Welcome to this week’s edition of Follow-Up Friday, the post where I highlight reader’s comments, answer questions and generally just wrap up my week.

You Make Me Smile – January 3, 2016

Callie, Shadow and Ducky’s Mom asked, “Aw, Sampson did you miss your bed at home? There’s no place like home after time away, is there buddy?”

I’m not sure if it was his bed he missed, or the quiet routine of a two-dog household. 🙂

Emma asked, “Did he sleep a lot when you got home to recover from the fun time?

I don’t think he slept anymore than usual, but remember he had a 3 1/2 hour car ride to sleep through!

Jackie Bouchard said, “When we are packing up to go home from someplace, she is always extremely worried that we’ll leave her behind (as if) so she’ll run out and leap into the car the first chance she gets.”

Awe, sweet Rita. I wonder if maybe Sampson was worried about that. Personally I think he just wanted a break from the other dogs. 🙂

Taryn said, “Wilson doesn’t even bother to tell us, he just goes upstairs to bed. He’s done that ever since he was a little pup. Jimmy gets itchy and grunts a lot and if you say “Jimmy, are you ready for bed?” He shoots up in the air, and hauls for the steps.”

Sampson usually just puts himself to bed too. One of us will say, “Where’s Sampson?” and he’s usually in bed. LOL Awe Jimmy, he’s just trying to tell you he wants to go to bed. 🙂

What’s In Her Mouth?

Kathleen Pirro said, “On one walk one of the collies grabbed a fried chicken bone! Some idiot in a car had tossed it out onto the sidewalk! Fortunately I fished it out if her mouth in time.”

In today’s world you have to be so diligent in watching the ground. People can be very thoughtless. I see it all the time in the woods near our house. Kids breaking glass bottles and leaving them all over the place! What about the poor wild animals that could hurt themselves?

Denise Straulea said, “Years ago I had a dobie/Dane all black named Bijou! He came in from the yard and handed me a LIVE mouse in the house! Hahahaha Right into my hand!”

OH. MY. GOSH! What did you do? Did you drop it then watch the antics ensue?

Lauren Miller said, ” I try really hard to not allow them to grab things off the ground. We work on that training a lot because I worry they will ingest poison.”

I do my best too, because I also worry about that.  If I don’t see it first…

Taryn said, “The absolute weirdest (and grossest) thing I got was a dead rabbit head. Jimmy was rooting around under a bush a bit too long so I pulled him back. Something was sticking out of his mouth….bunny ears. When I finally got his mouth pried open (and it wasn’t easy!) a whole head fell out! “Drop it” wasn’t working on this morsel!”

Oh. Dear. Lord. I think one of THE grossest things I ever pulled out of Delilah’s mouth was the rib cage of a deer. I can’t even imagine pulling a head of anything out of her mouth, unless it was lettuce. I’d definitely pull a head of lettuce out. LOL

Sherri said, “A mostly eaten chicken leg, wrapped in aluminum foil and thrown into the woods (instead of a garbage can!). ”

What the hell is wrong with people? Why can’t they wait until they are near a bin?

Mary said, “The other day on the beach I turned around to look at Roxy, and she was scarfing down a long slimy looking yellow thing.”

Oh gross. Thank goodness she didn’t get sick on it!

Jan asked, “So you’re saying that Delilah can’t walk and chew a banana at the same time?”

LOL yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. 🙂

Mary Ann said, “Most of the time, I don’t even know what Lila is putting in her mouth – she’s so quick about it.”

Exactly! Delilah is the same way. My clue should be when her nose is down. She will be sniffing along and then DIVE and up she comes with something.

Jan K said, “The worst thing I remember is when our beagle Kobi had a dead mouse. He didn’t want to give it up, and I didn’t want to reach in his mouth to pull it out. I think I had to gently pry his mouth open and get him to drop it (“leave it” was not in his vocabulary unfortunately)!”

