This is an interesting article on what people call 911 for.....

http://www.foxcharlotte.com/dpp/news/dpgo-Teen-Calls-911-After-Parents-Take-Xbox-200911191258660837378

 

http://arkansasvarsity.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=992976

Kudos Mr. Morgan....I hope he gets that shot to play big time college ball....

Usually about this time, every newspaper and magazine runs the typical "July 4th and Your Pet" column about fireworks freaking out pet dogs. If you have a pet dog, take heed, but for most of the readers of this blog, your working dog is not immune.

If you have a police dog, don't forget  to protect him from the July 4th celebration too. Many police dogs are gunfire aggressive, rather than neutral, and as such the constant boom of fireworks can agitate him to the point where he rips apart the chain link of the kennel run, and decides to run TO the action giving your neighbors a big surprise when "Draco" comes haulig ass around the gas grill looking for the perpetrator. Or if you decided to keep him inside, he finally learns how to to bust out of a vari-kennel while you aren't home, and the result wil be the ever loving destruction of the new couch your wife just bought for the downstairs rumpus room.

Suggestions:

1. Do Keep your dog inside....make sure you crate him in the quietest area of the house, where it is nice and cool. Downstairs in the laundry room, or basement.

2. Turn on the TV or Radio to something he will like (all dogs hate Slipknot, so somethig a bit more soothing) and loud enough to block out the noise from neighborhood celebrations.

3. Give him a cow femur to chew on, so if he does get a bit agitated he will have something on which to take his frustration out.

4. Enjoy your 4th of July. but if you are like most of my friends, your partner will be right behind you barking in your ear, because you are not getting July 4th off from work!

On a serious note:

Here is some Text from the Declaration of Independence that we would do well to recall this weekend. Many of our ancestors died for the principle that government serves the people, and that government is only a referee ensuring individual rights to live our lives as we so choose, without interference from the same. That it is not the role of government to "fix" all social ills, as if they ever have or ever could "fix" anything. It is the drive, inginuity, and intelligence of the American people acting in their self-interest who have driven all the innovation and wealth creation of this country.  Beware of the charlatans promising you something for nothing. Whether it is an internet scam promising you something for nothing, or your government promising you "free" this and "free" that, it is all a scam nonetheless.......believe it at the peril of your wallet, and worse yet at the peril of your personal and individual rights & liberty ....

As Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

When your government tells you, they will "allow" you to do this or that, the government is overreaching its authority, and be not afraid to say it is so.....Happy Independence Day!

"The small percentage of dogs that bite people is monumental proof that the dog is the most benign, forgiving creature on earth."  - - William R. Koehler, The Koehler Method of Dog Training

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee" - - Job 12:7

"Your dog will look at you when you are worth looking at."  -- Sam Malatesta

"Humans have externalized their wisdom — stored it in museums, libraries, the expertise of the learned. Dog wisdom is inside the blood and bones." - - Donald McCaig

Humans are aware of very little, the artificial brainy side of life, the worries and bills and the mechanisms of jobs, the doltish psychologies we've placed over our lives like a stencil. A dog keeps his life simple and unadorned. He is who he is, and his only task is to assert this. --Brad Watson, The Last Days of the Dog-Men

You enter into a certain amount of madness when you marry a person with pets. - - Nora Ephron

I just read a book that I want to share with the readers of the blog. It has nothing directly to do with dog training, but rather with the idea that life is a Journey and that our destiny is to follow a dream, which Coelho calls your Personal Legend. The story is about a shepherd boy from Andalusia, Spain who follows his dream to visit the Pyramids in Gisa, Egypt, in search of some treasure a Gypsy woman told him is waiting for him there, and all the things that happen to him along the way. Things that seem to do nothing but at first thwart that dream, but in the end, these obstacles set him up for the next step of the journey, placing him in a position to see the next signpost on the journey, or make the self-improvements necessary for him to succeed on the next step.

 The idea is that when you follow your personal legend, the powers of the universe conspire to help you achieve your dream. When we give up on those dreams, and settle for just what life has dished out to us, these powers that want us to succeed slowly stop working in our favor, until they are silent. Life becomes mundane, and patterned.

I think it is such a positive mindset, for us to believe not only that anything is possible, but we are able to move through life successfully, and that the spirit of the universe is working in your favor to bring you that success and personal fulfillment.  Our part is to be looking for those opportunities, and make decisions to take the action to pursue those things that affirm our life and success. Looking for those signs that say, "Risk it, do it, take a chance on your happiness by changing your life." All it takes is saying yes to opportunities. But remember, if at first you don't see immediate success, it may be part of the lesson to fail, or be set back, because there are lessons to be learned from struggle and difficulty. It is easy to follow an easy path. it is hard to keep your focus on your personal legend, fulfilling your personal destiny, when things get tough. But if you can see inside yourself to take a lesson from that difficulty, you will often see the next step of the journey to fulfill your own personal legend.

