Heart Like a Dog

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

Go Check

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Ever since Delilah’s big adventure last year, she’s been kept on leash on our walks.

I hate this.  She enjoys running so much and she looks amazing while she’s doing it, yet I can’t take the chance.  She has proven time and time again that she can’t be trusted.

Remember my moment of weakness in March?

If our park was totally enclosed, I’d just let her go, but there are too many areas with access to neighborhoods and that is right where she goes.

The good news is I don’t have to worry about her running off into acres and acres of woods.  The bad news is that she is running off to people’s homes.  And I worry about people and how some of them might handle unwanted dogs.

What do you mean people don't want me in their yards? I'm cute and I'm doing them a service by cleaning it up.

What do you mean people don’t want me in their yards? I’m cute and I’m providing them with a yard service.  Free. Of. Charge.

 

In order to grant her a little bit of freedom, I’ve been working her on a new command.  Go check.

I have to be careful in what area I use this, but normally speaking it works like this.  Sampson gets his retriever on.  Explanation for those of you who don’t have retrievers….he stops, stands still and stares, before he charges off after his prey.  Delilah will stop and stare as well. I call her to me, un-clip her leash and say, “Go check!”  She darts off, thrashing through the trees, makes a wide sweeping circle and comes panting back to me.  The whole thing is over in less than a minute.

She gets her run on and I get peace of mind.  It’s a win-win situation.

Until it isn’t.

She did great when we encountered the deer. And she’s so happy when she runs and when she comes back and so I had another moment of weakness.  It was the day after the deer encounter and we had just stepped into the field.  I had her pointed in the right direction, un-clipped her and said, “Go check.”

She turned around and headed for the houses, with Sampson right behind her.

“Just remember, she’ll always come back,” Hubby said the last time she took off on me.  I tried to remain calm.  I called Sampson, thankful when he came back.  I walked across the field, calling for her, whistling, clapping my hands.  After a couple of minutes I decided I’d have to try to hike through the woods to the houses and see if I could find her.  It was raining and the field is rimmed with Poison Ivy, so I was looking for a clean spot to enter.

Sampson and I headed down a trail, but I couldn’t find a way in.  We turned around, searching the edges of the field, nothing.  I looked at my watch, 12 minutes had passed.  There was nothing else to do, I’d head back to the entrance and look for a way through down there, on my journey I’d see if I could spot her through the trees.  If I got to the car and hadn’t spotted her, we’d jump in and I’d drive over.

Who was I kidding, it’s spring in New England even though we had a late start, the trees are green and you just can’t see through trees!  Still I kept my eyes to the right, scanning, hoping.

I heard a noise and looked up, there she was running towards me.  I’m not sure if she’d given up and gone to the car or just finished her rounds and headed back.  She was gone at least 15 minutes and she’d used up her last chance.

I have no hope that she will ever go off-leash unless it’s in a fenced in area.

When do you decide it’s enough?  When do you stop giving chances?

My Dog Likes Wood

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Friday on Talking Dogs Blog, Sue was updating us on puppy Rosie.  Sue said, “She is, by far, the easiest puppy we’ve ever had.  Zero destruction.  All joy.”

Which of course made me think back to my own little punkin, also a very easy puppy.

Sampson and Me Me and my Punkin, the first time I held him, he was three weeks old.

Which isn’t to say, he wasn’t a tiny bit destructive.

Dogs are as unique and individual as people.  Delilah enjoys agility while Sampson does not. I think this holds true in other things as well.

Delilah loves shredding paper.  Paper towels, napkins, tissues.  Sampson wouldn’t touch them if they were coated with cheese.

For chewing purposes we will leave Delilah out of that equation, as she will chew just about anything.

Our little Beagle, Roxanne loved to chew plastic, while Sampson has always favored wood.
(Siriusly, what did you think this post was about anyway?  It is a DOG blog, get your dirty little mind out of the gutter!)

Case in point, he chewed the feet of my wooden coat rack.  We tried to prevent his chewing, we gave him alternative toys, we sprayed bitter apple on it, eventually what worked was removing it from his area until he fully understood what he was allowed to chew and what he wasn’t.

Once the coat rack was removed and he still had the urge to chew wood, he had to look to other items in the kitchen to satisfy his needs.

One day I came home to discover he had chewed the footrest to the breakfast bar!  The breakfast bar that Hubby had carefully built and assembled, it was the center piece of our recently completed renovations in our very large and beautiful kitchen.

My first thought was Hubby is going to kill him.  I was worried.  I had been the one hellbent on getting a puppy and while I knew Hubby loved Sampson, I wasn’t sure that a huge fight wasn’t going to take place, with battle lines drawn, me defending Sampson and Hubby calling for stricter sanctions.

I took Sampson outside for potty and came in to await the storm about to break.

How was your day?  I cheerfully asked standing in front of the breakfast bar blocking the chewed footrest from his view.

Frivolities over it was time to face the music.

Um…I have something to show you, please don’t be mad.

WHAT?

When the words eventually finished stumbling out of my mouth, imagine my surprise when Hubby laughed and said, I didn’t like that footrest anyway!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Who could ever stay mad at that little punkin face?

Have you ever had to go to bat for your pet?  Did it turn out the way you expected?

This is Monday Mischief.  Many thanks to our friends Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog and My Brown Newfies.

I’m Not Mad at You, I’m Mad at Me.

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I lost her, I said as soon as Hubby answered the phone.

Where are you? He asked.

We talked and came up with a strategy, he would come to the park from the other direction, hoping she would hear his jeep and go to him.

She’s been on leash for the last two weeks, and returning promptly with every recall.  The beauty of the spring day tugged at my heart and I wanted her to have a few minutes of running.

I made sure we were far away from the field where she had run off the last time and I unclipped her leash.

I called her, she returned.  I repeated the process, so did she.

And then she took off.

I called with no results, then Sampson and I turned and ran the other way with me shouting Run Sampson run.

Nothing.

We started following her and then we got to a point where she could have gone down the cliff, back towards the neighborhood or on.

That’s when I made the call to Hubby.

We were in the woods behind some houses and I thought, I’m going to turn around, maybe she headed towards the houses.  If not, I was determined to knock on doors and spread the word.

Sampson was leading the way when he abruptly stopped and stood still listening.

Suddenly there she was running towards us.  I clipped the leash on.

Never again.  It was the worst eight minutes of my life.

A short time later she sat at the edge of the kitchen waiting as Hubby and I did the dishes, every now and again her eyes closing.

I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at me, I said to Delilah looking her square in the eyes.

Sleeping Delilah She wouldn’t let me get a photo, I had to use one from the files.

My year of HEART has officially ended where Delilah is concerned.  She’s proven time and again that she can’t be trusted.

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