| My current guilty pleasure is binging the old Perry Mason TV shows. (I’m currently 68 episodes in, with total of 271) I watched these back in the 60s, when I was too young to remember anything except Hamilton Burger whining to the judge whenever Mason pulled a smart move in court. This is pulp fiction at its finest. Based on the Erle Stanley Gardner novels, they are more hard-boiled detective than L.A. Law, wallowing in femme fatales, damsels in distress, tough guys, lying clients, black mail, infidelity, double-crosses, and the inevitable, fiery, courtroom confrontation. One of my other guilty pleasures is nit-picking the difference between books and their screen adaptations. I read The Case of the Careless Kitten, which was adapted in an episode by the same name (Season 8, Episode 24). The book is a fast, fun read (and one of the reasons this newsletter did not come out last week). Happily, while the TV adaptation simplified the plot to fit into an hour, the story remains true to the original. I also enjoy the minimal settings in black and white, with the camera lingering on the performances. Not sure this is your cup of tea? Head over to IMDb and read the episode titles. With names like “The Case of the Borrowed Brunette” and “The Case of the Sleepy Slayer”, it’s an entertaining way to spend a few minutes. |
Monthly Archives: February 2026
Surviving Cabin Fever with a Stir-Crazy Dog
This was my street a week ago. Padfoot and I are still dealing with the weather. Wesleyan still has not been plowed, and with temps below 10 degrees, our morning walks are short. Most of the neighborhood sidewalks are foot-wide channels, so forget the usual training exercises. That means doing more indoors.
I needed to ramp up my indoor training anyway. Turns out, foundational exercises for reactivity are often done indoors to avoid distractions. in my last post I mentioned preempting reactive triggering. The key to my current strategy is the 1, 2, 3 Game. This involves teaching your dog that when you say “1, 2, 3”, a treat will magically appear under his nose when you say “3”. (This is so easy. Click the link to see the video)
This is a brilliant exercise, because saying “1” is enough to grab your dog’s attention while giving you 2 more seconds to produce the treat. (always produce the treat. Do not cheat them on this) The added bonus: it fixes his attention on you, which is where you want it to be.
A quick way to wear out your fur child indoors is to sit on the floor of a hall with your back against one wall and your feet against the opposite wall, your legs forming an obstacle. You need a pile of mini treats or kibble. Toss a treat over your legs so your dog needs to jump over them to get it. Then toss a treat in the opposite direction so he has to jump back. Keep doing that. Put a little distance on the throw for more exercise. If he needs to sniff out the treat to find it, so much the better.
You can also “hide” treats while your dog waits in another room, then tell them to “find it.” Padfoot loves this one.
McCann Dog Training has an immense library of training videos on YouTube. I hunted up playlists for indoor games. Here they are:
Games To Exercise Your Dog (without walking)
Indoor Games To Play With Your Dog
Stay warm. Hope this helps!
Padfoot Progress Report, January 2026
(Above: Padfoot giving me side-eye while being a bed hog.)
Recently Facebook started flooding my feed with Belgian Malinois shorts. If you’ve never seen one, they all have a macho voiceover, saying things like, “A German shepherd met a crocodile and that’s how Mom got me”. Or, “The Malinois is like a Navy Seal on meth.” The first video I saw showed a trio of Malinois body-slamming a trainer. This was everyone’s idea of fun. I saw that and thought, “Wisdom Panel lied. Padfoot is 70% Malinois but they said he was all these other things so I’d keep him.”
With his pointy face and long, skinny body, he’s built like one. He has that overdeveloped sense of mission and unbreakable comittment. And he’s deadly smart. Maybe they didn’t lie. Maybe he’s just a wannabe. Maybe he saw too many episodes of Hudson and Rex as a pup. Whatever, more than a year in, too much of my life is still spent managing him instead of living with him.
It’s frustrating because he’s being a good dog the best way he knows how. He’s a lovely companion around the house. He’s never had an accident. He enjoys being petted. He knows the difference between his toys and my stuff. He never, not ever, not even once, bothers me while I am working on my computer. And he adores the people he met before he decided it was us against the world.
Working with a reactive dog is like being a boiled frog in reverse, with progress in increments so small you don’t realize it’s happening. It took seeing all those videos to put it in perspective.
- A year ago, I had to hide in the bathroom to get dressed because he would body-slam and nip at me whenever he saw me getting ready to go out. He no longer does this. When he does invade my space, I can gently brush him aside.
- While he still races around like a maniac when it’s time to go out, he will settle and sit while I put on his gear. And he will hold a stay while I open the door.
- He now lets me get out of the car first.
- His barking is down 90%. While the mail carrier remains his mortal enemy, he is either ignoring or easily diverted from barking at other interlopers.
- His walks are the hardest part. Constant situational awareness remains mandatory. But it’s possible to preempt reactive episodes as long as we are a decent distance away with the 1, 2, 3 Game. (more on this in my next post) Last week he passed his neighborhood nemesis (a perfectly nice Rottweiler) twice without even a casual glance.
I’m still experimenting to find what works best with him. Group classes are out, and it makes no sense to hire a private trainer while it’s too cold to train outside. After a lot of research I bought two online training courses, both of which are helpful in different ways. More about that next month.
Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries by C.A. Newsome 