Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

You may have heard that the renowned animal behaviorist Dr. Sophia Yin passed away yesterday. I never met Dr. Yin. I never had the opportunity to attend one of her seminars. But I read her work and occasionally provided her handouts to my both my dog training and my social work clients. To say that she made a real difference in the field is an understatement. To say she will be sorely missed, well, that's been said many times, and by people far more eloquent than I.

Instead, I want to address the elephant in the room: her death was the result of suicide.

At first blush, this is shocking. Dr. Yin was incredibly successful and influential. Her public persona was upbeat and positive. So how could she take her own life?

I doubt we will ever know the details of what led her to that decision. I'm not sure that we need to. But what we do need to do is be kind. 

I call myself a positive dog trainer, and I think most of my readers do, too. At its most basic, positive dog training is about being kind to our dogs. This is admirable; I believe that all living beings deserve kindness, compassion, and respect. And the key words there? All living beings.

Be kind to others. Everyone in this world is struggling with something. We all have our challenges. We all have bad days. Thankfully, many of us will never have suicidally bad days... but then again, maybe many of us do. How can we know if we never talk about it?

The truth is, there is so much stigma in this world around mental health. We are afraid to share our struggles with depression or anxiety or many others because somehow we've bought into the lie that these conditions make us "less than." I'm not saying that we need to share our struggles with the world. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't. What I am saying is that we all need someone we can reach out to in times of need, whether it's family, friends, a professional, or even a helpline.

Because when it comes right down to it, we are all worthy of love and belonging. Our dogs are. Our friends are. The people we don't like are. You are. I am. We are all worthy of love and belonging.

So... be kind to others. Be kind to yourself. Be kind.

Napi Update: 6 months on meds

Napi has been on Prozac for six months now.

Here's his before video:


And here's his after video:


Both videos were taken at our vet clinic, and there's a HUGE difference. The very awesome thing is that at that first appointment, the vet couldn't even touch Napi (she just prescribed the Prozac and called it a day). At the second appointment, he allowed the vet to do a brief exam, give a rabies vax, and draw blood. He wore a muzzle, although he probably didn't need to. He was very good the whole time. He didn't like it, but he's much less of a drama queen than Maisy!

I'm very happy with Napi's response to medication. I haven't done much training with him (just some basic recall away from the fence when the neighbors are in their yard) so he's still reactive towards people and other dogs. He has a small world right now as a result - we don't really take him anywhere - but he has a big yard that he and Pyg run around.

He is able to calm down quicker these days, and he is more comfortable around the house. We can even have guests over without too much drama. He does bark quite a bit at first, but generally acclimates within 10 to 15 minutes.

There's a lot of work to do, but I'm glad that I decided to put him on meds right away.

Project Gratitude: Diego's Surgery (and Pyg and Lola fail the CGC)

In September 2013, Maisy became suddenly and critically ill. Our blog readers rallied around us, providing us with the emotional and financial support needed to get through a very stressful time. Although I will never be able to pay you all back, I can pay it forward through Project Gratitude.

Please email me at reactivechampion (at) gmail (dot) com if you have an individual or cause that you would like me to consider donating to.

I recently participated in a fundraiser for my friend’s foster dog, Diego. Diego has a broken foot (leg?) and needs surgery to fix it. Until that’s done, it hurts and he is crabby about being touched, which I totally get. So, we need to get surgery for him.

My friend organized a CGC test as a fundraiser. All the proceeds went directly to Diego’s surgery fund. I also kicked in an extra $20.

The CGC part… well, we proved that you can’t cram for the CGC. Both dogs failed, although I was still quite proud of them for trying so hard.

Lola failed on the friendly dog (she was soooooo excited to see a friend!) and the loose leash walking (not surprising- there were good sniffs there, and Lo’s brain stops in the presence of sniffs). She failed the come when called exercise (she was very enthusiastic, but ran right past me), but was allowed to retry it because her long line got tangled in a cone. She passed on the retry.

Pyg failed on the friendly dog (OMG FRIEND), the appearance and grooming (you may not brush me, no sir!), and the stay (not at all surprised). 

So, we failed, but the dogs both tried really hard, and considering how much (er, little) I've trained them, I really didn't expect they would pass. Mostly, I wanted to donate to a good cause and get a baseline on their training.

Review: Primal Dry Roasted Chicken Shredders from Chewy.com

After a six month hiatus, we’re back reviewing awesome treats from Chewy.com! This time around, we received some treats from Primal Pet Products, which has always been one of my favorite pet companies.

These are the Primal Dry RoastedChicken Shredders. They remind me a bit of chicken jerky, except they are easier to break up into smaller pieces. Also, they aren’t made in China (they are from right here in the good ol’ USA), so that’s awesome, too.

On the plus side, these are single ingredient, grain free, and easy to break up. On the minus side, I can’t get the pieces as small as I would like for training. Also, they leave a weird Cheetos-like residue on my fingers, so I wouldn’t want to handle them a lot.

Conclusion: An awesome and wholesome treat for special occasions or jackpots (if your dog likes them that much- mine do!), but not a great training treat. Totally my own opinion, and I wasn’t paid to say that. I did get free treats, though!