Last weekend, my husband and I took our nearly 6-year-old dog, Woody, with us on a backpacking trip. We joined eight of his friends, all of whom he’s known since grammar school or high school; they had started a day before us and we joined them at a specific Sierra Nevada lake by prearrangement.

We left behind Otto, who, at nearly 14 years old, is no longer invited to this sort of adventure, to his deep dismay. Otto knew what was going on when the backpacks and sleeping bags and tent were taken out of their storage closet – and he kept putting himself in our paths as we loaded the packs into our car. His heart is willing, but his arthritis says, “Not this time, guy.” (His countenance cheered entirely when I drove him to my sister’s house; he loves staying there, for a few days at least.)

We’ve taken Woody camping only once before that I can remember, about four years ago. It’s strange, because Otto has been camping many times in his lifetime, but for whatever reasons, in the past five years – most of Woody’s lifetime – we have mostly camped in National Parks (where dogs are not allowed on trails) or we camped as part of a long road trip that also involved weather that’s unfriendly to a dog in a car. And this was the first time he has been backpacking with us.

There’s an expression, “To appreciate a light, you have to take it into darkness.” I definitely appreciate some of Woody’s positive attributes more today than I did before last weekend – and am more aware of one thing that we need to work on more.

What Woody does well

• This dog’s recall is rock-solid. He can be off-leash at any distance, and even if distracted with something as exciting as a chipmunk chirping from a nearby tree, will turn and RUN toward me at a hint of a whistle.
• His “leave-it” behavior is terrific (I use the cue “Off”). Whether I wanted him to stop trying to lick someone on the face around camp, to stay away from some greenish water in a creek, or to ignore the barking dog who was tied to a tree in the campground where we left our car, I could say “Off!” once and he would immediately stop what he was doing and look to me for reinforcement.
• His athleticism and agility are astounding. He’s utterly confident in his ability to go anywhere and do anything we’re doing, including scrambling up or down granite rock faces and finding ways around cliffs. Both Otto and my last dog, Rupert, would get whiny and shaky if the footing ever got slippery, but a slip or momentary slide doesn’t seem to bother Woody in the slightest.
• Woody’s trust in me is more complete than any other dog I’ve owned. Once, during a day hike to another lake, we found ourselves on a cliff that was too steep for Woody to slide down and too high to allow him to jump off of. I climbed down first and stood on a rock at the cliff base, and asked him to inch to the edge toward me. I was able to pull him into my arms and then pass him to my husband, who lowered him to the ground. He accepted all of this without a fuss or concern about his safety. Most dogs I know would have struggled or tried to leap; he just relaxed and let us help him.
• He was a champion with the other dog who was on the trip – a dog about his age whom he had never met before. The dog’s owner warned us that the dog wasn’t always “good” with other dogs, but I have confidence in Woody’s judgment and self-control; he is a better judge of dog behavior than I am! He defused and deflected every bit of slightly aggressive behavior the other dog displayed – and even better, kept up a goofy, playful demeanor that soon got the other dog to play chase games around camp.
• We quickly learned that this other dog doesn’t eat much when he’s not at home – but that didn’t mean he wanted anyone else to eat his food. He would guard an area about 30 feet in diameter around his food from Woody. In contrast, my chow-hound has ZERO worries about eating in strange places or eating strange things; he absolutely knew where the other dog’s food was and would calmly go help himself to the food any time the other dog was distracted – and would just as calmly leave the area when the other dog saw what was happening and would come running back to guard whatever Woody had left behind. (Okay, this is kind of a jerk move, but what I appreciated was that as much as he likes food, and was motivated to sneak and steal some whenever it was unattended, he wouldn’t fight about it with the food’s owner.)
• Once, on a day hike away from our main camp, a little dog owned by some other backpackers ran up to him in attack mode, snarling and snapping. Woody ducked and dodged and went into super goofball mode, racing about as if the dog had actually just asked him to play “chase me.” The little dog’s owners looked aghast at their little dog’s “attack” on my big pitbull-mix, but I assured them that no harm was done. I so appreciate his skills at defusing other dogs’ reactive behavior.
• He sought attention and petting from every person he met, and was equally comfortable with all of them, from the ones who are self-described “dog people” to the ones who maybe don’t like dogs that much. However, this friendly reaction always comes a moment after this next thing….

