August 1, 2010
Are you ready for a contest????
Description: below are 15 photographs taken during Pat Miller’s travels over the last several years to seminars, workshops, and on the back of the Harley. Your job is to correctly identify the locations of as many of them as possible. Identification must include city, state (if US), country, and a brief description as to what the photo represents or where in the city it is located. The contest will run for 3 months. If more than one person correctly identifies all 15 photos, the one with the most accurate descriptions wins. If there is still a tie, the winning name will be drawn after November 1, 2010. All entries must be received at our office by November 1, 2010. Decision of the judge (me!) is final – no whining allowed!
Prize: A collection of all five of Pat Miller’s books, signed to the winner or recipient of the winner’s choice, or a $100 gift certificate to a Peaceable Paws Academy, Workshop or Class held at the PPaws facility in Fairplay, Maryland.
Caution: I know this won’t be easy – I will be really surprised if anyone gets all of them right, so don’t be discouraged if you can’t get them all!
One entry per person please – multiple entries will disqualify the sender – and be sure to include your name, mailing address and e-mail address.
Submit all entries electronically to: pat@peaceablepaws.com
Peaceable Paws employees are not eligible to win.
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Ready… Set… Go!
Warm Woofs, Happy Guessing, and even Happier Training,
Pat
June 22, 2010
I hope you’ll excuse a blog that has little to do with dog training this week. We just got home from vacation – where I spent the last eight days and 1,840 miles on the back of Paul’s Harley. Yes friends, if you weren’t already aware, this dog trainer/behavior consultant is also a biker chick.
So, I fully intended to keep a daily journal so this blog would be a quick bit of editing and push-the-button done, but of course that didn’t happen. My intentions got soggy the first day and never quite dried out. Of course, I always take pictures of dogs wherever I see them, so there are a few canine bits to follow…
We left Peaceable Paws about 9:30 on a warm, sunny, Sunday morning – final destination, Laconia, New Hampshire Bike Week – me in a sleeveless shirt, a little worried about getting sunburned (but not much worried).
 Day One - heading out our driveway  No helmets required in PA! (But we always wear ours...) We hoped to make it to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by 1:00pm, in time to go on a fund-raiser ride for the SPCA of Luzerne Co., a shelter that used to be run by a friend of Paul’s, Ed Gross, until he retired a few years ago. According to our trusty GPS we were just going to make it, until the skies got ominously dark and the clouds opened up to deliver four inches of rain in one hour. Paul dashed off the Interstate and under an overpass to try to keep us dry, and in the process hopped a divider and broke the kickstand spring. A couple of hours, one bungee cord, and a stop at the SPCA later, we finally caught up with the ride finish at Bentley’s, where we hung out with Ed, had a couple of drinks, and tried to dry out.
 Meeting up with old friend Ed Gross (Didn’t help my frame of mind any to discover, when I dragged out my rain gear, that inside of my rain jacket was a soggy wet musty mess. At some point in the past a water bottle must have leaked in my saddlebag and been absorbed by the jacket liner. Yuck.
 Stereotypic biker dog - but we also saw a lot of Pomeranians... Leaving Wilkes-Barre the next morning, it was still cloudy and damp. I had dried my jacket lining with the motel hair dryer, but the odor still clung. I put it on, holding my breath, and climbed on the back of the bike, to make our way north to the Adirondacks. We stopped at the Harley dealer in Binghamton, NY, for a couple of hours to get the kickstand fixed, the exhaust welded, and a new rear tire. Consoled ourselves over ice cream at Friendly’s next door… We weren’t planning to arrive at Laconia until Wednesday, so we had plenty of time to wander our way north and east, through small towns, including Lake Placid, former winter Olympic site.
