Eye on the Job
When my friend, Anita, told me the best place to buy winter gloves was Loehmann’s, I made a face. I hate to shop and the bigger the store, the more I hate going there. Nevertheless, a few days later,...
View ArticleNew Carol Lea Benjamin book
I think this is the book I was born to write. Or write half of. Co-written with my good friend Denise Wall who bred my dog, Sky, Do Border Collies Dream of Sheep? is the true story of how two...
View ArticleGames to Play with Your Dog from Bed
Let’s be clear on something. I’m as lazy as the next person. But even if you’re not lazy, there are times when your dog is raring to go and you just aren’t. Is that a reason not to play with him?...
View ArticleWords or Concepts, That is the Question
My first service dog, Dexter, wasn’t big on words. We were once at a mystery convention in St. Louis when someone came up to me and said that Dexter was the best trained dog she’d ever seen. I...
View ArticleTwo Degrees of Separation
I am just back from Newfoundland, a place of raw, unspoiled beauty like nowhere else I’ve seen. Luckily, there were sticks there and places for a dog to run and swim. There were butchers who had raw...
View ArticlePack is Not a Four Letter Word
It seems the two most popular topics on this blog are (1) working with rescue dogs and (2) service dogs for Crohn’s disease. And, yes, those can be combined into one topic. A rescue dog can make a...
View ArticleHow to Begin Training Your Own Service Dog
If you need a service dog whose job will be to react to something happening in your body – pain, low blood sugar, an oncoming seizure, a coronary “event,” the inability to move – it works well if you...
View ArticleShould You Teach Your Dog Commands You Don’t Think You Need?
You know you’ll use “sit” and “stay.” How else will you take silly pictures of your dogs? But what about “back up,” “walk up,” a recall while swimming? What about teaching your dog to throw a...
View ArticleHow Work Shapes the Dog
If you have an invisible disability and want to learn about the help a service dog can give you, if you want to learn more about dogs, if you want to know what a great breeder does before you get to...
View ArticleDoes Breed Matter?
Many years ago, when a friend got a Whippet, I set up a challenge to myself. I planned an article for my column in the AKC Gazette called “How to Train a Whippet.” The thing is, I had never been...
View ArticleBeach Reading
“Lassie Come Home, Adam’s Task, The Plague Dogs, White Fang, Winterdance: classic dog books inhabit a mysterious, magical space where two unalike species love and comprehend one another. Do Border...
View ArticleWhat’s the Smartest Breed?
Years ago, when I was writing the Rachel and Dash mysteries, I attended at a Private Eye Writers convention in St. Louis with my first service dog, Dexter. On the third day of the convention, someone...
View ArticleUseful Dogs
Years ago, we went to the farm where the sire and dam of the puppy who would be my first Border collie lived and got to photograph them working sheep for Dog Training in Ten Minutes, the book I was...
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