The Twelve Dog Days of Christmas, Day Two

These are a few of my favorite things!

EverythingDogBlog #102: Day Two - Safety Collars

A collar is a collar is a collar. Or is it?

On the second day of Christmas, I wondered why every collar is not a safety collar. They should come in all sizes, in all colors and designs, and in all materials, but especially in pink for Pit Bull Princesses!

When Collars Get Caught

The two safety collars that should be on all dogs (one at a time) are the KeepSafe©  and the PlaySafe. Let’s take the PlaySafe collar first.

Does your dog ever play with another dog?

Made by PremierPet.com, the PlaySafe DayCare collar (photo courtesy of Premier: Play Safe with a Playsafe Collar.)

is a totally new concept, designed to both be an instant control or restraint for your dog, as well as an emergency release.

The safety feature is intended for the typical dog daycare facility or dog park situation where dog collars can become tangled. Unlike quick-release buckles which can jam with increased tension, Velcro® closures allow instant release, even if a collar has twisted tightly around the dog’s neck during play. Plus, the PlaySafe collar features two release points (safety tabs), so it can be opened from either side, in case of an emergency.

It is intended for supervised play, however, since the Velcro© is easily released by a person but does not break away on its own.

Of course, you can always take off your dog’s collar when he plays with another dog in an enclosed area like a dog park or someone’s backyard. Just remember to put it back on!

This trainer highly recommends PlaySafe collars for dogs who play and want to stay safe.

Is your dog ever alone, unsupervised?

(I wrote about the KeepSafe Break-Away collar in EverythingDogBlog #61 on July 25, 2013, in a blog called “Does Your Dog Play Naked? Sleep Naked?”)

The most frequently reported accidents occur while two dogs are at play (for which a PlaySafe is the collar of choice – see above), or when a dog is near a fence, on a deck, inside a crate or kennel, inside or underneath a car, around heating or cooling vents, picnic tables, and branches or shrubs, twigs, sticks and briars. Lots of places!

If your dog has only one collar, let this be it!

Most dog owners are completely unaware of the risks and frequency of collar strangulation accidents until it’s too late. You can prevent needless strangulation injuries and deaths with the KeepSafe Break-Away Collar (photo courtesy of TMudge: Keep Safe with a KeepSafe Collar.), the only collar that has a patented safety buckle designed to release automatically when caught on something and, thus, protect dogs from strangulation or injury when alone. 

This is the collar that protects your dog when you can’t be there, by releasing when necessary. Originally called the Chinook Collar, it can also be securely attached to a leash at other times.

Get it at www.premierpet.com or directly from Tenney Mudge, the designer, on www.BreakAwayCollar.com. You’ll be glad you did!

Tomorrow: Foraging for Food is Fun!

Disclaimer: I was originally sent these collars for review a while back but have since purchased several for my clients.

(This article first appeared on ColumbiaPatch.com on 15 December 2013.)

The Twelve Dog Days of Christmas, Day One

These are a few of my favorite things!

EverythingDogBlog #101: Day One - Bags for Baggies

(Keep a stash of poop bags on your dog's collar!)

On the first day of Christmas, I thought of the many times I have walked my dog and all of a sudden realized that I didn’t have a plastic baggie with me. I was an accident not prepared for an accident! We either hightailed it back home or I had to ‘mark’ the spot where the deposit was made and return with a baggie.

No more!

Montana Precious Gold (Golden Retriever Rescue) has a great solution and for a great cause – dog rescue.

Montana Gold volunteers sew little 'bags for baggies' with Velcro© fasteners that attach to your dog’s collar (see first photo). They are big enough to hold five baggies but small enough that Fido won’t even know one is there.

The poop-bag holders come in many different colors and canine prints to coordinate with your dog's collars and at a price of less than five dollars, you can afford several. They make great little presents for all your best friends or, if you are a dog trainer, for end-of-course graduation gifts.