 We find a friend in a shop in the Adirondacks. While the Dobie didn't look thrilled about customer interaction, the Lab on the right was even less so.  We have our photo taken with a fellow biker in Old Forge (I think?), NY.  Finally, some wildlife! First, a turkey...  One of many tiger swallowtails...  Sharing lunch with an adorable chipmunk (only gave him unsalted nuts and multigrain bread)...  A moment of contemplation at Fifth Lake in the Adirondacks  Then on to Vermont via ferry boat! Upon crossing into Vermont, our nostrils were immediately assailed by the overpowering odor of confinement dairy cows. Seeing those poor Holstein girls standing and lying down in six inches of their own waste made me reconsider my addiction to cheese and ice cream – vegetarian crack, as they are sometimes known. I wonder where Ben and Jerry get their milk from…?
Wednesday dawned cool and cloudy again. Would we get any serious sun this trip? I’m still wrapped in several layers to ward off the cold. It seems reasonably warm out, until you get on the back of the bike and the wind starts whipping. Haven’t put on the thermals yet, but they are in the pack, just in case. Today was endless miles on the bumpiest road I’ve ever been on, at least on the bike. Thought we would never get there, but finally pulled into the parking are outside our rental cabin-by-the-creek in Lincoln, NH, 45 minutes north of Laconia, and home for the next three nights. We unpacked quickly, and decided to head for the action. Radar showed a little rain, but not supposed to arrive until 9pm – we should have time to go find bikes and food.
No such luck. Not much going on in Laconia (we found out that night that the bike stuff is really in Weirs Beach, east of Laconia) and we got rained on again heading back to our cabin. Dang. I looked at New Hampshire online and discovered that it looks like Swiss cheese. The lacy kind. Like it was really just water and someone dropped in a few blobs of dirt here and there so they could dock their boats and build vacation homes. There’s a lot of water there. Everywhere!
We woke up to clouds and sprinkles again Thursday morning, and hung out at home base, sleeping in and waiting for things to clear a bit. Finally headed for Weirs Beach around 11am and did one side of the biker party, dropping in at the Harley dealer, scoping out vendors, buying a scarf to keep the wind from whistling down my neck, and scrounging something that passed as vegetarian food for lunch. Then back on the bike to head north to Mt. Washington, the biggest must visit attraction of the area. This is the highest peak in the Northeastern US, and it’s an 8-mile climb from 1,000 feet to 8,200 feet on a partly-paved road. The road was closed to cars today so bikes to make the trip safely.
 In the fog, top of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire  The view on the way down Blessedly, the sun came out on the two-hour ride to the mountain, and stayed out for the rest of our trip. I finally got warm! We did see a moose on the way (yay!) but I missed getting a picture (darn!). Although at 8200 feet with 30-mile-per-hour winds it wasn’t exactly toasty at the top. The ride and the view were exhilarating. The whole cold, wet, rainy trip was worth this one event. As we neared the top, clouds started whipping across the road, and then we were totally fogged in. The fog parted briefly for us up at the top, where, on a clear day, you can see 5 states, Canada, and the ocean. So they say. Apparently it’s rarely clear up there, so it’s hard to prove. The trip back down was every bit as beautiful, but the gate was closing at 6:45, so we couldn’t dawdle. Dinner, and tumble into bed, with plans to see the rest of the Bike Fest Friday.
 Bikes in Laconia  Puggle/Bulldog enjoying the biker scene in Laconia  Baby bikers at Laconia From rags to riches – Friday was sunny and in the upper 80s. Perfect for riding on the bike, hot for walking around. We toured the rest of the vendor booths, picked up out HOG member Laconia pins, and spent the day relaxing. Then back to the cabin to pack up for an early-Saturday departure. I was excited – we planned to meet my cousin Jeb Barnes, who lives in Gloucester, for breakfast in Lowell, MA. She was my favorite cousin when I was a kid, and I hadn’t seen her in 21 years, since my sister Meg’s wedding.
On the road at 7:30am, Saturday, for breakfast at the Four Sisters Owl Café in Lowell. GREAT food – best of the trip. My spinach and Swiss cheese frittata was delicious, and it was indescribably wonderful to see Jeb. We promised to get together again soon – Massachusetts isn’t really that far from Maryland!