What Woody Isn’t Good At

I don’t need bullets for this, because there is really just one thing that Woody needs to work on:

I think he can’t see well; he doesn’t seem to recognize ANYONE at a distance, and his initial behavior at the sight or sound of an approaching human into our camp (or even on the trail) was fearful and defensive. Every time a member of our party left camp, even just for a moment’s relief behind some trees, Woody would growl at them and run toward them with his hair up as they returned. Ay yi yi! Nothing like 70 pounds of an athletic, big-headed dog to come running toward you growling! He even did this a time or two to my husband!

Fortunately, none of our friends was afraid of dogs and all of them quickly trusted that Woody wouldn’t bite them. They would each say “Hey Woody!” as he approached them – and as soon as he was within, you know, biting distance (dog help us) he would instantaneously transform into his usual wiggly, waggy self, as if to say, “OH HI! I thought you were a monster for a moment, but you are a human! How great! I love humans!”

This is a TERRIBLE behavior (the growling, hair-up approach, not the transformation into Mr. Wiggles) and I was and am embarrassed about it.

This isn’t exactly a recent development. It’s been a persistent behavior that I have worked on with Woody ever since it first appeared, when he was an adolescent. I have worked for years to counter-condition his response to the sudden arrival of strangers on our property, and I credit that work for how quickly he converts his initial alarm to a joyful greeting, once he ascertains that the arrival of the human is not a threat. At home, the behavior isn’t really a problem; if my sister or one of my friends walks through my gates and down my driveway toward my office, and he goes running toward them barking with his hair up, they know to just call to him, “Woody, it’s me!” The moment he recognizes their voices, he races off to find a toy with which to try to entice them into play. (And, of course, if it’s an uninvited stranger who comes walking through my gates and onto my property, I’m going to let the vision of Woody bounding toward them barking slow them up for just a moment before I call him back; he’s our first line of security, and they don’t need to know that he will likely jump up and lick them once he knows they are not a threat.)

But out in the world, especially off-leash in our camping site in the woods, the behavior appeared as more anti-social than I want my dog to appear. So when I was close to him, I would call him back to me or say “Woody, Off!” (which would also make him come back to me), and he always responded. But there were a number of times that we were separated or I was talking to someone and another person would walk in at the far end of our camping area and I would hear another “WOOF!” followed by “Hey Woody! Good boy!”

I’ll be talking to trainer friends about what I can do to improve this response to the sight of “strangers” – or should I be consulting an optometrist?!

No dog is perfect, but we have a responsibility to the people who come into contact (or near contact) with our dogs to keep them feeling safe, and I still have some work to do on that front with Woody of the Woods.

Well-trained assistance dogs can open the door to increased confidence, independence, and mobility for people living with a variety of disabilities. It’s been estimated that there are more than 500,000 assistance dog/handler teams in the United States.

Within the United States, assistance dogs are not required to be trained by a professional organization, but many of them are. And most of the time, those program dogs begin their journeys toward becoming working assistance dogs in the homes of volunteer puppy raisers.

At Guide Dogs of America / Tender Loving Canines (GDA/TLC), where I serve as the puppy program coordinator, we like to say, “Puppy raisers make teams come true!” We literally can’t fulfill our mission of “transforming lives through service dogs” without the support and commitment of our volunteer puppy raisers.

Our puppy raisers spend a little more than a year raising, training, and socializing our program dogs to the big world around them. Raisers attend training classes and monthly meetings, and work to incorporate the dogs into much of their daily lives. Dogs accompany raisers everywhere they go: to the office, market, post office, dentist, on public transportation, etc. College students bring their program dogs with them to classes, and in some cases, our high school-age junior handlers get permission to bring program dogs to school.

All of this is to help ensure our puppies grow into well-behaved, confident adult dogs ready to begin learning specialized guide dog and service dog skills when they return to our campus at about 15 months old.

