A 5 pound bag of Russet Potatoes

Boil of russet potatoes  in a pot of cold water or (using steamer rack and some water in a pressure cooker) keep their skins on. Then either mash them while they are warm and season or let cool and cube and then season. You can add add mayo, mustard, pickle, scallions or red onions, Italian wine vinegar pepper and salt. Or oil and vinegar and favorite herbs and spices. Simply divine.

Theo Stuart, Dog Behaviourist

My love for dogs started many years ago with a Rottweiler called Merlin and Magic, a German Shepherd. Back then, it was all about harsh dog training and ‘correcting’ the dog in order to force it to ‘obey’. Commands were sergeant major-style orders.

How different things are today. With all my subsequent learning and experience, I have proved beyond possible doubt that kind, positive, and force-free methods not only work best, but they ensure we feel comfortable in our relationship with our dog.

I have two dogs now. A recently adopted ex-racing Greyhound and an elderly blind and deaf Labrador. I can’t imagine a life without dogs.

My Dog Behaviour CV

• As an older person. Experience & Empathy from a whole kaleidoscope of life’s ups and downs.
• As a School Teacher. Motivation, Encouragement – and boundaries.
• As a musician. Repetitive practice until I have something note perfect. Persistence and patience.
• As a mother of five children. Insight into ‘parenting’ puppies and dogs.
• As a businesswoman. I have set up and run three businesses. ‘Theo Stewart – Dog Behaviourist’ is a business involving marketing, insurance, accounts, tax, equipment, transport, internet costs, web site and much more.
• As the holder of meetings. A skill carried over into family dog consultations, in person, or online.
• As owner of an introduction agency (before the days of internet dating). Interviewing people whilst putting them at ease; finding out all about them as I now with dogs.
• As a dog owner. Multiple dogs over 55 years.
• As a founder member of INTODogs and member of UK Behaviour and Training Charter, IMDT, VSPDT, graduate of ISCP (International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour), PPG, Dog Welfare Alliance. Using positive methods backed by Science. Accountable.
• As a ‘crossover’. I followed outdated dominance methods before educating myself.

Theo Stuart, Dog Behaviourist https://www.dogidog.co.uk/#aboutme

What Kind of Family are You?

All families are bureaucracies. If your family were a country, would you call it a democracy? A Dictatorship? We demand transparency, accountability and good governance from our leaders—but what happens inside our own homes? If the family is the first institution we belong to, are our homes truly democratic? Who makes the decisions? Who controls the money? Who gets heard? And can parents be held accountable when they get it wrong?

Stone Bunny

Last night we walked Lulu and Romeo on Gaskill street and Lulu abruptly stopped and stared at a stone bunny in someone's front yard. "That's a stone bunny!" I said laughing at Lulu. It's not a real bunny! Then a real bunny jumped out of the bushes from behind it. The joke was on us.

Spinach and Red Onion Delight

Last night we were in the grocery store and the wide egg noodles jumped into my cart. I was longing for a soothing meal. When I got home I boiled the noodles and chopped a large red onion and added it to my wok with five cloves of garlic chopped fine and I sauteed it all in olive oil. Then I added a pound of (defrosted) frozen leaf cut spinach and stirred in the pound of freshly boiled noodles. I topped it off with Asiago cheese grated by hand. It was so good I ate it for breakfast. I said to my husband, This is lasagna in another form! A lighter form! I will do this again and add mushrooms.

When divorce, death, disease, sexual abuse, medical abuse, physical violence, poverty, wealth, drug addiction, alcoholism, fractures a family. The pain and damage runs deep. It takes courage and intelligence to move forward with an open heart. 

To me, Texas signified strange days, querulous wanderings, bloody fairy tales, hot, moon-filled nights, earthworms, and unbought flowers. Texas was women to me: my aunt dying of cancer, my grandmother’s hunchbacked sister, and Eloisa. All laughing, laughing.
― Denise Chávez, The Last of the Menu Girls

“Only farmers and the young, who live dependent upon change, understand what it is to know the continual flowering of life, however subtle.”
― Denise Chávez, The Last of the Menu Girls

“Remember the past, but don't get lost back there. Celebrate the blessings of the past in the present, but remember to live today. Today is built on the past and tomorrow is evolving from both the past and the present. The future? Quien sabe? Hopefully, there will always be tacos”
― Denise Chávez, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture

“Parents often fail to address early childhood lying, since the lying is almost innocent—their child’s too young to know what lies are, or that lying’s wrong. When their child gets older and learns those distinctions, the parents believe, the lying will stop. This is dead wrong, according to Dr. Talwar.”
― Po Bronson, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“siblings between the ages of three and seven clash 3.5 times per hour, on average. Some of those are brief clashes, others longer, but it adds up to ten minutes of every hour spent arguing.”
― Po Bronson, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“It's when children are at their most mysterious that we, their caretakers, can learn something new.”
― Po Bronson / Ashley Merryman

“In taking our marital arguments upstairs to avoid exposing the children to strife, we accidentally deprived them of chances to witness how two people who care about each other can work out their differences in a calm and reasoned way.”
― Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“Might our culture-wide perception of what it means to be a teenager be unwittingly skewed by the fact they don’t get enough sleep?”
― Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“Darling found that permissive parents don’t actually learn more about their child’s lives. “Kids who go wild and get in trouble mostly have parents who don’t set rules or standards. Their parents are loving and accepting no matter what the kids do. But the kids take the lack of rules as a sign their parents don’t actually care—that their parent doesn’t really want this job of being the parent.” ― Po Bronson, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“In one study, Cummings found that children’s emotional well-being and security are more affected by the relationship between the parents than by the direct relationship between the parent and child.”
― Po Bronson, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

“You want to know where your fears are hiding? Tell me what you know about yourself. Tell me what you can't live without.” ― Po Bronson, What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

“Rather than “Survival of the Fittest”—which wasn’t from Charles Darwin; it was a philosopher interpreting Darwin in 1864— we might have had the opposite, “Survival of the Most Cooperative.”
― Po Bronson, Decoding the World

“I asked him if Buddhists believe we all get a specific destiny. “We don’t think there’s a specific place in your life to go. Everybody’s destiny is to become an enlightened being and reach the everlasting state of mind.”
― Po Bronson, What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

 “A calling is not something you know, it's something you grow into, through trials and mistakes... Attack your fears, rather than shy away from them. Bring what you do in alignment with who you are...Failure's hard, but success at the wrong thing can lock you in forever.”
― Po Bronson, What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question