As with so many other things, the Dog Whisperer was a bit late coming to Sweden. I’m not sure when the show started airing over here, but I don’t think it was more than a year ago. In any case, I hadn’t seen it myself until last summer, after hearing my mom sing its praises and seeing first-hand what a difference her employing Cesar Millan’s techniques made in my own dogs’ behavior.

Lucy, in particular, was badly in need of someone taking her in hand. She tends to the high-strung side, as Spitz-types–not my favorite, incidentally–so often do, and when she gets wound up she barks. And barks. And barks. And barks.  Once she gets going, Asbjørn, who isn’t generally given to pointless barking, gets going, and before too long my nerves are shot all to hell.  Or they were, until I learned a better way to control the situation.  I’m sure by now all dog lovers in the Western Hemisphere are familiar with Cesar’s deceptively simple “tsshhht” sound and the way he “nips” a disobedient dog with his thumb and forefingers — if you haven’t tried it yourself, let me assure you, it works.  Those two little tricks, along with a good dose of “calm assertive energy,” can achieve what no amount of yelling and hand-clapping and hysterical posturing ever will.  It’s amazing, really.  Lucy is so much more manageable since I’ve been practicing what the Dog Whisperer preaches, and it’s rubbed off on Asbjørn as well.

So now, thanks to SuperNanny and the Dog Whisperer, I’ve got my kids and my dogs mostly whipped into shape.  All I need to do now is start watching one of those house-cleaning shows and everything will be coming up roses around here.