Check out their website for other great hand-sewn dog ideas, like the adorable dog scarves for family Christmas photos or handyshoulder bags with an easy-to-access outside compartment that dispenses dog bags so you don’t have to reach into the main compartment and search! Or hand and golf towels with fastastic designs. Montana Gold sews a huge inventory during the Montana winters, being homebound often in snowstorms. Make their day a little bit warmer!

Read more about it: http://www.mtgrr.com/index.html  

Montana Precious Gold Golden Retriever Rescue

Shop here: http://app.ecwid.com/jsp/2638140/simple-store

Tomorrow: Day Two - Safety Collars!

Disclaimer: I purchased the Bag of Baggies for review. Photos courtesy of Montana Precious Gold.

Note: I plan to post a different 'day' each day for 12 days but some blogs take hours of writing and communicating with companies. In case I run out of time, I will continue with The Twelve Dog Days AFTER Christmas.

(This article first appeared on ColumbiaPatch.com on 14 December 2013.)

Book Review: What the Dog Knows (dog, search dog)

What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs by Cat Warren (Simon & Schuster, 2013, 334 pages, $26.99) 

Good books. . . .

I have grown to generally love books either written by English professors or with a study guide. What the Dog Knows was written by an English professor. Therefore, doesn’t it follow that I would love this book, especially since the list of references is fantastic and I like reading the original peer-reviewed papers cited?

Riveting (in places)

I read with a highlighter and pen in hand, to highlight and to jot down notes in the margins. I also turn down page corners. One word I wrote early in the reading of What the Dog Knows is the word, riveting.

However, I changed my mind, but only slightly. Cat Warren (love that name for a dog book author!) does employ a riveting way of gaining the reader’s attention in each chapter by beginning with an anecdote about her own dog, Solo, a cadaver dog for whom “death is a tug toy.” Then the chapter usually goes on to educate the reader about the history of working dogs or details about their seemingly miraculous (to us) sense of smell.

Finally towards the end of the book, we read an entire chapter or two about Cat and Solo: those words are well worth waiting for. I only wish more of the book had this flavor of enticing writing.

Part non-fiction, part informational educational, part memoir (the best part), part history, . . . .

Did you know. . . . ? Dogs have been man’s helpers for centuries – for decades in war and police work. Other species have been tried and surpass the canine species in many aspects. Even machines have their advantages. But none is better overall than man’s best friend, even with his food needs and the fun they bring. Dogs think, sniff, raise an alarm (‘alert’), deter, and bite only when necessary. They are far and above, simply the best bomb detectors, for one. The can guard and serve as early-warning systems.

“Four-footed community police officers,” dogs are well-trained to intimidate more than injure. As a matter of fact there is only one case on record of a police K9 killing a suspect while pet dogs and strays killed 31 people in 2011 and tasers kill about 50 people a year.

If you are interested in forensic anthropology or criminal evidence, some of Warren’s prose will be a fascinating review on the decay of the human body under various conditions.

These details and much more will be revealed to you in only 334 pages! But, Warren also skillfully relates her story of leaning how to train a cadaver dog. However, I think a shorter, more organized book would get the ideas across succinctly.

I was particularly fascinated with the chapter on water recovery dogs but even after reading an entire chapter on the subject and being a dog trainer myself, I am not sure of the training necessary for the dog to be successful – or how long it might take. I feel the book spoke about working search dogs but never really got to the heart of the matter – sort of like taking a foreign language class in which the instructor talks about the foreign language but never really teaches it.

Overall, it took me too long to read this substantial tome: What the Dog Knows will satisfy many readers if they only read sections and never finish it (but the final chapter may be worth reading).

Reminiscent of Susannah Charleson’s Scent of the Missing, Cat’s book about dogs is a dichotomy of dry rambling facts and lively human-canine interactions.

What the Dog Knows may even change some lives. However, I hope Warren has more dog memoirs in her future for that is where her real talent lies.

See Catwarren.com for more, including photos of the author-dog team. 

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the publisher for possible review purposes via the GoodReads’ First Reads program.

PS – do you get the play on words in the title? It took me a long time, so don’t worry if it takes you a while.

