will act like those movie dogs. Hmm a loose akita that isn’t looking for stuff to chase, eat, dig up or fight with the neighbors dog just isn’t always realistic. Oh and if that wasn’t bad enough I think I saw something about how some of the puppies in the movie are actually shiba inu’s. Another breed not for everyone. Yes they are cute but have a very high prey drive and can be hard to contain. (read keep in a fenced yard) I considered the breed once myself and decided they were way to much for me. They are also described as a big dog in a small body. (in case you were wondering) The live shiba puppy cam was bad enough.

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There is also a myth in akita circles about them once being used as babysitters while the moms went into the rice patties to work. This has translated to some people as “Safe to leave alone with infants and toddlers”. PLEASE do not do this with ANY dog!!! What it really means is that they are territorial and can be possessive of their space and things, including their family.

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I repeat, they are not the dog for everyone. I LOVE the breed but this movie should not be viewed as an ad for this breed to become the must have dog in your home. Do not rush out and find a breeder, do some research first. Akitas can be wonderful dogs with TRAINING, proper SOCIALIZATION, and LOTS of time on the part of their new owner. And then you would need to find a breeder that does health testing of BOTH parents before breeding a litter. (finding a breeder is a whole nother post-search my site for more info on that) Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Yes I will be going to see the movie. Perhaps taking some akita rescue posters and handouts to the movie theater about the breed may be in order as well. I suppose I should be happy they didn’t portray them in a Cujo type movie instead. Then we would be fighting the against breed banning (or should I say more of it for akitas) and the ignorance of people thinking they were all aggressive horrible dogs. Unfortunately fame has it’s price on any breed that is portrayed in movies in our society these days. Let’s hope it isn’t to high for our beautiful akitas.

And why should you care? Well, they are the friendly intestinal flora we all need to be healthy – humans and dogs alike. The problem is today, most veterinarians are going to prescribe one of the main things that destroy friendly intestinal flora, antibiotics. Do you see the similarity in these two- ANTI-biotics and PRO-biotics? [...]

My favorite local dog store has expanded into new digs just down the road on the same street. I took a just a few photos while I was there today. Check them out~

Are you finished ooohing and ahhhing? More renovations are on the way which I will share when they are finished. Nice though huh? (oops I forgot to take a photo of the whole food area)

This is pretty much my spot since I will be using it alot when I drop in to hang out. VBG And check out these new gadgets I picked up there today to.

These are so you can move your dogs id tags to any collar they are wearing easily. Perfect for people who always want their dogs to wear a specific color collar for the day or for those that want to remove jingling tags on occasion.

And this sweet baby is a tick remover that you can have handy on your key chain.

Our area has been hit with a LONG stretch of rain lately. It is really putting a crimp on our summer which is short enough already. For those that don’t know the mushrooms that are sprouting because of it can be a problem for some pets. We saw a dog at the clinic recently with mushroom toxcicity from eating one. Convulsions and excessive vomiting were just two of the symptoms. Thankfully the owner was supervising, realized what happened, and got him to us quickly. He is doing fine. Now when I do pooper scooper duties I am also picking those little bastards out of my badly in need of a mow lawn. Like I didn’t have enough to do already. Better safe than sorry though with little miss “I love to eat” stuff Jenny around. Yeesh

I am almost afraid to try to post this. Nothing has gone well for me today and I am blaming it on some sort of Monday mania.
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Nothing went smoothly at work for me. I made mistakes with scheduling, couldn’t remember any word more than 2 syllables and overall felt like I was in slow motion all day. I could feel that I was off and did make an effort to stay away from all sharp objects and the stairs. Somehow I muddled through to the end of the day.
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Then I came home and had to vacuum up little beads from the lap desk I got my husband as a gift because one of the buttons fell off. Think bean bag chair beads only smaller. The static electricity makes them stick to everything! While I had the vacuum out I decided to do a quick clean up of a few dust bunnies that are never lacking around here. During that I found dog vomit behind a crate AND a leak in our roof. Time for an impromptu cleaning session of the floor and the dog bedding that got wet. (We are on about week 3 of rain here and it is super annoying! It is almost July for pete sake! )
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Oh it doesn’t end there. After taking the crew out for their after supper potty break Jenny had an extra gift for me she left in the hallway, on the rug, that I stepped in with my fuzzy slippers. I didn’t see it immediately of course and therefore tracked it down said hallway rug. This after just saying LAST NIGHT that it had been ages since we had any surprises from our dear Jenny. I must have draw attention of the dog poop gods. Thankfully I did have some Natures Miracle on hand. (To be fair to Jenny it was very loose and in a trail as opposed to a leave it here present pile. I think she tried to head for the door and failed. )
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The movie I was going to go see with my dad is only being shown at 3:30 and 9:15pm, neither times that worked for us today.
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I have a client scheduled tomorrow and I can’t get my printer to work for the handout I need of their b-mod plan. With my penmanship handwritten is not an option. (you gotta know your limits)
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I’d add a photo but I’m afraid my computer will blow up from the effort. I already hit a wrong button and spent 5 minutes trying to fix the screen. No kidding, WHILE I was typing this post! Something just ain’t right.
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I’m sure part of it is being mentally tired. Between work and training clients I haven’t had any real time off in weeks. Spring is always a busy time of year for training. It is a good problem to have though and I am certainly not complaining. Thankfully today was not a client day.
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So say a prayer, do a chant, or burn some incense, I will take whatever you want to send me for good vibes. If it gets worse than this I may need to consider shutting myself in a closet to keep myself safe. With an umbrella, because my roof leaks.

When my human saw the photo of these two cute little guys the cartoon Chip ‘N’ Dale came to mind hehe. Albert and Rollo are Boston Terrier pups, that live with our friend and my mom’s colleague, Dr. Jeannie Thomason.
One of the first things my human noticed about these little guys besides the super [...]

Okay so it’s the weekend and I’m giving you a break from my REAL news – which so many people don’t seem to want to hear these days. All you folks want is the cutesy, feel good, animal stuff. But I just can’t do that. Love involves truth, WOOF!
Today however, I am sharing some interesting [...]

Humans are getting more and more fruitloopy – probably from all the vaccines, drugs and GREED. This has ZERO to do with our health bepaws it makes no common sense whatsoever. Oh no, this is about economics and power – the two things humans seem hellbent to strive for, WOOF! And we’re called the [...]

Dog clicker training is a great way to have a lot of fun with your dog and get the training done at the same time! I like it so much that I’ve written a free ebook, Seven Steps to Clicker Training with Your Dog — that link takes you to where you can sign up for it.

Listen to a short audio about this method:

If you would rather read than listen — or want to do both — this audio is based loosely on this page of my website: Dog Clicker Training.

And if you would like to download this audio to listen to on an mp3 player, for example, here is the direct link to it. Just right-click or the Mac equivalent to save it to your computer:

http://www.training-dogs.com/sound-files/dog-clicker-training.mp3