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Death by 4 months old Cattle Dog

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miss Mite wishes everyone a very feral 2025

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Took Kaija to an informal baby nosework class today where she learned how to search for and retrieve a piece of a red deer antler 🦌

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he thinks he's being so smooth with his little face on my leg. i SEE you, villain

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beloved's amazing ears

her change in posture in just 9 days is incredible, she was so afraid when we met. now she ravages our home chasing peoples ankles and childrens toys

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year in review - my dog book reading challenge!

so I decided against reblogging the to-read post cause some of them ended up either really shit or I just didn’t find them enjoyable. And I don’t want to give ones I didn’t enjoy attention so out of the 30 dog books I read, here’s the ones I enjoyed:

5 star books - these books were informative, well written and a joy to read. These books cured headaches, revitalised my love of training and gave me lots to think about. I love these books.

Dog Enrichment: Family-friendly Games and Activities for You and Your Dog - This book was so enjoyable it cured my headache and I finished it in one night. I got it out from the library and now I'm waiting for it to hit our bookstores to buy. It was easy to understand and filled with lots of creative enrichment activities and just hit all the boxes. I gave it a fb review on the substitute book club fb group.

Rocket Recall: Unleash Your Dog's Desire to Return to You through Motivation-Based Training - not a surprise I enjoyed this as I adored her Predation Substitute Training and yet I'm surprise I'm surprised. It's a short quick and easy book to follow along with, information is presented neatly and concisely with helpful diagrams. I really should buy her other two books, despite being topics I'm not fussed about, because I fully expect there will be fun games I haven't considered for food avoidance and high-energy dog loose lead walking. I gave it a fb review on the substitute book club fb group.

Wonderdog: The Science of Dogs and Their Unique Friendship with Humans - this book was not what I expected but I loved it. Hilariously, I read this while I was at a multi-day science seminar when not being bullied by local parrots. I really enjoyed this book, both how it was written and the breadth of the content within. It reminded me a lot of Our Dog Our Selves: Dogs in Medieval and Early Modern Art, Literature and Society. I would rename this to: The science of dogs, the men who tortured them for science, and the women who fought against them. I gave it a fb review on the substitute book club fb group.

Constructing Canine Consent: Conceptualising and adopting a consent-focused relationship with dogs - this is the book that started the whole reading challenge, although it took me 6 months to sit down and read it because I was afraid of the mirror it would hold up to my face. This is a book you read when you want to challenge yourself and how you view interactions between humans and dogs. It doesn't have discrete answers to anything, more the book provides a range of information and perspectives, poses questions, poses tasks, and overall is about teaching yourself how to self-evaluate a range of situations with your dog. I do hope a more accessible version of this tailored to the average owner, comparable to the enrichment games book, one day comes into existence. As because of how technical it is, and the controversial topic, it would be difficult to convince people to give it a go.

A Dog's Fabulous Sense of Smell: Step by Step Treat Search Tracking - It is aimed as enrichment for pet owners but the author is a search and rescue/mine detection trainer. This is present in clever little adjustments to timing and reward delivery, little “set up for success” games and some advanced tracking/detection techniques disguised in easy to set up games. Very much setting the owners up to succeed without making anything over complicated! This book was so good I gave a review of it to our local tracking group and now there is a copy in the communal library. I also gave a review on the substitute fb book group.

Dog Training: The Gentle Modern Method - as a dog sports obedience book goes, I found this more useful and more interesting than Awesome Obedience. Even though it is 30 years old, it had nice tips and tricks and is still rather modern compared to other books being published in 2024. I especially like how it breaks down every exercise in Australian obedience into its little components, describes all the hand signals, common problems and solutions. It started my trend of posting reviews to the substitute book club fb group as I just really needed to talk about it.

Following Ghosts. Developing the Tracking Relationship - This was a quick and enjoyable read, gave me lots of things to think about in regards to training tracking and all the different approaches. It’s a lot less technical than the Facebook page and is geared towards beginner tracks, beginner dogs, troubleshooting and the runaway tracking through drive approach. Short and Sweet.