PPS – lately I have been donating my review books to shelters and rescues but What the Dog Knows is one I will keep – to look up more of the references cited!

Book Review: Stay, The True Story of Ten Dogs (dogs, circus, shelter dogs)

Stay, The True Story of Ten Dogs, by Michaela Muntean (Scholastic, 2012, 40 pages, $16.99, grades 3-5) 

Second Chances

"Sometimes a dog will show up when you need one the most. Sometimes a person will show up when a dog needs one most. Sometimes they will find each other at just the right moment. . . .

Luciano, like many of his ancestors before him, was a circus acrobat until one day he had an accident. . . .

But he loved the circus so much he stayed on and, finally, an idea came to him! Luciano needed a second chance and ten dogs needed a second chance. Stay is the photographic story of how their lives and futures intersected.

Ten Dogs?

Luciano found dog after dog – each, unwanted. Each had a behavior that didn’t fit in with their family and so they wound up at the pound. Luciano found a way to channel that behavior into a circus act.

He became a dog trainer over a span of two years by letting the dogs be dogs and observing those problem behaviors which could be turned into circus skills. “Perhaps everything depended on how you looked at it. Where others had seen headaches and problems, Luciano saw hope and possibilities, 'because inside each of us' . . .there awaits an endless parade of clowns.”

Each Dog is Special

Luciano uses only positive reinforcement in training his dogs, along with plenty of praise and treats. He observes his dogs and discovers what they love to do, then channels that into a circus act. With new dogs, Luciano is finding that dogs can learn by imitating other dogs.

If only more dog owners would do the same for their dogs, rather than ‘making’ their dogs do agility or freestyle or obedience.

But life can’t always be a circus either: on their days off, Luciano and the dogs spend time together, just chillin’. They are also bathed and groomed and spend one-on-one time with their best friend! After all, each dog is special.

Told in bright circus colors and real circus photographs, Stay will stay with you and your child.

For a 5-minute clip of Luciano and his pound puppies, click here.

Disclaimer: I checked this book out of my public library.

Book review: I Want to Kill the Dog (dog, memoir)

I Want to Kill the Dog, by Richard M. Cohen (Penguin, 2012, 125 pages, $21.95)

Thank Goodness for Libraries!

My local bookstore displayed I Want to Kill the Dog but I just couldn’t decide whether or not to purchase it. After a few visits of purchasing other dog books, my indecision turned into negative action. Thank goodness for public libraries!

If you like the title, you may like or even love the book. If the title bothers you, you probably won’t like the book. But it is small enough to finish anyway, at 125 small-sized pages. The book is about 8” by 5” and about 18 cents per page – a bit much for what you get.

Like Diane Rehm’s book about her dog, Life with Maxie, this is a little book that was no doubt published due to the fact that the author (or, in this case, the author’s spouse) is a public figure. Both are memoirs about dogs: the former, about one dog, and the latter, about several family dogs. Both are about as interesting as watching a blue sky do what it does best – nothing - or watching an elephant sleep.

Family Memoir

However, if I were one of the author’s grown kids, I would probably love this little book for the family memories (and groans) it brings up. In that case, I would ask for an autographed copy and cherish it to pass down to my children.

Cute Dog

I Want does, however, have a cute premise (and an even cuter cover) – that of a dog-person married to a non-dog person, the author. The dog person is Meredith Vieira, television reporter. The author, her husband, an author in his own right, a father, and award-winning news network person.

Caveat: For those of you, like myself, a dog trainer who does not espouse shock collars or electronic shock fences, this book may make you squirm (or worse) when reading the chapter about the glee (and revenge) Richard Cohen experienced when implementing shock on his ‘misbehaving’ dog. There are other, less aversive methods of ‘training’ dogs than using pain and fear.

Definitely a book on this reviewer’s “Z List.”

Disclaimer: I checked this book out of my public library.

Book Review: The More the Terrier (dogs, shelters, animal hoarding, romance novel wanna-be)

"The More the Terrier: A Pet Rescue Mystery, by Linda Johnston (Berkley Prime Crime, 2011, $7.99, 296 pages)

Too Good To Be True?

