Been picking up this good book

and reading it through, here and there. Almost every page I turned, there are nuggets of wisdom. Heartwarming. Stirring. Sad. Joyful. Painful truths. Freeing thoughts. All of life and death and the beauty of each.

Go get a copy of this book, I am sure you will be touched in many ways.

"If A Dog's Prayers Were Answered...Bones Would Rain From The Sky" ... Deepening Our Relationships With Dogs, by Suzanne Clothier.

I got mine couple of years ago from Borders, I'm sure they still have it now.

I received an email from a lady who was troubled by the fearful behaviour of her 10 month old labrador - she has grown very timid and fearful of strangers, hiding when she hears strong winds, growling when attempt is made to remove something from her mouth ... the owner is puzzled as to why her dog is behaving this way. As we corresponded, I was shocked when she told me that she has made arrangement with a dog trainer who trains with the e-collar. Meaning the Electric Collar.

I immediately shared with her my views of training with e-collars. In my personal opinion, it has no place in the training of dogs. If your idea of training a dog is to control, coerce, force, intimidate, and make a dog obey you out of fear, threat, avoidance of pain, then please ... stay away from another dog. You are merely looking for a quick fix. As a mechanic will 'fix' and tinkle an object.

If your dog is already fearful, you are the last person on earth she will expect who will inflict more fear upon her. Think. And think again. Sit down and be quiet and take a good long look at your dog. What have you or your family members or visitors done to create this unnatural emotion in your dog? Fear is not baseless. It arises from bad experiences that have gone unnoticed. Cos you are not looking at your dog's world through his/her eyes. Get down on all fours if you need and begin to SEE exactly where has gone wrong that you may have contributed to. What is causing the fear. And then what you can do to reassure and reverse this unpleasant memory in her mind.

There was an experiment done which in short revealed that many people, placed in positions under authority, will obey the authority (the trainer) and inflict pain (electric shocks) to their dogs far above the acceptable levels .. not cos the owners are sadists, but cos they were only doing what they were told, cos they were unable to defy authority.

"Seeking guidance from dog trainers, behaviourists and obedience instructors, we may find ourselves in real-life experiment when these 'experts' tell us what we must do to our dogs in order to train, correct or punish them. Even when our senses tell us that we have stepped past the bounds of what is right and humane, we may find ourselves more concerned with what the teacher or trainer thinks of us than we are with what is happening to our dog. If we are not aware of our very human tendency to obey what an aauthority tells us to do, even when we are uncomfortable or even horrified by what that may be and the effects it has on our dogs, we may end up far from where we hope to be."

"If we understand that being human includes weakness and tendencies that pull us toward the dark, unlighted corners, we then can choose deliberately to move toward the light, and thus continue to grow."

"Our power remains authentic when we refuse to give it away by surrendering to the illusion that others know more than what our hearts tell us. At the moment we set our intention to walk the paths that we believe will lead us to the deeper connections nad more profound relationships we need and long for, we have begun to shift our world."

Always SEE the person, SEE the dog, the animal whom you are encountering. It IS up to you. Your thoughts, your words, your actions. SEE with your heart.

"When we know what we believe and who we are, we stand strong and sure about what we will and will not allow. For those in our caretaking, such soulful coherence offers them a powerful shield against cruelties large and small."