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I suspended the Dog Support program on the blog today. I don’t expect it to return.

During the pandemic, more than 23 million dogs were adopted across the country, and many millions of them are being returned to shelters because people didn’t want to do the work or didn’t have time to do the work of acclimating a dog to a household.

Some just went back to work.

I thought I might be of help, and I also thought this could provide a revenue stream for myself, a way to get paid for the dog advice people always asked me for and that I often gave for free.

Some people asked for help for many reasons, and I had a great time trying to help. It felt good and meaningful.

It was a great use of my experience.  I thought it would also be a good revenue stream. I was right about the first, not about the second.

It didn’t work for several reasons. First, my writing on the blog is often about dogs. There was a steady stream of people wanting help, but no rush. It was hard to fit those Zoom meetings into my schedule, which is often crazy.

The blog has mushroomed into other subjects – spirituality, rural life, aging, community, and my new interest in finding good people doing good things and writing about them. I want the blog to people about other people, not just me, and about images, not just words.

The flower-sharing and garden pictures took off ten times more than Dog Support. I want to do more work like that. That’s where my heart is now—that and a blog supporting positive thinking and civility in a combative and often cruel world.

My work with the Army of Good has also ballooned; I spend a lot of time raising money and helping the residents of the Mansion and the students in Sue Silverstein’s art program at Bishop Gibbons.

I am busier than ever, write more than ever, take more photos than ever, and am older than ever. I didn’t have the time to devote myself to the Dog Support idea in the way it needed or deserved.

At the outset, I was hired by a score of wonderful people, and we did some neat things with their dogs. If they are telling me the truth, and I think they are, we did a lot of good. I enjoyed it.

I was never comfortable charging the rates professional dog experts and trainers charged, so it wasn’t much of a revenue stream; I was earning less than it cost to re-design the blog to make room for the graphics.

I’ll be honest; writing about dogs is a vital part of my life and always will be, but other subjects are part of the blog architecture now. They need my attention.

Several topics and issues have emerged to make the blog something much different than it was when I started it in 2007. I want to keep expanding my range (within reason) while keeping a close on dog and animal subjects. I left publishing partly because my publishers would only permit me to write about dogs. I love writing about dogs, but I love writing about other things too.

I cherish the freedom my blog has given me and the audience I never imagined I would have. At my age, I’m entitled to write what I want.

The blog fits a particular niche now; I want it to be a safe and uplifting place for people who wish to do good rather than argue about it.

Somehow, the dog thing didn’t fit in the way I had intended; it felt out of sync; I’m not entirely sure why..

And that is a good thing for me, as I really don’t have the time or energy to do it regularly.

I am grateful to the good people who believed in my judgment and experience and graced me with their trust and love of dogs. That was a pleasure for me and a gift – thank you.

The people who paid me get free lifetime counseling from me, as promised. I’m here for you anytime.

That’s a good deal for $65 bucks a half-hour.

I want to know how these stories end up.

The blog is a living organism to me, it grows and learns and changes to fit my life and the times.

It’s in a good place now, it has the right mix, and I want to be careful to  keep it that way.

Bud assembles his Treat Squad to wait patiently for me when I am in the shower. When the door opens, they take up their formation – Bud First, Zinnia, Fate, and I go to the treat drawer and give each one. On the other side of the story, Maria got a nice picture of the squad gathering and waiting for me.

Dogs love routines and rituals, especially when there is a reward.

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I keep forgetting to mention Dog Support, a new program on the blog designed to help people with behavioral, emotional, or other issues and problems with their dogs. More than 23 million dogs were adopted during the pandemic, many of them are being returned as people go back to work and learn what having a dog is actually about.

I vote for giving them another chance, whether new or not.

For a fee of $65 per the first half hour, I’m offering help and counseling. You can check the program out right here and ask for help if needed.  The program has gone very well so far, I enjoy doing it, and the people who ask for help tell me they are happy. It feels like we are doing dogs and people a lot of good. Check it out here.

Ears back, pleading eyes. This is what dogs have learned to do over the past few centuries to get to sleep in bed, eat gourmet food, and get showered with love and treats.  This is why dogs sleep in beds and raccoons don’t. Dogs know what we want from them.

In the past two years, more than 23 million dogs were adopted to comfort people during the pandemic. They did their usual excellent job. But many are in trouble now.

As lives become more regular and people return to work, many dogs are victims. Millions are being returned to shelters; others need training, love, and understanding. History tells us that when people get dogs hurriedly or in a panic, they have no real idea what dogs are like. They often panic and send them back to real danger.

It is the historical fate of dogs to help us when we need them but to be abandoned when we don’t.

When people find out that having a dog means working and patience, and self-awareness, dogs have trouble. This is why I’ve launched my dog support program on the blog. The idea is to help people and their dogs as they collide in this unprecedented way. (911 was close.) If you are having a problem with a new or old dog, please consider contacting me through my dog support application,

Give the dogs a chance.

