Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Standing Outside The Fire

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Last night was the last Freestyle class for Delilah and myself.   Ariane said it could be as long or as short as we’d like.  I figured if I could string three tricks together I’d be happy.  I took the four or five solid tricks she knows and plotted it out in my head, how I might be able to make them flow together.

All week I’d been thinking of the song I’d play for our performance, I was pretty set on “Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White Tees, but decided to go through my songs on the way to class and see if I found one I thought fit her personality a bit better.

As it turns out, I thought the lyrics to Standing Outside the Fire by Garth Brooks exemplified her zest for life pretty well.

We call them cool
Those hearts that have no scars to show
The ones that never do let go
And risk the tables being turned

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always comes with getting burned

But you’ve got to be tough when consumed by desire
‘Cause it’s not enough just to stand outside the fire

We call them strong
Those who can face this world alone
Who seem to get by on their own
Those who will never take the fall

We call them weak
Who are unable to resist
The slightest chance love might exist
And for that forsake it all

They’re so hell-bent on giving ,walking a wire
Convinced it’s not living if you stand outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

There’s this love that is burning
Deep in my soul
Constantly yearning to get out of control
Wanting to fly higher and higher
I can’t abide
Standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

Normally I love to go first.  Not last night.  I waited.  We went fourth.  What I didn’t anticipate was a change in venue, from our little corner of the room to the center.  The center she associates with scent training.

Yeah, I lost her a couple of times.  But I promised you the video so here it is.  Ariane was filming and might have missed the first few seconds.

If the video doesn’t work, click HERE.

Next time it might be wise to let her scope out the food situation BEFORE we start the routine.  I do think she has some great spins and her leg weaves are coming along nicely.  We’re certainly not ready to step into a real ring!  Although I would like to continue working on tricks and work up a little routine.

I think she has potential, what do you think?

 

Just One Day

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One day.  Twenty four hours. One thousand, four hundred, forty minutes.  Eighty six thousand, four hundred seconds.

For some dogs one day will make the difference between living out their lives being loved and cherished or the end of their life, abandoned and alone in a shelter.

A dog but for the stroke of luck could have been our own sweet Delilah.

The only picture I have where she even remotely resembles a puppy.

The only picture I have where she even remotely resembles a puppy.

 

Thankfully American Lab Rescue pulled her from the High Kill Shelter she was at and put her in foster care until she could be transported to us.  American Lab Rescue is one of only seven shelters/rescues in the state of Connecticut that have taken the Just One Day Pledge and vowed Now and Forever.

Just One Day takes place every year.  They work year long spreading the message and asking shelters to take the one day pledge.  They will assist shelters by providing model press releases, promotion plans, and a guide to help them adopt their way out of killing.  All of these are provided free of charge to any organization that takes the pledge.

From their website, “To most people, June 11 is Just One Day. But, June 11 is a day that will change everything for about 10,000 companion animals, and a day that can change the world. On June 11, 2013, we can be a No Kill nation.”

10,000 animals!! Sounds good doesn’t it?

But they need our help.  Just about every town in CT (169) have a dog pound or shelter, yet only seven have taken the pledge to be no kill.  And of those seven, they are all, with the exception of one, rescues.  No Humane Societies, no Shelters.  I find that appalling.  And I intend to change that for next year.   I’m going to be recruiting my CT friends to assist me in getting the Just One Day challenge out to shelters in our state so more of them participate next year.

How many shelters in your state participate?  Go to their website and see if your favorite shelter/rescue does, if you don’t see your favorite on the list, contact them, ask them to take the one day pledge.

Together we can make this a No Kill Nation, if only for one day.

Another way you can help shelter animals is to join the Tuesday’s Tails Blog Hop and shine the light on a shelter animal, a dog like Duke here.

Duke is 6 or 7 years old and was abandoned at a truck stop.

Duke is 6 or 7 years old and was abandoned at a truck stop.

 

Poor Duke, he sat for hours at the truck stop where he was dumped waiting for his heartless human to return.  Duke gets along with children, and dogs, walks well on leash, and he’s very attached to his foster mom’s elderly mother.  You can read more about Duke on his Petfinder Page, he’s currently in foster care in New Fairfield, CT.

10,000 animals in one day seems like a big undertaking, but shelters were closing their doors last year because they had adopted out all their animals.  Imagine, a shelter with no animals. Wouldn’t that be a great ‘problem’ to have?

 

The Post in Which I Speak Deer.

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The past two weekends we’ve had crappy weather.  Memorial Day has to be one of the coldest on record, at least since I’ve started keeping records.  Last week it got hot and humid.  Between both weekends it was hard to find the motivation to get out and walk the dogs.  Except for yesterday.

Tropical Storm Andrea (the weatherman pronounced it On-Dre-Ah, I don’t know about you, but I have a cousin named Andrea and we pronounce it An-Dree-Ah, but I digress.)  Tropical Storm Andrea blew through here starting Thursday night and all day Friday, and it rained.  I mean, it rained.  Actually it poured.  Buckets.  It rained so hard on Friday that even my dogs didn’t want to walk, and they walk in any weather.

Yesterday however dawned clear and cool, a perfect day for walking.  I pulled up to the park and a car pulled up behind me, there were two young men inside.  They apparently thought it was a beautiful day too and were attempting to gather some friends together for football in the field.

I plotted out our walk and thought we’d hit the field first, then catch a trail from there, thereby avoiding the field once the boys were using it.

I try to keep the dogs away from the edges of the fields to avoid poison ivy.  Sampson was being a turd and running the edge of the field.  I called him three times and then decided to run with Delilah.  Sure enough, we’d run about 10 feet when I heard him jingle up behind us.  I turned to treat him, when all of a sudden he stopped.  His head and tail stood at attention.

I assumed the boys had made it to the field, but Delilah and I turned to look and she snapped to attention.  A deer ran into the field.

I braced myself for what was to come, Sampson took off, heading for the deer.  The deer tentatively began her run across the field, Delilah crouched, prepared to get her run on.

“Nooooooo!  Sampson.”  He continued forward

“Stop!” I shouted.

They all stopped.  Sampson, Delilah and I on one side of the field staring at the deer.  The deer on the other side of the field staring at us.

What a perfect picture.  Instinctively my hand reached around to my back pocket to grab my camera. it was empty.

Too late, I realized I’d left it sitting on the couch at home.

This photo is courtesy of Wendell on Flickr under Creative Commons.

This photo is courtesy of Wendell on Flickr under Creative Commons.

 

By the time I pulled my cell phone out and activated the camera, the deer said, “Sorry, no photos please, there are hunters in these parts, you know,” and ran back into the woods.

Whew.  I slipped my cell phone back in my pocket and realized a second too late that Delilah was still intent on catching that deer.

Have I mentioned you need strong bones to walk a Lab?  Thankfully my Calcium supplements are working and my wrist the leash was looped around held up.  Still I think I jerked a few steps forward.

I called her back, “Do you really think you can catch that deer?”  She nodded.

Okay, I made that up.   But if she could have nodded her head, she would have.

I un-clipped her leash and gave her permission, after all the deer had a good head start and if I needed to I could have just told it to run faster.  I mean, it understood Stop.

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