A Little Dog’s Adventures in a Big Dog’s World

By Suzanne Catalano

In A Little Dog’s Adventures in a Big Dog’s World, the author recounts the heartwarming story of her bond with her Pug-Beagle mix, Winnie, as they trained together to become a detection team in the sport of Nose Work. This book not only shares the joys and challenges of this hobby, but also delves into the unique bond between dog and owner, offering insight and understanding into the world of dogs. For those who love animals or have always wondered why their dog is so focused on their every move, this book is a must-read. With honest and personal anecdotes, the author’s story of how Nose Work has impacted her life will be sure to inspire you to look at your own relationship with your dog in a new light.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685628239

Suzanne Catalano

Suzanne Catalano is a creative, imaginative thinker. Suzanne enjoys being on the perimeter, watching people in action, and inventing back stories for them, based on the slice-of-life snap shot in her mind. Suzanne’s novel Sun-kissed Mountains of Home is a tribute to her love of animals and ranch life. Her experience working at a saddle shop in the local community provided fodder for creating a true-to-life story whose characters are compelling and entertaining. Suzanne combines her love of horses with her creative writing skills to craft novels featuring animals and their bond with humans.

Book preview

About the Author

I love nothing the way I love my dog.

There are many things in my life that bring me joy. I am passionate about nose work. I love sharing the car hobby with my husband. As a mother who would walk through a burning house to save my children (and sometimes life made it feel that way), my kids are my greatest accomplishment. I adore my grandkids and am truly grateful to be around to watch them grow, especially since my own parents were denied this pleasure with their lives cut way too short. My gratefulness runs deep in the love I have for my extended family. In my heart they form the trunk holding the branches upon which I could climb to the better life. And little did I know my husband, Mike, a keeper of terriers who appreciates my very terrier-like qualities, was God’s answer to my question, Is there a man out there for me?

Sitting here in a tiny dining nook in a one room condo at a WorldMark resort while waiting for the completion of the building of our new house, I am getting a lot of writing done. When I am disciplined and dedicate myself to writing, I balance the time equally with reading. The most recent book I read moved me to tears, a memoir written by my publishing coach, Kerk Murray. In his book Pawprints on Our Hearts, Kerk remembers troubling and trying times where his dogs were there to help him through. I had to stop reading when I came across the picture of him and his dog, Lexi. It was their last photo together before Lexi’s passing and it flooded me with emotion as if I were reliving the pain of every dog to whom I’ve said goodbye.

The emotions spilled out in tears rolling down my cheeks, as my husband, sitting at the table next to me on his computer, looked at me in confusion. He was perplexed by what could have possibly made me cry.

I’m reading a book, I said it like it was the most normal thing to be crying in front of my computer screen.

Reading a book? We began to converse and I told Mike a little about Kerk’s story. Mike explained that he knew many people who simply wouldn’t have dogs after they had loved and lost one. Some folks find the hurt from the loss is just too painful to go through it again. I find it too painful to imagine my life without a dog.

As the conversation with my husband continued, I tried to explain how the story I was reading could bring me to such a state of emotional upset.

I don’t read those kinds of stories about dogs. I can’t watch the movies where dogs die, Mike confessed. It’s just too sad.

I don’t like being sad when I read or watch the story describing the human-canine bond, but that very bond with its unconditional connection and the devotion it brings us humans to display always evokes a response. Whenever I attempt to describe that love to someone, the words come out wrong. By comparing that love to love for family, children, the love between spouses, it only seems to make things worse as I sound like an insensitive clod of dirt. How can I compare my loved ones to my love of dogs?

Despicably, I guess. Truth be told, there is no comparison. It’s apples and oranges. There is no way to place value on the human-dog relationship to be held against the values of human-human relationships. But apples and oranges are too simple a metaphor to describe the inability to compare love for dogs to love for humans. I write about both relationships with a shared closeness.

