Shel Graves Animal Consulting will be speaking in-person at Everett Public Library. How to Make Your Dog or Cat Happier will be 2 pm, Sat., Sept. 28 at the Main Library, 2702 Hoyt Avenue, Everett.
It may not surprise you to hear that I am extremely bookish. When I wanted, needed, to learn more about animal behavior in rescue work, I dove straight into reading more about animals and joined educational programs. The Academy for Dog Trainers program came with a stack of books and my teacher was Jean Donaldson, author of the seminal dog training book The Culture Clash and the go-to resource guarding book Mine!. In the UW Applied Animal Behavior program professor James Ha wrote the text Dog Behavior and has recently published again Breed Differences in Dog Behavior, which is at the top of my to-be-read pile. In my Animal Chaplaincy Training, teacher Rev. Sarah Bowen (also, bookish!) gave us a banquet of books as required, and optional, reading. She is the author of Sacred Sendoffs, a must read for coping with animal loss.
Not all of my clients are bookish, of course. But if you are, I am sure to recommend some good reads about dogs, cats, and animals. I absolutely do not expect you to absorb all of the information I have gleaned–and marinated in as Jean Donaldson says–-over the years. This is why one of the services I offer is dog day training (where I take the lead on the training time).
As any bookish person will, I gravitate to my local library. The Yakima library where I grew up is where I had my chance encounter with the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and many other formative, life-altering reads. During the beginning of our COVID fears, one of the saddest days for me was when Everett Public Library closed. This was serious. We didn’t have to return books for a while. I happened to have a stack of checked out poetry books on my desk. My pandemic poetry stack was both providential and a source of sadness, every time I looked at it, for many long months.
All of which is to say: I am very excited that Shel Graves Animal Consulting will be speaking in-person at Everett Public Library. How to Make Your Dog or Cat Happier will be 2 pm, Sat., Sept. 28 at the Main Library, 2702 Hoyt Avenue, Everett.
Paws up! This is a great topic. It’s going to be tons of fun. Bring your dog and cat behavior questions! And, yes, you can expect some good book recommendations, too. I won’t be able to help it!
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