Dog walkers and trainers, and vets report they are being swamped by people needing help with canine behavioral problems and human emotional issues. I’d love to try and help if I can. I charge $65 for a half hour and will stick with people for no charge beyond that. I am not a professional trainer or a vet, so I charge much less than they do.

As a dog counselor, I come in between the vets and the trainers; most dog problems can be healed when we understand the emotional and attachment dynamics between them and us. To me, this is positive reinforcement training at its best. It’s true; it’s usually a human problem.

Many people give up on their new dogs when the world seems safer. I’ve already helped a dozen or so dogs stay in their new homes. Dog Support is important and urgent work. And I love doing it. We solve our dog puzzles together.

I’m happy to be paid for my work and time, but I don’t do this for the money. I’ve been living with dogs and writing books about them for years. If you are having dog trouble, check out dog support. I can meet people on Zoom, Facetime, or phone. Either way, good luck with your dogs.

My work with Bud inspired the idea that before we give up on our dogs, let’s give them the chance to become the dogs we want, need, and love.

I often hear Bud’s voice in my ear, saying something like “thanks for our good life together; thanks for not giving up on me.”

Most dogs can be helped, and they can be saved. They are among the world’s most adaptable creatures; if they love us, they will do almost anything we ask.

Dog Support was designed for people who love their dogs and want to understand their own emotions and feelings better and get some help in dealing with behavior and fear, and other issues.

It took Bud three years to get over the traumas of his early life. He is a loving and happy creature, a precious addition to our family.

In a way, he is the reason I started offering Dog Support. ($65 per half hour.)

The service is designed to help people with dog issues and, so far, is close to 100 percent successful. Many behavioral and other issues are treatable and trainable. The problem is, in fact, very often the people.

Bud proved to me that it could be done. If you need help, let’s do it together. You can apply for help here. It’s one of my best ideas ever.

As I meet loving and conscientious dog owners in my new Dog Support program (now $65 for a half hour), I am increasingly grateful for the time I spent at the University of Kentucky studying attachment theory as it applies to dogs and people. It is proving invaluable time and time again.

Our interactions with our dogs are potent factors in our relationships with them and our responses to our dog’s behavior. Our emotional connections with dogs often mirror, reflect, and reveal our earliest interactions with our parents regarding anxiety, guilt, and even panic. Dogs used to be for protection and hunting. Now, they are our personal emotional support systems.

It’s harder work for them.

It’s not true that it’s always the human’s fault regarding dogs and behavioral problems. Adopting or buying a dog has become complex, expensive, unpredictable, and chaotic. Most people know nothing about the dogs they are bringing home, which makes it often impossible to understand their behavior.

People do get the dogs they need (or think they are getting the dogs they need) and are almost always projecting their issues and neuroses onto them. Millions of dogs are being returned to shelters because people adopted them thoughtlessly and didn’t want to do the work to help them..

Since dogs have survived through the ages by becoming our emotional companions, partners, and best friends, it is crucial to know how our emotions and fears bear on the dog’s behavior. They don’t have our feelings and emotions, but they have their own. And they watch is closely for clues as to what pleases us or anger or worries us.

The key to a happy life with a dog is to understand him or her and you and how it all comes together – or doesn’t.

One woman I talked to decided to bring her dog (which she loved) back to the shelter because she was sure he was unhappy and didn’t eat or play at first. She was so guilt-stricken thinking she was harming the dog that she gave him back, even though she loved him and the dog had no time to adapt to her new home and get safe.

I asked the woman about her mother, and then I understood everything. Her mother was all about guilt and anxiety. She couldn’t bear to do to the dog what her mother did to her.

At Kentucky, they taught me that how we behave with our dogs almost always reflects how we were known and loved or not as tiny children. People quickly assume their dogs are thinking what they were thinking, wanting what they wanted, or being deprived of things they didn’t get. Guilt has no place when it comes to training or living with dogs, and it almost always takes us down the wrong path. For all we emotionalize them, they are simple creatures, loves of repetition and regularity.

They need to be trained and loved to be trained.

Once we focus on that, the dogs start to get better unless they are in-bred or severely abused.

It takes dogs about two months to acclimate to a new home. Very few people leave them alone and give them that time. Most dogs will do anything to please those who love them and take them out for walks. Most people don’t know how to talk to them.

I’m fascinated by the emotional connections between people and their dogs; this is helping my Dog Support. People who love their dogs want to know and face their own issues as well as the dogs.  I’m not a shrink and don’t wish to be one. But I do know we can’t help our dogs if we don’t understand why we have them.

Those are the people I know are going to get the dogs they want and love – the ones who are looking for some truth and perspective. It’s the first question I ask: why do you have the dog you have?

You can apply for dog support here. Remember, the fee is now $65 for a half hour, and I will stick with my dog people for as long as it takes to fix the problem or give up on it. (No extra charge for the spare time.)

I am happy to have a new revenue stream but even happier to help people, and so far, so good.) You can read about Dog Support here.