Dog Pure Awareness blog

video: studying how dogs think

margot lasher — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:50:52 +0000

staged reading of Other Minds

margot lasher — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 21:26:56 +0000

Other Minds will be given a staged reading by Centenary Stage Company, April 11,2012, in Hackettstown NJ. This is part of Centenary’s Women Playwrights Series.

If you love your dog, you will love this play.

Shiro & Holly travel

margot lasher — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:00:01 +0000

I drove down to Key West from northern Vermont with the two dogs, and I was worried about Holly on the trip. She was less than a year old and had never been on a long trip. She was amazing. In one day on the road she learned: to stay on the grass at a rest stop, to pee at a rest stop, to sleep when we were driving, and maybe most importantly, to not bark at strange sounds in the motel room. She just watched Shiro and did what he did. Shiro is of course an experienced traveler, having been to Key West and Manhattan many times.

Shiro & Holly in Key West

margot lasher — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:09:00 +0000

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two dogs in attunement

Trip with the dogs : the motel room

margot lasher — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:18:01 +0000

Shiro & Holly

winter in vermont

margot lasher — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:57:29 +0000

winter solstice

Camp Unleashed

margot lasher — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 21:02:50 +0000

On Labor Day weekend Shiro and I went to camp, Camp Unleashed in the Berkshires, and had a wonderful time. Some of you know that 4 years ago Shiro came close to dying of a tick paralysis. As he slowly recovered, I decided to just let him do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. Because although we are often unaware of it, we can get stressed by performing, and our dogs tune into our stress and resonate to it. And his illness was within his nervous system, and I wanted him to feel as little stress as possible.
But at Camp, which as its name suggests is a place to run free, explore and deepen the human-dog connection, I decided to try agility with him. And after 4 years he remembered every obstacle except the dreaded weave poles, and he loved it. The instructor was extremely perceptive: just before the dog walk (high and narrow off the ground), I hesitated – it couldn’t have been more than a second – and he picked it up and asked me if there was a problem. I told him, and he said calmly and quietly to try it. Then Shiro sailed up the ramp, trotted across the walk, and calmly descended the second ramp, a perfect dog walk.

Shiro in Manhatten

margot lasher — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:21:24 +0000

This is Shiro in the city, posing calmly next to a snowman in Washington Square Park. He wears a leash, heels, and follows all the city rules.

baby chicks & wild turkeys

margot lasher — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:17:47 +0000

My son just got 4 baby chicks and he lets them roam around the yard while he’s watching them in the evening. We put Shiro in the house but he found an open door, and with the chicks wandering freely, Shiro came trotting into the yard and came right to me, ignoring the birds. He then lay down and seemed to be pretending not to see them (in psychology it’s called ‘denial’). But the chicks had no experience with predators and were basically without fear, so one of them flew right up to his head, close enough to his large mouth to be disappeared in an instant. Shiro raised his head and went into his ‘high alert’ mode. I froze. This is a dog who preys on wild turkeys, and whose idea of a walk is to go hunting. But he knew that he couldn’t eat the chickens. He didn’t touch the baby chick.
This is really being in two worlds. Can you imagine the restraint it took to leave that chick flying next to his head alone?

our dogs live in two different worlds

margot lasher — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:48:00 +0000

I’ve been working on the idea that dogs live in two different worlds, the human world of culture, rules, and human dangers, and the world of nature, with the connections of wild animals and the dangers of the wilderness. The amazing thing is that our dogs seem to be able to connect comfortably and easily to both worlds. They feel a sense of belonging in both worlds. They settle into the house, curling up on our bed at night, and then the next morning they race into the woods and are immediately aware and alive to everything. It’s an incredible ability to cross a complex boundary.