Mission Control - another book I'm embarrassed by how long it was on my bookshelf unread. Especially considering I've had multiple conversations with the author... I would recommend it to anyone who seems overwhelmed by their dog's activity levels. This is an enjoyable book that covers training and managing your high drive/high arousal dog in basic english. This book is the niche book for those suffering from a dog with more energy and more excitement than them.

4 star books - these books were informative and a solid read. They gave me stuff to think about.

Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell - This book made me smell my dogs' feet then smelled myself, the book, my phone, a different book and the floor. It was a thoroughly engaging read on the human capacity to smell and all the research being done.

Making Dogs Happy: A Guide to How They Think, What They Do (and Don't) Want, and Getting to "Good Dog!" Behavior - I think if you liked Culture Clash, you would like this, as its a much more modern take on the clash between humans and dogs. Very much a "by better understanding dogs and our selves, we can do better" type book. I found the chapter on hands, and the ways dogs can perceive them, especially interesting.

The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves - this author again, somehow I had gone all this time aware of them yet never read a book. This was like reading the meandering love child of poetry and science, centered entirely around the author's analysis of her new puppy and of how she responds to the puppy.

Dog Problems: The Gentle Modern Cure - Not particularly complex, a little outdated but honestly for a 32 year old book this is pretty good even in year 2024. I think this is a good book to give to a child, a pet owner or a beginner dog owner. It covers a lot of the basics in a neat and efficient way.

The Stress Factor in Dogs: Unlocking Resiliency and Enhancing Well-Being - This was very informative and very interesting, providing lots of the latest research in standard english. It was a bit dull to read, and for that reason I struggled until Chapter 6 and 7, which were more relevant to my interests. I think if you're pretty on top of modern progressive dog behaviour and training, there's not a lot of new information in here but it's still good to fill in some gaps. Best suited to the professional trainer, dog business/rescue or dog breeders.

Skijor with Your Dog - Despite being a bikejoring in the country of no snow, it was still a very interesting read! A nice balance of recreational and competitive skijoring, with other pulling sports covered here and there. It had some really interesting diagrams and set ups throughout, just lost a star for having ye olde outdated dominance theory slipping in where it's just not needed.

Meet Your Dog: The Game-Changing Guide to Understanding Your Dog's Behavior - Very enjoyable book, it is well titled. This book is about developing your empathy and understanding of the dogs in your care. It has an appealing writing style that isn't too complicated while still covering a lot of nuance and more complicated concepts into easily understood comparisons. While not breaking new ground, the book does seek to compile what is known about the influence of genetics, learning, the environment and each dog's individual life stage (health, age, gender, neuter status). This has been done successfully and is an enjoyable collection of topics for the dog enthusiast seeking a reminder of why dogs are so fascinating.

and not listing them but:

3 star books were “eh it’s okay maybe learned a new thing or two but prob found it boring or painful to read”

2 star books were “this book is shit but they could be worse”

1 star books “dear lord this book is filled with misinformation” or “this book is a rambling useless mess” or “this book claimed to be about a specific topic but was not”.

I am still currently reading 3 dog books (I like to rotate as I go), but was unable to finish them before the end of year and I'm not going to rush reading them to meet a meaningless deadline. At least one of them will prob get a review on the substitute fb book club group (I couldn't find an active fb group about dog books so I'm just using an existing large dog group).

My top non-dog book was Suzanne Collins The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes if you're wondering.

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youtube stop recommending me this genre of video challenge

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Poor little guy. So sad, so pitiful.

Forced to go run errands while it's raining and windy.

Poor little puffball who was nearly swept away by the wind.

He sits in the stores having flashbacks to the war he fought with the wind on the way here

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Hallow on Dillon Reservoir, December 2024

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tofu’s christmas present this year is a bath

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Dear god they're crossing frenchies with chinese crested now

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Practicing settling while I had a drink with my friends

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so the hellbeast got a new toy today

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passed tf out in the comforting glow of the nuclear Santa

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the boys

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Crimas boye

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"Whatchu doing?"