Shaggy Dog Stories

Posts Tagged ‘books’

A short while ago, I reviewed Carol Quinn’s Follow My Lead and gave away a copy to a lucky winnah who will also review the book.

Carol and I had a great conversation about dogs, dog sports, and a zillion other subjects. In addition, she graciously agreed to an email interview. Here’s what we discussed…

Shaggy Dog Stories: APDT (the Association of Pet Dog Trainers) has just created the Valor Project — basically a non-competitive agility league for special needs dogs and handlers, and for anyone else who might not want to compete in AKC/USDAA/NADAC, but who would like to benefit from the advice and camaraderie to be found in an agility club. Have you checked this out yet? If you have, what do you think?

Carol Quinn: I didn’t know about this project until now, and wow — what a great idea! Many dogs can’t handle the stress or physicality of competition, but they can fully enjoy the sport with their handlers.

My focus has always been to learn and have fun, and this league seems as if it’s focused on that. The sport is also so great for dogs. It keeps their minds active, their bodies strong, and deepens the relationship with the handler. It’s also pretty good exercise for owners!

Shaggy Dog Stories: How are you training now that your time with Irina has drawn to a close? Are you working independently, or have you found another trainer?

Carol Quinn: At the moment, we aren’t training in agility. Nairobi is getting older and I think I’m retiring him. I’m ready to start training again with Sheila. I found a new trainer and as soon as the weather is cooler, we’re ready to begin again.

Lately my focus has been obedience training, believe it or not. Ridgebacks aren’t the most obedient dogs, but it is fun to work with them. We train about a half-hour a day. Ridgebacks get bored quickly, and if the “cookies” aren’t good, they completely lose interest. As long as the treats remain tasty, the training sessions are productive.



Shaggy Dog Stories: What are your next goals related to agility training? Do you think trialing will ever be in your future?

Carol Quinn: I’m open to trials, and my next ridgeback (yes, I have my eye on a puppy) will definitely compete. I’ve never enjoyed competition, but I think I’m ready to go out and try my hand at it.



Shaggy Dog Stories: Do you think you’ll try other dog sports, or will you stick with agility since it’s had such a profound effect on you?


Carol Quinn: I want to try lure coursing with Sheila because she has such a strong prey instinct, and she loves to run. You can also muzzle your dogs in coursing, so I won’t worry about Sheila going after one of the other dogs!

Competition isn’t in the cards for these dogs, but I will definitely compete with future dogs. There’s a wonderful ridgeback community in California, and the all-ridgeback agility competitions are really quite funny. Ridgebacks are quite playful — and serious — and their owners appear to have exactly the same qualities. It’s priceless.




Shaggy Dog Stories: How is Sheila’s health?

Carol Quinn: Sheila amazes me. She’s strong and funny; still a handful with other dogs, but her health is phenomenal. Her stamina is impressive, and it’s hard for me to imagine her sick. But any sign of illness still panics me.

Sheila is still on her holistic/Chinese herb protocol, but I think the better nutrition really helped her beat the odds with her disease. It was an important lesson for me to learn; healthy, fresh food makes a huge difference for dogs—and for humans.





Shaggy Dog Stories: What other projects are you working on at the moment?

Carol Quinn: I’m revising the novel I mentioned in Follow My Lead. I really love it, but I’m still tweaking it. And I’ve started a second novel — a light, funny, adventure piece.

I’ve set a goal to have the revised novel, and a credible first draft of the second by December. That’s a lot of writing, but other than running with the dogs, writing is my favorite thing on earth.





Shaggy Dog Stories: Is there anything else you’d like mentioned in the blog?

Carol Quinn: If anyone has read the book (and liked it ) please write an online review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble? Also, come visit FollowMyLeadTheBook.com and read about our progress. On Facebook, we are http://www.facebook.com/FollowMyLeadBook Come like the page, if you’re so inclined On Twitter, you can find us @FollowMyLeadcq.

