“A Walk in the Park” Is Supposed to Mean “Easy” – When Aggression Isn’t Funny

Yesterday Mindy and I met some friends at the park for a picnic lunch. I debated and then decided to make it a rare “non-working” outing for Mindy, so she wasn’t in her vest and was free to sniff around and be a puppy. (She gets plenty of puppy time at… Continue reading

On Fear-Aggression and Leadership

Laura & Shakespeare

World’s shortest CIA blog post, just because I was just surprised by my own succinct summary in an email I was writing. I don’t use “leadership” or social hierarchy to work with fear-aggression; they’re generally not related. A child may love and respect his mother, but still find the dentist… Continue reading

On TAGteach and Skill-Building

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series CT for Shooting

Okay, I was a bit slow to adopt TAGteach when I first encountered it in the early 2000s, but I’ve caught on, and I’ve been applying it more and more in my life. Sometimes I use TAGteach principles without the actual tagger (clicker), simply because that’s what I have to… Continue reading

Cropping, Docking, Political Correctness, Opinions, Animal Welfare, Free Speech, and Dogs

Fair warning: most of my posts I at least try to keep civil and positive. No guarantees today. As regular readers will know, I have a breed which is in this country normally cropped and docked. Yes, that’s the actual AKC standard: “ears normally cropped.” There is some debate over… Continue reading