People often say, “I’d love to raise a service dog puppy, but I could never give it up.” When it’s time to send your program puppy “off to college,” of course it’s bittersweet. But here’s the thing. You aren’t “giving the dog up,” you’re “giving the dog forward.” You choose to raise a program puppy to help a veteran experience relief from debilitating PTSD. You raise a program puppy so a child with autism learns communication and social interaction skills. You raise a program puppy so a person who is blind or visually impaired regains independence and stands tall and proud as they safely walk down the street – just to name a few of the specialized training programs that exist.

You raise a program puppy to transform a life.

And the best part? Most people discover it’s not just the disabled clients whose lives are transformed. Puppy raising changes lives every step of the way. From the friendships that develop working alongside fellow raisers to the intense feelings of pride when you learn your dog has been matched to a partner and you meet the new team, you’ll likely feel your life has been transformed as well.

Still not sure how you’d handle puppy turn-in day? Attend the graduation of a local service dog organization and hear from the newly matched teams themselves! You can even tune-in online on Saturday, Oct. 2 as GDA/TLC broadcasts our next guide dog and service dog graduation via the organization’s Facebook page. There’s rarely a dry eye in the house.

Raising a program puppy is a wonderful way to blend a love of dogs with a desire to make a difference. If you’re in Southern California, I hope you’ll consider raising a puppy with Guide Dog of America / Tender Loving Canines. Not in So. Cal? A quick Google search for “service dog puppy raising in AREA” will likely surface a local option. There’s *always* a need for volunteer puppy raisers.

We are currently seeking raisers to welcome puppies heading into raiser homes throughout October and beyond. To learn more about GDA / TLC’s program, visit https://www.guidedogsofamerica.org/gda-programs/puppy-raising/.

I’ve been fostering dogs and puppies for my local shelter for 15 years. Wow! Time flies – until I thought about it, I didn’t realize it had been that long.

Recently I was talking to another long-time foster provider, Kathy Callahan, trainer and author of 101 Rescue Puppies. I shared with her that, on the day I brought my most recent litter of puppies that I had been fostering for my local shelter back to the shelter to get spayed/neutered and adopted, someone who had seen me crying my eyes out over bringing the puppies back to the shelter said to me, “I could NEVER go to a shelter, it’s too sad!” Well, this snapped me out of that crying spell; I whisked over to “furious” in just a few seconds!

“Sad?!” I snorted. “I’ll tell you what’s sad: The fact that too many people would rather ‘rehome’ their intact dogs or ‘accidental’ puppies to other individuals, who fail to spay, neuter, or contain THOSE dogs, so the cycle goes on. It’s not ‘sad’ if puppies in shelters ALL get vaccinated, neutered, microchipped, and placed in a screened home, it’s SUPER HAPPY NEWS.” Whew! I was seeing RED.

I got hot again when recounting this conversation to Kathy, and fortunately she laughed wryly, completely understanding my emotional whiplash. She said, “I’ll tell you what makes ME see red…” and within the space of a few minutes, we had a Top Five Stupid Things People Say to Foster Providers.

We agreed that number 1 is this: “That puppy/dog loves you so much! You HAVE to keep him/her!” (Rebuttal: One of our most important jobs as a foster provider is to help the dog or puppy/puppies learn to love and trust humans. If they love me and the other people in my fostering circle, they should be able to learn to love and trust other humans, too. Plus, if I keep this one, my fostering days are likely over. You see, I have only so much time, money, and energy for my dogs. One more dog at home will max out one or more of those limited resources, but if this dog gets placed in a loving home after growing to an adoptable age/recovering medically/improving behaviorally, then I can help several more dogs this year!)

A close second: #2 is, “Those two dogs/puppies love each other so much! They HAVE to get adopted together!” (Rebuttal: Usually, when two puppies or dogs are super tightly bonded, this affects their ability to bond to the humans in a household. Tightly bonded pairs tend to look to each other for support, comfort, and direction, and avoid the less-familiar attention of the humans they just met. Separating them may seem harsh for a day or two, but they will almost always start to pay more attention to and seek attention and comfort from humans once they are separated. Only then can real work begin to get them socialized and happy with humans – a prerequisite for finding “forever homes.” It’s far, far more difficult to find families who will take two dogs than one, and almost impossible to find families who want two dogs who want little to do with humans.)

