Wagaliciousness Begins Here!

Have you ever watched dogs playing together? It’s so entertaining to watch them play – right up until it’s not. Maybe you’ve seen this – two dogs playing together and suddenly they’re squared up and threatening to fight. It’s tough to see what changed the dynamic unless you’re a dog body language expert, and even then, it can be tough to spot the subtle shift.

It’s kind of the same with people.

When two dogs are playing nicely, role reversal occurs. When running, they shift between the roles of chaser and chasee. Play bows (elbows on the ground, butt in the air, big toothy grin and waggy tail) happen. Wrestling and growling are part of normal play, too. The dogs may even play-bite each other – mouthing with no pressure, or air snaps designed to miss the other dog. Those are all signs that the play session is going well and both dogs will soon flop down, panting and happy, to recharge for a while and then play again.

The little subtle shifts – one dog wants to stop playing and the ot...

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Have you ever lost a pet? Can you remember the physicalness of the pain – the pain in your chest, the hollowness of your being, the emptiness in your home? What is that? Why is that?  

There’s a reason the phrase “suffer a loss” is used. It’s because it’s accurate. Research on the relationship between physical and emotional pain points to the idea that emotional pain has a survival benefit – it alerts us to the fact that something has changed in our lives that we need to pay attention to.  

Babies – baby humans, baby dogs, baby cats – have a very specific alarm cry when they’re without their mother. Neuroscientist and professor Yorem Yovell has studied the brain waves of crying infants of different species and found that not only are they experiencing the emotional pain of loss, they’re experiencing physical pain as well. The feeling of loss, it turns out, is both physical and emotional. It’s designed that way, just as the cry itself is designed to call the moth...

What do service clubs, civic clubs, and dog clubs have in common? Two major things, it turns out.

Are you in a club, or maybe more than one? It could be Rotary, Toastmaster, PTA, or your local kennel club – do you belong? If so, maybe you’ve noticed a couple of things – the club is smaller than it was a few years ago, and most of the people who do most of the work are in the sixth, seventh, or even eighth decade of life.

First things first – about the dwindling membership. Times do change, and lifestyles do, too. People in the developmental part of their adulthood – those in their twenties, thirties, and forties – are building careers and focusing on their families. While they may be interested in what clubs have to offer, they may not have the time or desire to commit to being part of a club. There’s good news here – more on that later.

Some people might look at most clubs, see the same people in leadership positions for years on end, and see a clique bound and determined to mainta...

This week’s newsletter might make you smile. This week’s newsletter might make you angry. This week's newsletter might do both and it also might just surprise you with information you didn’t know.

Today is National Rescue Dog Day. It’s a day that highlights the many dogs in animal shelters, awaiting forever homes. Giving a shelter dog a second chance at a good life is a lovely way to add a furry friend to your own life. There are people who advocate and practice responsible rescue, and sadly there are people who hide behind “rescue” as a way to separate caring hearts from their wallets. Aren’t there people like that in every aspect of life? Here are just a few of the tactics they use:

1. Some people will tell you that breeders are all terrible and that the right way to get a dog is to rescue one.
2. Some people will tell you to adopt, don’t shop.
3. Some people will pretend they’re part of a responsible rescue group when, in fact, they’re selling dogs they’ve sourced in less-than-noble wa
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I love writing this newsletter – it’s an excuse to learn things for me and a way to spread good and potentially useful information to you.

I learned today about an observance I’ve never heard of, and maybe you haven’t, either. Tomorrow is Donate a Day’s Wages to Charity Day. It’s been around since 2009 – how have I never tripped across it before? Did you know about it? Have you participated in it, either by donating or helping your favorite charity?

Think about the causes you support – who do you already give money to? Have you ever thought about making a donation some random Wednesday? Most of us make donations at the end of the year, while we’re thinking about tax matters or while we’re in a giving mood because of the holidays. Sometimes donations happen because of a silent auction at a special event, because a friend in need posts a go-fund-me request on social media, or because the firefighters are on the corner holding out their boots.

This once-a-year event shines a light on t...

