Monthly Archive:: March 2014
Doggie Doctor
Willie has hiccups. He seems slightly alarmed and confused about this; each little urp makes his ears flop, and each time he hiccups he spins his head around to look at me. Did you do that? This happens to be the morning of our first trip to our local vet; Willie’s getting his first exam
Category: Dog
Lions and Tigers and Bears!
Yesterday Richard and I brought Willie along on a site visit to the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck in preparation for the upcoming Country Living Fair. Streams of melt water from the remaining piles of snow ran toward the drains as Andy, the site manager, led us and the rest of the show production team
Category: Dog
A Pizzle By Any Other Name
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and dogs gotta chew. A lot. Chewing things occupies a large portion of Willie’s day. In fact, most of what Willie does in a normal day can be assigned to one of just four categories: Sleeping, Walking, Chewing, and Everything Else. From the beginning, we made sure we had
Category: Dog
The Call of the Wild
The morning after our first significant snowfall, Willie’s world was covered in cold, white powder ten inches deep. I shoveled pathways around the house and out to the studio, then came back to let Willie outside. He stepped out the door onto a path the width of a shovel blade, a wall of snow on
Category: Dog
Hail Cesar
I don’t watch much TV and I’d never seen Cesar Millan’s show “Dog Whisperer,” but Mutts4Rescue strongly suggested reading his book, “Cesar’s Way,” in preparation for adopting a dog. Now, I’ve shared long stretches of my life with two other dogs, but I’d been “dogless” for several years and thought a refresher would be a
Category: Dog
A World of Turds
I never noticed before just how many turds cover the face of the earth, but my dog Willie seeks out every one. By some mysterious criteria known only to Willie, the turds divide themselves into three categories: turds to sniff, turds to roll in, or turds to eat. On our twice-daily walks I have now
Category: Dog
GQ Doggie
Chad, the fit and burly owner of my gym has not stopped ribbing me about Willie’s size — a running joke that I have sacrificed or somehow compromised my masculinity by choosing a small dog. And since it’s actually Chad’s job to challenge me, it seems natural that our conversations during my training sessions sometimes
Category: Dog
New Routine
The sun is coming up, and though I’m am early riser, it is not my habit to leave the house at this hour – especially when it’s 27 degrees. Still, here I am lacing up my shoes to go for another brisk, 30-minute pre-breakfast walk with my new dog. That brown-eyed, ten-pound creature
Category: Dog