"Dog Whisper Episode Guide" Reviewed

Buster, my kamikaze terrier/Chihuahua mix was having some behavioral issues. I couldn't fault the little guy. He's a Katrina rescue who survived the hurricane and a near-fatal bout of heart worm disease. Anyone would need a little therapy after that.

Buster has always been a little skittish but it had gotten worse -- to the point where he was reluctant to leave the yard for a walk around the block. Most dogs beg to go for a walk, but not Buster. If I drove him to a park or unknown area, he had no problem walking on a leash and seemed to enjoy the exercise. If I tried to walk him in his neighborhood, he wouldn't go past the driveway and would try to scoot inside to the security of his favorite chair in the living room. Sidebar: on the advice of my vet, I even tried giving him some doggie antidepressants. But the medication didn't seem to help him get over his fears.

Enter the Dog Whisperer. I picked up his latest guide on dog behavior, "Dog Whisperer The Ultimate Episode Guide", since it had some chapters on dog phobias. While the guide didn't provide a lot of direction on Buster's problem, I found it interesting to read about challenges that other owners had faced with their pets. I admired their tenacity to work through the problem with the dog, rather than giving up on their pet.

The book is like a TV Guide version of the episodes rather than a in-depth guide on how to correct behavioral issues in dogs. Cesar Millan is obviously a gifted trainer, and his editors would do him justice by devoting more detail to the recommendations and follow-up sections of each episode. In any case, "Dog Whisperer The Ultimate Episode Guide" is an interesting read for any animal lover. If you are looking for advice on how to correct a serious behavior problem, you may want to check out other sources.

Do you have a recommendation on how to correct a dog phobia like Buster's? Please share your comments.

Visiting that Dog Mecca Called Carmel

If you've ever traveled with your pet, you probably know that it takes some advance planning to ensure a fun and hassle-free vacation. There are different definitions of "pet-friendly", however Carmel-by-the-Sea is the standard that many pet destinations should aspire to. Many of the hotels are indeed pet-friendly, but the grande dame is the Cypress Inn, which is co-owned by animal lover, Doris Day. Your pet is welcome anywhere in the hotel, even in the dining areas.

This beautiful hotel in the heart of Carmel is easy walking distance to great restaurants, fabulous galleries and shopping. Best of all, it is a few blocks from the famous Carmel Beach on Ocean Avenue, where you will find dog lovers and their loyal canines frolicking in the waves.

The Cypress Inn offers a terrific breakfast that you can enjoy in front of a cheery fireplace with your pet or on the lush garden courtyard. The hotel also hosts a daily happy hour, where guests as well as the locals enjoy a cocktail with their canine buddies. Cats are welcomed at the Inn as well. The staff keeps a scrapbook of the pet guests who have stayed at the hotel. Many are frequent visitors and stay in touch via Christmas cards to the staff between visits.


The Cypress Inn provides a list of all the pet-friendly restaurants and stores in the area. Most establishments welcome pets as long as they are on a leash and well-behaved. To stay on the good side of the health department, many restaurants allow dogs in their outside dining areas but not inside. Some will let you bring your dog in if it is in a carrier, but it is always best to ask first. If you would like to leave your pet at the hotel, a staff member will either pet-sit for you or arrange for a sitter to take care of your pet


San Jose is the closest large airport to Carmel and is a scenic 80-mile drive. Petfriendly.com offers a list of pet-friendly hotels, attractions, restaurants and shops in the Carmel area.

Sherman Makes a Choice

Not every cat covets a cushy lifestyle. Take Sherman for example. He showed up in our neighborhood about six months ago. My neighborhood is very pet-friendly and a number of households leave out feeding stations for the feral cats. We even have a vet in the neighborhood who has volunteered to spay or neuter any homeless cat we bring into his clinic. While big on the free food (and not so big on the surgical procedures), the stray cats are very attracted to my neighborhood.

