Welcome to the Boulder Dog Weekly Wag, a new weekly series that starts today!
I’m in a quandary and the Weekly Wag is my solution.
You see I jumped from the frying pan of Chicken Camp with Bob Bailey last month into the fire of the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) which began last week-end and continues through September. Fortunately, I’m not a chicken, so my leap from pan to fire was not fatal, on the contrary, it’s been exhilarating!
If you’ve heard that KPA is an intense, all-consuming learning experience, you’ve heard right! Sadie and I are having a blast learning together. We are totally devoted to our studies—-which brings me to my predicament. I simply cannot maintain a blog and be in school at the same time, unless I give up having some semblance of a life which includes providing Sadie with her daily ration of fun and walks; exercise for myself so I can stay fit enough to keep up with Sadie; and sleep. I’m one of those unfortunate souls that needs her z’s.
Since I am not an easy, breezy blogger—every post typically takes hours and more hours—writing original posts several times a week is not an option for the next several months. Still, I want to stay in touch with you. But how?
Since I enjoy spending some of my down time wandering around cyberspace bumping into cool stuff about dogs, I’ll point you to some of my favorite finds in the Boulder Dog Weekly Wag. That’s my workaround. I can stay in touch without creating original content. Hopefully, I’ll offer up links that you, well most of you, haven’t already seen. Please let me know how I’m doing on that front.
Okay, let’s get on with the first installment of the Boulder Dog Weekly Way.
Electric fences for boundary training? Nooooooooo!
I probably would have missed Leonard Cecil‘s announcement on FaceBook about a new article he posted on his website, +R/-P Dog Resource WebPage, about how to boundary train your dog without using those awful electric fences, except that the topic and the author, Steve Benjamin just happened to have come up in our Karen Pryor workshop. Nan Arthur, our instructor, responded to some questions about electric fences by, among other things, referring us to Steve’s work. Go here and here for two terrific articles on boundary training your dog using positive reinforcement.
Do dogs have a theory of mind?
Some say “yes,” others say “not so much.” Some of you might remember Monique Udell’s presentation of her research at last year’s APDT conference in Atlanta. She’s clearly in the “not so much” camp. Her research was recently published in Learning and Behavior under the title: “Can your dog read your mind? Understanding the causes of canine perspective taking.” You can read the abstract here (and purchase the entire journal article). Science Daily published a synopsis of Monique’s research on June 9, 2011 titled: Canine Connection: Study Explores How Dogs Think and Learn About Human Behavior.
Fun Video
You’ve seen those time-lapse videos of flowers growing and blossoming in which weeks of mother nature’s work is compressed into seconds. Well check out this German Shepherd growing big and then small again.
Tags: +R/-P Dog Resource WebPage, Bob Bailey Chicken Camp, Boulder Dog Weekly Wag, Boundary training for dogs, Canine Connection:Study Explores How Dog Think and Learn About Human Behavior, Chicken Camp, Do dogs have a theory of mind, Electric fences, Invisible fences, Karen Pryor Academy, Leonard Cecil, Monique Udell, Positive reinforcement, Science Daily, Steve Benjamin
