Happy Pet Blog

Top 10 Reasons why you need to train your dog

Become a pro - Learn from the professionals - Train at home

1) When you take your dog with you in the car

Does your dog escape (or try to escape) when you get out of your vehicle? Do you have to get out of your vehicle by squeezing through a door that is open just wide enough for you to squeeze through? Are you afraid of shutting the door behind you in case your dog’s little black nose is sticking out?

Does your dog try to climb on your lap when driving?

Do you have your car window open for your dog while driving? Does your dog try to escape out the window? My golden did exactly that once. She was in the back of my jeep, and she had NEVER given any clue that she could, or would jump out the window. Here I am pulling into my driveway and my golden is sitting at the gate waiting for me. I freaked…she must have jumped out the back window as I was turning into my driveway. I never even realized she had jumped out.

Become a pro - Learn from the professionals - Train at home

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This story was emailed to me by a dear friend. It goes hand in hand with my dog therapy visiting that I could not resist posting it.

This is a precious story… anyone who has pets will really like this. You’ll like it even if you don’t have a pet, and may decide you need one.

Mary and her husband Jim had a dog, Lucky. Lucky was a real character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company come for a weekend visit they would warn their friends to not leave their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy. Inevitably, someone would forget and something would come up missing.
Mary or Jim would go to Lucky’s toy box in the basement and there the treasure would be, amid all of Lucky�s favorite toys. Lucky always stashed his finds in his toy box and he was very particular that his toys stay in the box.

It happened that Mary found out she had breast cancer. Something told her she was going to die of this disease; she was just sure it was fatal. She scheduled the double mastectomy, fear riding her shoulders. Read the rest of this entry »

Ruth’s passions are people and pet health. She is very active with dog therapy visiting. She first became involved in this work when visiting a friend in the hospital. A beautiful Golden Retriever silently walked into the room and instantly brought comfort to Ruth’s friend. That was Tasha. Tasha and her owner became Ruth’s mentor.

What is dog therapy visiting? A team consists of a handler, and a happy, excited dog ready to go visiting. Although these special canine therapists are all shapes and sizes, pure breeds and those wonderful mutts, they share a single purpose: to bring happiness and comfort to the sick or disabled or lonely. These wonderful serviceanimals make every person they visit feel special. I know that my own dog Benny, a black lab, loved visiting. I mean his tail went into “propeller” mode as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of our “home”.
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