Sherman resembled a cat that my across-the-street neighbor once had, and she decided to adopt him. I was thrilled that this little guy would finally have a permanent home. Sandra and I went through the whole ordeal of trapping Sherman and taking him to the vet to be vaccinated and neutered. Sandra even bought a plush new pet bed, toys, and tempting treats for Sherman. On his first night "home", he was miserable. He growled and tried to escape every chance he had. Sherman finally slipped out the door, but of course he didn't go far. Who would leave such a great set-up? My street is like a resort experience for stray cats. In the morning, there is breakfast on my porch, sunbathing on another neighbor's porch, a bowl of half-and-half in the afternoon at Sandra's porch, and back for dinner on my porch. Plus there is an igloo in the hedges stuffed with a cozy fleece bed and blanket for those nights that warm shelter is needed. What's not to like about this set-up?

Like people, animals may choose a lifestyle that is counter to what most others would choose, but it seems to work for Sherman.

Delta Gets a New Leash on Life

Delta didn't start out as Delta. At first she was called Lucy, a frisky yellow lab that followed me while I was walking near the Delta Reservations center one day. Skinny and collar-less, she looked like she had been lost a long time. Worried that she might get hit by car, I decided to try and coax her back to my building, which was about a mile away.

Fortunately a painter was working on a house nearby and lent me a nylon strap so I could use it as a leash and get her safely across a very busy intersection. The local police rolled up at that point and told me he had seen her roaming for most of the day and she was new to the neighborhood. He offered a ride, and while some women like men in uniforms, Lucy isn't one of them. She wasn't about to get in the patrol car with this guy, so we continued our journey on foot.

The police stopped by again, this time with several cans of Vienna sausages for Lucy from the local convenience store. Juggling the treats, a bucking pup, and my cellphone was no easy task, but we made it back to Delta Headquarters in one piece. The guards at the gate seemed a little surprised that I had picked up a companion, but didn't ask for her i.d. and waved us through. After wrestling this 60 pound bundle of energy into the car, I took Lucy home with me, and that's when the fun began.

Being an animal lover (as you can probably tell), I already had a full house with 3 dogs and 5 cats. I couldn't take another dog in permanently, but I could try and find a home for her. The fates were working against us, however. It was the end of the year when most people were enjoying the holidays and not looking for a dog to adopt, especially an older one. The shelters were full and not taking in any new residents. I wasn't panicked yet -- but I soon would be.

Having worked with many rescue groups across the country after Katrina, I had a long list of people I could contact who might possibly help. We frequently ship dogs out of the South to other areas of the country that do not have the homeless pet problem we have here. I contacted every single group I knew, and some I didn't know, and no luck. Lucy's prospects were looking pretty grim.

In the meantime, Lucy was not the grateful guest you would expect after being rescued from the streets. As soon as I brought her home, I let her run outside in my fenced back yard, and she immediately started climbing the fence to get out. Uh-oh, flight risk. She never went outside again without a leash.

My pets are very accepting of just about anything that walks in the door, so I knew they wouldn't have a problem with Lucy. This was not a reciprocal agreement, however. If anyone even looked in the direction of her food or rawhide, she quickly put them in their place. Buster, my dog with a death wish, would routinely steal Lucy's rawhide as soon as we left for a walk. How he hauled a bone as long as he was into his favorite chair, I'm not sure, but it's a good thing Lucy never caught him.

Not trusting her alone with the rest of my crew, I made the mistake of leaving her in a bedroom while I went to lunch with a friend. In just 2 hours, she managed to chew the side of a desk, some woodwork, a wooden blind, and was working on the comforter. Lucy would make the Dog Whisperer throw in the towel. At that point I gave up and packed her in the car for a trip to a shelter that will keep animals until they are adopted.

I had donated lots of time and money to this organization and thought surely they would help me out. I went there with Lucy to plead my case, while she was quaking in fear. They refused to take her, so I ended up packing her back into the car and driving home. At this point, I had pretty much run out of hope. We were stuck with each other, at least for awhile.

Despite her mischievousness, Lucy did earn her keep one morning. On one of our daily o'dark-hundred walks (she's an early riser), we were headed down a street and I heard someone say "hey baby". At this hour of the morning, the only people you usually run into are fellow dog walkers and runners, and they usually don't greet you with "hey baby". Lucy knew something was up and wasn't about to lose her meal ticket. She started barking with a fury that would wake the dead -- along with everyone on the street. She made her point, and the pair took off running. It was tempting to let her off leash so she could go after them, but they'd already had enough of a scare for one day. Very proud of herself, she pranced all the way home.

