Cindy Bruckart

In the past week, I have talked to three very distressed dog people. Two of them are fostering dogs, and the other just adopted a dog. The issues they're experiencing range from inappropriate chewing, to serious separation anxiety, to attention seeking behavior, to general "what the heck do I do with this dog?"

I patiently gave my best advice to all of them, and everyone has calmed down. However, I still wonder if they really heard the most important thing I said to all three of them.

"He/She is an adolescent."

I say this a lot, to a lot of people, because most people get frustrated over doggy behavior during doggy adolscence. It's no different than parents with children. Sure kids are a lot of work when they're babies and toddlers. They need a lot of attention during grade school, too. But it is in the scary, confusing forest of adolescence that both kids and parents can feel lost and in need of serious guidance.

I've been asked to help Project POOCH (www.pooch.org) in a new way. My new mission is to help three of the youth develop their skills in training other trainers. This means helping them figure out how to get their own knowledge and skills into the hands of other youth in a way that is meaningful and effective for the new trainers and the dogs in their care.

This is a BIG task! Dogs are easy to train. People are much, much trickier! Teaching humans to teach humans is daunting. Luckily, it's a subject I'm passionate about and very excited to continue to discuss with the guys at Mac Laren Youth Corrrectional Facility.

Last Thursday we discussed some of the issues they've been having as trainer mentors. Much of what they face is similar to what I deal with in my own clients. As I've looked over my notes and thought about how we'll move forward, I've been giving a lot of thought to why it's so much easier to work with dogs than people.

What a difference a year makes! Last year I wrote about gardening with dogs here on DSD. Well, here we are again knee deep in Spring projects with five dogs running around the yard.

But this year is different. My dogs are now 1, 2, 2, 7 and 13. They are still curious about what I'm doing, but don't get quite as excited about helping me dig a hole or tasting any new thing I might plant.

Their paths through the yard have been well established and I don't plant things that will get in their way. Their recall is great. They respond immediately to, "Get outta there!" All digging, wrestling and pooping happens in appropriate areas of the yard.

I love going out to dinner with my husband. He listens to what I’m saying with genuine interest, gives me honest, loving feedback and tells great stories. We are constantly making each other laugh. We can always think of something to talk about.

Sometimes I notice other people eating together, couples or otherwise, who don’t seem to be having such a great time. In fact, they appear to be two strangers who happened to sit at the same table. Each is looking around in the other directions, reading a paper, talking on a cell phone…everything but being engaged in conversation with the person across the table.