Dogs are like the ocean; people are the land. As a human, I automatically relate to everything on land. I love family and can have compassion for all people. Then there’s the ocean where dogs live. This mysterious force of nature, the dogs to which I have been drawn, calls me to cross that line between land and sea. Invited in by nose work, I glimpse the undersea world through the nose of a dog. I want to belong in the dogs’ ocean, to understand their ways, to be privileged with and keeper of their secrets. I want to feel the magnitude of their canine energy like waves crashing on the shore. Let me learn to live symbiotically in the waters of their lives, naturally, with no barriers to separate us like how my dependence on oxygen keeps me from becoming one with the sea. Maybe nose work is like a boat that can bridge the gap for us between land and sea. Dogs are inviting us to come on board this boat and join them in the waters of their world. Why, you ask? Why not.

I get so swept up in the emotions of it all and lose my audience. In this case, Mike. Anyone listening seems bored and a little scared while nodding with remote understanding. I’d lost Mike’s attention, as I attempted to explain why I would want to read a story that made me upset. From his perspective, I appeared to be drowning in waters that could not support me. Who would want to be drowning by choice? But there in the emotions I stayed almost without choice, for a life without dogs would be a worse fate.

In a world where we are reluctant to be vulnerable, we build walls of defense behind which we hide from emotions. If they can’t touch us, they can’t hurt us. Dogs are one thing from which we don’t have to hide. There is no need for a protective wall. We can be ourselves and our dogs will not judge us. They have no expectations, even for their own well-being. They will put us first every time over their own detriment. And then, after they have given it all, they leave us and many folks process this selfishly, like the dog is abandoning them. In their pain and sorrow, they vow to never love a dog again, but why sentence yourself to that?

In explaining nose work, I hope to clear the murky waters and provide a platform for understanding. I would like to appeal to the good nature of folks who feel it is too hard to love and lose. If you’ve loved a dog, you have benefited from all they give. You took what they offer and the only thing you must do is understand they leave way before you are ready to let them go and you owe it to them in the end to not be bitter or pity yourself. The best thing you can do to honor your dogs in the past is to love again the dogs of the future. Don’t stay on the shore when you go into the water. You only deny yourself the joy of complete surrender. Give yourself the gift of love. Choose a dog and live a life of choices that consider your dog’s well-being equal to yours.

I am unashamed to confess there are many interactive situations where I would choose my dog over myself. For example, I will always choose my dog every time over a social function, going to dinner or a movie, a concert. This is no secret to anyone who knows me, but this doesn’t explain my love for dogs, my need for dogs. It is beyond explanation, beyond words. It’s the energy that flows when we lock eyes while playing, the conversation that occurs by simply observing each other, the comforting and healing vibes we exchange during any physical contact. Nose work presents the opportunity to share with my dog all the above methods of connecting. Nose work is playtime, conversation time, and puts us physically together in an impenetrable and undisturbed space where time stands still.

Cheers to all who can see the world through the love of a dog.

Follow Winnie on her Website: puggleadventures.com

And on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009062622057

also, Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all

Dedication

I’d like to dedicate this book to all our teachers, trainers, and mentors for sharing their knowledge and experience with kindness, generosity, and passion. To all my comrades whose friendship will continue no matter the paths we choose. And to all the dogs with smiling faces and wagging tails who love this sport because we humans love it.

Copyright Information ©

Suzanne Catalano 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Catalano, Suzanne

A Little Dog’s Adventures in a Big Dog’s World

ISBN 9781685628215 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685628222 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781685628239 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023900851

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street

33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

Thank you to:

Nose Work Founders

Ron Gaunt, Amy Herot, and Jill Marie O’Brien

We owe it all to you.

Hands-on Trainers

Mary Swinyer, Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT), Modar Dog Training

Thank you for being our first positive experience with the sport.

Our Sonoma County Support Team

Debbie Stoner, Leslie Wallace, and Jen Huot

Lisa Kretner

We drove 230 miles once a week for classes. That’s how good she is!

Candy Bennyi

Thank you for giving us the best training in variety and exposure.

Virtual Coaches

Stacy Barnett, Dana Crevling, Dana Zinn, and Sue Sternberg

Thank you for offering amazing online classes and virtual lessons and challenges that kept us learning during a pandemic.

