This month's Clean Run

I love the magazine Clean Run. When I first started getting this magazine it blew my brain on a monthly basis. I just didn't have the knowledge to make sense of most of the articles. Now I thoroughly enjoy.

Recently they have had a series of articles by author Jane Killion who wrote When Pigs Fly, Training Success with Impossible Dogs. Having the dog I do, this is a book I received for Christmas! Not that Ike is impossible but he definately has more of a terrier perspective than I ever realized. He wants to know why he should be doing everything! I think there are many people out there who have what a lay-person might incorrectly refer to as a stubborn dog, who would really enjoy both this book and series of articles.

Back to the point of my post. This month's issue had a couple of excellent articles in it, but what got me most was the editor's note. It was written by a woman named Amy Hanridge, who has a degree in cultural anthropology. She wrote about Dog People and Parent People. She summed up beautifully "our" tribe.

March 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3, Page 5

....First I would like to teach you about the Dog People
tribe. They are some of the most committed people I know. And no, most of them should not be committed (to an institution somewhere).

They love there dogs, not because they are weird or inadequately
attached to humans, but because they understand the deep joy that can come from closely understanding these amazing creatures: dogs.

Don't demean the Dog People. Don't mock them. You misunderstand
them. Especially the Dog People who compete in dog agility. They are fervent in their love and interest for the sport, again, not because they are weird or poorly socialized but because it is a real sport. Agility is a sport that engages the mind and body fully and totally in those few minutes while a dog and handler run a course. And, teaching a member of another species to dance with you, to bob and to weave and to make the decision whether to jump or to scramble in hundreths of a second....well, it really is a rush....

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because my co-workers and non-dog friends don't quite grasp that training for me is more of a way of life than a hobby. It colors everything I do. I mean, I am at a point where I think of humans in behavioral terms first. I know, not necessarily a good thing! When I read Neil and Lael's post on the Thursday night class it reminded me that I wanted to share with anyone who visits my blog this excerpt from the Clean Run editor's note. It sums we dog people up so well!