Advice & Adventures 

My first rescue dog, Porter, is 45% Rat Terrier, 5 % this, 5 % that, 35% Elkhound, and 100% spicy. Did I know this when I adopted him? NOPE. Could I tell at the adoption fair that he was going to want to throw down with every dog we walked past once I got him out of there? NOPE! He seemed like a pretty typical hyper 1-year-old dude dog while I were signing the paper work.

Okay, so, I blew Porter's dog-on-dog socialization. In my defense, I did the best I could with the information I had. I am try-hard, so I took the information and tried really, really, really, really hard to get it right. I tried SO HARD that I got it wrong. So, if you would like your anxious, reactive furbaby to remain semi-calm in social situations, let me tell you exactly what not to do.

Have you ever had your arm covered in little bitey teeth marks? I now have. As soon as we got Porter, our first rescue, home he proceeded to tenderize my arm while I had to pretend to be happy about it since I had thrown a fit at the adoption fair about getting him. ("ISN'T HE PRECIOUS!?!?!??! I asked my husband later through clenched teeth while my arms shined beet red.)

We picked up our first rescue dog, Porter, at an adoption fair in December of 2018. Our beloved lab had died two months before and, obviously, we were bereft, spending the afternoons walking the dog walking route (with no dog) and openly crying about it.

You are at that point: You are a cannonball of furor and you're getting loaded into the catapult. You have not launched yet, but the energy is building. Someone is about to get smooshed by your fury when this catapult releases and it won't be demure.

Part of thwarting reactivity in humans and dogs is to look for the early warning signs that you (or they) are getting riled up.The idea is that it is way easier to shut down reactivity at the very early stages, when there's just low level concern, rather than later once that concern has swelled in to a frothing furor. If you put a few items on your credit card and then pay off that small amount-no big deal.

The learning process is as follows: Set your objective; try; fail; adjust; try again. Even though, objectively, I know this, I still always want to skip the part where I fail over and over and over again. It's embarrassing. It's demoralizing. It's not fun no matter how you spin it. It is, though, an inevitable and ugly and unfortunate step you must take when you are learning something new. Against all logic, I thought that with enough planning and reading, maybe I could

Working with this idea that the dogs needed to be in their front brain before leaving for our neighborhood safaris, I started with the front door. Usually we would just hook them all up to their leashes and hope no one got knocked unconscious as we all piled out the front door. Today, on this, the first day or their retraining, I lined them all up and told them to "wait." I use "wait" to mean "don't move forward goddammit" and usually use it when we are hiking down someth

My first week trying to figure out how to retrain my reactive dog pack ended up turning into an excavation of my soul and a reflection on where I currently am in life. (Follow me for more light and easy dog training tips!!!!) And, currently, in my life, I am in the middle of a scorched-earth, take no prisoners, I-hate-my-job kind of warpath with the school district I teach in.

Point of View: Your current dog is reactive and it sucks and it's not fun to take them out anywhere and it's exhausting-emotionally and physically. I feel this way all the time. Whenever our first rescue, Porter, was an especially big turd, I would start scouring Petfinder and daydreaming about the very friendly and very social dog I would own Next Time and all of the training that I would do correctly-Next Time. So when COVID hit, we got another dog and then another dog and

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to re-train my adult dogs even though were, well, adults. My job is to teach reading to high school students, so I have this annoying belief that anyone can learn at any age and this applies to my dogs, as well. I can learn to train. They can learn to...keep learning. I wanted to take a real stab at training them to be great out in the world--not just kind of manageable if I keep them on short leashes. As you know from my original post

We enjoyed these four quiet hikes as Mason Neck State Park .

Porter and I enjoyed hiking and paddling in this quiet little part of the southern Adirondacks.

How not to camp in the Outer Banks.

Explore two, short, dog-friendly hikes in Shenandoah National Park.

This is the story of how we found Baby Mabel.

Read on to learn about the materials you will need to create a cute breed reveal.

A 3-day, 1-dog visit to Davis, WV that will make all family members happy.

Our annual group fall camping trip at Big Run State Park is unsuccessful.

Meet Cheeze: Our goofy Goldador.