Hi Max--

The dog, Jake, is a beagle-German short-haired mix, and he came to us
through my mother who is very involved in doing animal rescue work, ran a
pet-sitting business out of her house for many years, and he is the first
dog I have had in about 20 years. I had cats for a very long time just
because my lifestyle would been unfair to a dog, but cats don't require
quite the same kind of attention. When I got married, I had two cats. My
wife, who is from Iran, tried very hard to live with them, but, in Iran,
having house pets is a very uncommon thing, and most people think of it as a
dirty practice. (They will have outdoor pets; so it's not the idea of the
animal per se; it's the animal in the house that is the problem.) My cats
were very, very jealous and my wife did absolutely nothing to get on their
good side, and so they got spiteful: they pissed on her clothing, in her
backpack, and so on. Eventually, I had to get rid of them, though I was very
upset that I had heard nothing about her reluctance to live with the animals
until after we were married. So I lived for about 10 years without an animal
in my house, which saddened me. The dog came about because our son had been
agitating for one for a while. Whenever we talked about it, I told him no,
since we had to respect his mother's feelings, but finally he talked to her,
put on one of those irresistible six-year-old boy weepy-puppy-dog-eye
routines and my wife caved. And it turns out she really likes Jake. She's
still not thrilled and will probably never be the animal person I am, but
she's taken to the dog and he to her, and this makes my son and me very
happy.

I'm going to look up the trainer you recommend; the book I have seems good,
but it's always worth looking at something else.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of cooee
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 8:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What we are reading/dog training

on 18/9/05 2:35 PM, Richard Jeffrey Newman at
[log in to unmask] wrote:

> "The Power of Positive Dog Training," by Pat Miller--we just got a new dog

Go on, describe the dog...

Saturday we acquired a second dog -
my wife having fallen in love with it through the pet shop window.
 
('It had been there too long and it's eleven weeks old, and I got a good
discount...')
Folly! 
It is a caramel coloured labrador, male, and unexpectedly gentle and quiet.
Except when eating.
But dog number one, Lolita the aging labradoodle, is jealous.

We recommend the books on dog training by the great Michael Tucker.
When Lolita was an impossible pup a few months old, in desperation we took
local advice, phoned Tucker, and with a few one on one lessons he worked
miracles. His books are clear and almost as good as having the man himself.
He believes in Discipline as well as Love.

best from Max