I don't know if it's true of all Pomeranians, but Cinnamon hates the rain. It doesn't matter whether it's a thick mist or a downpour, Cinnamon will not go outside in the rain. And I don't know which fool said dogs' faces show no expression, but when Cinnamon looks at you in misery with a face that says "why are you forcing me to endure this?" You have no doubt what she is saying.

It's one of those grey days when it drizzles off and on and rains for a few minutes at a time, just to show it can. And it's just cold enough and certainly damp enough to bring to mind a fireplace, hot chocolate, a good book and a new love. Or if you're lucky enough, an old warm, comfortable love.

The Lords (well, Lady) of Discipline, or Dog Training 101a

The other day, while Prada was still with us (no, she's fine -- we were puppy sitting), Carolyn decided she was going to teach the dogs to sit and stay. Now, all the dogs will sit. For about thirteen seconds, then they get distracted and walk away, lie down, chase a cat, watch TV, whatever.

So Carolyn had a bag of dog treats in her hand, which did tend to focus their attention somewhat, and was trying to teach them to sit and stay. Like a good Skinnerian, she rewarded them as soon as they did any part of what they were supposed to do. So as soon as they sat on command, she started to give them their reward. And as soon as she pulled out a treat to reward them, Cinnamon jumped up on her hind legs and continued to jump. You know those dogs in the circus that get up on their hind legs and jump around the ring? That's a natural behavior with Cinnamon. And probably with Poms in general. In fact, it's possible that all the dogs in the circus that do that trick are Poms, I don't remember.

So, we were driving in the car the other night, and I remembered a game we used to play with an AM radio when I was a kid. You’d try to find a station buried in the static, the kind that seems to waver in and out, and whoever got the farthest one won. It was a little tricky since you could get two or three on the same frequency if they were far enough from each other in different directions. And WKBW in Buffalo didn’t count. Even my baby brother could find WKBW since it was a “super station” broadcasting at some huge power level. The farthest I ever got was a station in Oklahoma, when we lived on the lower east side of Manhattan.

It's spring in New York. That may not come as a surprise to you if you look at the calendar, but in New York the coming of Spring shouldn't be taken for granted. Some years it just goes from winter to summer. You find yourself wearing your puffy down coat and it's suddenly sunny and 76 degrees out.

Midnight gave evidence that Spring was coming about two weeks ago. Suddenly her undercoat started shedding like slow black snow. One morning there was so much hair around her sleep crate you'd think she exploded and magicly put herself back together. And she just looks at you and smiles her "see what I can do?" smile. And you look at the pile and think "If I gather all that hair together and get an Acme Dr. Frankenstein Voltage Inducer, I can probably bring that pile to life. There's certainly enough there to make another dog.

Well, Prada left last night. Not on her own, of course. Lexi came by, had dinner, and took her home. She picked up Prada's cat, Rocco, on her way.

Midnight and Cinnamon seem to be a little confused. On the one hand life is back to 'normal' around here, on the other, there were three dogs for five weeks with the constant interplay of dominance, ganging up against the cats, play fights, real swiping of air borne treats, and so forth.

Midnight's eye-mouth coordination is superb. Prada could usually catch a treat if it was aimed at her mouth, otherwise she was kind of slow moving. Almost as if she said 'well, I want it, but it's beneath my dignity to make a big deal of it.' She's a very dignified dog. Cinnamon has the eye-mouth coordination of a rock. You can bounce a dog treat off her nose before she even opens her mouth. To make up for it she's a fast scrambler. If it gets to the floor, she's the first one there.

Prada is living with us. She's been here about 5 weeks, now.

She's kind of a goof. She's six years old, (Midnight is seven, Cinnamon is three) and she still thinks she's a puppy, sometimes. Maybe it's more accurate to say that historically Lexi leaves her with someone else for a five or six week stretch every year, so there's a new group of humans she tries to intimidate every year. And see what she can get away with.

Prada tows. Give her a bit too much leash and she'll pull you off your feet. After all she's almost ninety pounds and it's all muscle. And with four on the floor she's equal to two and a half times her weight in pulling power, and none of us are 225.

Puppy potty training is always first on the agenda for my clients with a new puppy. Puppy potty training is almost always the one thing new puppy owners also have the hardest time with because of pitfalls they don't realize.

One pitfall new puppy owners can't seem to understand is that the more unsupervised free time in your home the puppy is allowed to have, you are setting the puppy up to have failure after failure in learning to be potty trained.

Until puppies get to be closer to 5-6 months of age, there is not a strong connection between the brain and the bowels and bladder. They feel the urge to go, they squat and go. To achieve successful puppy potty training you must be proactive instead of reactive with their training.

Midnight and I were watching one of her favorite Twilight Zone episodes last night. The SciFi channel runs a July 4th marathon of the best shows.

They reran The Hunt with Arthur Hunnicutt and Jeanette Nolan (1962). It's the one where the old mountain man and his coon dog are out on a hunt one night, and they both drown, but don't know it at first.

The crux of the story is after he figures it out, they're walking along this dirt road and come to a gate. The road's well kept and tree lined, and the old man is invited in, but the dog won't go in, and the gate keeper says, that's okay, we don't allow dogs, anyway. There's a nice place down the road for them.

I recently read a blog posted by dog trainer,G.D. Williams, on how to correct puppy biting. I must say that I was absolutely appalled at the suggestion that an owner should “come down hard on the puppy” and give the puppy, among other things, a “strong blow to the nose!” This sounds like something out of the dark ages.

The example given was based on a daughter who decided to share some fat scraps from her dinner plate with the puppy and the puppy bit her. Behavioral science teaches us positive methods to train, correct and redirect our puppies allowing us to leave behind forever the old “school of hard knocks”.

Family dog aggression precipitated an email to me from a lady in California (she found me on the internet) who is desperate for help with her two dogs. She has 2 dogs, a 4 yr. old doodle dog and a 7 yr old terrier - both rescue dogs.

This is one of the more interesting stories I’ve heard about dog aggression. A couple of years ago she was preparing to take her two dogs for a walk. She got them on their leashes, and headed out the door for a typical daily walk, not knowing disaster awaited. A neighbor had left a bag of dog treats on the front porch. The dogs were no sooner out the door when they both discovered the dog treats at the same time. Well, you guessed it. A major dog fight ensued and, as she so aptly explained, it was a war zone right there on my front porch.