Tommy’s story starts out in a very sad way.  He was abused by his first owner — in terrible ways.  Finally, that owner, literally “threw Tommy away” — into a trash bin.  Fortunately, an alert trash collector rescued Tommy and took him to a shelter, where people cared for him.  About two months later, Tommy was rescued by his “forever home” new parents.

Laura Marlowe read about Tommy and decided to write a book about his story.  She wanted to teach people — especially young children — how to properly treat a dog and the benefits of dog rescue.   “Tommy the Throwaway Dog” is aimed at children from three years old to age nine.  Now Laura travels around the country visiting grade school classes and shelters and using Tommie’s story help raise awareness and funds — for the proper treatment of dogs.

Here’s Laura’s overview of Tommy’s story (2:30).

And here’s the full interview from the “My Doggie Says…” show.

Rescue Dog with a Super Job

Here’s Charmaine’s description of how Toby, the rescue dog, would enter a hospital and announce his presence — with a couple of loud barks.  And how Toby has some special instincts about how he can help each patient he interacts with.

Here’s Charmaine talking about “On Toby’s Terms.”  It’s really a great story about a rescue dog, an animal behaviorist, and a creative and very effective solution to a dog behavior problem.

In this short clip (1:34), Michelle summarizes the results of research by the Canine Research Council on childhood dog bites.  Most incidents are a result of a child left alone with an unfamiliar dog in an unfamiliar place:

Here’s the full podcast:

Here are Sharon Loy’s words about how improved dog communication can lead to a much richer relationship with your pet:

“Like most animal lovers, I have always had a trusting and intuitive connection with animals. But I did not always understand the full extent of what their companionship offers.”

In this short clip (4:48), Sharon talks about how anyone can learn to become a telepathic animal communicator:

Listen to the entire podcast, in which Sharon talks about what it means to have telepathic abilities, how language and intuition can foster dog communication and the role of right brain and left brain thinking in dog communication.  Sharon also gives some fascinating examples of how her telepathic skills helped solve some very complicated dog behavior problems.

Lori Helps us Take Dog Relationships to a New High

Lori Spagna is founder of efil’s god Spirit,efil’s god and efil’s god Dog Training, which focus on a spiritual, holistic approach to communication and healing for the mind, body and spirit in every living being.

Hear how Lori’s concept of our pets “mirroring” our personalities, along with some good dog communication, helped solve a family relationship problem — and a dog’s terrible skin allergy issue.  (4:00)

According to Lori, the best dog communication happens when you marry your right brain with your left.  (2:00)

Here’s the full podcast (50:00).

Peggy Frezon is an author, pet columnist, and multiple award-winning freelance writer from New York. She contributes regularly to Guideposts and Angels on Earth magazines and is published in more than a dozen Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Her work can also be seen in magazines such as Woman’s World, Teaching Tolerance, Pockets and others, and in books including The Ultimate Dog Lover, Miracles and Animals, Soul Matters, and David Jeremiah’s Grace Givers. She writes two web columns, Pawsitively Pets and Animals 4 People, is a staff writer for Be the Change for Animals, and blogs at Peggy’s Pet Place. Her first book is Dieting with my Dog (Hubble & Hattie, 2011).

Listen to Peggy as she talks about feeding her dog veggies, sharing an exercise program, and the psychological benefits of having a “furry little conscience.”

Kevin Behan on the “My Doggie Says…” Show:

Kevin Behan, dog behavior expert,  grew up on his parent’s farm in rural Connecticut immersed in a landscape of natural beauty and surrounded by dogs. Kevin’s father, John Behan, founded Canine College, trained dogs in the Canine Corps in WWII and was the first in America to train protection dogs for hospitals, police units, and even retail stores such as Macy’s. Kevin worked in his father’s kennel where he encountered every possible type of dog exhibiting every type of behavior. Consequently, Kevin grew up without judgment about dog behavior, even aggression, as everything dogs did was taken as a matter of course.

Kevin trained his first dog, a poodle named Onyx, at age ten. As Kevin matured, so did his ideas about his experiences and the behaviors he witnessed. By carefully watching the workings of nature, Kevin began to see that what made the modern dog adaptable and trainable was not the dominance hierarchy, as taught to him by his father, but the dog’s ability to work as a cooperative group member in the hunt. Influenced by European police dog trainers and a German shepherding sage named Mannel, Kevin’s theories and techniques came together in the 1980′s as Natural Dog Training. Kevin then started his own kennel, Canine Arts, in Brookfield, Connecticut and published his first book, Natural Dog Training in 1992. Using techniques totally unique, Kevin has trained hundreds of police, protection, and border control dogs, as well as thousands of America’s pets. He has become the nation’s foremost expert on the rehabilitation of aggressive and problem dogs, which is now where he concentrates most of his work. A seasoned lecturer and seminar host, Kevin’s presentations go well beyond the training of dogs and into the very core of canine behavior. He has pioneered the Natural Dog Training movement with his articles and theories on energy, the linkage between dogs and emotion, prey vs. predator model, as well as instrumental training techniques like pushing and eye contact.

Kevin now lives with his family on their 60-acre farm in beautiful Southern Vermont. His second book, Your Dog is Your Mirror: The Emotional Capacity of Our Dogs and Ourselves is now available in bookstores and online. He also actively participates in readers’ comments and conversations on the NDT site. Follow the Discussions here.

Learn more about Kevin’s work by clicking here.

Hear Barbara talk about her experience in bonding with a pet and the process of grieving upon the loss of a pet.

A “cross-over” trainer, Pat started her long dog-training career using “old-fashioned” methods that relied on the use of force-based tools and methods – jerks on the choke chain, harsh verbal corrections – and successfully earned numerous obedience titles with a variety of dogs, including a Rough Collie, a Bull Terrier, an Australian Kelpie, a Pomeranian, and Josie, her wonderful Terrier mix. It was Josie who convinced her to cross over to force-free methods, and she is now fully committed to science-based, positive reinforcement training.

Hear Pat talk about “positive reinforcement training,” on the “My Doggie Says…” show.

Glynis is a recurring guest on Coast-To-Coast AM radio with George Noory, where she averages no less than three million hits on her website after each radio appearance. Why such a massive response? Because listeners cannot get over Glynis’ exceptional speed and accuracy. One of her specialties is predicting whether a celebrity couple will sizzle or fizzle as time goes on. When she does live readings, SHE DOES NOT MISS.

Click here to visit Glynis’s web site.

Hear Glynis talk about what numbers can tell us about our dogs — and how to name a dog using the numbers!