If you like to get out and do things with your dogs, and if you’re filled with wonder at the depth and transformational power of the human-animal bond, you’ll want to read Follow My Lead. After spending time with Carol, Nairobi, and Sheila, don’t be surprised if your thoughts turn to the life lessons your dogs have taught you.

Congratulations Melanie Mock of Oregon for winning the drawing for the copy of Follow My Lead! Melanie said that she never wins anything, but her luck just changed. The publisher will be sending out her very own copy soon.

Next week is the Bearded Collie Club of America‘s national specialty show, and I’m a member of the hosting club. If there’s time before the festivities get underway, I’ll post another fabulous giveaway (and there are two here just waiting!).

Have a great week, and cross your fingers that we do, too!

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down — very important traits in times like these.

(Robert Benchley, Your Boy and His Dog)

Any experienced dog trainer — especially the ones who teach the beginner and puppy classes — will tell you that the real secret of teaching dog obedience classes lies in training the owners.

Although this concept lies at the heart of Carol Quinn’s Follow My Lead, don’t think for a minute that the book is just about that. The simple-sounding premise (woman at a crossroads in her personal life takes up training her dogs and learns some valuable lessons in the process) unfolds into a love letter to the human/animal bond that’s multi-layered, funny, sad, and philosophical. Along the way, Quinn learns many truths — not always the ones she’d hoped for — about human nature and human frailty. Under the mentorship of a tough cypher of an instructor and with her Rhodesian Ridgebacks to guide her, Quinn manages to parlay the lessons learned on the agility course into useful wisdom for other aspects of her life, too. She learns courage. She learns to ask more from life, and she learns not to settle for what doesn’t work.

Show of hands: Who here has read Karen Pryor’s Don’t Shoot the Dog and then immediately went out and tried to use those same techniques on your family? How many of you ended up confused or frustrated when your family members didn’t respond exactly as the book predicted? Yeah, me too. So did Quinn. She tried it on a longtime lover who had a black hole where his heart should have been, and the experience taught her volumes about things you can fix, things you can’t, and that relationships involve teamwork, too.

As Quinn learns more from her mentor about how to work with her dogs, she discovers that all her relationships evolve — including the one with her instructor and mentor.

You’ll find plenty of situations in Follow My Lead that parallel training tricks you’ve tried or experiences you’ve had, and probably some that lead you to wonder, “Why did she do THAT? I’d have done this…”. That, too, is a lot like life. Whether or not your own experiences track all that closely with Quinn’s, her dog-training-as-metaphor-for-life narrative will lead you to ask questions about yourself, your dogs, and your own life’s journey.

Want to Read It?

We’re giving away a copy of Follow My Lead to one lucky winnah! All you have to do is to follow these Wicked Simple rules…

1. Go visit the Follow My Lead Facebook page and Like it: http://www.facebook.com/FollowMyLeadBook
2. Leave a comment on my blog that answers this question: What is the most important lesson that your dog has taught you?
3. Make sure you leave the comment on the Shaggy Dog Stories blog. Comments on Facebook are always fun and appreciated, but they don’t count.
4. Entries close on Wednesday, September 28.

The winnah will be chosen at random by comment number, by someone who doesn’t even read the blog (and thus has nothing at stake).

What’s Next?

Carol Quinn is still continuing her journey with her dogs. You can read about her adventures on her blog. In a little while, we hope to bring you an interview with Quinn, asking her about what she’s been up to since the book was published.

Until then, enjoy this little teaser video…

Thanks so much to Kim at This One Wild Life for picking me as the lucky winnah of a copy of W. Bruce Cameron’s Emory’s Gift. I really enjoyed A Dog’s Purpose — which we are currently reading in my doggie book club. Since Emory’s Gift is about a bear, we probably won’t be able to sneak it into a dogs-only book club, but I’m looking forward to reading it.

The good folks at Forge/Macmillan spared no time in getting the book to me, and included a nice request to post an online review. Looks like Shaggy Dog Stories will share a Shaggy Bear Story sometime soon.

Thanks again to Kim for making this happen!