Heart Like a Dog

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

New Horizons…Day One Hundred, Forty Four

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Yesterday Chet and I both had the day off;  my plan was to head to the park around 9:00 am, walk the dogs for about an hour and then have the rest of the day to myself.  Ah, the best laid plans.

Turns out we didn’t head to the park until around 10:00 am; when we got there we found it full of children getting ready to have an Easter Egg hunt!  The dogs were already loaded into the car, so we decided to check out a new hiking area the town recently opened up.

Since the area was new to us and the trail runs really close to the highway, we decided to keep Delilah on leash.  We pulled out the thirty foot leash and off we went.  Initially I had Delilah and having her on a thirty foot leash is kind of like fishing.  You let her have some lead, then you “reel” her in.

New Horizons

The trail starts out around a pond, the pond is fed from a stream or small river; the trail follows the course of the stream so you are always walking along side water.

We have Labrador Retrievers, they love the water!  Naturally they wanted to go in.  We scoped the river out looking for safe places for them to enter, where the current wasn’t too strong, then we let them go in.  We continued walking until we got to an area where it was too narrow to pass, so we turned around.

The beautiful gorge.

I was busy snapping this picture while Chet and the dogs headed back, when I heard a splash.  I turned around and Delilah had seen a stick or some reflection of light in the water and decided to go for a swim.  Trouble was, she took Chet with her!  He was so mad at her, I didn’t dare snap a picture.  Needless to say, it was a quiet walk out and a quiet ride home.

Knothead….Day One Hundred, Forty Three

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Last year Sara and I noticed Sampson had some bumps on his head, when I felt them with my fingers they felt like scabs. At first we thought it was from rough playing with the other daycare dogs; but then Sara observed Sampson sniffing the floor and said, it looks like hives to me, I bet he stuck his head under a bush and had a reaction to it.Chet and I noticed the bumps again. We noticed it first by a large scab he had on one side of his head. We noticed it about 5 days ago; at first we only noticed the one bump. We watched it every day and put Neosporin on it, but yesterday when I got home Chet said, “Have you looked at his head?”

The scab is visible, but the knot is not.

I had looked at it in the morning, but I looked again and he had the one scab, and then a big knot slightly off to the side of it. Upon closer inspection it looked to me like a clump of fur that was matted with blood. I took a wet cloth and held it to the lump, rubbed it gently and pulled it away. Sure enough, it had blood on it. Chet really wanted Sampson to see the vet to be sure it wasn’t anything too serious, so we made an appointment for this afternoon.
 
The vet took one look at his head and said, “Let me get the clippers.”

Shaving the head.

They shaved my baby’s head!  My poor boy!  What the vet found under the fur was a number of scabs a couple of which were infected.  So now he is on Prednisone and antibiotic. There must be something in our yard that blooms or grows in the spring and when he touches the plant or bush with his head, he gets an allergic reaction to it.  So once he comes off the medications, we will put him on Benadryl and monitor him.  In the meantime, I’ll be looking for a hat that he can wear when he goes outside. He may look a bit silly with a hat on his head, but he won’t look any sillier than he looks now, with a big, scabby, bald patch on his head.

Poor Handsome Boy.

The good boy got a strawberry shake for the ride home.

Trials and Tribulations…Day One Hundred and Forty Two

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 Chet joined us late on our walk last night.  Since I knew he was coming, I was on the watch for him. 
 

“Who’s that?”  I said to Sampson and Delilah, while pointing with my finger to the general area where I could see Chet approaching.

Naturally, the dogs got all excited even though they had not yet seen him (I had the advantage of being at a slightly higher elevation.)  They picked up their pace; head and tails up, eyes alert looking, searching.  Sampson saw Chet first and high-tailed it directly to Daddy; Delilah was slightly slower in spotting him, but once she had  him in her sites, she was full-out running; and this dog is fast!  She beat Sampson by about 15 to 20 seconds.  I on the other hand was much slower in re-joining the pack, but once I had we had an interesting conversation.

Chet: “Do you know what I saw in her, right then when they were running to me?”

I’m clueless and not really sure where the conversation is going but willing to participate to see where this takes us; “What?” 

Oh lord, the suspense was killing me.  “A retriever.”

“Oh my GOD, really imagine that, I had no idea that my Labrador RETRIEVER looked like a retriever! ” (The inner bitch inside of me said.)

The rational me, the one who actually has control of my mouth said, “What do you mean?”

While I mentally shushed  the inner bitch, he went on to explain to me how he saw a field trial dog in the way Delilah was running.  Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. 

He’s right (I won’t say of course because it’s not like he’s right ALL the time,) when Delilah runs her nose is to the ground and she zigs and zags as she runs, it seems like she is constantly looking for something and Lord help us when she finds it.

Monday night she saw a squirrel in the woods and that was it.  She was gone, no amount of coaxing, pleading, yelling, even “yum yum” while I fed Sampson Roast Beef would bring her back.

Tuesday night, she took off in the same spot; Sampson and I walked away.  When she caught up to us, I leashed her and kept her with me for the rest of the walk.

Last night, I didn’t give her the opportunity.  As soon as we got close to the spot, I called her to me and leashed her until we were well past it; then I let her off leash.

My point is from our observations she needs a purpose when she is on the trail and we as her caregivers are required to provide that for her,  trouble is I don’t know what she needs or how to go about getting it for her.

I've thought about dock diving.

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