Animals; mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, chickens, rabbits, dogs and horses have always shared my life. There have always been wonderful companions to play with, teach and just be with. We always had a dog from Toy Poodles to German Shepherds.

One Easter our Mother thought it would be fun to get we three girls a chick each. We had a country farm where we spent the summers and this sounded great. Unfortunately something went awry with the order and we ended up with 18 ROOSTERS! You can imagine our surprise Easter morning. We girls loved it but when the roosters started crowing at the crack of dawn in the city, it was time to move them to the farm. We named them, taught them tricks and had a wonderful time. They did great except for the incident with the resident mink but that is another story.

Siblings usually mimic their elder siblings and I was no exception. When my older sister got a pet mouse, I had to get one too. They were a male and a female and you can just imagine the result. The result in fact was 72 mice with varied colours like orange and silver. My first foray into breeding and genetics at the age of 7.

Then there were the Dutch Blue rabbits and a jack rabbit buddy. WOW! Did he ever grow to be huge!

There were teddy bear hamsters, guinea pigs and of course our beloved horses. Well they were actually Shetland Ponies. We rode English and Western, mucked out the barn, traipsed around in the country night when they got loose and did a lot of brushing.

Since I had grown up with animals of all sorts it only seemed natural that when I went to Dalhousie University that I would study Psychology and Animal Behavior. This included biology, chemistry, physiology, neurology, organic chemistry and more. Along with a B.Sc. ( Psych) and another degree, 9 years of University taught me how to learn and how much more there is to know.

I continue to take courses, seminars and certifications to further expand my knowledge. No one can know everything but you can sure try!

I hold certifications as a Dog Trainer ( CDPT-KA), a dog nutritionist (DNU) as well as continuously expanding my range of knowledge as it pertains to all things dog. It has been a great journey from using Skinner boxes at University in 1982 to the amazing discoveries our advanced technology allows us to understand in terms of behavior and neurology. From Pavlov to Skinner to Panksepp, our understanding of our fellow animals is an amazing and rapidly growing field. I look forward to sharing the learning and knowledge with you.

I invite you to enjoy my blog on dogs and my sincere wish is that we all expand our understanding and knowledge of other species in deep respect for each other and the tiny planet we call home.