The View From Here: Maggie and the Snuggie

While I appreciate the gift of my Snuggie from my secret admirer, as you can see I was somewhat less than amused when I was woken up from my nap to try it on.

The View Front Here: Back to Work Edition

Grandma at last!

We still aren't there yet?!?!?!

Still not there?

How About Now? Are We There Yet?

The View From Here: Are We There Yet?

Dispatch from the road

Crossing the Hudson River

Over The River & Through The Woods

...to grandmother's house we go. I am departing from my undisclosed location in the Merrimack Valley for Ohio.

The View From Here: Day Off Edition

My human gave me the day off if work. It is inky my second day off that I have had in my entire life. This is what I am doing while he is at the office:

Maggie and the Cow Ear

Maggie and the Marrow Bone

The View From Here: Sleeping in Edition

The View From Here: About Last Night Edition

The View From Here: Afternoon Nap Edition

No Dogs Were Hurt in the Filming of This Video

You know how some humans can't seem to walk and chew gum at the same time? Below you will find some video evidence of what happens when those same humans attempt to use video and throw a ball at the same time. It's a good thing I'm a therapy dog with a good nature!



He tried again and paid a little more attention. This was much more fun.

The View From Here: Exhausted Edition

It is hard being cute all day.

Secret Santa Saves the Day

For those of you in the know, my human has been bemoaning the fact that Target suddenly stopped carrying his favorite style of Kleenex -- he prefers the kind that come in oval shaped boxes. He had bought them in bulk awhile back and had a closet stuffed with them (what kind of psychologist would run out of Kleenex, right?) .

The supply has slowly dwindled. Things were getting desperate when his cache dropped down to to measly boxes. With the holiday season came a brief reprieve: Target had holiday themed oval boxes.

Joyous times were had by all -- and a sufficient amount of Kleenex was purchased to make it through December. But then what? What would happen if the shelves remained clean of the oval boxes. Would the human have to resort to standard (and boring) Kleenex?

Secret Santa to the rescue! Last week we discovered a bag in the waiting room. Inside of it was a personalized oval tissue box. Who knew the people at Kleenex have a website for making personalized Kleenex. Think of the possibilities!

No pet store puppies

If a pet store sells puppies, I won't buy anything there. Join me, and make a different for puppies and dogs everywhere. No Pet Store Puppies.

Family Portrait

The kind woman who fostered me, my siblings, and my mother recently shared this photo on the Facebook page of Peace and Paws. Can you guess which one I am?

My siblings and I

Chicken three ways

I have a confession to make. I love chicken. My favorite preparation these days are dried chicken strips. My human keeps an enormous bag of them in the closet. When a strip comes out I've been known to engage in every trick I know--at one time--to get said chicken strip. They are delightful. If you've not tried them, I highly recommend it!

Recently I've been noticing a plethora of chicken bones strewn about the roads and sidewalks of Cambridge. Have you noticed them? Hardly a week goes by without discovring a chicken bone somewhere on the sidewalk. Being a somewhat dangerous food item, my human has developed an uncanny ability to spot them. Sometimes I spot them before he does. Since he has been pulling them out of my mouth I have developed my own uncanny ability: I hide them in my mouth and chew when he isn't looking. The crunch always gives me away.

I wasn't fully prepared for the next preparation of chicken that I was to discover. The human and I had a long break between patients. Since the gates of Harvard Yard are currently locked I couldn't engage in my favorite activity of squirrel chasing. I know, there are squirrels everywhere. The ones in the yard are more trusting so I can sneak up closer, and usually I get more of an audience which I appreciate. At any rate, we struck out on some of the lesser traveled roads. We were going to head over to the MIT campus and see what their squirrels were like.

We approached the MIT campus from the river and stumbled upon a a small public park. The satellite image shows an aerial view of the scene we happened upon.

What did I find here this past Thursday? Chickens. Live ones. Apparently those in the know have known about these chickens for awhile. We were planning on walking through the small green park when the human spotted several chickens clucking about. What was even more amazing was who was in charge of these chickens. Behind the fence was a beautiful and friendly pit bull. The chicken, working hard to escape my hungry mouth (like the human would ever let me eat one!), jumped over the fence and sat on the pit bull's back and clucked at me.

What a sight!

We captured a few cell phone images for your viewing pleasure.

The View From Here: Window Shopping Edition

The View From Here: Morning Already?

The View From Here: Too Wet Edition

The View From Here: Raincoat Edition

Therapy Dog Round Up: Dancing Dogs, Cruelty, and a Lawsuit

• Therapy dog troupe in Chicago puts on a production of the Nutcracker.

• George Mason's School of Law brings in a pack of puppy cuteness to help students manage end-of-semester exam stress.
• Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor of a SEAL operation in Afghanistan, talks about the brutal slaying of his therapy dog DASY. "She was like a daughter to me."
• In other sad news, Scooby, a doberman pinscher in training to be a therapy dog, was shot and killed in his owner's front yard by a cyclist carrying a gun.
• David Frei, founder of Angel on a Leash, talks about what therapy dogs can do.
• Justice Department files a housing discrimination lawsuit against the University of Nebraska at Kearney, alleging the campus denied a student the chance to keep a therapy dog in her apartment to cope with depression and anxiety.
• Army Cpl. Kacey Schlundt finds a sense of calmness driving seven huskies to their second chance at life. "Schlundt feels that every dog he helps save squares a debt for every life he took while fighting insurgents in Mahmudiyah from 2006 to 2008."

The View From Here: Saturday Morning Edition

Do I really need to get up?

Erik Erickson: A Therapy Dog's View

This is part two of a very occasional series of posts about my take on different psychological theories. Earlier this year I took a look at Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological approach to life. Who knew this would be my most popular post? As of this evening, over 4,430 people have viewed that blog entry. I'm thankful that the post is so popular: my human met him once and found him to be a very kind man.

Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom. -- Erik Erikson

Today we draw our attention to Erik Homberger Erikson. Please note, this is someone radically different from the conservative commentator Erick Erickson. The two would have very little in common in their world views.

Erik was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfort am Main, Germany. After graduating from high school, he moved to Florence Italy to study art. By 1927 he was teaching a a psychoanalytically informed school for children in Vienna that was started by Dorothy Burlingham and Anna Freud. Deeply influenced by this work, Erikson earned a certificate from the Maria Montessori School and later did psychoanalytic training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute.

After graduating from the psychoanalytic institute in 1933, Erikson and his wife fled the Nazis who had come to power in Germany. His long career included positions at Massachusetts General Hospital  Judge Baker Guidance Center, Harvard Medical School, and University of California Berkeley. While in California Erikson studied children on a Sioux reservation for a year as well as children in the and Yurok tribe. Erikson left Berkeley when professors were asked to sign a loyalty oath. He returned to Massachusetts first working at the Austen Riggs Center for a decade and finally returning to Harvard. He remained a professor of human development at Harvard University until he retired in 1970.

Erik Erikson's highest academic degree was a high school diploma. In 1973 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Erikson for the Jefferson Lecture, which is the US government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. His lecture was entitled "Dimensions of a New Identity."