Number 3 is the first one that Kathy first shared with me: “I love dogs too much to foster! I would want to keep every one!” (Rebuttal: Our love for dogs is exactly why I and Kathy foster: We want to help as many dogs and puppies as possible learn the social skills they need to succeed in homes and then find good homes. The idea that someone who doesn’t foster loves dogs more than us is ridiculous. We love dogs so much that we want to see as many of them in homes as possible.)

My trainer friend Sarah Richardson, owner of The Canine Connection in Chico, California, offered #4 and #5: “You’ve put so much work and training into that dog, don’t you just want to keep him/her?” and “It seems cruel to send that dog to another home, now that he/she is so comfortable with you!”

Sarah has had some very long-term foster dogs, including one that she took on from my local shelter following an environmental disaster (the collapse of the Oroville Dam spillways). This dog was on the list to be euthanized by the shelter, likely right after all the evacuated animals were returned to the shelter – but this particular dog (and about 15 others) happened to be taken in by Sarah, who had volunteered her facility as a temporary safe space while the shelter had evacuated due to the potentially collapsed dam. The dog had massive, serious health and behavior issues – and she also loved humans with a joyful spirit that just grabbed at Sarah’s heartstrings. Sarah dedicated herself to saving this foster dog’s life, and spent literal years and thousands of dollars solving the dog’s physical and behavioral issues – and keeping her either safely away from other animals (since predation and dog-aggression were her most serious issues) and happily engaged with enriching toys and activities, to maintain her mental health.

Since Sarah has several of her own dogs, keeping a dog-aggressive dog means neither her own dogs nor the foster dog can ever be completely relaxed and comfortable – or enjoy full, free access to Sarah’s entire home. But letting the dog-aggressive dog be placed in a home with other dogs (or other small animals) sets up that dog for inevitable failure. And so it took years to find a safe, suitable, only-dog home for that dog. Anyone else would have lost hope for finding that dog a home and given up; Sarah was a superhero for holding the line at finding the dog a genuinely qualified spot, and keeping her own dogs and the foster dog as safe and happy as possible until that happened – but she did it. That dog finally found a home with people who love and appreciate her affectionate, playful, joyful spirit and perfect leash manners.

(So, the rebuttal: “When I foster, my goal is not to just get rid of the dog as quickly as possible, it’s to equip the dog with the skills and health he/she needs to succeed for the rest of her life in a home, to help find a home that can meet the dog’s unique needs, and to help the dog and the family learn to love and trust each other. When I foster dogs with significant health and/or behavior problems, accomplishing these goals can take a long time – sometimes, much longer than I had planned or hoped. But it makes no sense to settle and rush the dog into a placement that is likely to fail. And when the right adopter comes along, someone who is ready and able and excited about providing everything the dog needs, it makes all the time and money and energy worth it. And then I can go back to enjoying my own dogs full time, without guilt over the one who was euthanized because no one cared enough to put in the work she needed.”)

Do you foster? What’s the stupidest thing someone ever said to you about fostering? Or, have you inadvertently said something stupid to a foster provider? Spill it, and we can likely rebut it for you. 😊

Say you are in a grocery store with your best friend and her child, and you both see the child take something, perhaps a candy bar, and start eating it.  You look at your friend to see if she’s going to say anything to her child, but she just shrugs. Then you notice that another shopper has also seen this, and that person glares at you, as if to say, “Well, aren’t you going to do something about this?” You smile and shrug helplessly, and the best you can say is, “It’s not my kid!”

Well, that was me. But it was at a park where a bunch of dogs were playing off-leash, in spite of the signs ringing the park that indicated dogs were supposed to be on leash. I was walking with a friend and her dog toward the middle of the park, toward the swirl of off-leash dogs, and across a narrow zone of people walking their dogs ON-leash and across a busy bike path. Each time my friend’s dog ran right up to a leashed dog (and of course, the humans at the other end of the leash), I would look back at my friend, who always seemed to be doing something else – looking through her pockets, looking at her phone – I don’t know WHAT she was doing!

I whistled for my friend’s dog a couple of times, and he came back to me once. But when he ran up to an older person who was walking a little West Highland White Terrier and who looked up and glared at me as his walk was interrupted by the two dogs greeting, all I could come up with at the moment was “I’m sorry, it’s not my dog!” There was no growling or aggression, but I was so uncomfortable! This isn’t how I would manage my own dogs!

