Last week the world was introduced to Chanel, the sweet and wizened Dachshund mix that is celebrating her 21st birthday. It’s quite an accomplishment. She is the world’s oldest living dog and she appears to be in excellent condition.

I know the news is a bit stale and has already been covered, but Chanel has stayed on my mind, and not because of her cute red sweater and matching doggles.

I couldn’t help but notice that in all of the stories about Chanel and what kept her healthy and spry, there was what I think an important omission.  Nobody mentioned Chanel’s behavioral health as part of the reason why she’s still alive today.

A Salem, Oregon man made the news when police found out he was using a shock collar on his children. People were outraged to hear that he'd chased his three year old child with the collar, making the child cry, because he thought it was funny.

John Seroczynski, the national sales manager for D.T. Systems, a shock collar manufacturer, said it was not likely that the children were seriously injured.

He was obviously talking about physical injury, as he explained that no shock collar today would burn a person or dog and would not cause any serious physical injury.

I'll give him that, but every fiber of my being will stand firm in the opinion that those children have been seriously injured. Perhaps not physically, but absolutely emotionally. If there was no harm done, why would the father be in custody and why would any of us care?

Seroczynski said the collars are not to be used on humans.

Okay, let's be honest, when it comes to competition obedience, how much of an underdog could a Border Collie and Aussie really be, but believe it or not, in my neck of the woods, the two dogs pictured, Logan and Phoenix, kind of are. Dog sports within the mid-Atlantic area (PA, NJ, VA, MD) is highly competitive. Earning an OTCH (Obedience Trial Championship) has become more and more elusive through the years, and has become limited to trainers who view competition almost as seriously as a job, rather than a part-time hobby. For us part-timers, particularly those of us who use only positive methods and have more of a pet person mentality (those of you involved in dog sports will know exactly what that means), no matter what breed we have, we're definitely considered underdogs. No matter how you train or what methods you use, you never really know what a dog is going to do in the ring.

While The CDC (Center for Disease Control) has been working double overtime lately as evidenced by the constant stream of H1N1 Virus (nee Swine Flu) discussion, reporting, analyzing, speculating and more, lesser known perhaps is that in late March of this year they released analyzed fall data and disclosed the following fascinating stats:

• 88% of fall related injuries were associated with dogs or one of their pet items such as a toy or bowl.

• 31.3 % resulted from falling or tripping over the dog (versus the overwhelming 66.4 % of cats being tripped over) which included falls from chasing after a dog with obviously poor recall (another one of The Six Things All Dogs Should Know!)

• 21.2 % from being pushed or PULLED by the pet.

• Women were TWO TIMES AS LIKELY to be injured as males. (Hmmmmm)