Facets of Our Lives

Until recently, I worked from home. This meant that I had a lot of teleconferences and phone calls that I couldn't interrupt to give commands to my dog. I am also hearing impaired; while I do not sign in any way fluently or require it for my human interactions, it was very easy to incorporate a gestural shorthand into our dogs' training alongside of spoken commands. This has proved to have many benefits. Silent commands are subtle and often go unnoticed by other humans, so they can be used when you're on the phone, in public, even in a sleeping baby's room. Or at those times when you just don't feel like speaking. Our oldest dog was the first beneficiary of this style of training, as my brother was once an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. As she has aged, her hearing has deteriorated considerably. Rather than yelling or trying to find another way to express what we want from her, we've been able to rely on signing to communicate what is needed -- ...

I like to travel with my dogs. In addition to it being a stress-reliever in having them with us, the dogs enjoy the change of scenery, too. But this also means that dogs have to be well-socialized and understand a bit more clearly and specifically what is required of them at different times. When I adopted my 11-year-old Malinois, he was nine months old, and a friend of mine told me that the most valuable thing he had ever trained his dog to do was to poop on command. And he was right, in ways that might seem surprising. On long road trips when you're trying to keep to a schedule, dogs can be uncertain, nervous, and even defensive in unfamiliar surroundings. They may be able to urinate, but anything more than that might be a challenge. Once you arrive at a destination, whether for the night or longer, there may also be specific areas where dogs should relieve themselves - which is typically not the area the dog might choose for him- or herself. So, we did it - from 11 months ...