And by the time two people on a tandem bike had to come to a complete halt  to make sure they weren’t going to hit my friend’s dog, who was trotting along on a diagonal on the bike path, and they couldn’t easily ascertain which way he was going to go, my nerves were fried.

I think we can all agree that allowing your dog to run up to other people, and especially people with leashed dogs, is incredibly rude and potentially dangerous. It can set back a training and counter-conditioning program of a dog whose own behavior with other dogs is reactive.  I know that my friend’s dog has been attacked and bitten by an off-leash dog before. So why on earth would she let her off-leash dog run up to other leashed dogs?

After the moment with the Westie, I did say to my friend, “You know, it’s pretty rude to let your dog run up to people with a leashed dog. If their dog was totally comfortable with other dogs, they’d probably have it off-leash.” My friend’s response? “Oh, I know, but XXX (my dog) is totally good with other dogs.”

All I could say is, “Well, this is hard for me to be around…” 

I’ve been thinking this ever since. I guess I’m one of those people who can never think of what to say at the time, who thinks of the perfect thing to say later. But I still haven’t thought of what I should have said and done.  I know what I would have liked to say: “Hey! Put the dog on leash, or keep him with us until we are in the middle of the park with all the other off-leash dogs!” But she’s an adult and I’m not her boss.

But this morning I thought, perhaps someone else knows just what to say in this situation, or any situation where you are with a friend or relative and they do something you feel is very wrong. What’s the perfect approach to preserving your relationship, while expressing your discomfort with what your friend or relative is doing? Because simply deciding never to walk with them and their dog again feels bad, too  – but that’s the best I have been able to come up with so far.

What would you do or say? What would be a tactful but educational approach to take? (Those might be two different answers!)

Warning: The following is an ardent product endorsement.

Each January, we publish a feature in WDJ called “Gear of the Year,” where we tell subscribers about the best dog-care and –training items we’ve seen and used and appreciated all year. In January 2021, one of our occasional contributors, North Carolina dog trainer Lisa Lyle Waggoner, wrote a glowing review of a dog bed called the Wash ’n Zip Pet Bed – a quilted bed that has a zipper along three sides. The zipper allows you to unzip and unfold the bed into a larger rectangle for easy washing in a standard washing machine – or to use as a larger blanket on the lawn, sofa, or car seat. I was sold on the bed just from Lisa’s description and from photos of the various covers and sizes on the company’s website.

We published the review and I guess a bunch of you ordered beds, because Stan Pelz, the owner of the company, later sent me a note of appreciation – and one of the beds to try out myself! Well, for my dogs to try, anyway. He not only sent me a beautiful extra-large bed, but a “Puppy Proofer” – a large slipcover-like cover for the bed that helps protect the bed from getting chewed by bed-chewing puppies.

My senior dog Otto really liked the bed; I put it, zipped up and covered with the Puppy Proofer, in his favorite spot to nap during the day, inside a door-less crate in my office.

Then, recently, I started fostering a litter of eight mixed-breed puppies. Otto’s favorite crate and the Wash ’n Zip bed got called into more pressing service. All the other dogs beds I have on hand are huge, deep, foam-filled beds – and when you have to wash a bed every few days, or even every day, because tiny puppies walk through their formula and wet food (and poop!) and then crawl into bed – the huge, foam-filled beds don’t cut it. Even though the covers zip off to launder, they are a pain to “dress” and “undress.” The Wash ’n Zip bed, though – wow! What a breeze! In the few weeks that they were using the bed, I washed the Puppy Proofer cover about eight times, and the bed itself just twice. The cover handled most of the abuse; none of the puppies’ crusty messes soaked through the cover. I had to wash the bed only when it got messy when the puppies were using it while the cover was in the laundry.

Then it was time to take the puppies back to the shelter for adoption. Now, I’m ALWAYS a mess on that day. The puppies have been cared for at my home ever so tenderly, and with an eye on enriching their social and physical experiences while sheltering them from becoming frightened or uncomfortable. Going from a safe, loving home with a lawn to romp on to a concrete-walled kennel in a building with more or less constant loud barking is traumatic for them, and seeing their fearful, uncomprehending little faces in the kennel is always traumatic for me. I know that they will adjust (and, in fact, they have), but if there’s anything I can do on that first day to make them more comfortable at the shelter, I do it. And in this case, it was giving them their familiar bed to sleep on. Even so, tears were rolling down my face as I left the shelter.

