Heart Like a Dog

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

What the Wild Things Are…Day One Hundred and Thirty Two

By

What a gorgeous day it turned out to be today.  I couldn’t wait for Chet to get home to hit the trail, so I loaded up the dogs and headed to the park.  We did one lap around the trail loop and then headed back for one more time.  Of course Sampson had to stop for a quick cool off in the dirty water.

I like mud...

Once we hit the trail for the second lap, we encountered a woman and her dog.  We had met the dog before, but not his mom.  Once she realized my guys were friendly she relaxed her grip on her dog and started chatting.  I felt like I had to tell her about my neighbor’s dog as I wanted to warn her to be careful in the woods.   Turns out she knows more than I do…she knows what’s up there.

Sarah told me, there are coyotes in the woods.  She knows this because her dog found the freshly killed deer and brought her a piece of it.

He doesn't look that mean....

Sarah said she spent an hour trying to get the deer away from her dog, he finally dropped it in some water and couldn’t find it.  She also said, there are fisher cats in the woods.  She lives much closer to the woods than I do and she has actually seen a fisher cat on her street.  She’s also heard them and from what I understand the cry is bone chilling.

I don't know about you, but this scares me more than the coyote!

 

I shared with Sarah that I have taken to carrying pepper spray and she agreed that it’s not a bad idea to have some spray, whether it be for protection against a wild animal  or something else.  We exchanged phone numbers and hopefully we can make arrangements to meet out on the trails so we have someone to walk with.  After all there is safety in numbers.

Wash, Wash, Wash The Dog…Day One Hundred and Thirty One

By

There’s a little brook that runs along the side of the field where we take the dogs to play; it’s a dirty little brook but the dogs love it.  They love to run through the brook and occasionally Sampson lays down in it.  I’ve been trying to catch it on video but have been having a hard time with it until today.  I uploaded it to youtube tonight, but let it buffer for a minute or so before watching it; because I’m pretty new to this youtube stuff. (I also got Delilah’s agility run up and the video of how excited Delilah gets when she gets her dinner.

The problem with the dogs running through the brook is they get absolutely filthy!  So every time they go in the brook, we have to wash them off when we get home.  What I started doing was washing them outside.  I take an empty dog shampoo bottle, fill it with warm water and put a squirt of shampoo in it.  We then use the soapy water to wash them quickly and rinse them off with the hose.  Then we dry them off and let them in the house. 

I’m happy that the warmer weather is coming so they aren’t outside freezing, but the water from the hose is still cold!  Although as Chet pointed out, the brook isn’t warm water and they willingly go in there. :-0  Still I am calling the plumber to see how hard it would be to get an outside shower.

Where The Wild Things Are…Day One Hundred and Thirty

By

Chet was outside working in the yard; I went out to ask him something and I noticed the neighbor’s dog.

Notice the tail....

Immediately I thought, “Isn’t the dog a little old to have his tail docked?”  Then Chet told that the dog had gotten loose and gone to the park at the top of the street and came back missing his tail.  Something ferocious that is not afraid to attack a large dog lives in the woods at the top of the street.  The poor dog had bite marks all over his tail.  The neighbor told Chet the story and also indicated, “This dog does not back down from a fight.” 

I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out.  Without knowing the entire story, such as the time of day the dog got away, if it was gone overnight etc…it makes me a little nervous taking my dogs up to the woods.  I’m not entirely certain that Delilah wouldn’t want to try to fight. I do carry  Pepper Blaster II and had really thought about it more for protection against the two-legged predator as opposed to the four.  From what I’ve read, it should work on a wild animal.

 I wonder what kind and size of animal might be up in the woods and hungry and vicious enough to take on a large dog.  I know you can’t tell from the picture but this is a decent size dog; I would say somewhere in the weight range between Delilah (78 pounds) and Sampson (97 pounds.)

Chet said he thinks the dog is part Chow....that is nothing to fool with.

I’m very grateful that most days/evenings Chet goes walking with us, still I’m a wee bit  nervous about taking my dogs to where the wild things are.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...