The book also talks of the interconnectedness of all things, and the lessons learned from people and places you meet along the way. I was just saying to a friend the other day, that no matter where I travel in the world, despite the differences that we see on the surface whether they be cultural differences or social differences in how different groups of people live, most people live very similarly, and have the same hopes and dreams, and what seems strange at first isn't so much strange as it is just a bit different. Some people are actively following the omens that are presented to them on the path of their personal legend, and some have just stopped trying to get there.

 

 

 

 

Never confuse motion with action. 

<>- Ernest Hemingway

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

<>Lucius Annaeus Seneca 5BC-65AD, Roman tragedian, philosopher, and counsellor to Nero  

It is not because it is so difficult that we do not try something, it is because we do not try that makes something so difficult.

<>Seneca 4BC-65AC, Roman writer and moralist  

Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

<>Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832, German poet, novelist and dramatist  

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

<>Epictetus c. 60-120, Roman philosopher  

 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. 

<> Aristotle

Go to.....  http://signaturek-9.blogspot.com/

Check out the interview.........

 

 

 

One of the main things that separates a great K9 handler or trainer from a good K9 handler or trainer, is what I call "Canine Intuition." Canine Intuition is developed through quiet observation, experience, aplying training and problem solving skills with both successful and non-successful outcomes, and a lifetime of being open to learning new ideas and seeking new ways to train efficiently.  The antithesis of this ethic in dog training is the "Know it All." The real experts in our field are self-evident by their accomplishments and the demand for their expertise as teachers, but in my experience these truely accomplished people are open, like to share their knowledge, can admit failure (but don't associate the failure of a training exercise with a personal failure but rather a learning experience of high value), and they tend to give credit to others rather than heap it on themselves. When they see a good idea, instead of criticizing it, they ask questions, they try to adopt it, and tweak it in their own way, but give credit not just privately but publicly to those who had the intutiion first.

The Know it All Canine Handler - This handler, after getting his dog for approximately 2 weeks, has, by some divine intervention, become the world's leading authority on training dogs although he has yet to train even one dog to completion. If a training exercise is not successful, he wants to buck the system and try to do things "his way" - even though he hasn't had enough training experience to anticipate the flaws in his idea of training - usually with disasterous outcome.  These handlers go home with their dogs outside of training and usually do exactly the opposite of what their trainer has told them to do. If the trainer says lay off the obedience, the handler does excessive amounts of obedience. He knows so little, he has no idea how what he does will affect the overall outcome of the dog's training. His one good attribute is his drive to be successful, although it needs to be channelled into openness rather than arrogance.

The Know it All Canine Trainer - This person is in charge of training other people. This person has little humility and a boatload of arrogance. They tend to live in the past of their accomplishments, and do not look to change anything. They most likely started their careers as the "Know it All Canine Handler" and had success and promotion to their present position where they can exercise their authority over others. The know it all feels like less of a success if he didn't develop a technique, or has to admit that it is time to change something he has done for years, and so it becomes easier to criticize new ideas and stagnate. These trainers are usually people who are "Big Fish in a Little Pond" in some region of the country, out of which they rarely venture, because that would put them in the position of having to be faced with new ideas, techniques and approaches. They surround themseves with sycophants who worship them. Look out for these people, because their arrogance is infectious, and they tend to create copies of themselves when training handlers. Remember the bible proverb: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Humility will, eventually, find you. The fact is that when you open your heart and mind to become a student and not seek to show what you know, or behave arrogantly because you have experience or past success, you grow and change with the times.  You add more to your toolbox as a trainer, and you come to realize that there is always room to improve, change, adapt your training to new knowledge of canine behavior, or new techniques that are proven to work, even though you may not have thought of it first or used it in the past. Embrace your own development and learning.

Seek out trainers with real expertise and standing in our profession, and they will tell you that they have reinvented their training programs many times as they have grown and learned new things. This experience, this openness, is what having canine intuition is all about. Training isn't about "my method" which is an egocentric view of training, but rather training is about doing what is best for the dog and handler team. It is driven by having a successful outcome, no matter who had the idea to fix a problem, or get the dog out of a training issue that was holding the team back. From these experiences a real trainer will simply absorb the experience for the next time.

 

See Jerry's new article in Police K9 Magazine "The Power of Reward: Obedience" in the March/April issue, available now! If youa re not a subscriber, go to www.policek9magazine.com and subscribe!

Jerry Bradshaw and Tarheel Canine will be at the upcoming HITS conference sponsored by Police K9 Magazine, in Louisville KY in April 2009. Come stop by the booth!!

 

 The previous post got me thinking about a poem I wrote after the loss of my Malinois Arrow. In the past 2 years our family has lost 2 more of thise very special dogs, Ricardo and TJ passed last year. Vets always give you the "Rainbow Bridge"  poem, but I thought we could do a little better than that and so here is my attempt in rememberance of Ben, Arrow, Penny, Rocky. Ricardo and TJ, all of whom enriched my life so greatly.........

Arrow

 

I looked at your face today, old man, and

I saw the face of our brother, long passed away.