Once upon a time, in living rooms, backyards, and sunlit windowsills, a team of tiny, furry (and sometimes feathered or finny) guardians set out on a mission: to keep their humans healthy and happy.

They came in every shape and size: bold dogs with wagging tails, cool kitties with slow blinks, hamsters who ran moonlight marathons, and turtles who modeled patience. To many, they were "just pets." But to those who understand the subtleties of life, it was clear: these creatures were health magicians in disguise.

Operation Move Your Feet
Dogs, the natural-born adventurers, had the important task of keeping humans active. With a single hopeful glance or an enthusiastic butt-wiggle, they lured their people outdoors. Rain? Snow? It didn’t matter. Every step counted toward a healthier heart for the human and, of course, more exciting smells for the dogs.

The Art of the Calm
Cats, with their soothing purr-production engines, practiced ancient relaxation magic. Curling up beside a stressed-o...

If you knew it could be granted, what would you wish for? Would your wish change if you knew you were approaching the end of your life here on Earth?

The most common wishes are for health, happiness, love, and success. That’s what most adults would wish for. How about children facing a life-threatening challenge, though? What’s their most common wish?

Turns out, 40% of children who petition the Make-A-Wish Foundation ask for a trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Many, if not most, adults would react to that with something along these lines: “Well, they’re just a child and don’t understand how serious their condition is.”

That may be true, and it misses the point completely. Children want what they want. You wanted what you wanted when you were a child. I wanted what I wanted when I was a child. As we grow up, we mold ourselves to what the adults or authority figures in our lives expect from us. That’s normal and natural – we want their approval and the easiest way to get it i...

The earth is getting colder and it’s a dire emergency. Wait – maybe the earth is getting warmer and it’s a dire emergency. In the past 50 years, climate change has been front and center, with strident voices trumpeting many different points of view. How can we know what’s right or what changes truly make sense?

In the late 1800’s, scientists were postulating that human activity was affecting the Earth’s atmosphere. In the 1970’s, the loudest voices were proclaiming that the Earth was rapidly cooling, and we were surely headed for another ice age. By the 1980’s, a different understanding became the dominant one – global warming was melting the ice caps and coastal areas worldwide were bound to be covered by the oceans. Then in the 1990’s, the prevailing theory was of climate change – human-activity-created weather aberrations would be the end of us if we didn’t do something soon.

What “something,” though? The truth is, the Earth is a system, not a static item. Even before human activi...

Do you work in an office? Is it a ghost town today? Welcome to IRS Appreciation Day.

OK, so I made that holiday up. We might as well appreciate them – we’ve been stuck with them for our entire lives and probably will be for the rest of our lives.

Maybe the holiday should be National Procrastinators Day, a day to use PTO to take care of paperwork we’ve known since January we had to take care of, and yet we put it off until the last possible day. Oh, wait – the truly great procrastinators will file an extension, putting off that paperwork as long as possible.

And yet, it still has to be done.

Why the heck do we dread doing taxes, when for most of us, it’s not that big a deal. We either can do the simplified version of taxes, or we can hire someone to do the more complicated version for us. Fifty one percent of Americans file in the first two weeks of April or later. Over half of us put it off until the last minute, or beyond the last minute.

Over half. Why? The top three reasons for...

When was the last time you were in your local library? That lovely sanctuary filled with silence, books, knowledgeable people, and the educational resources of the world at your fingertips remains one of the best-kept secrets paid for by tax dollars. 

Since you’re paying for it anyway, why not check out what your library has to offer? And if you have an hour or two (or more) each month, think about volunteering your time and expertise at your library. 

I’m a volunteer. Actually, I volunteer in a lot of different ways, one of them having to do with libraries. My dog Archie is a therapy dog who spends time three Wednesdays a month in two different libraries.  

 On the first and third Wednesdays, we’re in the children’s area of a Marietta, GA public library branch where children sign up to read books out loud to Archie. The first-, second- and third-graders are mainly home-schooled kids whose moms bring them to the library for group enrichment programs. Archie’s attentive listening hel...