Guys: We Need You In Dog Training Seminars
I’ve been to a lot of dog-related seminars, and, at every one, the female/male ratio is something like 90/10. Or 95/5. I thought it would be different at the Im-PECK-able seminar put on by K9 Behavior Consortium, thinking of all the guys I’ve run into over the years with law enforcement dogs, especially drug and bomb dogs. But nope. Mostly women again. I asked a colleague if this was typical for other scent discrimination training seminars, and the answer was yes. So. Why so few men in dog training seminars? The U.S. population is about 50/50 male/female. (With slightly more women, and less than half of one percent non-binary.) However, like many professions, dog training doesn't reflect Read More
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Spring is Busting Out All O-o-o-o-ver!
I was working on a post this morning (It begins: "I may be an idiot for bringing this up, but I can’t help myself . . ."), and then a dental adventure took up too much time and energy, so I'll post it next week. Promise. So, it's all about spring and the farm today. And, yes, lordy, lordy, spring is busting out all o-o-o-ver. Recent rains and warm weather have electrified the grass, neighborhoods are alive with pink, red, and white crab apples and redbuds, rabbits are rabbiting all over our yard, and the birds . . .? The birds are something else altogether. It’s like watching adolescents grow up if you could compress ten years into six weeks. It all started with the avian equivalent of Read More
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Sniffing Out Scent Dog Training
Well, how fun was that? Last weekend I was at the "Im-PECK-able Training Seminar" put on by Craig Schultz and Sally Dickinson for the K9 Behavior Consortium in Manassas, VA. I went primarily to learn more about sniffer dogs for my next mystery novel (wheeeee!), but reveled in spending time with some great dogs, and some way cool, interesting people. Along with Meryl Peeps. The chicken. Bonus: I got to spend time in person with kick-ass writer and dog handler, Cat Warren, of the NYT best selling book, What The Dog Knows. (You've read it, right?) Cat and I have spent the last 5 + years working together on our respective first forays into fiction, and I consider her a dear, close friend. Read More
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