Ugh…most times I just pry her mouth open and move her head from side to side until it comes out. I hate sticking my hand in there. 🙂 Lately I’ve been using “ICK” and so far it seems to be working, except I have to see the ICK first. It’s more my problem than hers.

Maggie said, “With Cooper, probably when he found a $1 bill! Not crazy but certainly rare. Emmett, the worst thing EVER, was he found a used… something very, very gross… in some bushes in the park. We screamed so loudly that he backed off of it before he could put it in his mouth.”

Ugh, I think I vomited a little in my mouth. That is so freaking gross. Thank goodness he didn’t pick it up. I found one of those in the field once, I was tempted to pick it up in the poop bag and send it off to check for DNA. LOL

Funny and Sad…Life with Older Dogs – Barks and Bytes

All Things Collie said, “I have two senior girls now, and yes, seeing the changes that come with old age makes me sad. But it also reminds me to treasure every day I have with them. It’s one of the reasons I feel so angry when I read about yet another senior dog dumped at a shelter.”

I hear you. They really bring so much joy, I can’t understand how anyone could possibly dispose of them so easily. Heartless bastards.

Callie, Shadow and Ducky’s mom said, “It is sad when our pups start feeling the effects of aging. All we can do is help them when they need it and reassure them that they are still and always loved.”

Always Sue. Always.

Genevieve asked, “Old dogs have such zen moments. Has your husband tried changing the ring tone on his phone?”

Yes he has. I think it’s because his phone is a droid, while mine is an iPhone. I think they have different frequencies.

Emma said, “My mom has tears in her eyes at some point almost every day with Katie. She falls down or doesn’t hear things and it breaks mom’s heart. She also will stay sleeping with a big fat, juicy, smelly treat right under her nose. It is life but it is hard to watch from the front row. Our Gramma has also had many health issues over the past 15 months, in and out of the hospital. Between Gramma and Katie, Mom can get pretty sad, but she has Bailie and I to cheer her up. It is important to remember how happy the senior pups are, and the humans are really the ones with the problem of aging, not so much the dogs.”

You’re so right Emma. Of course it’s us, dogs are just so much more accepting than us humans.

2 Brown Dawgs said, “All of ours are like that after a long weekend home with us. I think they miss a lot of sleep when they spend time supervising us.”

My guys get pooped out on the holidays when we have people over. Their sleep schedule gets terribly disrupted. 🙂

Hailey and Zaphod said, “I have not been blessed to have a dog live to be a senior. I admit I am looking forward to it.”

That’s very sad. I had a little beagle that lived until 13, sadly I don’t think I appreciated her as much as I should have.

Clowie said, “Ooh, I’d hate to be stuck with a smoke alarm going. The bipeds say it hurts their ears, so imagine what it’s like for us dogs!”

I can’t imagine. It’s so horrible.

Jan K said “So much about that reminds me of our beagle Kobi. He would sleep SO soundly when he got older, that it scared us sometimes. The smoke alarm was also his enemy…to the point that if we turned the fan on over the cooktop he would shake and shake…because he knew that the fan was used sometimes when the smoke alarm went off (ours is stupidly too close to our oven). Kobi was not scared of one thing in life except for that.”

Didn’t it just break your heart? We worked so hard with Sampson to help him have confidence and not be afraid and then to something happens and he’s afraid. It makes me so sad.

Taryn said, “Wilson is 12 (13 at the end of May) and his hearing is going. He misses so much and it makes me sad. We make a point of going to get him if he doesn’t know what’s going on. His nose still works just fine though! He has slowed down considerably on our walks and you can watch Jimmy stop and look back for him. I wonder if Jimmy wonders why Wilson isn’t keeping up anymore? I remind myself to be patient when the walks take a bit too long and yet go a much shorter distance.

Sampson starts out with the pep in his step, but by the end of the walk he’s slowing down too. I try and be patient too, because I know it’s not his fault. Watching them age and struggle with age related issues is very hard.

That’s it for me folks, tune in tomorrow when I take the 6th Annual Pet Blogger Challenge hosted by Go Pet Friendly.