 Me, on the right, cousin Jeb on the left Seven long, hot hours on the road Saturday. Have to get to Paul’s Dad’s in Hanover, PA for Father’s Day on Sunday, and then make it home to pick up the reins and leashes of farm and dog trainer life, in time for evening feeding.
We spent Saturday night in Port Jervis, NY – former home of our wonderful PB Pig, Sturgis, then up and out Sunday morning early to see Dad. We got there at 2pm, right on schedule, hung out two hours, and split for home and the kids.
 Happy Father's Day! Although one week felt way too short, it was, of course, marvelous to be greeted with wagging tails and smiling faces. Even Dubhy, our undemonstrative Scottie, was clearly happy to see us. And now, biker togs are safely stowed in the locker in the garage (except for the rain suit, which is waiting its turn in the washing machine), I’ve sorted through the 1000-plus photos I took from the passenger seat of the bike, and it’s back to life as a dog trainer/consultant.
It’s great to be home!
Maggie the Westie comes home with me tomorrow from the shelter, so I can evaluate her, setup her behavior program, and find her a Gold Paw foster home. More on her progress next blog…
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
 Home Sweet Home!
May 30, 2010
A weekend of shaping fun with some of my best training friends in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, topped off by dinners at wonderful locally-owned restaurants with numerous delicious veggie options – what more could a training junkie ask for?
 Dining out at "The Laughing Seed" (guess what *that* is!) in Asheville.  Asheville nightlife - Wolf hybrid meets Dachshunds Huge thanks go to Lisa Waggoner of Cold Nose College (Murphy, NC) for hosting this event, and to Gail Hubbard and Susan Wilson for making their facility, A Good Dog’s Life available for the weekend. We had 18 working teams and another dozen observers. In addition to Lisa, the group included longtime training friends Beth Brock, Jenny Schneider, Tracey Schowalter, Viviane Arzoumanian, and AnneMarie Easton.
 Long-time PPaws friends, l to r: Tracey Schowalter and Matsi, Beth Brock and Dice, AnneMarie Easton, Jenny Schneider and Little Bit, Viviane Arzoumanian and Pasha, me, and Shaping seminar host Lisa Waggoner with Gibson We started with some foundation discussion and then set right off with “Body Parts” shaping, where participants selected a specific body part and shaped movement of that part – a turn of the head, a lift of the paw, a flick of the ear or tongue… the possibilities are endless.
 Shaping a paw lift  Tracey discovers that shaping a head turn can be a Zen exercise with Matsi, a dog who hadn't yet learned to offer a lot of behavior! From there we moved to building behavior repertoire with free shaping, using the time-honored “101 Things to Do With a Box” and then “101 Things to Do With a Prop.” Props included a skateboard, doorbell, crate, cradle, book, a toy truck, and more. Following 101 Things, working teams selected a behavior goal to work toward using directed shaping. This often makes more sense to goal-oriented humans than the open-ended “101 Things” activity. We also started shaping “Go to Your Place.” A simple directed shaping exercise.
 Lisa waits for Gibson to make a clickable move. Her goal: have him go to the book, lie down, and put his paw on the page.
 Success!  It was a delight to see Viviane's Pasha wake up to the fun of shaping. By end of day Sunday she rang the bell! Homework assignment for the evening was to write up a shaping plan for a specific behavior the attendee wanted to teach her dog, with the emphasis on splitting (breaking the selected behavior into very tiny steps) rather than lumping (making the mistake of trying to shape for too large pieces of behavior). Review of the plans on Sunday morning helped attendees identify their lumping tendencies. Beth Brock won the grand prize of a Peaceable Paws baseball cap for splitting into the most steps – her plan numbered 54 total steps.
We returned to working sessions, starting with work on the plans the participants had written, with some teams making admirable progress toward their final behavior goals. We ended the day with a “Shaping Show-Off” – where dogs and humans demonstrated their success with their shaping plan behavior, and one other behavior they had worked on for the weekend.