Seminar/Workshop/Webinar Presenters

Jo Trent, Christina Bunn, Jill Marie O’Brien, Amy Herot, and Laurel Scarioni

Thank you for bringing us so much hands-on learning. You gave me confirmation of my own theories and personal nose work philosophy. Your affirmations of Winnie’s skills have been the foundation for this incredible experience.

Network of Support

Chris Clifford, Carole Palmroth, Rhonda Perkins, Lisa Petersen, TK Warner, Jackie Lueder and all the many friends that have influenced my confidence, encouraged my direction, and cheered our successes.

National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW) Organization Staff

Thank you for generously giving your time and energy to keep things running.

Trial Hosts / Hostesses

Thank you for tirelessly seeking out dynamic venues in which to hold events.

Judges and Trial Certifying Officials (COs)

Thank you for creatively building searches that challenge us.

Volunteers

Volunteering is the best way to learn. I give a huge shout-out to all the volunteers without whom there would literally be no trials. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all that you do.

Our Arizona Trainers

Jean Harrison, Alicia Nicholas, and Barbara Nagy.

Letter to the Reader

"Life is made up of a few moments all strung together

like pearls."

—Joyce Hilfer

Many philosophies reference pearls to describe the human condition. Pearls represent life, adventure, memories, and love. Not just a gem to be strung and hung around the necks of women, each pearl has its own story—from its formation in the confines of an oyster’s shell to the manner in which it was gained, either farmed or in the wild. We symbolically shroud pearls in magic, mystery, and enchantment. Like the pearls referred to by Joyce Hilfer, the pearls that represent rare and special moments in my life are not the gems that grow in oysters. Each pearl in my string of life represents a dog I have loved that has come and gone, and like the string of gems around my neck, each dog’s memory is strung around my heart.

Contained within each pearl is the essence of that dog who has shared a path with me in a far too fleeting frame of time and the cherished memories that connect me to loved ones, happy times, and painful life lessons. Within each dog-pearl are strings that connect me to who I am, where I come from, and where I will go in the future. First there was Judy, an adorable and loving little shepherd mix who would protect five-year-old me from any danger. Then came Sara, a Shetland sheepdog mix. She was a faithful companion through my teens. My first dog as an adult was Juniper, a dachshund who has the distinction of being mine only and not the family dog. The dog-pearls throughout my adult life have been added in duplicate and triplicate, with two or three overlapping timelines. The lines of memories and strings of lessons have since blurred together.

Each moment is a pearl, Joyce Hilfer goes on to say, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster. In the string of dog-pearls around my heart, there is no single one with a higher luster, no pearl more rare or valuable than the others. What does, however, increase with the coming and passing of each dog is my ability to understand them, my capacity to love them. Each dog holds greater importance and lives deeper in my heart. With each passing, the pain is deeper too. The void is larger, and the depression left behind by their profound impact is harder to overcome. Forget about getting past it. That will never happen. Instead, we move forward, move on. Luckily, there is always room for more dog-pearls on the string.

Most recently, I’ve been cultivating a new pearl connected to my dog, Winnie, and the canine performance sport of nose work. Designed to mimic what professional detection dogs do, this sport involves a team of a handler and dog working together to find hidden target odors in a variety of conditions. Nose work is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but has had a profound influence on who I am now.

If we do not have time to do great things, take a few gentle moments and do small things in a great way, is the last line of Joyce Hilfer’s famous pearl quote. This sums up what nose work means to me. In telling my story through our nose work experiences, and by sharing the gentle moments combined with all I have gained spiritually and learned mentally and emotionally, maybe this book, this small thing, can be my way of contributing in a great way. Not that I’m doing great things for the greater good, but maybe this small book can do something for someone in need of a better outlook.

The heart of man is very much like the sea. It has the storms, it has the tides and, in its depths, it has its pearls.

-   Vincent Van Gogh

Introduction

I am not a dog trainer. I hold no certificate of authority. But what I have to give is my perspective. This book is for humans to read, but I