Heart Like a Dog

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

My Little Diva

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I wanted to share a little Delilah story with you.

First I have to tell you, I’m not very good about setting time aside to actually work on training my dogs, which is one of the reasons I really, really like our Thursday night drop in obedience class.

I also think it’s a really great opportunity to expose and work the dogs around other dogs.

Last Thursday we went to our drop in obedience class after having missed it for about a month, for whatever reasons health, weather, a soldier returning home 🙂  it had been a long time since we’d gone to class.

Hubby goes with me and he works Sampson, while I work the Diva.  Apparently even though we do make the dogs sit, down and stay at home, someone forgot the rules in obedience class.  It really didn’t take her TOO long to go into a down for me, but she had a real problem ‘staying.’

Anytime I would walk away and she would follow, I would turn around and gently lead her back to her place.  We’ve got a real great group of people in that class so a couple of times she got up and someone would take her leash and stop her.

I’m the only one in the class that carries a treat bag on my hip (and trust me, all the dogs know it!) And I was running pretty low on treats and basically had to let her lick the bag to reward her, so during a ‘stay’ command, I took the opportunity to run out to the store in order to grab a sample bag of kibble.  I’ve been using Taste of the Wild in my treat bag and I’m telling you, if I could figure out how to get my dogs to stand on their heads, they would do it for this kibble.  They like it THAT much.

I’m sorry, I do digress at times.

Delilah happened to be on the far end of the training room in a ‘down stay,’ and Hubby and Sampson were at the front of the training room, so if you were looking at the shop as a long rectangular room Delilah would be at one end, I would be at the other and Hubby and Sampson would be about half way in between.  Also at the far end of the room was my friend Dave with his dog Molly.

I had put the kibble in the bag and was throwing the wrapper out when I heard Molly, for no apparent reason let out a noise, which if I really think about it, sounded like a howl.  Whatever it was, it scared the Bejesus out of my little Diva who with no mommy to reassure her she was ok, sprinted across the room for daddy.  Needless to say the entire class burst into laughter, while I walked in saying, “What?”

Yes, my dogs DO make me laugh on a daily basis.

Book update:  My book has 11,324 words.

Inquiring Minds

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Like most of you (I’m pretty sure) I love the weekend.  Although mine do tend to fill up quickly, what with house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping etc.

In the midst of all the chaos that comes with my weekend, I try really hard to get the dogs out for a couple of nice long walks.  Most of the time I try to get them out for at least an hour each day.

I am really looking forward to the longer days when I can come home and grab them after work and take some long walks, while Hubby stays home and cooks on the grill. 🙂

I can’t always connect with my walking pal during the week (at least not right now) but on the weekends whenever possible, we try to get the dogs all out together.

While she only has Brady, she very frequently has her friend’s dog, Kodak.  All the dogs get along pretty well with the exception sometimes of Sampson whose been getting a little bit snarkier the older he gets. 🙁

Saturday we had all the dogs out and walked them around the woods for an hour and twenty minutes, it was awesome.  It’s nice to have someone to chat with while walking and I hate to say it because I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, but I really feel Delilah does much better with a larger pack of dogs.

When all the dogs take off through the woods chasing a herd of deer, nine out of ten times Delilah is the first one back after being called.  She’s been doing so good I’m actually considering cutting her leash down to fifteen feet.

When we aren’t walking with the other dogs, I hold her leash in certain areas and in other areas I let it drop, for the most part she is always in my sight and if they get too far ahead of me, I call them back.

She’s been pretty good about returning and I am very generous with the treats.  I’m a firm believer in treating and I don’t care if I have to carry treats with me all the time as long as my dogs return when I call them.   Judge me if you want, I’m tough. 🙂

So here’s my question, I’ve never trained a dog using the long leash before.  Have you?  How long did you keep them on the long leash?  Did you slowly cut the leash back or did you just stop all together.

Inquiring minds want to know. 🙂

Book update:  My book has 11,023 words.

The Importance Of Business Cards

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Do you have a business card for yourself?  Your blog?

I made a card up for myself for my “Along Came Sampson” website.

The card was made up with this picture on it.

The front of the card  says, “DO YOU KNOW SAMPSON” and it lists his website address along with my name.  On the back of the card, I have my e-mail address, my cell phone number and this blog address.

I had these cards made up when I was focused on my children’s book, “Along Came Sampson.”  I still have the website, but I really don’t do much with it, instead my focus has changed and I now work pretty diligently on this blog.

The reason I bring all this up is, today when I was at the grocery store I stopped at the Deli.  I ordered some all beef bologna and the man who was taking my order asked how thick I wanted it.  I told him the thickness and indicated it was for the dogs.

“Oh, what kind of dog do you have?”

“They’re labs.”

His eyes lit up, “You don’t happen to be a breeder do you?”

Turns out he’s been looking for a lab for months, he’s looked at the lab rescue sites but has been put off because the dogs are from out of state and he wants to meet the dog before he adopts it.

I get that.  So I said, “Here’s my card, I know the woman who does placements for Labs 4 Rescue and I know they have dogs in CT.  There are also options of fostering to adopt.”

Turns out he’d never thought of that.

Now, if I hadn’t had my card I could still have given him my information, but I would have had to write it on the back of a receipt or something.  This way he has my name, number, e-mail addy and blog address all in one place.

If you don’t have a card for your blog, Vista Print does a really nice job and you can get 250 cards for $10 which includes shipping.  I don’t think that’s a bad deal at all.  In fact, I’m thinking of ordering myself some more cards with the focus on this blog.  I’m not really sure whether I will keep the Along Came Sampson website or not.

If you don’t have cards for your blog, do you think you could benefit from having cards?  If you do have cards, do you use them and have you found them to be beneficial?

Book update, still the same.

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