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Daughter Andy, accompanied by Miriam's three grandchildren (one shown in photo) and a great-grandchild, presented a side of Ms. Yarden many locals hadn't known.

Pet owners attested to her insights, passionate professional work and tireless volunteer efforts to appreciative two and four legged friends.

Prominent LB animal advocate and author Deborah Turner (Wheely Willie) and her mother were among those attending. A friend from Israel recited the ancient Hebrew prayer for the deceased.

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Simultaneously didactic and endearing, commanding and compassionate, Ms. Yarden applied her B.Sc and MS degrees as a professional animal psychologist and animal behavior specialist for over 35 years. In addition to owning and operating Aurora Animal Behaviour (and yes, she preferred the British spelling of Behaviour), Ms. Yarden was a published author who penned the well-received book Hey Pup, Let's Talk. LBREPORT.com was greatly honored when Ms. Yarden chose to write for us, contributing 34 text articles, plus a video report, below.

"Please, please, there's just one thing I ask of you," she asked in her politely insistent European manner in agreeing to write for us. "If I decide to write something in a particular way, it's because I want to say it in a particular way. I've taken my time to choose my words and it represents what I mean to say and how I mean to say it," she said. "OK" was our immediate response. She continued "Now if I make some grammatical error, of course please do correct it and naturally I'll be appreciative," she added.

Miriam Yarden didn't make grammatical errors. She spoke several languages fluently. As a child, her family fled Nazi occupied Europe for what would become Israel; her brother David perished in the War of Independence for the Jewish state; she then went to England, studied nursing and settled in the U.S.

Ms. Yarden was, above all, a teacher. On learning that a seemingly-friendly dog, without growling or warning, bit a Denver TV morning show anchor in the face (on her lip. video here). she phoned us immediately. "I want to say something about this and I want to say it now. It's an important teachable moment," she said. "OK," we replied. "Can you do one of those video-things, where I just talk into a camera? In most cases I'd rather write but I can explain what happened now and you can let people see it and learn from it." "OK," was our reply.

Ms. Yarden arrived within minutes and spoke in our backyard without notes or a script.

To view what she said and how she said it, click here.

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Miriam Yarden came to our family's attention after my wife decided she wanted to adopt a Golden Retriever that someone had cruelly thrown from a moving car onto the 405 freeway. A compassionate driver picked up the badly-injured animal, took him to a vet hospital where he underwent surgery and gradually recovered. Before we could adopt him, another family did...but they soon returned him without explanation. We took him in, named him "Oscar" (we had a cat named "Felix") and he immediately displayed real problems.

Without warning, when he was outwardly calm and happy in a room with us, Oscar would growl at us (and it was a serious growl.) He was similarly aggressive when others approached him in a friendly manner. We called on Ms. Yarden seeking her professional advice.

On her arrival, Oscar immediately began barking and aggressively growling. "Let me in and ignore him," she advised. When my wife turned to tell Oscar to be quiet, Ms. Yarden directed us again: "Ignore him and let me in."

When Ms. Yarden stepped in the door, that worsened Oscar's barking and growling, bringing his teeth perilously close to her. Ms. Yarden ignored him and instructed us, "talk to me as if he's not there. Ignore him and let him see that you're talking to me." We did as she instructed, and when Ms. Yarden began to take a seat near Oscar's favored place in the room, that set off even more barking and growling. "He likes this place? Good. I'll sit here," she announced, adding "keep talking to me." Oscar looked bewildered and displeased but eventually quieted down. [LBREPORT.com note: don't try this at home; all animals and their backgrounds are different.]

After learning more from us about Oscar's behavior, Ms. Yarden nodded knowingly and explained to us: "Some cruel and stupid person has badly abused and traumatized this dog. He never knows when someone he trusted will hurt him. He growled at you because he doesn't know when you'll turn on him. When you ignored him and talked to me, it showed him that not everything you do is a potential threat to him. Unfortunately, his behavior will likely continue unless you intervene and overcome the traumas he experienced. This won't be easy but with work he may be able to trust you."

Ms. Yarden recommended a veterinarian who could prescribe a calming medicine to give Oscar some needed psychological peace that might enable him, over time, to trust us. Then, she said, make sure to show Oscar who's in charge...and love him.

It worked. Oscar loved us like no other dog in the history of dog-dom, and loved our children when they arrived.

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Ms. Yarden didn't suffer foolishness gladly and made this clear in her writings. We were incredibly proud that she allowed her work (below) to appear on LBREPORT.com, telling us on more than one occasion that she admired the fact that we weren't intimidated by officialdom.

Ms. Yarden reminded us frequently that officials, like any people, can make good or bad decisions...and she devoted countless professional and volunteer hours to teaching people of every status how to understand their pets, saving countless animals from a needless needle and enriching the lives of innumerable pets and their people.

Friday night's event was organized by the Denney family. On a memorial webpage, they asked: "In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the animal hospital, charity, or rescue organization of your choice in Miriam's name."

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Ms. Yarden's LBREPORT.com archived work: