What Shamu taught me about a Happy Marriage

I mentioned earlier that I have read a lot of dog training books. My neighbor ( a dog trainer ) loaned me this book. It started as a Modern Love essay that eventually became the most emailed nytimes story of the year. The book details the author's year with the students at a renowned school for professional animal trainers. The lesson she learned was basically reward the behavior you want and ignore the behavior you don't. There is never a no. There is a 'how about this other, better thing over here?' There is silence, praise, reward, and redirection never resistance. The tai chi of relationships.

Here is a pic our dog to be:

Eyes to the Wind

I first heard about Ady Barkan when he confronted AZ Senator Jeff Flake about the Trump tax cut bill in 2017. Ady is a brilliant, radical activist attorney with Ivy League credentials who was diagnosed with ALS at 32. He received a death sentence at 32 a few months after the birth of his first child and a few months before the election of Trump.

His memoir tells his remarkable story. While the premise of his story sounds so sad (and IT IS COMPLETELY TRAGIC AND UNFAIR) it's also oddly hopeful and inspiring. He is using every tool he has to fight our slide into authoritarianism and fascism. Every time I think I don't feel like contacting this representative or participating in that civic event, I think of him and move forward.