It's hard to look back on Boo's life and not see some kind of hand of destiny at work. Starting as an abandoned, bullied puppy with disabilities, he then became a hero dog who brought so much joy to people and ended up jet-setting across the country for his television appearance--all with his usual unflappable placid approach to whatever life threw at him. I can only laugh at the unlikeness of it all.

::::::::

Lisa J. Edwards, author of A Dog Named Boo

My guest today is Lisa J. Edwards, a nationally certified professional dog trainer and author of the best-seller, A Dog Named Boo: The Underdog with a Heart of Gold. Welcome to OpEdNews, Lisa. Our interview comes at a very hard time for you. Boo died quite recently [September 10, 2014]. I'm so very sorry. From reading your book, I came to see what a special dog he was. What can you tell us about him? What made Boo an underdog?

Lisa: Thank you, Joan. Boo was very extraordinary in so many ways: He was special to us as a dog who was gentle, forgiving, easy going and always social with everyone, anywhere. An unlikely hero, he, like so many heroes, came from humble beginnings--his litter was left on the doorstep of a local pet supply store when he was about six weeks old. The clumsy runt of that litter, he developed slowly and eventually we realized he had a permanent disability. Because of this, his training was slow and at times I remarked it was like training a 2x4. We persisted and eventually he became a therapy dog where his patient nature allowed him to make remarkable impact on the lives of not only us but also the thousands of folks he visited over his lifetime.

Joan: You got off to a rocky start. The average pet owner would have despaired of Boo. He wasn't house-trained for an entire year. That's an abnormally long time. Did you already see his potential or do you simply possess infinite patience?

Lisa: While it would be nice to be able to say I have infinite patience, I think it is more likely that I have dog-like tenacity. I knew that Boo was trying even though we weren't making good headway on his potty training and I knew it was really just a matter of establishing a conditioned behavior. Ultimately, I believed he would get there but that his conditioning would take more repetitions than the average dog. His potential with strangers became apparent only after I was able to start taking him out for socialization.

Because of his fear of cars, his first year of training and socialization was not even close to the ideal I suggest for my students. I spent three to four months just getting him happily into my jalopy of a pickup truck. Then I found that he was too distracted to take treats when we were out and about so I had to use the peanut-butter puppet to reward for simple sits when we were out. Luckily, I was able to transition him to regular treats after another few months. But it was here, when we were out doing his remedial socialization, that I started to see him gravitate to people and where he showed me, without doubt, that he wanted kids in his life.

In all things, Boo was slow to learn something new, but once he got it--it was reliable. For example, once I got him to go happily in my truck, he wanted to get into any car we passed or that sat in our driveway with an open door. And, by the time I had saved a down payment for a new car, his social skills were good enough that I could bring him with me to test-drive the cars. Having spent so much time getting him used to riding in the truck, I was going to be sure he liked any new car before spending money on it. After all, it wasn't like I could return it saying, "My little dog doesn't like the new car. Can I have my money back?" They were a little confused at the dealership, but because he was so cute and well behaved, I think they figured it was a small price to pay on their part to sell a car.

Joan: You didn't dream your whole life of being a dog trainer. You first developed a very special relationship with your own dogs, one at a time. Tell us what each of them brought to the mix.

Lisa: Atticus was my first dog and he wasn't even supposed to be my dog. My roommate at the time wanted a dog and up Third Avenue, a couple blocks away, was a pet store that had a sign saying, "Puppies $49.95." Atticus was the last of that litter--a black and white mix who resembled Nipper, the RCA dog who was always posed next to the old Victrola. Atticus made it clear that I was his human and that was the beginning of my love affair with dogs. He taught me simple things about unconditional love and acceptance that I had never learned from my family. He was a constant source of support as I struggled with some debilitating chronic pain issues and he introduced me to my husband, Lawrence, and my second dog, Dante. Atticus brought me to dogs and opened me up to love and possibilities in life.

Dante was a stray who was brought to the Tompkins Square dog run by the woman who had found him, hoping she could find someone to take him home. Lawrence begged me to take him home with us and by the end of the evening, we were trotting an emaciated but ebullient huge dog home to round out our household complement of two humans, two cats, and two dogs in a 600 square foot apartment in New York City's East Village. Dante was a shepherd/doberman mix with huge goofy ears and a tongue so long that people would stop outside the dog runs to comment on it. Dante brought me to dog training because I had hoped to make him a therapy dog, given his outgoing nature and infectious joy in all things.