 Shaping Molly to rock the cradle.  Beckie waits for a well-behaved (previously dog-reactive!) Josie to make a clickable move toward the doorbell.  Jenny shapes a somewhat hesitant (but catching on!) Little Bit to get on the stool. We applauded each others’ achievements, and dogs and humans were happily exhausted by the end of the day.
This is by far my most favorite workshop to give. Because shaping is “errorless learning,” it’s almost impossible for participants to make rapid progress as they grasp the delightful fun of shaping.
There is still room in the 2011 Peaceable Paws calendar if you’d like to host a Shaping Workshop in your town, or attend one here at PPaws in Fairplay, Maryland!
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat Miller
May 20, 2010
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
This quote, often attributed (perhaps incorrectly) to Irish political philosopher Edmond Burke, is at the heart of the debate between many otherwise philosophically aligned positive reinforcement trainers. Do we speak our hearts about the atrocities committed by TV personality Cesar Millan in the name of “dog psychology” or do we simply commend his success in encouraging more people to seek help for their dog’s inappropriate behaviors as we work to repair the damage done to some or our canine clients whose humans have tried to emulate his methods? We are after all, some say, supposed to be positive trainers – should we not reflect that in our behavior with those we disagree with as well as those we are congruent with? Should we not work to shape the behavior of those humans with positive reinforcement rather than use positive punishment when they act in a way we consider inappropriate, just as we would with our dogs?
This difference of approach surfaced recently in regards to two events related to companies long held dear by positive trainers: Premier (www.premier.com ), and Bark (www.thebark.com).
Premier has long been considered a leader in the field of positive dog products, offering items such as the Easy-Walk Harness, the Calming Cap, Manners Minder, Gentle Leader and much more. Bark Magazine is my second-favorite publication (after Whole Dog Journal – www.whole-dog-journal.com ); it’s not as focused as Whole Dog Journal, but it’s an interesting eclectic read, and the regular columns by Patricia McConnell (www.theotherendoftheleash.com), goddess of dog behavior, are by themselves enough to make the magazine worth the price of subscription.
I was hugely dismayed when Sharon Madere, co-owner of Premier, contacted me in early 2010 to inform me that they were selling the company to Radio Systems Corp, a well-known, very successful shock collar company. I was, no pun intended, shocked. Sharon herself gave me the impression that she wasn’t thrilled with the sale, but that it was beyond her control since she wasn’t a majority holder in Premier. She was determined to make the best of it, and optimistically offered that, since she would continue on in her capacity of managing the Premier division of Radio Systems, she was hopeful she could help the parent corporation see the light and eventually, perhaps, move away from marketing of shock collars for dogs. She was contacting well-known professionals in the training and behavior field as a courtesy, and to hopefully garner their support for the move.
I very much appreciated the courtesy, but sadly advised Sharon that I would be looking for alternative sources of equivalent products, as I was unwilling to knowingly contribute my purchasing dollars, even circuitously, to a company whose primary purpose was to shock dogs.
A few weeks age, a Facebook friend recently brought my attention to the fact that the most recent issue of Bark magazine contains an advertisement for a shock collar company. Because Bark generally promotes positive, gentle relationship with dogs, it was an unpleasant surprise to see this ad in a magazine high on my list of favorites. When I contacted Bark editor Claudia Kawczynska, she said she had already received numerous e-mails from concerned readers, including some who were canceling their subscriptions as a result of the ad. She realized they had made a horrendous mistake in accepting the ad, and promised that they would never do it again. The difficulty economy, she said, had clouded their judgment.
Shortly after that, I read several blogs and e-mails that chastised positive trainers for being so hard on companies that made business choices and as a result, fell from grace. “We are,” they said, “positive trainers. We should no more use positive punishment on these people than we would use it on our dogs. Where is the positive in this blacklisting behavior toward these companies?”