I was also verklempt because, on the same day I brought the pups back to the shelter, I was flying with my husband and our grandson back to the East Coast, returning that grandson to his mom near Boston and then visiting our other grandson in New Jersey. (Returning the grandson to his mom after a long stay with us is just as emotional for me as it is taking the puppies to the shelter, even though Liam doesn’t have to be left in a concrete kennel. We are going to miss him and hate saying goodbye!)

It was a whirlwind trip, but it was still five days before I was back home and could go to the shelter to see the pups, now available for adoption – and to look for the Wash ’n Zip bed. I was apprehensive, because I hadn’t alerted the staff that I would be coming back for the bed (I was crying too hard when I left) but I was confident, because of its washable nature, that it would be laundered and I would find it somewhere on the premises.

Maybe some of you don’t know how most animal shelters handle bedding. All shelters have a perennial wish list for towels and blankets to be used as pet bedding. When they get donations of thick, heavy pet beds, they accept them and use them – until they get soiled. Then, they usually go into the Dumpster. Yes, those giant $80 (and up) beds go into the trash once they get wet and soiled. If the dog who is using the bed is extremely house-trained and won’t go potty in the shelter, and the staff realizes this and the dog gets taken outside frequently, a big, thick bed might last the dog’s entire stay. More frequently, though, the beds get wet because the dogs have to eliminate in their kennels, and there isn’t enough room for the poop and pee to stay separate from the eating/sleeping area, or because there isn’t a good way to hose out the kennel without the bedding getting wet. Smaller blankets and towels get washed. Large, thick quilts or pet beds usually get tossed.

If the shelter is large or has a big budget, they may have commercial-size washers that are capable of handling thick or large bedding. Most shelters I’ve been in, though, including my local shelter, have just a row of ordinary washers and driers, which can’t handle giant blankets or beds. That’s why these things usually get thrown away when dirty.

You see where this is going. I had a joyful reunion with the puppies – who had all happily adjusted to their new environment, no longer looking shell-shocked – but couldn’t find the Wash ’n Zip bed anywhere. It wasn’t in any of the 64 kennels in the shelter. I looked in the shelter “kitchen” where the laundry gets done and dog dishes are cleaned. It wasn’t in any of the four washers or four dryers, nor in the stacks of clean bedding, nor in the shopping carts full of dirty bedding – and, yes, I did paw through all four shopping carts of poopy, wet towels and blankets that had come out of the kennels that morning and were waiting their turn in the washers.

I quizzed the staff: The person who cleaned the dog-adoption kennels on the weekend (right after I left the pups there) remembered the bed; she said she put it back in the kennel after cleaning the kennel, but the person who cleaned the kennel on the weekdays following said he didn’t remember a bed being in there. Most likely, it got wet (and/or poopy) and was put into the shelter Dumpster. Because of the Puppy Proofer slipcover, the staff member surely never saw that the bed could be unzipped and put in an ordinary washer! ACK!

I went out to the Dumpster to see what I was up against. It was full to the brim – due to be emptied later that day. It gets filled with not only wet dog bedding, but what gets cleaned out of all the cat litter boxes, and all the other garbage that comes out of a large animal shelter. Given that the bed had likely been discarded days before, several layers down in the Dumpster, and that I was not equipped with a scuba-diving mask, suit, and gloves I had to accept the fact that I had screwed up and lost Otto’s favorite nap bed – and an extremely useful one, at that.

Yes, the bed was a gift; losing it didn’t cost me a dime. But guess what? I loved it so much, it was SO damn useful, I’ve had to order another one – and they are not cheap! And they shouldn’t be! They are so well made, so versatile, so washable (even if this was not apparent to the shelter staff, alas), that I hate the idea of not having one here for Otto or any future foster pups. The extra-large size, with the additional Puppy Proofer cover and shipping, cost me $170 – ouch, that was a costly mistake! But that’s also how you know when a particular dog-care product is truly extraordinary – when you decide that no matter the price, you can’t live without it.