Three years after Dante came to us, he and I had started working as a therapy dog team and we were living in a log cabin in the woods north of the city. I had started training dogs part time by then and on Halloween eve 2000, I was picking up some candy for the possible trick-o-treaters and saw the sign again in a pet store window near the grocery store, "Puppies $49.95." I had to go see these puppies. There was Boo, lost and confused in the cardboard makeshift pen in the center of the store, being trampled on by his littermates. Yet, there was a serenity to the way he seemed to deal with being bullied by his siblings. All black except for a white mark on his chest that looked like the ghost image from the movie "Scream" and a couple white toes, I plucked him out of the racing fur of puppies and held him.

I didn't need or want another dog but I couldn't put him down--he seemed so helpless amongst his litter mates. I held him high in the air and he just hung there. He didn't squirm like a normal puppy, he didn't cower like he was afraid either, he just hung there. I had no idea what this meant in terms of why he wasn't behaving within normal puppy parameters, but I did know it meant he had to come home with us. Boo brought us (me, Lawrence and the thousands of clients we eventually visited) so many gifts that he deserved his own book. But, within the confines of an interview, I can say that Boo finished the work started by Atticus and Dante to build my confidence, make me a professional dog trainer, Animal Assisted Therapy teacher and expert; and he brought us the greatest gift of all--showing Lawrence and me that we could put our pasts behind us and bring a child into our lives without continuing the cycles of abuse. Boo waited for us to bring him a little boy of his own with the same patience he displayed with his litter mates and, at almost twelve years old, he finally had a little baby to snuzzle (and so did we).

Joan: What a journey! 9/11 was a biggie for you in many ways. You also got an up close and personal glimpse of animal therapy in action. Can you share that story with us, please?

Lisa: For me, our 9/11 story is considered typical in our house--a little bit of Boo-ness to diffuse a horrific moment in time. Our bug man was out that morning for the fall spray and he and I watched the towers fall in real time on the morning news. Once he was gone, I tried to call Lawrence but the phones were already jammed. Being a bit of a history buff, my mind raced to other history-changing events and knew they were often followed with closures and shortages of various items. Realizing we didn't have much food or any cash in the house, I planned to go to the store. But I had to take Boo out for a pee first, and while I remembered to wipe his feet when we came in, just in case he got any of the spray on him, I forgot to wipe myself.

I loaded Dante into the truck with his visiting vest and headed off to get some food and some money--just in case. I figured that at the shopping center, Dante could perhaps bring some relief to people reeling from the emotions of the morning's horror. Halfway there, I became disoriented and veered the truck off the highway, lost and confused. Luckily, I ended up at a fire station and all the volunteer firefighters and EMT's were there, eager to be at ground zero to help in any way. But they were all on hold. So when I pulled in, got out and stumbled around, they all seemed relieved to have someone to take care of, not to mention a goofy dog to pet.

Dante and I were piled into an ambulance and whisked to the local ER. After a few questions and some blood tests, they realized I had gotten some of the bug spray into my system. They treated me with fluids while Dante worked his magic around the ER. As I started to come to my senses, I could see just how much relief he was bringing these folks who by their nature were driven to want to be helping in a time of crisis, yet the only person they had to treat was me--the woman whose little dog poisoned her while they hung out with her big goofy dog.

It took us about ten days to organize teams to go down to the Family Assistance Center on the West Side. I knew from my time with Dante on 9/11 that this would be so important for everyone from the families of victims to the workers. Luckily, I was not alone in this thought and many strings were pulled to get therapy dogs into the center. Because Boo was not yet tested and registered as a therapy dog and Dante was older with joint issues that made the hour-and-a-half ride each way out of the question for him, I went as a team leader to support the other teams. This allowed me to be a quiet observer to the amazing things the dogs did for people at the Family Assistance Center. As soon as teams walked into the center, the grim expressions would melt from the armed guards who would ask to pet the dogs. Next would be the Center workers, many of whom were away from their families doing Red Cross work and missed their own pets. And finally, teams would find their way to various spots around the Center, where people could pet the dogs and sometimes just talk to them.

