Stone City was built on violence.
After decades of suffering from invaders,The Stone City warriors became horsemen. Their horses gave them geat advantage.
Historians have written extensively of the role of the horse in conquest through the centuries...
The Sycthians conquered and pillaged throughout a vast area in Central Asia, eluding larger armies with their horses. Mounted soldier were fundemental to the Persian conquests and the sweeping armies of Alexander the great. The conquests across Asia, Russia, the Near East and much of Europe by the Mongols depended on their horses.
Based on historical precedent, horses play vital roles in the Planet of the Dogs series.
When mounted warrior tribes threaten the farmers of Green Valley and conquer the land of the Forest people, it is up to the dogs to stop them in a non-violent way.
..................................
from The New Yorker Magazine
BEWARE OF THE DOGS 
Can New York’s canine units keep the city safe from terrorism?
by Burkhard Bilger (2-27-2012)...A excellent, fascinating report that focuses on the dogs relationship with their trainers as well as their exceptional talent for finding explosives and illegal drugs and their ability to to pursue and overcome dangerous people...
An interesting quote fom the article by former policeman and current Canine Dog trainer Richard Smith: " The only thing two dog trainers can agree about is what the third trainer is doing wrong."
An excellent video can be found on the New Yorker website: "In this video, Officer Wayne Rothschild discusses his bond with his partner—a German shepherd named Danz—and instructs Danz to leap over hurdles and climb obstacles in one of the N.Y.P.D.’s canine training courses, on Roosevelt Island." Here is the link:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/02/video-the-dog-squad.html
The dog seen above is not a police helper; he came from the Planet Of The Dogs long, long ago.
.......................................
Paws to Read in the Alexandria Library
Based on her experiences as Young Adult Librarian in Alexandria, Va, Ginny Rawls is a therapy reading dog enthusiast. It was most heartening to read about the reading dog related activities she has initiated. I share with you her response to my request for information about her programs and experiences ...
"In our central library we have the Paws to Read program for kids in grades 1-6. Currently, we have 4-5 dog volunteers who come twice a month with their humans to listen to the kids read. The children are excited, happy, and love reading to dogs.
Sometimes, they want to expose the dog to their favorite stories or have asked if it's ok to read to them about cats and tigers. I tell them that it's a good idea for dogs to know as much about cats as possible. Sometimes, they do read about dogs, though. I display several dog books in our storyroom during the program and each dog has a bookmark with a photo and information about the dog breed, favorite foods, activities, and the dog's favorite book...
Our volunteers come through a wonderful organization, PAL (People. Animals. Love) in DC. They provide therapy dogs for a number of organizations, assisted-living homes, and libraries in the DC metro area. Tracy Baetz, one of the volunteers, makes the bookmarks with a photo and information about the breed, where they were born, favorite activities and foods, and of course, each dog's favorite book. There is aslso contact information about the library and information about PAL. " Tracy Baetz also took these photos.
....................................
More Turmoil in the Book World
How EDC Plans to Sell More Books After Dropping Amazon...
I saw this headline from DigitalBookWorld and wondered what it meant. EDC sells over 1500 children's book titles. They own Usborne. Usborne sells books in people's homes...but why drop Amazon?
Here are excerpts from the article by By Jeremy Greenfield, Editorial Director, Digital Book World
The Educational Development Corp...plans to increase its sales by abandoning the major online retailer,according to the company’s CEO...
According to White, the company will more than make up for the loss of those Amazon sales in 2012 through rival booksellers and through the company’s network of sales representatives...
White said that bookstores lose sales of EDC books through customers checking book prices independently on Amazon after browsing in the store...
White also expects to see a marked increase in revenue from books sold directly through the company’s network of sales reps, which struggles against Amazon as a competitor in a similar way.
The 75-person company generates nearly two-thirds of its revenue from its sales force of 7,000, which is mostly made up of independent contractors who sell to their friends and acquaintances, often in their own homes at gatherings – like Tupperware parties, but with children’s books.
Many of these contractors are not professional salespeople but instead highly educated mothers who want to make some extra money on the side but don’t want to sell cosmetics, said White.
"When someone goes to one of our gatherings and pulls out the smartphone and says, ‘well, I can get that cheaper on Amazon,’ they don’t know how to confront that sales tactic,” said White. Many sales reps quit after losing too many sales to Amazon, he said.
After the company made the announcement that it would discontinue selling books on Amazon, salespeople who had quit months earlier due to competition from the online retailer immediately called EDC to express interest in selling again, according to White...Here is the link to read it all: DBW
.............................................
Nancy Houser recently posted two very disturbing articles on Way Cool Dogs. Here are excerpts and links...
Orders at Fort Bliss Force Removal of PTSD Service Dogs
"...The PTSD program in Fort Bliss was designed in July 2007 as a specialized treatment facility, specializing for soldiers who had PTSD yet still wished to remain in the Army. An Army that no longer wants them, now that two wars are over and lives are lost and ruined. Service dogs that have saved lives of soldiers with PTSD are no longer wanted, to be placed in shelters and put down...." Here is the link to this very alarming article: PTSD
Shock Collars...
"As time goes on, we are becoming more and more aware that shock collar use is everywhere. If it wasn’t bad enough to be tied up outside alone day after day, many dogs are tied with bark collars so they are silenced if they even try to speak with or ask for attention from a passerby.
It has come to our attention that many boarding kennels use shock collars as standard procedure without a dog owners permission or knowledge. Places that we believed were safe havens for lost or abandoned animals, rescues and shelters, will use shock collars on fearful and confused dogs and have shock collar trainers come in to ‘teach them manners’.
...........................
