If, after reading this article, more men are talking to their dogs in high-pitched, sing-songy voices, my work will be done. Okay, I have some explaining to do. First, I want to introduce a word I had never heard before. It’s “prosody,” the study of the intonation, stress, and rhythm of…

According to the Humane Society, compared to 1973, the number of cats and dogs entering shelters yearly is down from more than 20 million. For example, in 1970, one shelter in Eugene, Oregon, was receiving up to one hundred dogs a day. (At the time, animal control was not even bringing…

An Immense World, How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around us” by Ed Yong is a must read for those intrigued by animal intelligence. It opened my eyes to how remarkable the living world really is. Mr Yong takes different perceptional abilities, like smell, vision, vibration, and explores how different animals perceive their world. It reinforces the idea that as humans, we are limited to our vision-centric abilities and miss out on the true complexity of “reality.” It is simply astonishing!

The ancestor of the Chihuahua, the “Techichi” bred by the Toltec people of central America (900–1168CE) was thought to have supernatural powers and was revered. This explains why our half-chihuahua half-terrier, Maisie, believes she too is to be revered. She’s kinda bossy. . . For more fun dog facts check out my book, “Dog Lessons: Learning the Important Stuff from our Best Friends.”

Do you love controversy? If you do, let’s talk about crating your dog. Opening gambit: In Finland, it’s illegal to crate a dog except for health reasons or transport. Similarly, while not strictly illegal in Sweden, it’s culturally frowned upon. And, in Sweden, it’s illegal to leave your dog alone in…

An Excerpt from Dog Lessons by Hersch Wilson Nellie, our eight-year-old Bernese Mountain dog, was my “how to be old” teacher. No matter what happened to her, broken leg, torn ACL, weeks in a kennel at the vet’s to limit her movement, blind in one eye, she just kept living. …

Kino is a wicked smart Shih Tzu-mini-poodle cross, almost three years old. His guardians, Nick Latterell and John Shepherd — of Eden Prairie, Minnesota — noted early on that Kino seemed frustrated because the “humans” couldn’t understand what he wanted. He would bark a lot. It was hard for John…

It was an early morning in August. We — our two dogs, Toby, a black and White Great Pyrenees, and Maisie, an all-white Chihuahua-Terrier mix, and me — were on our daily walk. Maisie smelled her first (I think her) and started to lunge and growl. …

Every story has two sides, and empathy will carry the day. Those are the themes for the week. One side is the experience that many pet guardians have: getting veterinary care is difficult. And some veterinarians are not accepting new patients. This can be frustrating and even scary because we care…