Does everyone have a dog nowadays?

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr

As I've mentioned before, I teach English composition, and a couple of days ago I showed this blog to my students as an example of a topic-driven blog (they have an extra-credit opportunity to create one and keep it going during the summer term).  I was kind of surprised when I got questions about dogs and diabetes (specifically, blood sugar monitoring) rather than the questions about blogging that I was expecting.  Before I took a few minutes to deal with the off-topic questions, I asked for a show of hands from the dog owners in the class.  About two-thirds raised their hands.  That's a lot of dogs.  
As I was driving home after class, I wondered how many of those dogs have health insurance.  I'll have to ask.
 

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So, what about that Dog College?

Well, I said I would talk about DogChannel.com's Dog College, and I'm finally getting around to it.  They offer three courses a month.  I completed the Nutrition exam (a very high score, if I do say so myself), but I seem to be wiping out at Physiology (I only got the order in which a dog's feet move by waking up Gus and watching him).  It's my own fault.  I tried to jump ahead and take the exam too soon.  I think my students are starting to rub off on me.  In any event, it was interesting to read about how dogs move, and the quiz confirmed my impression that my short-term memory is going to hell.

The last course for this "term" is Communication.  The article, in my opinion, is thorough and informative (one commenter-- who gave the impression that she was not terribly bright -- really disparaged it, while a number of dog trainers who commented were extremely positive).  Everything in the article tallied with my own experience, so I'm giving it my approval.  There is an interesting discussion of wolf behavior in contrast with dog behavior, so I'm going to recommend this to my brother in law, who is convinced that his dogs are much closer to their wolf ancestors than they are.

Now that I've finished this term, I'm looking forward to the next set of courses (and hoping that they get into preventive care for your dog).

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Is your dog a slacker?

Image via Wikipedia

I have come to the conclusion that every dog I have ever met is probably a slacker.  Sure, some dogs may actually be heroes who just haven't had any opportunity to show their stuff, but the rest are just faking it.  They're so good at faking it, though, that we all believe our dogs are capable of doing something amazing, like Buddy, a German Shepherd who lives in Alaska.  He made headlines up there for saving his family's home on April 4, and he's become a YouTube sensation.  The video is from the state trooper's vehicle.  Buddy actually went and got help-- just like Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, or Strongheart, the dog in the picture above (he was a big silent movie star).

On the other hand, would you really want your dog to be that kind of hero?  This seems to be one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for kind of things.  I'm glad none of the dogs I know has had to be a hero.  

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