Read Sample Chapters of all our books at www.planetofthedogs.net
TAll books in the Planet Of The Dogs series can be purchased at your favorite independent bookstore or on the internet through Barnes& Noble, Amazon, Powells and many others.
Librarians, teachers, bookstores -- order our books directly from Ingram...professional discount, of course.
Therapy reading dog owners, librarians and teachers with therapy reading dog programs...write us at [email protected] and we will send you free reader copies of books from the Planet of the Dogs Series.
Ask any therapy reading dog do you prefer it when then the kids read dog books ?
.....................................
and the Perfect Puppy...
When I read that someone can tell me how to raise the perfect puppy, I am somewhat skeptical. However, I try to keep an open mind. The article on the perfect puppy appeared in Forbes, a rather conservative publication. The article was based on an interview with Dr. Ian Dunbar.
Have you heard of Dr. Dunbar? Apparently, he is quite famous... Wikipedia says: "In 1980 Dr. Ian Dunbar founded Sirius Dog Training,[3] the first off-leash training program specifically for puppies.[4] The program emphasizes the importance of teaching bite inhibition, early socialization, temperament training, and simple solutions for common and predictable behavior problems, as well as basic household manners, to dogs under six months of age"....This was the headline in Forbes...
The Dr. Spock of the Dog World Reveals the Secrets of Training the Perfect Puppy by Allen St.John ...
"(Dr Dunbar) On the 30th anniversary of Dunbar’sSan Francisco-based Sirius Dog 
training, graciously discussed the state of the art in dog training in this two-part interview. In part one he emphasizes the crucial importance of early training and the important role that a breeder should play in puppy socialization. In part two, he’ll discuss the nuts-and-bolts of dog training, from his controversial stance on dog dominance to his belief that biting is not only good, it’s essential..." To read it all, and learn what Sirius Dog Training believes is essential, follow this link: Dunbar
The dogs in the illustration are from Planet Of The Dogs. They had a very happy puppy life and were the first dogs to come to Green Valley to teach people about loyalty and love and to help save the local people from invasion by the Stone City Warriors.
......................
Foreign Rights
Deanna Leah of HBG Productions and the International Publisher's Alliance is currently negotiating a contract for the Chinese rights to The Planet of the Dogs Series. As matters progress we will publish more information on this excellent development. Deanna represent foreign rights sales for all Barking Planet Productions books.
Deanna will soon be traveling to The London Book Fair, 16-18 April, the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels.
................................
...............................................
From Fear to Friendship...
Michele Leckner, retired after 30 years of teaching, continues to help children learn with her therapy reading dog Rory. Michele and Rory are members of the Nor'wester Canine Assisted Learning Program in Buck's County, PA.(Rory looks like many of the dogs who play imortant roles in the Planet Of The Dogs series. Here is part of her reply to my questions about their work with kids.
"We gather around Rory in a carpeted reading corner, and while they are reading or discussing, students reach out and pet Rory. In our second class where we started Planet of the Dogs, we take turns reading and discussing our book. Rory, is the perfect "prop" for the book. On our first day, many questions and comments about dogs were generated.
I have one anecdote, as we are not too far into our class visits yet,
regarding the "dog" factor. A young lady in one class is from a foreign country where dogs run wild and are feared, so initially she was afraid of Rory. I was concerned about this, but my therapy dog mentors assured me that they had encountered situations like this before and the students always ended up loving their canine friends. On our second week in class, the fearful student asked if she could pet Rory and tentatively reached out to touch her and sat on the floor within inches from Rory. Our third week, her teacher reported when we arrived that she couldn't wait for us to get to class!"
........................................
Ohmidog is an interesting, lively, well written website for all dog lovers...the man who makes it happen, John Woestendiek, is the author of the book Dog, Inc, the disturbing investigative report story of dog cloning. Here is what he says about his ohmidog site...
" Ohmidog.com is the web domain of John Woestendiek, a former newspaper reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner who, after blogging about dogs and animals for the Baltimore Sun, decided to unleash himself from the newspaper and go out on his own.(the photo is of John and his friend, Dace)
The result was ohmidog! – a website that covers dog-related news and happenings in Baltimore and around the world. In the narrowest sense, this website is about the mutt — the kind of dog that has no pedigree and will win no beauty contest; the kind of dog that, more often than its purebred counterparts, ends up abandoned, neglected or in shelters; the dog that, while it doesn’t fit under neat “breed” labels, is clearly one of a kind...
Our intent is to provide interesting and important information to dog owners, dog lovers and animal welfare activists everywhere. We see ourselves as an alternative to the mainstream news media, which, in our opinion, has never taken dogs, and the dog-human relationship, seriously enough. We strive to be a dog website that presents more than a steady diet of feel-good, fluffy, cutesy pet and animal stories. When horrid things happen to dogs, we will write about it because those stories, too, need to be told..."
Here is the link to ohmidog.
..........................................................
If you want delightful dogs from Yelodoggie, Cayr Wulff's original dog lover's artwork, link to her video....there is nothing quite like it...click the YouTube link and you'll see what I mean...yelodoggievideo
.........................................
Dafi and Nemo in the field...our family dogs...trained by Meri.
...........................
Sunbear Squad is dedicated to providing information, materials and inspiration to animal lovers...teaching people of good will what to do if they see an abandoned or injured dog.
Rescue an animal in distress...
Prepare now to help animals in need. Animal abuse, neglect, and distress is epidemic, is often institutionally supported, and is worldwide. You may find animals in distress in your own neighborhood. Be prepared to take reasonable, safe action to help them. Sunbear needed help and didn't get it; he died tragically from neglect. This site is dedicated to his memory to encourage you to be a Good Samaritan.
Become informed; learn what to do for an animal in distress...Visit SunbearSquad.
....................................
"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies." -- Gene Hill
..................................
Recent Comments