Kelly Gorman Dunbar

This is a reprint of our Special Inaugural Edition of our weekly newsletter Puppy Bite. Several people have asked to link to it in order to share this call to action with others, so I decided to post it as blog so it will always have a home on the Dog Star Daily site. Though please keep in mind, the post and it's sentiment will remain relevant, however, the offer for the free download of Dr. Dunbar's book is for a limited time only.

If you receive Puppy Bite, this is an exact copy of it, minus a few links. If you don't receive Puppy Bite and would like to, please register on this page.

Leslie Smith was my co-author for this piece.

Kelly Gorman Dunbar
Executive Editor, Dog Star Daily

Ask not what dogs can do for you, but what you can do for dogs! 

People often misunderstand Dr. Dunbar’s and my intense focus on puppy training. “Your materials are so focused on puppies, what about shelter dogs?” they ask.  Others lob zingers such as, “It’s easy to focus on puppies, real dog trainers deal with problem dogs.”

Rescuing dogs is most definitely en vogue at the moment; philanthropy and social causes have permeated the collective consciousness as never before. I’ve heard statements such as “shelter dogs are the new black” and I think it is wonderful that so many people out there are now aware about the plight of homeless animals; that is a beautiful paradigm shift for humankind.

But the fact still remains that all shelter dogs started out as puppies.

Puppies with extremely malleable personalities and super-spongy-ready-to-absorb-input-brains taking things in and creating a behavior profile and bias based on these early experiences.

Years ago, back when I lived in Chicago, I worked for a kind woman who watched the winter weather like a hawk and sprung into action on the city’s coldest (cruelest) nights. Chicago can get pretty cold (gross understatement) and there are lots of watchdogs on various lots with little-to-no attention and minimal-but-standard-meeting housing. 

During these cold spells she’d gather blankets and prepare a warm gruel and attend to these forgotten canine servants under cover of the winter darkness. She wasn’t being sneaky, she was always one for honesty and education and also took time to befriend the dogs “owners” with the hope of coaxing them to take better care of their furry work crews and chose to lead by example and also provide the necessary tools for making life more comfortable for the dogs herself. She may have also brought chew-bones now and again, I don’t really remember, but providing warmth and basic care was her main goal.

Several years ago, on my first or second trip to Japan, I visited an upscale shopping center in Tokyo where one of the shops was a lovely clothing store, with a nice mix of high and low fashion, casual and formal wear, even pajamas and costumes. This store had both a men and women’s section and also has dressing rooms with mirrors, as most clothing stores do, but they were very small, even for Japan. What is interesting about this store? Why am I telling you about it? Because this full-service store in one of the finest shopping centers in Tokyo was a clothing store exclusively for dogs.