What to do with this dog? In desperation, I made one last call that was going to be a long shot. I had read a story several months earlier, about a prison in Colorado that takes in rescues and companion animals and trains them. I called the manager of the program and explained the situation and asked (begged!) her to take Lucy into the program. She said she'd give it some thought. In the meantime, she called my vet, where Lucy had day boarded for free, and they vouched for her. Lucy was fine with people, and with a little socialization, she could be a good citizen. The Colorado Prison finally agreed to take Lucy. I was so thrilled, I booked her on the next available Delta flight before they could change their mind!

Though Lucy was a handful, we bonded over the month that she lived with me. She was a sweet, loyal dog that was going to make a great companion for some lucky family. It was very hard to send her off, but I knew this was best for her. And my house could return to normal again.

On a chilly January morning, we drove to the Delta Air Cargo facility for the flight to her new home. I was like a nervous mother making sure her crate door was secure and her sedative for the long flight was kicking in. Lucy was taking this all in stride and was ready for a new chapter in her life. I tracked her progress online to be sure she was loaded on the right flight and that she arrived safely at the cargo center in Denver. Her chauffeur from the Denver prison called me as soon as she picked up Lucy to let me know she was okay, although a little surprised at all the white stuff on the ground in Denver.

Since there were already a lot of Lucys in the program, she was renamed Delta, Colorado Inmate #881. Delta adjusted quickly to her life behind bars and was happy to have a steady stream of affection and 2 squares a day. She bonded quickly with her new handler. Once she completed her training, she was ready for adoption. Her profile was posted to the adoption site and described her as "charismatic, very gentle, with loyalties that run deep". Some lucky family appreciated those qualities, and she rode off with them to her new home.

Dogs can teach you valuable lessons if you are willing to listen, like how to give unconditional love and to revel in the simple joys of life, like a long nap in the warm sun. Delta taught me to have patience. No matter how insurmountable a problem may seem, things always seem to sort themselves out. Wishing you many long naps in the warm sun Delta!

Read the USA Today article about the Colorado Prison Trained K9 Program, "Dogs do time to earn good behavior"

Visit the Colorado Prison site. Click on K-9 Companion

Tybee Island Road Trip -- Day 4

We woke up to the sound of rain falling on the tin roof. If you've never heard that comforting sound before, it is the silver lining to a rainy day at the beach. The storm also made it easier to leave that morning, which would have been hard to do if it had been a brilliantly sunny day.

Before we hit the road, we had to check out a Tybee icon, the Breakfast Club, which only serves breakfast. It is the place where glitterati and locals rub elbows, deals are made, and gossip is exchanged. The Breakfast Club has an eclectic assortment of great food, some that you may not expect for breakfast, like the shrimp with eggs and grits or the home-made chorizio burrito with eggs.

What is so charming about Tybee is that everything about this island is eccentric. If you are looking for a 5-star resort experience --keep looking. If you like fun, off-beat destinations that are laid back and unpretentious, then Tybee is the place for you. Tybee is an island where residents keep their Christmas decorations up year-round, and you can walk your dog in your pajamas, which I did just this morning. I'm sure there are covenants against these things at some of the tonier islands south of Tybee.


Before heading back to Atlanta, we took one more drive around the island to check out the other Mermaid Cottages. There are close to 30 to choose from, several which are on the historical register, and others that have been featured in Coastal Living and Cottage Living. All are decorated in a colorful signature style that is comfortable and laid back -- a perfect complement to the Tybee experience. And most of the cottages are pet-friendly.




Tybee Island is easy to get to by car or by air. The island is 40 minutes from the Savannah airport. If you need a city fix, like a Starbuck's latte, downtown Savannah is just 20 minutes away via the Islands Expressway. Savannah is a charming city with lots of great boutiques, restaurants, and fine art galleries.

Tybee is truly a diamond in the rough, and a destination you must check out. A coalition is working to make the island more pet-friendly, which will be a bonus to people like me who can't wait to return.