Four cute terriers on the cover but I couldn’t find them anywhere inside the book! (I may have come across one of them, though.)

Nevertheless, The More the Terrier is more than just a murder mystery: it introduces us to the problem of  animal hoarding and the world of adopting from dog shelters. You really get a bang for your buck – suspense plus an introductory education that is easy to swallow.

Although the shelters in Los Angeles depicted in Terrier are probably not realistic and may be too good to be true, at least in the 10 years’ experience of this reviewer and shelter worker, Johnston does a noteworthy job of bringing animal hoarding and shelter adoptions to the forefront. After reading Terrier, you just might be moved to drop in to your local shelter. Yippy skippy!

Almost too much was happening in Terrier: the mysterious murder of a shelter director who nobody liked so everyone was a suspect, a former mentor turning out to be an animal hoarder and then having to find shelters for those dogs on the spur of the moment, remodeling and enlarging a shelter, hiring a trainer, planning a fundraising event, two networks of shelter directors in competition with each other, and I’m sure I left out some other simultaneous goings-on. In addition, Vancouver is lucky enough to have a psychologist on staff to interview adopters.

Tee Hee!

Lauren Vancouver is a shelter director and amateur sleuth whose shelter, HotRescues, is funded by the wealthy pet superstore owner of HotPets, with seemingly unlimited funds, just as Vancouver has seemingly unlimited time to meet and approve all prospective adopters and conduct home visits before and after the adoptions. (I kept thinking HotPockets and HotPants rather than HotRescues and HotPets – tee hee!)

The Author, The Books, The Future

Linda Johnston, a lawyer who writes paranormal romances in her spare time, is now the author of two pet rescue mysteries, taking on puppy mills and murder in Beaglemania, and of the 13 pet-sitter mysteries starring Kendra Ballantyne, another murder magnet.  

Perhaps when Johnston writes about labs or golden retrievers, I will read another of her literary attempts but, then again, perhaps not. On the other hand, I must credit her with "tackling" issues like cloning, puppy mills, and animal hoarding.

Unfortunately, success was lacking in keeping my interest. Everyone was equally likely to be the murderer though in the end, it did all fall together but I never did follow just exactly how Vancouver figured out “who done it.” Perhaps you will.

Disclaimer: I purchased this book for review.

Book Review: Sheep (dog, children)

Sheep, by Valerie Hobbs (Scholastic, 2006, $5.99 [PB], 115 pages, ages 8 - 12)

Sheep?

You would think by the title of this book that it would be about sheep, right?

Wrong!

It is less about sheep* and more (much more) about a dog - albeit a sheepdog - named Blackie, then Shep, then Spot, then Sparky, then Jack, . . . .

Reminiscent of Beautiful Joe, of Black Beauty and of other familiar dog stories, Sheep has 15 delightful chapters about a border collie pup-dog and how he grows up, studies sheep, dreams of sheep, goes off to live in various situations through various circumstances and then – will he be able to save a little boy that he gets to call his own at last?

Constantly Seeking Sheep

Border collies have one job that they do best – herding sheep. That is Jack’s purpose in life – exciting and scary and challenging. But as he passes through one living situation after another, some good and some less so, he seldom has a job to do, the one he was born to do, so he is constantly seeking sheep.

The Goat Man, the hoboes, the shelter, the circus with its humiliatingly hard tricks, the little girl who only wants to dress him up but where he sleeps outside alone in his own doghouse, and finally to a boy he wants to call his own who needs him.

A Classic

What Jack learns as his life adventures unfold is a heartwarming story with plenty of “discussion stops” along the way for kids, both boys and girls, and adults alike.

If it’s Scholastic, you know it’s got to be a good read – for the whole family. My only question is: When is the movie coming out? It will be as memorable as The Incredible Journey (Homeward Bound).

*There are a few sheep scattered around the book.

Disclaimer: I checked this book out of my public library.
This review first appeared at ColumbiaPatch.com on 3 December 2013.