In my mind, the Premier and Bark examples are entirely different scenarios. Premier, made a permanent and deliberate major business decision, knowing it would alienate some customers, that puts them in bed with a company that goes against everything I stand for and believe in relative to dog training. Premier is now an integral part of that company, regardless of who manages it. I no longer buy from Premier. While I hope Sharon succeeds on her mission and wish her the best of luck, I won’t spend my money there. (Besides, taking my purchasing dollars away from Premier isn’t positive punishment, it’s negative punishment, and most positive trainers do use negative punishment from time to time.) Bark, on the other hand, made a one-time poor business decision that they openly regret and have promised not to do it again. I will continue to support and write for Bark. And yes, I am pretty open about my disapproval of the Dog Whisperer’s training methods.
I agree with Burke, or whoever it was who really wrote that quote. Good men – and women – need to be willing to stand up and speak out against the evils that are all to present in the world of our canine companions.
And now, I’m headed off to North Carolina to spend a weekend shaping and have fun with some of my very best dog trainer friends. Guess what my next blog will be about!
Footnote from out last Academy: Beth, one of the Border Collie sisters, was adopted by one of our PPaws apprentices and is happily in her new home.
Max, the Sheltie, was adopted by a knowledgeable and experienced couple from Pennsylvania (shelter professionals) who appeared willing and ready to work with his car-reactive behavior.
Pippy and Riley are still waiting for their forever homes at the Humane Society of Washington County (MD); (hswcmd.org)
April 27, 2010
I’m back home from an excellent seminar experience in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with 60+ (sold out!) attendees for a day-long discussion of dog body language and behavior. A well-educated, very positive and responsive group, who actively participated, asked great questions, and bought lots of Pat Miller books and videos – thank you!!! A huge thanks to AWARE for hosting me, and especially to Holly Lewis for making all the arrangements and playing very gracious tour guide on Sunday (more about that in a moment). I even got to see some of my Facebook friends: Crystal and Renea introduced themselves – it was a pleasure to meet you all!
 An excellent seminar audience! AWARE, by the way, which stands for “Alliance of Wisconsin Animal Rehoming Efforts” is a coalition of some 60 animal welfare organizations that work together to improve the lives of companion animals through “Adoption, Wellness, Advocacy, Rescue and Education.” It’s an excellent concept – and one of the things they do is host educational seminars and subsidize the cost so AWARE members can attend at a very affordable fee. You rock, AWARE!!! www.awarewisconsin.com
As I may have mentioned before, I spent some of my best childhood years in the Milwaukee area – specifically Ozaukee County, just north of Milwaukee. Since this was a one day seminar, I seized the opportunity to spend Sunday touring a couple of shelters (tours arranged by Holly) and visiting my old haunts. The refrain, “we may never pass this way again” has been running through my brain ever since we scheduled this seminar, and I didn’t want to miss this chance. It’s been some 35 years since I was last in the area, so I hoped some of those old haunts would still be there!
The day dawned grey and drizzly – an appropriate ambience for my planned tour down misty nostalgia lane. Our first stop was the Wisconsin Humane Society in Milwaukee, a quick skip from my hotel in Brookfield.
 The Wisconsin Humane Society The first shelter I ever visited was the Wisconsin Humane Society – at that time a small, run-down building that was in danger of sliding into the creek it sat next to. The current, very new, exquisite 44,000 square foot state-of-the-art shelter is a far cry from that shelter, and a tribute to the hard work of Milwaukee-area animal lovers. Cindy, our volunteer tour guide, did a superb job of escorting us through the facility and giving us detailed information about the organizations multitude of programs. They do wildlife rehab, education programs (Holly teaches positive reinforcement dog training classes there), offer a full service vet clinic for low income households as well as spay and neuter services, have a well-stocked pet-supply store with all the right (positive) equipment and healthy foods (Fromm Foods – founded in Ozaukee County!), and, of course, companion animal adoptions. I was disappointed when Cindy informed me that photos were not allowed in the facility – in all my travels I’ve only had that happen once before, in a tiny shelter in Australia. I got some outside shots, but had to pocket my camera indoors, so I can’t show you the gorgeous facility – you’ll have to take my word for it, or find their website online. I did get to meet the 8-month old red Cattledog I’d seen online on Petfinder; would have loved to have taken him home, but we are full up with our five – and there are plenty of Maryland dogs we could adopt if we really needed another. I do sometimes think is would be fun to be able to say we have a Miller six-pack…
Our next stop was, ironically, the Washington County Humane Society – ironic because we live in Washington County here in Maryland, and my husband Paul is Executive Director of the Humane Society of Washington County.