For more information about Tybee Island, check out these links:

Pet-friendly Mermaid Cottages

Charlotte Observor story on Tybee Island

Purchasing or investing in real estate on Tybee

Tybee Island Road Trip -- Day 3

It was another beautiful, sunny day on Tybee, and we set out for the Dog Park. Lily and Buster were excited about seeing Pogie, Louie, and other friends they made the day before. Though it was 10 a.m., not a soul was at the park yet, so we decided to come back later. We're just going to have to adjust to Tybee Island time.

Just down the street from the park is Seaside Sisters, a fabulous shop for vintage collectibles and beach-themed gifts for your shabby chic cottage or home. The store is run by a collective of 10 women with a passion for all things quirky and fun -- just my kind of place! I started chatting with Susan, one of the owners of the store and mentioned by blog about Tybee. She shared a lot of insight on the island's lifestyle and graciously gave me a book on the history of the island from one of the shop's shelves. "Tybee Island", by Robert Ciucevich, is a fascinating read and is full of wonderful vintage photographs.

As I mentioned in my earlier blogs, finding pet-friendly restaurants on Tybee is a challenge. Susan suggested that we try Fanny's on the Beach, which is near the 14th Street Pier, and had outside seating. We received a warm welcome at Fanny's and had a great table overlooking the dunes and pier. Besides being pet-friendly, Fanny's also has great food. I mentioned being stalked by the beach police to one of the locals, just as a Tybee patrol car rolled to a stop in front of us. He told the police to send out an APB to the beach patrol to quit following the lady with two dogs from Atlanta. It must have worked. We never saw the beach patrol again.

Just around the corner from Fanny's is the Atlantic Beacon, run by Debbie, who grew up on the island. The shop has a great assortment of artwork. I was intrigued by the large collection of vintage photographs of the island and its famous icons. Rich in history, the island has lost most of its landmarks, such as the Tybee Inlet Club, the Hotel Tybee, the DeSoto Beach Hotel, and the Central of Georgia Railway station, to fire or development.

Though it is not as pet-friendly as other beach destinations, Tybee residents love their pets and take them everywhere. On the drive to the Dog Park, we passed owners cycling by with their dogs in their bicycle baskets, and dogs headed out for a day of boating.
By mid-afternoon, the Dog Park was hopping, and Buster and Lily enjoyed socializing with their canine buddies.

After the park, it was time to go home for a siesta, while mom headed out for a walk on the beach.






For a small island, Tybee offers a great selection of seafood restaurants. We were going to try Sundae Cafe, which is supposedly the best on the island, but unfortunately it was closed on Sunday. So it was back to A.J.'s on the back river, which has a great dock that overlooks the marsh and is a fabulous place to enjoy the Tybee sunsets.



The area is very proud of its seafood, which is fresh from the local docks. There's even a billboard in Savannah that scoffs at farm-raised shrimp from China. I have eaten so much shrimp from China, that I had forgotten the wonderful taste of shrimp raised in this coastal area. The fresh, salty water off the coast of Georgia produces a much sweeter type of shrimp than the China variety. We are heading home tomorrow and will miss the laid-back pace of this little isle.

Tybee Island Road Trip -- Day 2

We piled into the car for a quick tour of the island to help us plan our day. Our first stop was the Tybee Visitors Bureau, where we collected a map and some other brochures. The nice lady at the desk was a little vague on what restaurants and attractions welcomed pets. She did warn us, however, that dogs were definitely not permitted on the beach, and the fines were stiff if you were caught. The last time I was in Tybee several years ago, I took my dogs to the beach even though it was posted No Pets, and no one said a word to me. They were now cracking down on scofflaws like me.

Our next stop was for breakfast. Outdoor dining is rather scant on the island, although I hear that will be changing soon with the revitalization of downtown. If you have ever traveled with your pets, you probably know that flexibility is the operative word. Your dining options are usually limited to takeout, drive-through, or restaurants that accept pets on the patio. And in some destinations we've traveled to, restaurants will let you sneak a small pet into the restaurant if it is in a pet tote and very well-behaved. Be sure to leave a generous tip for the staff. If you prefer to dine out and not take your pet, check to be sure that you are allowed to leave your pet in the room. We've stayed in several hotels where you either had to take your pet with you or hire a petsitter, which most pet-friendly hotels can provide if you let them know ahead of time.

