Any Spring Craziness going on with you and yours? Coming soon, a library of training articles that will be available at no charge if you would like to share any of my training articles on your own website. For now, check out a few at wwww.knowingdogs.com . From there, you can click on the Knowing Dogs blog for even more articles. Wishing you and your family, human and canine, a lovely Easter! It is time to be grateful for family and friends, but most importantly, for Christ who rose again so that we all might live! Many thanks to Chris L'Abbe for this fun photograph of her Poodles running on the beach. Look for another fun beach photo of the L'Abbe Poodles on the rotating header of the Knowing Dogs blog site. Melanie

Sydney Dunlap, who says she wears the safety glasses not only for eye protection, but as an attempt to disguise her movie star good looks so fans don't interrupt her work when she is too busy for autographs. It's been awhile since I have hung out with any Poodle show breeders, but back in the days when I lived in North Carolina, I did visit with some of my show friends every now and then, particularly two ladies from whom I had gotten dogs. I especially loved to visit when they had a litter of curly Standard Poodle babies. It was such fun to watch them run and play. But there were two topics that we often discussed, which never failed to spark heated debates!  Those topics revolved around my desire to live long enough to see the Poodle Club of America change the standard to allow Poodles to be shown in more normal clips, and also that they allow all colors. Presently only solid colored dogs may compete in the show ring for AKC championships, although any color may be AKC r...

Moment of Insight...Protection? It happened at the lake, some years ago. I was recovering from surgery. During my healing process my husband rented a house at Smith Mountain lake . He wanted to give me some time away from the stress of running a pet care facility. Bed & Biscuit was a great love of mine, especially then. But a large boarding kennel is not easy to manage when you are not feeling well. I had been struggling, and needed a break. It had been a peaceful week...time for reading and reflection. I missed my dogs though, as the rental agency had no "pet friendly" homes available that week. Yet there was also something freeing about having a week with no living creatures depending on me every moment of the day . On the day of our departure I walked down to the lake for a few last glimpses of the mountain and the water lapping quietly at the rocks. Like many, the rented cottage sat on a hill, and one had to walk down an incline to the dock. Walking back up p...