Heart Like a Dog

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

She's At It Again

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Delilah has a nasty habit.

I really thought we had broken her of the habit, in fact last week at obedience class I proudly said, “She doesn’t do that anymore.”

This Thursday she proved me wrong by burping in my face, I can’t even begin to tell you how disgusting the smell was, it lingered for at least five minutes.

Yes, my dog eats poop.

I had been using Solid Gold S.E.P (Stop Eating Poop) but the supplement was expensive, and since we feed them raw well I had to cut expenses somewhere. I heard that pineapple will make the poop undesirable so I’ve been packing their kongs with pineapple chunks.

Someone suggested that I should put hot sauce on the poop, but I figure if I’m going outside to sprinkle hot sauce I might just as well pick up the poop.

Which is what I did this afternoon.

This is our yard.  As you can see (which somehow we missed when we looked at the house) it’s really not all that functional.  It is fenced in so the dogs can be outside without us.  But it also has a lot of low, scrubby growth out there so we really don’t use it a lot.

I’ve told you before I am a lazy busy dog owner.

My friend Sherri once told me, “I don’t worry about the poop, it dissolves on its own.”

Well that doesn’t really seem to hold true with my dog’s poop.  At least if you are judging by the amount of poop I picked up today.

I’m pretty sure there is still some poop out there, but I got a LOT of it up.  After about a half an hour out there my back was killing me and I’d had enough.  Plus we were leaving for my grandson’s 4th birthday party.  (Between picking up poop and an hour at Bounce Town, I’m just about ready for a hot tub.)

So now my treat bag, and clicker are next to the back door along with my boots and I am going to see if I can teach Delilah to “leave it.”

After picking up so much poop I told Hubby today

1) I want a pooper scooper

2) I want one of those Doggie Dooley’s

3) I know why she eats it, there are bones and chunks of carrots in there, it is just another food source for her.

I realize she will probably always eat deer poop, she couldn’t possibly pass that up.  But I thought we’d broken her of the habit of eating dog poop.

Hubby said it best today, Delilah is in survival mode.

ALWAYS.

Knowing she came from Louisiana around the time of Katrina and Rita it’s very possible she had to survive on her own for a period of time.

How do you help a dog with these issues overcome them?

I’m open to suggestions.

 

Kong Gone Wrong

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I’ve mentioned this before, Sampson was an easy puppy.  Of course I didn’t know then what I have now learned from all of you, but in spite of all that Sampson turned out to be a great dog.

He was a free grazer.  I know, I know, but really he was fine with it.  He would pick at his kibble a little here and a little there but the majority of his food he would eat right before bed.   I would put him out for the night and he would come in, walk over to his food bowl and take a little bite, look at me, wag his tail and continue this way until his bowl was empty.  It really was adorable.

Until we started letting him sleep in our bed he would sleep downstairs in his crate.  Hubby used to get up really early and he would take Sampson outside for a potty break and then Sampson would come back in bed for a snuggle.

He would stay in that bed all morning if I would let him.  We could snuggle up and I could sleep until 8:30 on a Saturday morning after Hubby had left for work.

Most week day mornings you would hear me calling him like you would your child.  ”

Sampson, time to get up and go outside buddy.”

“Sampson Stone!  Get up.”

Somedays I would have to drag him out of bed, just so he could potty before I left for work.  At the time we lived in a duplex with my mom on the other side so she would always come over and give him an outside break in the middle of the day, still I wanted him to go out before I left.

Then Delilah joined our pack.  Delilah was an early riser.  I mean really early.  As soon as you moved in the bed, she jumped up and was ready for the day.  I told you, Delilah embraces life.

Slowly Delilah has come to enjoy a sleep in.   During the week Hubby gets up before me, he showers and then goes to pack his lunch, and the dogs go with him.  He usually treats them for sitting nicely and when she knows the food is gone, Delilah comes back to bed.  Sampson may or may not come back to bed, but he does lie down somewhere, either on the couch or the bed.

The weekends are a different story.

Sampson is usually the first one up.  He wakes us by one of two ways.  He either comes to my side of the bed and thumps his head down once or twice until I get up.  Or he gets off the bed and swims on the floor.

If your dog doesn’t do this, consider yourself lucky because it is hell on the carpet.  Basically he lies on his side on the carpet and takes his front legs with one fluid motion and brings them down towards his back legs.  It makes a scratching noise and tears the fibers of the carpet.

This is the manner in which he woke me up at 6:40 this morning.

Hubby and I have come to an agreement where I will get up with the dogs one weekend morning,  and he will do it the other.  In this way we each get a little sleep in time.

I pulled the short straw this morning.

So I got up, put their necks in some water, started the coffee and went to tend the fire.  It was while I was down on the floor, in front of the fire when it happened.

I felt a heavy object graze the left side of the back of my head, when I turned to look I saw Sampson’s Kong.

Yes, the lovely boy got me up at 6:40 on a Saturday morning and wants to play for a whole two minutes.

In trying to engage me, he tossed his Kong my way, and it grazed my head.  Thankfully for me, he doesn’t have the greatest aim and missed the middle of my head which really could have thrown me off-balance and considering where I was sitting could have caused serious damage.

That is what I call, a Kong Gone Wrong.

Book update: My book has 12,303 words.

Who's Eating The Cat Food?

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post for this special announcement.

I forgot all about the Mr. Chewy giveaway!!  After putting the comments thru random.org, the winner of the Mr. Chewy $50 gift certificate is…..drum roll please…..Mami2jcn .  Please send me your e-mail address and I will send you all the details!

Weekends are tough in my house, if I don’t have anywhere special to be it’s very easy for me to sit on the couch with my computer in my lap and just….well sit.

Hubby left early to go work on his jeep, so when I got up I fed the dogs and then Bob, made myself a cup of tea and fired up the laptop.

I was intently involved in catching up on some blog reading when a weird sound penetrated my concentration.  It was the distinct sound of a dish tapping against the wall, which meant Bob had his dish against the wall and was working it pretty good.  Then I looked up and saw Bob sitting in front of me.

Damn it Delilah!  Then I saw Delilah curled up on the couch.

When Delilah joined our pack I had hoped that some of Sampson’s good behavior would rub off on her, I certainly didn’t expect some of her bad habits to rub off on him!

He had pushed the gate that keeps the dogs out of the room in on one corner and was lying on the floor eating what was left of poor little Bob’s cat food.

I know I found it hard to believe myself, so I took a picture as proof.

If you look closely you can see how the gate is pushed in on the bottom left.

How is it that bad habits rub off, but good ones don’t?

Book update: It is the same as yesterday.

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