Heart Like a Dog

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

Dog Crazy…(Day One Hundred and Eleven)

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So by now, you all know that I’m just crazy about my dogs.  There are a variety of reasons, besides the unconditional love they bestow upon me, they are a constant source of joy and amusement.  As I’ve mentioned before, they are about as opposite as any two dogs could possibly be.

Sampson likes to stay in bed in the morning, while Delilah is a “Oh she moved, it must be time to get up” kind of dog.   I will get up and go in the bathroom, 9 out of 10 times Delilah will join me in there if she thinks I am taking too long.  (They eat breakfast as soon as we leave the bedroom. ) If I have made the mistake of closing the bathroom door tightly, you can hear the thump of her heading trying to open the door. 🙂

Because of Sampson’s love of staying in bed, a long time ago I invented his morning “Wake-up” song.  Traditionally he lies in bed until I sing the song (twice) and have rubbed his ears and tummy.  Then and only then will he get up.  Lately though, he has taken to going out into the living room with Chet; sometimes he comes back in the bedroom while I am in the bathroom and sometimes he doesn’t.  This doesn’t excuse me from singing the morning song though, I must sing it to him wherever he is.  (Don’t worry, I created a song for Delilah too.)

This morning he was in the living room when I came out of the bathroom, so Delilah and I went out and I said, “Where’s my punkin?”  There he was on the living room floor, a huge grin on his face; just waiting.

Just like this.

So tell me, how can this not make you smile?

Lazy Days….(Day One Hundred and Ten)

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The day after a holiday or a family gathering is usually a down day for the dogs; they are usually so exhausted from being awake (from all the people activity) that they sleep most of the day.  I had every intention of taking them for a nice hike this morning and then ended up having one of the laziest days I’ve had (in recent memory.)   So our hike ended up being around 6:00 pm and now they are sleeping and recovering from their hike. 🙂

I have two quick stories I want to share about the dogs, my dear friend Mindy came over today to give me a massage (yes, she is going to massage school and needs the practice…have table will travel.)  After the fabulous massage Mindy was going to teach me how to meditate, so we sat on the floor with our backs against the couch, some nice classical music playing in the background and began our meditation.  Delilah decided she wanted to know what we were doing, so she trotted up to us and when we ignored her, she stuck her nose right in Mindy’s face!  We both burst out laughing, then she decided to lay against me and lick herself.  Thankfully this did not last long and she went and lay down on the couch.

The second story just shows how different the two dogs are in personality.  After my shower this evening I went to the pantry to get the dogs their snack; Delilah naturally was right behind me and couldn’t wait for hers, while Sampson tired out from his hike, stayed on the bed in the bedroom and waited for me to bring it to him. 

You have to love them both.

Two Dogs, Five Teenagers and a Three-Year Old…(Day One Hundred and Nine)

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Before I get to the real blogging, I have to say, that Delilah had a damn near perfect agility run today!!  We had a fun time at class and then we came home and had a birthday party, for my niece Taylor who turned 17 today! Happy Birthday Taylor!!

Happy 17th Birthday Taylor

When Taylor asked if she could bring some friends over I immediately said, “Of course.”   Then I started to get a little nervous because it has been so long since I’ve had more than one teenager in the house, plus my grandchildren would be here and I wasn’t sure how it would all shake out.  Then after the incident with the dog and the child at Thursday night’s obedience class I got a little nervous.

Naturally there was food involved, so we had to be on our toes with Delilah, I caught her in the chip bowl once and then stopped her from devouring a pizza box, but all in all I would say it was a fairly successful event. 

We have a good-sized house with a decent size common area, still our normal family life is very quiet, whenever we add a bunch of people to the mix, I can get a little anxious about the dogs.  But the dogs got along well with everyone.  Hannah took a real shine to Sampson and my niece is convinced he is the best dog in the world :-).

 I’ve blogged a bit about new experiences for your dogs, but there are also experiences where they may be out of their “comfort zone”  even in their own home.  Such as was the case today, so I wanted to be certain we didn’t have any incidents and that the dogs didn’t get stressed out.  Thankfully, it all worked out fine, I had a great time with the kids, found them to be funny, interesting and extremely intelligent;  towards the end of the party we all went into my room to check out a video Taylor had made and within a few minutes, the dogs had joined in as well.  

Hannah, Johan, Isaac, Nicole, Taylor and the "Puppies."

All in all I would rate this as a success and the dogs may have just made some new facebook and twitter friends.

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