Golden Mountain Dog Solutions

Tonight will mark the end of the first week Minnie has been a member of our pack. A stable pack of dogs is an incredibly powerful force in dog rehabilitation and she has fit in seamlessly. Of no surprise to us was the fact that Gunner, our German Shepherd, was the one she gravitated to, following him around and mimicking his actions as she absorbs the pack rules. Even though he’s the youngest, Gunner is our version of a Wal-Mart door greeter, but without the blue vest.

What Minnie presently lacks in obedience training she more than makes up for in social skills. She is extremely quick to learn, intelligent, and curious in all the best ways. In the presence of clear leadership, she has proven to be courageous beyond her size. Her new regimen of healthy diet and exercise has been a good fit for her, but that much excess weight can’t be burned away overnight - something else humans need to learn from dogs. Read the rest of this entry »

Grand Opening? Yes, we know that the GMDS Dog Blog got its start on Blogspot back in 2008, but the time has come to move what has become a popular haunt over to our own GMDS web host.

As of today, the old Blogspot blog page will be maintained as archive only, and the entire archive has also been moved here where all new posts will be made.

If you are a follower of the GMDS Dog Blog and/or have the blog bookmarked, please realign your navigation systems to point here.

Onward and upward with tails held high,
Diana and Randy

Author’s Note: The following article combines two that I originally wrote and published on my personal blog, Large Fierce Mammal in September 2008. This will be your Sunday programming while Diana and I lead the Pack for a day in the woods.

A Tiny Tale …

Diana holds Tiny, the canine cannon ball, during the little gaffer’s “Welcome to Canada” party.

Back in 2000, I was in Florida on business and ended up rescuing a little ragamuffin toy poodle puppy named Tiny. Because I was traveling on business, I flew there and back in uniform. This was before we transitioned to the black field uniforms. At the time, we used a navy blue tactical uniform for field operations with “Whynacht Security & Survival” shoulder flashes and mine also had a bright yellow “Dog Handler” patch on the right sleeve. Read the rest of this entry »

I was responsible for naming the family dog, a mostly black Border Collie, after "Bullet the Wonder Dog", trusty companion of Roy Rogers in the adventure series that aired from 1961 to 1964 and that I never missed.

When I was growing up in the small fishing town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in the 1960’s and 1970’s it was the norm, after feeding them a meal of table scraps, for people to turn their often unspayed and unneutered dogs loose “for a run” in the evening with the expectation that they would go on a toot and return before the family retired for the night. While this practice makes me cringe on a range of levels too broad to mention here, and I decidedly do not recommend its adoption by anyone, anywhere, for any reason, at any time, EVER, it actually worked amazingly well, and had a few valuable side effects on my formative years that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Most particularly, as a kid on the go in the streets of Lunenburg it was not uncommon to encounter dogs running loose, singly and in groups. Sometimes you knew one or more of the dogs you met, sometimes you didn’t. Parents of the town understood this as a reality of life, and instructed their children in the basic rules of conduct that would increase the likelihood their offspring would return home with all fingers and facial features intact. Most kids therefore understood what kinds of human behaviour would increase or decrease the chances of a person being chased or bitten, and those who didn’t soon learned the old fashioned way. I was fascinated by the obvious compulsion dogs had to seek each other out and gather in packs, and unlike the children of Lunenburg, how infrequently, when left to themselves, this resulted in any kind of conflict. Read the rest of this entry »

Diana and I regularly encounter questions about our work, our attitudes about dog training methods and specific dog trainers, about the latest books on dog related subjects, if we do group sessions and teach obedience classes, et cetera. While we’ll ultimately post articles dealing with all of these points, this article will address the common connection people make between our methods and those of well known dog behaviourist Cesar Millan.

I’ll start with an anecdote. Most people reading this will have heard of the television series MacGyverthat ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992 and starred Richard Dean Anderson in the title role. In case you’ve forgotten or are too young to know, Angus MacGyver was an incredibly creative and resourceful fictional secret agent who preferred non-violent means of conflict resolution and, while he refused to use or carry a gun, was never without his trusty Swiss Army Knife. Read the rest of this entry »

This is Minnie, a five year old Miniature Pinscher who joined our pack from the Halifax area night before last.

Minnie had belonged to a couple who also owned another dog of a different breed. That dog wasn’t so lucky. The couple had problems of the kind that often end up with perfectly healthy dogs being euthanized. Minnie was rescued but her pack mate was not.

A few days ago, Minnie’s plight became known to one of our clients who brought the situation to Diana. Diana in turn got in contact with the foster home Minnie was temporarily in. Arrangements were made and Diana and I picked her up Tuesday evening. Read the rest of this entry »