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When it comes to my pups, I get protective. Adding bad customer service when it involves my pups makes the momma bear in me rage. It was surgery day for Elsbeth who if you read Part 1 you would know she was on her way to have knee surgery in Montana. We got up extra […]

lease meet Elsbeth Tascioni on the left, not to be confused with her lookalikes Spy (middle) and Avi. She is a 2-year-old boxer. She is the most playful, silly, spunky, always-looking-for-the-next-adventure dog. Of course she would be the one who blew out her knee.  It’s no surprise after watching her perform what looks like Cirque

I received an email that read: “We adopted a new dog into our home. We had one dog already. Their play seems rough. We would like some help determining if their play is appropriate or shows signs of aggression.” My response was to send a video of the dogs playing, and I will let them

We will now consider the importance of motivation and accountability when goal setting.  You can take time to write your mega goals and your mini goals and schedule out when you will train, but how do you begin? When do you expect to finish? Is it a matter of when it’s done, it’s done? No

Welcome back to Part 2 of How To Get A “Good Dog.” Here we are addressing the last two components so you can reach your training goals. In Part 1, we discussed setting specific goals and then writing out the steps to get there, called “mini goals.” If you didn’t catch the first blog post,

What is a good dog anyway? Good is too generic. What is good to you might be not good enough to me. When training your dog, simply wanting a “good” dog is setting yourself up for failure. How will you know if you have achieved the goal if you don’t know what good is? Decide

Nothing makes a person itch faster than talking about lice. I remember when I was teaching Kindergarten and noticed the top of a little girl’s head moving. She was infested with lice and it took everything I had to remain calm and comforting to this five-year-old. I itched the whole rest of the day and

Wow, we are really having a cold snap in the Pacific Northwest! The negative temperatures are hard on pipes, cars, you, and your pup. Even my pot belly pig, Sipsey, came indoors. There isn’t enough straw to keep her warm as there is for my goats with their big wooly coats. Luckily, she was raised

Dogs talk to each other all the time. They tell each other, “I have had enough,” or “Go ahead and throttle me, I like it.” We humans don’t always know how to translate dog talk. Most often we have no idea what is going on. We think dogs are just being dogs and doing dog