Heart Like a Dog

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

Indulge me…Day One Hundred Fifty One

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Please indulge me for a moment as I vent.

Today we went to agility class, after class we started talking about the various personalities participating in the Thursday night obedience class.   One of the reasons I stopped going to class was because there are certain dogs I think are too aggressive and I’m not comfortable around them.  But there was another reason, a couple of the human attendees ‘rub me the wrong way.’  I won’t place a name to them, but will do my best to describe them.

First up is little woman with Akita.  Little woman with Akita has brown hair and what I call blue eyes.  One blew left and one blew right.  When she is talking to you; you never know where to look!  Little woman with Akita is apparently a dog trainer.  Why she brings her dog to this class is beyond me.  Little woman with Akita likes to be the dominant personality with the dogs and when she sees someone who is not handling her dog the way she thinks they should, she will come over to you and show you how to down your dog.  I told Sara if she sees her heading my way don’t stop her; I will be happy to tell her to back the f&*k off.  Little woman with Akita likes to stand across the room from her dog and whisper his name; naturally her dog goes right to her; I think she’s showing off.

Next up we have man with two dogs. Man with two dogs is apparently quite a big executive at one of the local insurance companies; he is actually quite proud of his dogs who seem to be his only hobby.  I’m betting man with two dogs is single.  Man with two dogs likes to train his dogs in the center of the room, while everyone else is trying to walk their dogs and keep them from dashing after other dogs; man with two dogs plays a game with his dogs called; Articles.  He has these little dumb bells and he takes them carefully out of his backpack with a pair of tongs, then he picks up a dumb bell and rubs his hand all over it and puts it back in the pile.  He gives his dog the command, “Take it.”  This practice is detrimental to the class because the dogs in the center are a distraction for the dogs who are walking.  I think man with two dogs is himself a dumb bell.

Since I have stopped going to class, there are a couple of new dogs, and they are fairly aggressive.  I found out today man with two dogs is deliberately setting his dogs up so the more aggressive dogs will go after them.  If his dogs ‘take the bait’ he is going to discipline them.  This pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe.  WTF is wrong with people?  These are two very sweet dogs, who are extremely well-behaved and he wants them to fail so he can correct them?  How do you deal with a situation like that?  I wonder is he setting them up at home so he can correct them there too?  Is this his twisted idea of training?

More than likely I will be heading back to the Thursday night class, so I can help Marcie with Zoe so I need to really think this through because I’m fairly sure an opportunity will present itself and I need to be prepared so I know what I am going to do.

Delilah found a treat in one of the crates at agility class.

Walking a Fine Line…Day One Hundred, Forty Eight

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The neighbor’s dog (Gunner) escaped from their house yesterday.  It was actually fairly fascinating because my neighbor was out there calling the dog and he was running through the neighborhood totally ignoring her.

While the dog was running through the neighborhood, two ladies were walking their little pit bull.  It’s a nice little dog, and friendly as far as I can tell.  About two weeks ago, I pulled into the yard and opened the car door and Sampson bolted out and charged down to the street to greet the two ladies and their little dog.  I apologized because I didn’t even see them;  if I had I would never have opened the door because I know how Sampson is.

Flash forward to yesterday and the two ladies and their little dog.  The ladies walk the dog on a gentle leader, which as you know is not my favorite type of dog ‘collar’.  I guess the woman was nervous about her dog and Gunner because she kept yanking up on her dog’s leash.  Chet was out there and he kept telling her to relax but she wouldn’t.  Apparently what she did do was to take the end of her leash and smack at Gunner with it while she repeated, “Go home Gunner.”

I’m not really sure what I would do in a situation like that, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be smacking at somebody else’s dog; especially if the dog wasn’t aggressive.  To my way of thinking, this would be a situation where a dog would bite in defense; but then of course it would be the dog’s fault; (at least according to the legal system.)

When I was a child we had a German Sheppard that was a bit aggressive, particularly with strangers.  One day the dog got out of the house and he bit the paperboy on his shoulder.  The paperboy, was a really tall boy and he was riding a bike; a 10 speed. My father’s argument (that saved the dog) was the paperboy had to have kicked at the dog because otherwise the dog would have bit him on his leg.  I don’t think that argument would ever fly in today’s society.  In today’s society we are too quick to blame the dog instead of the owner or the ‘victim’ that messed up.

What that means for us as dog owners is we need to find a way to control our dogs and give them boundaries and limits, while still allowing them the freedoms that make them happy.  It is at times, a fine line we walk but the love and devotion we receive more than makes up for any balancing act we perform.

Look at that sweet face; I WOULD walk a fine line for him!

The Door Swings Both Ways…Day One Hundred, Forty Seven

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We have a screen porch attached to our house; two walls of the porch are wood and two walls are screens.  The door leading from the house to the porch is directly opposite the screen door to the deck.  When we first moved here, the screen door opened only in one direction; shortly after we moved in Chet swapped the hinges so the door will swing either way.  He also reinforced the lower half of the door, so the dogs can push the door to go out or come in.  Basically, what I just said is that we are lazy.  We don’t want to go out to the screen porch especially in the winter to let the dogs out or in.  This feature is particularly convenient when we have really nice days, because we can just leave the house door open and the dogs can come and go as they please.

The door swings both ways...

When Chet first installed the hinges, Sampson would barrel through it, while Delilah was hesitant.  She would wait until Sampson had pushed it open and then would sneak in during the ‘swing.’

Times have changed and Delilah is no longer timid with the door.  Sampson on the other hand has taken to waiting outside the door for one of us to go out and basically invite him in.  This is how I found him this morning.

Please mum, could you spare a bit of bread?

This is the strangest thing and neither Chet nor I can figure it out because when he really wants to come in, he does!

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