Podcast: Valentine's Day Special with Sheryl from Leashes and Lovers

"When you love someone eternally, having them in your life one second short of that is not long enough"

It's our Saint Valentine's edition of Raising Indiana and we have with us the 'Dog Lover's Matchmaker', Sheryl Mattys, author of the book Leashes and Lovers and a web based dating site by the same name.

We talk with Sheryl about how dogs can help us become better companions, whether single puppy parents should even try to date, and a cute but kinda creepy celebrity story.

Late last nite, I signed up to Leashes and Lovers and our profile name is, not surprisingly, TheFuzzybutts. Will we find a Mommy for Indiana there? If we do, we'll post it here on Raising Indiana.

Podcast: Ian Dunbar

It's a double header tonite with two, count em, two episodes with the great Ian Dunbar.  There are people who write books on training and then there is the person who wrote the book on puppy training.

30 years ago last week (Happy Birthday!) Dr. Dunbar started SIRIUS Puppy Training, the world's very first off-leash puppy socialization and training classes. He is a Veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and dog trainer, an author and founder of Dog Star Daily, a destination website packed with videos from trainers round the world.

Episode 1: We talk about SIRIUS, the importance of early socialization, and how to make your puppy a party animal.

Episode 2:  How much training does a puppy need, the various training models, Sheila weighs in on the discussion, and Dr. Dunbar's wife, Kelly's work with animal shelters.  

Raising Indiana: Final Episode with Patricia McConnell

In this our last installment of our three part conversation with Dr. McConnell, we take an audience question and discuss dominance theory, discerning fear in dogs, biophelia (Yep I never heard that word before) and learning to read dog's facial expressions.  

As like to finish with style and we couldn't imagine a better way to conclude the series.  A big whopping thanks to Dr. McConnell for taking the time out of her extremely busy schedule to help us with Raising Indiana.  

Raising Indiana: Patricia McConnell Part II

Today Indiana turned 7 months old... my little snowflake my oh my how time flies..

This week we continue our discussion with Dr. McConnell on a whole host of issues like separation anxiety in puppies, her books The Other End of the Leash and Love Has No Age Limits as well as helping shelter dogs.  

It's another exceptional and information packed episode of Raising Indiana. Enjoy!

FLP

If you've never read Michael Crichton's autobiography Travels you should.  In it, he talks about some of the curiously inane traditions of doctors, one of which is their use of secret acronyms to describe patients.  Like FLK for 'Funny Looking Kid'.

Breakfasting with Kerry and Robin at PJ's Pancake House last week in Princeton, it became apparent that their Newfoundland puppy, Beanie, is going through the same  awkward growth stage that Indiana is - where he's all knees and elbows.

So we decided Beanie was a FLN 'Funny Looking Newfie' and Indiana is a FLP 'Funny Looking Pyrenees'.

What's yours?

Raising Indiana: Patricia McConnell Part I

To ring in the new year, we are surpremely honored to welcome one of the true greats in the world of animal behavoir & dog training - Dr. Patricia McConnell.

Her accolades are many; she has a doctorate in zoology, her book The Other End of the Leash, has been translated into 13 languages, and she's published many others as well.

Above and beyond all that, she's warm and personable, a wealth of information, and a truly gracious guest.

In Episode I of a three part series Dr. McConnell gives her top three pieces of advice for new puppy parents, why puppies don't come 'Plug and Play', and whether everyone with a new dog consult with a professional dog trainer.  

You won't want to miss this episode of Raising Indiana

Check out some of Dr. McConnell's other great books:

The Puppy Primer

And her latest, Love Has No Age Limits 

A New Year, A New Look, and a New Home

And a Bigger Purpose!  

Welcome to Raising Indiana v2.012  - formerly a podcast about the joys and pains of puppyhood.  When the new year comes it's always a good time to take stock of things and Sheila and I spent some time talking over the holidays about where we're going with the podcast and what do we want it to be when it gets all grow'd up.  

And, perhaps, more importantly, when does a puppy stop being a puppy and become a dog?  And when Indy does become a dog is that the end of the podcast?  Have we served our purpose and time to move on?  I get a little existentialistic during the silly season.  

Why not instead use this platform to follow his entire life since, as pet parents, there never really is an end to learning and growing and even though the relationship changes over time it still requires lots of work.  

As I am writing this blog I've realized how fortunate we are that we get to experience every phase of dog's life, an impossibility within species.  

And that's what we're going to do here at Raising Indiana.  Every happiness and hardship; every adventure and challenge will be posted here as well as our weekly podcasts with pet experts and people we meet on our travels.  We hope you'll be with us on our journey...