The white face and the tired look in the eye

Of a dog ever tireless.

I miss you tonight and you’ve not yet left.

But, I know it’s not long.

 

You’ve been my teacher for some twelve years

And I’ve learned

About responsibility and forgiveness

Truth and loyalty

Laughter and the pure joy of living

The days that grace you.

 

Soon you’ll teach me your last lessons

About completion and grief,

Respect and remembrance.

How to cherish what you do have and waste not time

Coveting that which you don’t.

You see, I have listened all these years.

 

It seems we’ve arrived in this place too quickly

And I fear I’ve left something undone or unsaid

Though I know you’ll forgive me, you always have.

But what an adventure we’ve lived

Of successes and failures, an education each

Of faces and places come and gone

Some remembered, and some forgotten.

 

Every day has become dearer

The laughter has come more easily, and we are moved to simpler joys

No longer is it about trophies or championships

Those things are far away in the past.

We are more than that.

 

When I look at you now

There is such a dignity about you

Even in your last hours

Even in your pain and weakness

And I promise to recall you with that dignity

And that mischievous eye I’ve known all these years.

 

Come; lie down old man, at my feet.

Feel the fire on your tired body

Leave away the pains and the labored breath

We’ll think together about easier days

Though none more precious than this last one

Lie down, and rest with me now

You are my son, my teacher, and my brother.

 

 

© Girard William Bradshaw February 26, 2004

A Dog's Purpose 

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife Lisa, and their little boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat a s Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away.

The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's Death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, 'I know why.'

Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation.

He said, 'People are born so that they can learn how to live a good Life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?' The Six-year-old continued, 'Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.'

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.

I don't know how it hapened, but I hit that milestone number. Turning 40 was mildly irritating, and then the next 5 raced past me like I was standing still, and then here I am half way to 90. I'm doing all the things you are supposed to (at least presently) to stave off old age. I'm in the gym now, eating right, smoke free, and I see my doctor on a regular basis. But I don't feel 45. I'm not sure how to explain that. One of my girlfriend's boys, Ryan, says I don't have an adult bone in my body, referring to my often non-adult approach to life, and maybe that will be my saving grace.

I have been reintroduced to some of the people I grew up with in high school after a long break, and one thing which I have noticed is a lot of them have grown up. I mean that they act old. Not elderly, just that they have lost their playfulness and silliness, and seem to impart a solemn seriousness to everything they do.  I suppose I am fortunate that in being my own boss I can claim a certain amount of eccentricity about how I live and relate to people, and that even though my company trains dogs for a very serious job, police work, in the end I am training dogs. They are inherently playful. Of course they can be very serious when the situation calls for it. But when they are relaxed, no matter how old, a dog never loses his playfulness. They will still throw down the old play bow  and will try their best to race around, and turn a circle or two with a big dog smile. If he is old enough, that might be all he has for you, and after that level of exertion he needs to sleep for a few or ten hours, but it is in there to the end.

I guess I am blessed that after all I have soldiered through and experienced in my 45 years on this planet, that I still can act foolish and be silly in between those times when I have to put on the game face and talk about marketing strategies and cash flow. I don't think any adult can get completely free of the realities of surviving in this world, but I am glad that at heart I feel like I havent changed hardly at all from the kid I remember always being, laughing at everything I could, and being silly. I also think that in my life now I have a few friends who are at heart as immature and goofy as I am despite the fact that they might have important adult jobs.

I have to say, it also helps to be around the two boys, Ryan (12) and AJ (14), as I get a lot of opportunity to stay young in my head even if the outer layers of my being are getting harder and harder to convince that they are still 20 something. 

My girlfriend asked me if turning 45 bothered me, and I told her no. It didn't at first. But I suppose the fact that I am reflecting on it means that it did get to me, just a little bit. Time seems to go by so fast, which I know is a signal of age. The boys often tell me they are bored with this or that, and I don't recall the last time I was bored (Oh yes I do, it was the 3 hours I spent going between the DMV and the Social Security office last week to get my driver's license renewed, but that is its own story). But in any event, boredom doesn't happen often for me. Most likely because at my age I make the most of my time, and I can see the remarkable in quiet moments like having coffee on the front porch on a quiet and chilly morning, like this morning. 

Last night we had dinner with friends in a fancy Brazilian steakhouse, and all four of the kids were running a bit amuk in the restaurant, making chocolate moustaches with their cake icing, and making coctails that included their water glasses as a substrate and simply adding various amounts of beef, chicken, cake and olives to give it a sophisticated flair. We were involved in our conversations, the four adults, and I noted how happy I was that the kids felt the freedom to be young and silly and carefree, and I hoped that when each of them turns 45 they will still be devoid of any adult bones in their bodies.

My friend gave me a regifted trophy at dinner, and the plate read: "Congratulations on Turning 45." Actually it said 35 and he scratched it out and put a "4" just above the "3". Somehow I feel entitled to an award. A small award, but an award nonetheless at getting this far, and being happy and content with my life and the people I love who are in it.