On one visit to the Family Assistance Center, one of the greatest therapy dogs ever, a Golden named Hunter, worked his gentle eyes and his patient face to help a little boy break through his silence and finally talk about his father's death in the towers. With Hunter, the little boy was able to open up and start the healing process as he had not been able to do with any social worker, teacher or his mother. Dogs don't judge. They don't laugh at the wrong time, they don't cry, or misunderstand. They listen, they absorb emotions and tears, too. And ultimately, they allow us to find ourselves as we look into their eyes and accept ourselves with the same unconditionality that they do.

Joan: You were shy, an introvert and a late-diagnosed dyslexic. Yet, you now stand up in front of strangers, lots of them, teaching. You had so much trouble reading, didn't know why and thought you must be dumb. Then, you went on to write a book, a really fine one, at that! Would you ever have imagined this kind of life for yourself?

Lisa: The simple answer would be no. Adding to that would be the fact that Lawrence reminds me quite often that if he had told me when we met that I would be a bestselling author teaching and regularly giving lectures and workshops I would have thought he was crazy. I think that often we (both dogs and humans) move along a path without realizing exactly where that path will take us. It is the life-size version of the training technique of successive approximations--small steps in the right direction and voila, we have trained a trick.

A perfect example would be the Kleenex box trick where we sneeze as a cue and a dog to picks up a Kleenex box, brings it to us, removes a Kleenex and gives it to us. This dog had no idea what the final trick was going to be or how happy it would make anyone watching it, but simply went along with each step because it was fun and rewarding. I think most of us look back on our lives and we can see the rewarding choices we made that took us in one direction or another that, ultimately, had a final result we could be proud of--whether it was a career, creating a family, volunteering, or anything that rewards us emotionally or financially.

Joan: I agree! What kind of response has A Dog Named Boo gotten? I enjoyed it immensely.

Lisa: The feedback has been very good including making the London Times bestseller list to the scores of emails from readers around the world who have been touched by Boo's story. Boo even flew out with me to Los Angeles to appear on The Marie Osmond Show. It's hard to look back on Boo's life and not see some kind of hand of destiny at work. Starting as an abandoned, bullied puppy with disabilities, he then became a hero dog who brought so much joy to people and ended up jet-setting across the country for his television appearance--all with his usual unflappable placid approach to whatever life threw at him. I can only laugh at the unlikeness of it all.

None of us could have imagined the magnitude of his reach that included emails from Russia and Argentina, thanking us both for giving the readers new hope for a dog they had, or understanding for their own struggles in life. From all the feedback, the common thread is that Boo has taught us all that we are all better when we move through our days with patience, persistence and the understanding that perfect is not all it is cracked up to be--because sometimes it is in our imperfections where our greatest strengths lie.

I know that if I could have asked Boo for his feedback on his life, he would answer that his greatest accomplishment was without question to have a little boy of his own.

Joan: Lovely. Where to now? What else have you got up your sleeve? Another book? Another dog?

Lisa: It's funny you should ask, Joan. I am currently working on Please Don't Bite the Baby, to be published Fall, 2015 from Seal Press. As you might have guessed, it is all about keeping my son safe in the home of three complicated dogs. Over two million dog bites occur annually to children under the age of eight and in 2012, nineteen children were killed by dogs. These statistics are tragic and often very preventable. Please Don't Bite the Baby will be a memoir with training techniques to help families keep their children safe from their dogs and their dogs safe from their babies. My hope is that more families will see that they can keep their kids safe and the dogs they love with the family the dog loves because every shelter and/or rescue worker knows that too many dogs are relinquished every day because they didn't behave well around a new baby or even older kids.

My life with dogs like Boo, Atticus, Dante, Porthos and Pinball has taught me that it is good to have dogs in our lives--they bring us not only joy and laughter, but they are, for so many of us, emotional rocks and emotional sponges that soak up the daily struggles we all face. If Please Don't Bite the Baby helps keep more dogs in their homes so more kids can grow up with a dog of their own, then all the dogs I have had and worked with will have made their mark, too.

For our home, another dog will have to find us. Pinball is lonely without Boo and Porthos. The loss of both these beloved dogs has been hard on all of us. We are keeping an eye out for the next canine installment.

Joan: As am I, Lisa. I'm so glad that you and Boo rescued one another and both of you went on to accomplish great things. And that you wrote about it. I loved A Dog Named Boo and I can't wait to read your next book. It can fill a critical niche for dog lovers who have small children and want to enjoy the best of both worlds. Thanks so much for talking with me. It's been a complete pleasure!

***

A Dog Named Boo website

Three Dogs Training, Lisa's website

Bye Bye Boo

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.