The island only has one fast food restaurant, which is Arby's and our next stop. As I was walking toward the restaurant entrance, one of the arriving employees informed me that they didn't open until 10 a.m. Coming from a 24x7 city, I was a little surprised that I couldn't get a sausage biscuit at 9:45 in the morning. Meanwhile all the liquor stores nearby were already open for business. I could get a martini before 10 a.m. but not a biscuit from Arby's. Maybe I needed to change my priorities.

Just down the street from the Arby's-with-banker's-hours is the Sunrise Restaurant. As the name suggests, they'd been serving since 6 a.m. I ordered biscuits to go -- one for me and one for my dogs. Our next stop was the 14th Steet Pier and Pavillion to eat our takeout breakfast. The pier is the all-purpose hot spot for everything from fishing to weddings, with a memorial ash dusting scheduled at noon that day for a long-time resident. The visitors bureau thought I should be able to take my dogs on the pier, since it was privately owned, but advised me to check the signs.

Good thing I did, because the sign clearly stated "No Pets". I saw a woman walking her dog nearby and asked her if they enforced the rule. She confirmed that they did and told me not to even go near the beach with Lily and Buster. She had just paid a $275 ticket for her daughter's dog. Though the dog was on private property, it was in a dune and "too close to the beach". So it's $200 if you dog is on the beach, and $275 if it's near the beach. While this may not seem logical, it was just another Tybeeism. Since I had two dogs, it would probably be a double whammy. So we were staying clear of the beach and the dunes. Just at that moment, one of the beach police pulled up, ready to whip out his ticket book if we set one paw on the pier. So we dined on one of the benches near the pier. After all, Buster and Lily were more interested in their sausage biscuit than the view.

Tybee boasts a small dog park on Butler Avenue, its main drag. We stopped there to meet some of the locals and other guests on the island. One of the dogs we met, Pogie, was visiting from Atlanta too. Pogie is Filipino for "handsome", and he was a dashing little schnauzer.

After we finishing with the doggie bonding, we drove over to the Tybee Lighthouse and Officers Row. Originally built in 1736, the lighthouse is a Georgia icon. At 154 feet, it is the tallest lighthouse in Georgia and the oldest. Dogs are not allowed inside the museum grounds but can be walked outside the fenced area. The beach police were on site (same patrol car) to make sure that Buster and Lily knew their boundaries.
Just opposite the lighthouse is Fort Screven, which was built in 1885 and was part of the East Coast defense system until it was decommissioned in 1947. A few streets over from the lighthouse is Officers Row, which is somewhat hard to find and has some forbidding signs about Residents Only. Since it's a public street, we took a cruise down this impressive venue, with the park police tailing us.

The stately homes lining this street were used by high ranking military personnel stationed at Fort Screven. The homes had fallen into disrepair after the fort was decommissioned, but a revitalization effort has restored many to their early splendor. The dramatic restoration of one of the homes was featured in Coastal Living in January 2008. I was surprised that just in front of these gorgeous mansions, were newer homes that were now blocking the mansions' once magnificent vistas.

If I owned one of these grande dames, I would have been a little miffed. I asked a local how something like that could have happened? According to the Tybee native, the land in front of Officers Row was originally a parade ground for the military stationed at the fort, and the mansions were in a severe state of decline. After the fort was decommissioned, the parcel was sold off without much thought to preserving the character of the area. The people who owned or rented the mansions at the time did not have the resources or inclination to mount a campaign to block the development, that essentially blocked their unrestricted view of the water. This seems to be an all too familiar theme on this island, which has lost a lot of fabulous structures to the wrecking ball and developers.

It had been a full day and was nap time for the pups. While they napped, I headed to the beach for a long walk. Tybee is a barrier island with wide beaches of packed sand, which are great for walking, running, or biking. Despite the glorious weather and the long holiday weekend, there were relatively few people on the beach. I was not complaining.