Only 17 years old, Sara Carson of North Bay, Ontario, is the youngest Certified Trick Dog Instructor through stunt dog trainer Kyra Sundance's Do More With Your Dog program. Sara's Border Collie puppy, Hero, became the youngest Trick Dog Champion, at only four months of age! Together, they have performed and entertained audiences of all ages at two large events, the Purina National Dog Show and the All About Pets Show, both in Mississauge, Ontario. Watch the video to see this brilliant puppy show off 51 fun tricks. To learn more about trick training or earning trick titles with your dog, go to Do More With Your Dog.

A friend sent this poem to me, knowing how much I miss my beloved Desoto and Shelby. I had been holding onto their ashes, unsure of where to bury my good dogs. Shall I scatter them into the Louisiana swamps that Desoto loved to explore? Would Shelby be happiest under the big tree, watching for squirrels? This poem tells me they're already in the right place. —Julia Kamysz Lane
 
 
Where To Bury A Dog
By Ben Hur Lampman

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost—if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call—come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

England’s most prestigious dog show, Crufts, is now also its most controversial. This past weekend,  several Best of Breed winners were disqualified after health inspections by an independent veterinary surgeon. Of 15 so-called “high profile” breeds (out of more than 200 breeds entered) required to undergo a veterinary exam, six breed winners  failed: the Basset Hound, Bulldog, Clumber Spaniel,  Mastiff, Neapolitan Mastiff and Pekinese. Thus ended their chances of going on to win Best in Show, the highest achievement at Crufts.

Dog fanciers around the world are in an uproar, claiming that animal rights activists and Jemima Harrison’s 2008 BBC documentary, “Pedigreed Dogs Exposed,” are infringing on their right to breed and show. 

Best in Show Daily blogger and longtime fancier Billy Wheeler wrote, in part: “Now here is the real rub. It is the vet, who may or may not have ever bred a litter in his/her life, who makes the determination as to whether the Breed winner is worthy of the award, not the judge. I’ll hold to a future post the discussion of how veterinary students are being brainwashed today, but many of you have already run across vets who are not sympathetic to our hobby.”

Honest Dog blogger Gina Spadafori—who has long lamented the prevalence of cancer that prematurely kills her favorite breed, the Flat-Coated Retriever—says it’s about time. In response to Wheeler’s above comments, she writes, “… I have attended seminars at two separate world-class veterinary conferences where boarded veterinary surgeons and internists said that these extreme structural malformations you so prize has led to dogs whose respiratory systems are so compromised that the animals need to have corrective surgery in adolescence. That’s so they can live a normal life—or in too many cases, just live to middle age.
 
“ … those veterinarians who ‘may or may not have ever bred a litter’ have sure as hell delivered your litters by C-section, because that’s how Bulldogs come into this world, their heads being too large to be delivered normally. If breeding for these traits isn’t animal cruelty, it’s hard to imagine what is.”

Some criticize the Kennel Club for singling out 15 breeds for the veterinary exams, claiming it would be more fair—and effective over the long term—for all entrants to undergo the health check. Others think it’s a step in the right direction and the process will evolve as needed.
 
Do you think the AKC should follow suit with Westminster? Why or why not?  

You may have seen the feel-good footage of a fireman who pulled a dog out of icy waters on Tuesday, February 7. Or the viral video of the same dog biting a news anchor live on TV the very next day when he and his owner were reunited with the rescuer.

Viewers are shaking their heads and pointing their fingers. Some say the dog is to blame. After all, anchorwoman Kyle Dyer, of NBC’s KUSA Denver affiliate, was only leaning in to give Max the Dogo Argentino a little kiss. Others claim Dyer is at fault; she either missed or misinterpreted Max’s warning signals, which included lip licking, blinking, stiff body, turning his head away, whale eye and, finally, just before the bite, baring his teeth and growling.

I say owner Michael Robinson is to blame for allowing his dog to be in the stressful environs of a TV studio a mere 12 hours after Max’s traumatic ordeal and rescue. In his nearsighted quest for 15 minutes of fame, he has risked his dog’s life for a second time.

That’s right—a second time. (Read Denver-based animal behaviorist Kari Bastyr’s thought-provoking essay, “The Perfect Storm,” for more insight.) The initial risk occurred last Tuesday, when he allowed Max—who does not have a solid recall—to be off leash near an icy pond. True, who could predict that a coyote would’ve come along at that exact moment, and that Max would’ve chased him onto the ice, and they both would’ve broken through?

But that’s what training is for, to prepare one’s dog for the unpredictable to ensure his and the public’s safety. If Robinson’s tense leash corrections on Max during the live segment are any indication, the poor dog was ill-prepared in general, not just for the spotlight.

Dyer had emergency reconstructive surgery the same day she was bitten. Hopefully, she will make a full recovery and soon be able to return to work. As for Max, the three-year-old mastiff is being quarantined at a Denver animal shelter.

"Several people interacted with the dog [prior to the segment] and everything seemed fine,” said Patti Dennis, KUSA vice president of news, as quoted in a Yahoo! News article. “Then at the last moment, the dog had behavior that nobody predicted or understood. Clearly we learned something."

One can only hope. Or, if you’re a dog advocate like me, you can do something about it and educate others about reading and respecting dog body language. The majority of dog bites are preventable. Until dogs learn how to speak our language and verbally tell us when they’re feeling threatened, it is our responsibility to learn canine communication.

A good place to start is the ASPCA’s “Virtual Pet Behaviorist,” resource page with photo illustrations. I also like the book Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide by Brenda Aloff, and the DVD The Language of Dogs: Understanding Canine Body Language and Other Communication Signals by Sarah Kalnajs. Both are available from Dogwise.