 Washington County... Wisconsin! This is a much smaller shelter than the one in Milwaukee, and our host was Marnie, the Executive Director. Through AWARE, Holly works with this shelter also (she lives ten minutes away from it) and she and Marnie are good friends. I loved the warm, homeyness at this shelter; while it wasn’t glamorous, the animals are clearly well loved and well cared for. Front and center on Marnie’s desk we found a sweet senior tabby cat who arrived two weeks ago as a stray, emaciated, with only four teeth in her mouth. She has claimed Marnie’s office as her own, and is well on her way to recovery.
 Grandma Cat still has a few lives left! This shelter has the animal control contract for the county, unlike Milwaukee, where it’s a separate, government-run program. Marnie referred to her shelter as “low-kill” and we commiserated over the damage the so-called “No-Kill” movement has done to animal protection in the last 20 years. I suggested she call her shelter “High Adoption” or High Success” rather than letting that unfortunate movement frame the public’s perception of the good work she does.
While we were touring, a state trooper arrived with a lovely young Pembroke Corgi – he had done a traffic stop and the little dog was in the man’s truck. The man had removed the dog’s collar and was on his way home – two hours away – where he told the trooper he planned to call the owners. Two hours? Why not call while you’re still in town? Was he perhaps stealing her…? With several ID tags and a microchip tag, it should have been a simple matter to track down the owner before he was miles away. A lovely little dog, albeit a little stressed – when Marnie opened a holding cage for her she perked up, her eyes brightened and she happily hopped in. Marnie and Holly have promised to fill me in on the rest of the story as soon as the owners have been contacted.
 Saved by the trooper - waiting for the rest of the story... At the end of the tour, Holly collected a sweet but frightened Beagle that she had offered to foster and work with, and we went our separate ways.
 Holly with her foster Beagle I was alone now with my memories and my GPS, to revisit my past. My eyes filled with tears that spilled down my cheeks as I neared my childhood and thought of parents, now gone, siblings, now flung far and wide, and all the days of our lives that had happened here. I drove first through Cedarburg, where I worked at my very first paying job, as a receptionist at a veterinary hospital – Drs Moats, Bailey and Moats.
 Cedarburg wall mural I couldn’t find it. In fact, nothing looked familiar except Firemen’s Park, where we exhibited our 4-H projects every year at the County Fair – members of the Lindenwood 4-H Club.
 My 4-H Club is obviously still in existence - yay!  Entering Mequon - my heart pitter-patters I drove on. My destination was Burgundy Ridge Farms on Highland Rd. in Mequon, where I had worked as a hunter/jumper rider and instructor 40 years prior. I hadn’t been able to find it on the Internet. I prayed it was still there. And yes, I found it! It is now called Vintage View Farm – it was sold to a new owner four years ago.
 Burgundy Ridge... now Vintage View Farm - but still there! The barn was previously owned and built, 40 years ago, by Joe and Kathy Patton, and managed by Mike and Sandy Henneghan. My big claim to fame in the horse world is that I taught Beezie Patton (now Beezie Madden) to post to the trot and jump over crossrails. Beezie is now a member of our United States Equestrian Team, and the top Grand Prix rider in the country, based in Cazenovia, New York. She always had immense talent – I had very little to do with her success, but it’s nice to be a footnote in her story. The well-maintained stables seemed much the same, but smaller. (In fact, almost everything seemed smaller, including my past homes as I found them, one by one.)
