Dog Writings General!

Fetch – Round 2.

Those of you who read about my earlier totally futile and humiliating experiences of teaching Ray to “Fetch” (see Post “Ray … Fetch” November 26), may be interested to know that he has done it! Continue reading →

Ray’s Skype Account!

In one of my earlier attempts at resolving Ray’s separation anxiety, I thought that it would be a distinct advantage to be able to monitor him while I was away. Technology came to my assistance in the form of Skype! Continue reading →

Used dog!

Adopting a dog, as most of you would already know, opens up a whole additional aspect to your world. With Ray, our constant visits to the Oakville & Milton Humane Society and subsequent drawing from their expertise has been an education, and the contacts made invaluable. Continue reading →

Ray-sitting!

The Town of Oakville has a very good symphony orchestra and, as we both enjoy classical music, we support them by subscribing to their annual concert series. The performances start in the Fall and go through to the Spring.

The 2013/2014 concert season presented us with a bit of a problem. Ray had relatively recently completed his heart worm treatment program and was now presenting us with some new challenges! During the treatment program, one of the key directives was to keep his heart rate as low as possible as this would increase his chances of surviving the treatment. For us this meant that we did not get him into any stressful situations, which therefore eliminated any work regarding his separation anxiety. Continue reading →

Just thinking!

Just thinking!

Ray is fascinating! One aspect that I find admirable, and so many of us could learn from it, is the ability to see a positive in pretty much anything. Ray responded really well to “clicker” training using treats as the motivator but my concern was how would he react when the treats were reduced? Continue reading →

Just you and me!

After almost 2 years of living with Ray, I still reflect with a degree of sadness on what his previous life may have entailed. He was found with no collar; no license tag; no microchip, and he was neither reported missing nor claimed. Continue reading →

The Water Bowl!

We had a new store open near us this past summer and Ray immediately liked them. It had nothing to do with the staff, nor did it have anything to with the business that they were in, but it had everything to do with the water bowl they put outside for any passing dogs! What they had was a large upturned water bottle (reservoir) which maintained a level of water in a bowl below. Continue reading →

The Visitors.

A few weeks ago I had a meeting planned here, with two people who Ray had never met before, and was trying to work out how best to handle this with both Ray’s and their interests in mind.
Continue reading →

Friend for Ray?

We recently decided to drive Ray to a park on the edge of Lake Ontario and the plan was to walk him along the lakeside trails however, we had just turned out of our street and were near Ray’s local park when we noticed a dog (Collie X) wandering aimlessly around. We stopped and looked for somebody who could conceivably be the owner, but there wasn’t anybody in sight. Continue reading →