Calm, Confident Canines

12/08/2025

This says SO MUCH about the relationship between this human and canine.

12/07/2025

Excellent gift idea!

Looking for a stocking stuffer for anyone starting to learn the basics about dog behavior? Skip is hiding his head so he doesn’t give away what is in Karen London’s new book, “My Dog’s Mystery Adventure”. It is a compilation of columns written for the Arizona Daily Sun (“The London Zoo,” gotta love that title.)

The columns are short, easily digested pieces that are full of information—like what which side a dog’s tail wags on can tell you about their emotional state—presented in Karen’s usual humorous and engaging style. (She tells me that many have told her they put it in their bathrooms—is there a section on “great bathroom books” somewhere?)

Get it here: https://a.co/d/caqAqqF

12/07/2025

Love this page!

12/07/2025

If you want to avoid separation anxiety in your dog, avoid leaving them alone too soon when they’re puppies.

The Puppy Brain: Why Early Separation Doesn’t Work the Way You Think.

Puppies and Separation — A Mammal’s Reality 🐾

We talk about puppies as if they’re tiny training projects, but they’re mammals first — born with a nervous system that’s still under construction and completely dependent on connection. Their safety, their ability to cope, even their developing sense of “self,” all come from borrowing the stability of another being’s nervous system.

And this is where we get separation so wrong.

Those early weeks and months aren’t a time to “teach independence” or push the idea of start as you mean to go on. A puppy’s brain simply isn’t built for that yet. Their emotional circuits, especially the systems responsible for attachment and regulation, are still wiring themselves. The thinking part of the brain isn’t fully online — so behaviour isn’t a choice, it’s expression.

When people talk about encouraging “calm,” we miss the point. Life isn’t calm. Dogs feel excitement, confusion, frustration, joy — all of it. A healthy nervous system isn’t one that avoids these states; it’s one that can move through them without getting stuck. And that ability only develops through co-regulation: one nervous system shaping and supporting another.

Separation then becomes not about absence, but about what came before it. A puppy learns they can tolerate space only after thousands of tiny moments of connection, attunement, and shared emotional experience. They rise, they fall, they get overwhelmed, they come back — and each time, the connection is there. That’s what builds a dog who can one day be alone without panic.

We forget that dogs, like us, are social mammals whose brains expect partnership. Independence is not the starting point — it’s the outcome of a secure, supported beginning. When we treat puppies as if they should cope alone from day one, we’re working against biology.

True development comes from relationship. From nervous-system to nervous-system communication. From the lived experience of “I am safe, even when my world is changing.”

When we honour that, separation becomes something a dog grows into — not something we force before they’re ready.

Want to learn more? drop me a DM!

12/07/2025

Agree 100%

Do you sometimes cringe when you see supposedly cute videos of dogs or cats on social media? Me too, so I was pleased to see some new research looking at the kinds of harm shown to dogs and cats in some popular online videos. You can read more about it in my latest piece at Psychology Today.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fellow-creatures/202512/those-cute-animal-videos-arent-so-cute-after-all

10/02/2025

ALL DOGS learn from being rewarded for behaviors we want to repeat. Rottweilers, pit bulls, German shepherds, Jindos, Basenji, Chihuahuas, Maltese with a bad attitude, fearful dogs, reactive dogs, old dogs, puppies.

There are no exceptions. Positive reinforcement is the fastest and most efficient way to teach a dog anything.

10/02/2025

Jane Goodall changed the world, despite the endless roadblocks (men) put in her way.

Godspeed, Dr Goodall. You will be missed.

Jane Goodall, who died today, at 91, spent much of her later years travelling around the world to speak about the climate crisis. Everywhere she went, she met young people who were “angry, depressed, or just apathetic, because, they’ve told me, we have compromised their future and they feel there is nothing they can do about it,” she writes in “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.” Amid flooding and wildfires, impassivity and eco-grief, the question she was asked most often was “Do you honestly believe there is hope for our world?” She did. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” She noted, “If you don’t have hope that your action is going to make a difference, why bother to do anything? You just become a zombie.” Revisit a Talk piece, from 2021, in which the beloved naturalist explained why, despite floods and fires and melting ice caps, she remained optimistic about planet Earth: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/puCKxb

10/02/2025

Remember, not all humans love dogs. And many of those who love their own dog don’t feel that way about other dogs.

Being a good canine citizen improves the way dogs are regarded by the general public. Is your dog a good canine ambassador in public?

You know the types – they let their hound jump all over you and don’t clear up after them. Bring on their poo-nishment, writes Arwa Mahdawi

10/02/2025

If you have a fearful, anxious, or reactive dogs who struggles with leashed walks, this article can start you on the way to calmer walks together without pulling.

I’ve been helping guardians heal their fearful, anxious, and reactive dogs for more than 20 years. All consultations via FaceTime or WhatsApp. I can help you and your pup wherever you are.

Dogs don’t speak English, Spanish, Norwegian, or Urdu. Their primary language is physical, what we call “body language.” They learn what we want from them

09/14/2025

I put the link in the comments.

09/13/2025

Love the Whole Dog Journal!

A dog allergy shot can offer long term relief for chronically itchy dogs by breaking the itch, scratch, and scratch some more.