When I read stories like this one, my heart breaks and my blood boils — usually at the same time. For those of you who skipped the link (as so many do) here’s the gist: The young pup, not much bigger than a loaf of bread, would play with Tania’s…

So many of us spend a good portion of our childhood striving to be grown up. It’s all those dreaded questions: What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to study in college? …

Why Replacing Real Connection is a Lousy Idea I’m all for technology. Hell, I worked for 22 years in Silicon Valley. …

Simple Choice. Complex Results Engage or avoid. It’s how my first serious dog behavior mentor opened our session. Well, actually first he said “red pill or blue pill”, but not long after he began giving me scenarios — various situations in which people are out in the world with their…

Why Wolves Aren’t “Packs” — and Neither Are We A few years ago a friend gifted me a wonderful book. Among Wolves — it’s almost entirely based on the research and field notes of Gordon Haber — researcher and advocate/activist for the wolves of Denali National Park. The book was…

In the work I do with people and their dogs there is one thing that never gets easier. That moment when the dog’s time on this earth is done and they get to be escorted to what most of you may know. It’s the #RainbowBridge. It is a lot of…

When I began my more focused and formal path to becoming a dog behavior analyst and educator I found a teacher whose work was focused on dogs that had no hope. He was, in recovery parlance, the last house on the block for these dogs. They were, more often than…

First, a confession of sorts. I’ve been pretty damn lazy when it comes to thoughtful publication of, well, anything written for the last couple of years. Taking a long journey through the practice of daily gratitude — an experience I chronicled at first on Facebook and then shifted here for…

Personal growth. Yeah, that. I’ve always been someone who didn’t shy from “doing the work” and — at least I thought — I’d dug pretty deep. Coming out in 1998. Getting sober in 2010. Two pretty massive transitions that pretty much demand a full-frontal assault on self awareness. In this…