Heart Like a Dog

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

Along Came Sampson (Day Ninety Nine)

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I did a lot of writing today, the majority of it can be found thru the links in upper right of this page.  I have updated the “About Jodi” page and created a new page, “Sampson’s Story.”  I hope to include “Delilah’s Story” within the next week.

I also wanted to let you know the Along Came Sampson website is running, I believe all the links are working; I just need to get in there work on the “Sampson Says” page.  You should know that one of the pages has a grammar error, and that will be fixed as soon as possible.  Of course, I will update you.

Please check everything out and let me know what you think!

Recall Redux (Day Ninety Eight)

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Today was a spectacular weather day!  I think it got to be about 50 degrees (at least) the sun was shining and I am so blessed to literally work 5 minutes from home.  I decided for lunch I would run home, grab the dogs and take them back to the park to try my reliable recall again.

It was a much easier walk in today, some areas of the park actually has visible ground; while some areas still have snow.  For the most part the hiking was easy.  I admit I wasn’t as diligent with calling the dogs to me as I was on Sunday, part of the reason is that they didn’t really get too far ahead of me and most of the time they stick together.

Sampson and Delilah enjoying a beautiful day on the trail.

I did discover a couple of things about the reliable recall, 1) you should not be too close to your dog when you use the “Yahoo,” because Delilah completely ignored me.  2) When you use the recall, you need to be really excited and really shout it, “YAHOOOOOOO!!!” then they come running.

If you haven’t been working with your dog on coming when called, you probably want to start in the house and begin calling your dog to you and rewarding them when they do.  Once you have them responding in the house you can move to the yard and continue there. 

If you are like me and so excited to try new things and have no patience to wait, and you have never had your dog off leash, I would suggest attaching either a leash or a small rope (thickness depending on the size of your dog,) you can make the rope as long as you want, I think at least 6 to 8 feet, but you could go even longer.  Tie a knot in the rope every foot/foot and a half, this will keep your foot from slipping should you have to step on the rope to snag your dog.

Take your dog somewhere where you can let the dog loose, but the dog cannot escape; if you have a baseball diamond nearby that would probably be ideal. Let your pup drag the rope or lead and start training!   Above all be patient and have fun!

Delilah "YAHOOOOO!!"

If you look hard enough, you can see Sampson through the trees.

Greetings from your dog (Day Ninety Seven)

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As is usually the case when I can’t really think of what to write about, I go through my pictures and try to find a couple that I really like that I can talk about. 

I found the pictures of Delilah’s first day in CT; but found when I was looking at them I became very emotional; I think her story is going to be a bit longer than what I traditionally blog about.  Isn’t it fun to look back at pictures and see the changes someone has made?  To me Delilah looks as she always had, but I found this picture of her and you can so see how much of a puppy she still was.

My sweet puppy

When you see them every day, you hardly recognize that they have changed.

The other picture I have is of Sampson smiling.  Yes dogs really do smile and one of these days I am going to get a really good picture of him smiling. 

Smiling

Sampson is such a “people” dog, he waits at the top of the stairs for one of us to come home.  If one of us is later than normal, he knows this too and he will sit patiently waiting.  (I shudder to think what he does when we are on a trip!)  When we come home, he smiles sleepily and rooo, rooo, rooos his happiness, sometimes his little paws prance up and down too; one of these days I will capture that on video and be able to share it too.  Once you are in the door, he must have your full attention, you are required to lay on the floor and reunite with him, you rub him and kiss him and he kisses you in return.  This must happen for about 5 minutes, if you cannot immediately get to him then he will lay there thumping his tail on the floor, sometimes he gets a toy and will pretend to be interested in it until you give him his attention.

Delilah on the other hand is immediately in your face, for a very brief time then she goes and gets a toy and lies on her back, wiggling this way and that until you rub her belly.

The greeting I receive from my dogs upon my arrival home, will erase any kind of crappy day I may have had, I feel loved, wanted and appreciated and I can tell you the feeling is returned 10 fold.

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