After he’d received the basic information that punkin would be okay, Hubby asked the all important question “So no walk today?”
To which I promptly responded, “No, he gets leash walks.”
He wasn’t getting off that easy.
Hubby doesn’t really want to walk the dogs, which is the reason that I’m the one doing most of the walking, but there are times when it just doesn’t fit into my schedule. During those times I can usually convince him to a walk around the block.
But walks around the block don’t work well for me in terms of blogging. They are monotonous, the same blah walk every night.
We go to the end of the driveway and take a right, we go up the hill and take another right going around the back of our house.
A car comes and the dogs have to sit. The car goes by and we walk again.
We pass a house with a barking dog behind a fence, neither Sampson nor Delilah gives two figs about it.
Sampson stops and pees on a fire hydrant.
Delilah gets amped up when we approach the two dogs in the invisible fence.
Delilah takes a dump on somebody’s lawn, Daddy holds the leash and the flashlight while Mama picks up the poop.
We go home.
What the hell? You can’t write a daily blog post about that stuff.
Tuesday night Sampson took his first dose of medication, and after dinner we saddled up and headed out. I noticed at about the half-way point Sampson had slowed down considerably. Our normal 15 to 20 minute jaunt took us almost 1/2 an hour.
That really blew, so I started thinking about it, I mean Sampson’s the one on the D.L. Delilah and I aren’t. Why should our exercise be confined to 20 minute walks around the neighborhood?
I told Hubby when weather and time permit, I will need him to take Sampson for a short walk, while Delilah and I head up to the trails.
Luckily for me, Hubby is on mandatory over-time for the next month, which means he does not go to his part-time job after work, which means he comes straight home. Honestly it couldn’t have worked out better if I had planned it! (A quick thank you to the guy upstairs, I owe you one.)
Wednesday night I got home, changed my clothes and prepped Delilah for the walk, it was not easy looking at Sampson’s face wondering why he wasn’t included in our romp, but I pulled on my big girl panties, sucked it up and left his sweet face home with the Hubby.
We’d had a decent amount of wind on Tuesday evening and some more branches had come down. This one was almost blocking the path completely, and I had to drop Delilah’s leash in order to move the branch.
You can see how much of the path was blocked.
I expected she would take off and I would spend the next half hour in a blind panic, tears streaming down my face as I searched the woods for her, but she came right back the instant I called her.
I decided to take her off-leash to see how she’d do.
She was amazing. When she ran off into the deep woods she seemed to always have her eye on me and came right back when I called her.
Most of the time she stayed right with me, running off briefly to check on something and then coming promptly back.
At one point I noticed some white tails a distance ahead of us, so I called her to me and leashed her up.
As we were getting ready to head towards home and had just come out near one of our danger zones, I heard a lot of noise coming from a thicket.
Too bad I wasn’t quicker with my camera, a hawk or owl (I’m assuming hawk considering the time of day) flew out of the brush about 10 to 15 feet over Delilah’s head! Thankfully she was totally focused on something on the ground and she didn’t see it.
You have to look very closely, I was trying not to scare him.
The hawk had its dinner in its claws and I took a picture of it sitting in the tree. I tried to get closer to get a better picture, but the hawk flew off. At that point Delilah KNEW something was up and she went on alert too.
I figured it’s always best to end your training successfully, so we headed home.
I commented to Hubby how well she did and we both agree it was because she was minus Sampson.
Why do you suppose that is? Do you think it is a competition between her and him as to who will be the pack leader or do you think she feels since he isn’t there, she has to protect me?
Yes i do believe it was because no Sampson. two dogs on a walk will mess with you in my dog owning days two loose would take off on me…they are like a team. she had no one to conspire with her…my opinion…
She probably figures that when both dogs are there she can get away with more because your attention is divided. I wouldn’t put it past her. She is a smart one. 🙂
I always worry about hawks or owls carrying off one of my little ones. I would suggest that maybe Delilah smelled the danger from above and was being protective of you.
Sampson, I’m sorry your peoples are leaving you behind. Like I said, I’ve had “bed-rest” several times, and to tell you the truth, near the end of it I was going a bit batty. But hang in there, and before you know it, it’ll be all over.
Very smart Delilah. Make her think you’re listening again, and little by little she’ll start giving you more freedom…
It’s about attention. Perhaps she wants more of it, hence the misbehaving. Perhaps she feels that you are not giving her the attention she craves. When you are scolding and or you are chasing after her, SHE is taking the attention off Sandman!
It could be a little of both but I think she wanted to make sure you were safe, she was doing her job 🙂
Dogs are so in tune to family dynamics that it doesn’t surprise me a bit that Delilah would act differently when walking with you alone. I’m sure Sampson alone with your husband behaved differently too.
Enjoy the time together. When I had two dogs, I wish I had gotten them used to going out separately. I think it would have transformed our relationship.
Your success with Delilah off-leash has been so impressive lately! It makes me want to try your methods with Molly, who is a complete spoiled brat and runs down to the pond behind the neighbor’s house whenever she can. Little Stinker.
I’m glad that Delilah is stepping up to give you some blogging material while Sampson is on the DL – hope he feels better very soon!