 Looks much the same - but somehow smaller... When I worked there we bedded the horses in cocoa bean hulls and it smelled like chocolate. Now it smelled like horses – also a wonderful scent! A group of young girls was finishing their lessons and turning the school horses out to pasture.
 I used to teach girls just like these here I hung out for a while, soaking up the long lost atmosphere of a high-class hunter/jumper barn, and then headed for stop #2 – my old high school: Homestead High School, Class of ’69. I’ve missed all my high school reunions, so I thought I should at least drive by. My teen years were devoted to horses and 4-H, so I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t feel much emotion as I drove into the parking lot. In fact, if you’d dropped me down there without telling me where I was, I wouldn’t have had a clue.
 My Alma Mater Duty done, I continued on. A quick drive through Mequon/Thiensville – still sister small towns – remembering riding our horses down Main Street during 4th of July parades, with red-white-and-blue ribbons braided into their manes. A few spots looked familiar, but not a lot – much has changed over the years here, as well. On to 11542 Riverland Rd.; my first home where my horse lived in my own backyard. We had 2.5 acres there, which meant we could have 2.5 horses. We eventually leased a 20-acre pasture across the road so we could have more, and then moved to a larger property at 3121 Pioneer Rd. I wasn’t surprised to see that the 20-acre pasture we had leased on Riverland is now a crowded development. I was saddened to see that our meager 2.5 acres has been divided in half, and that there’s now a house built on the lot where my Saddlebred mare, Mattsen’s Lady Peavine, foaled my first baby horse, Bourbon Rex Havoc, and where Lady kicked me in the stomach when I first tried to inspect her newborn colt. In fact, none of the open fields around that old home remain – it’s all built up.
 11542 Riverland Rd.  My old home (on the left) now crowded by the house on the right, built on our old horse pasture On my way to our Pioneer Rd. property I stumbled across the Fromm Company sign. Decades ago the Fromm family started off growing ginseng, then turned their hundreds of farm acres into a fur farm – raising foxes for the fur trade. In fact, when I lived there you could still see breeding pairs of foxes in pens on the Fromm properties, and if you sent a no-longer-wanted horse to slaughter you didn’t send it to the glue factory, you “foxed” it – the Fromms bought horses to feed to their foxes. They were also one of the early producers of rabies vaccine. My family purchased a horse from the Fromms – Buckwheat – a Quarter horse cross that my younger brother Bill competed with in 4-H in Western Pleasure, quite successfully. Buckwheat had a to-die-for easy canter that made him a sought-after mount for Egg-and-Spoon and Musical Chairs competitions.
 Unexpected memories even here...  Now producing a high-quality dog food - *not* from horsemeat! My sister Meg had warned me that the current owner of the Pioneer Rd. property had sold off some pieces, and sure enough, where there once was one home there are now four, and the grand old barn has been torn down, but at least it still looks like country there.
 My favorite Wisconsin home still looks like country My mission was done. I had found my old homes, visited barely remembered places, and it was time to head back to my hotel. I had to be up at 4:30 the next morning to catch my 7am flight. One last stop for dinner at Panera Bread (there certainly was no Panera Bread there when I was a child) and I closed the chapter on this old book. The last leg of any of my seminar travels is always my favorite – from Baltimore to Hagerstown on a little two-engine Cape Air propeller plane.
 Front-seat view of the clouds This time I got to sit in the co-pilot seat, with an excellent view of the clouds, and our descent into Hagerstown.
 Until next time, little Cape Air plane! It felt like a return from Back to the Future. I was glad to be returning to the present, to Paul and our four-legged family, happy that I had taken advantage of the opportunity to visit the past. I was, however, left with the compelling question: Why *does* everything from our childhood seem smaller than we remember, when we go back to visit?
Thanks for joining me on this trip!
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
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