Heart Like a Dog

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

My Dog is NOT a Cutter

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When Sampson first presented with what we thought was a lick granuloma, I couldn’t contain myself.

I googled lick granuloma.  Among all the other information provided by Wikipedia the line that jumped out at me was Lick granuloma is a form of self-trauma.

The hair on my body stood on end, my heart dropped into my stomach and my mind screamed, my dog’s a cutter.

Then I thought, oh my God, my neurosis has worn off on the dog.  I’ve made my dog nuts.

A small, sane portion of my head said, wait a minute.  There have been no major changes in your life, no changes to their schedules, why would he lose his milk bones now?

I took a deep breath and decided that Wikipedia is not my friend and I did more research. I found out there can be underlying causes to make a dog lick, one of which is pain. 

I had to face the reality that Sampson is eight years old and it is not out of the realm of possibility that he could have the beginnings of arthritis in his joints.

As you know, I did try treating him at home but that did not stop the licking so off he went to the vet where he was diagnosed with a soft tissue injury.

He has been on medication for the injury and he is definitely feeling better, but I learned a valuable lesson about diagnosing my dog and trying to treat him at home.

Note to self, my dog is smart, when he calls attention to an area of his body, it is my responsibility to make sure he gets the help he needs.

A dog this cool, is NOT a cutter.

What choo lookin’ at?

What types of things does your dog tell you?  And do you read the signs or are you like me and kind of slow on the uptake? 

P.S. I’ve been trying to listen to the gentle signs provided to me by the universe.  Last night God screamed at me, Get off the computer and clean your house. 
My laptop is on the fritz.  So please bear with me if I’m slow in responding to your comments or not as active on your blogs.  I’ll be doing my best to keep up, but I have to share Hubby’s computer with him. 🙂

A Plea To Rescue Groups

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I’m not affiliated with one particular rescue organization, seriously, it doesn’t take a NASA engineer to figure out I’m partial to Labrador Retrievers, but Labs aren’t for everyone.

Instead I like to advocate for rescue.

On the rare occasion someone asks me about getting a dog, I like to educate them a bit on the joys of rescuing.   That’s not to say people shouldn’t get a dog from a responsible breeder, I just make sure they know where pet store puppies come from and how much work goes into training.

Rescues have some pretty strict guidelines when it comes to adopting a dog.  The rescues I’ve been associated with do a home visit.

Where will the dog sleep, how will the dog be exercised, where will the dog be when you are out of the house?

These are all important questions.

I get why they do this.   They are over-whelmed with dogs and understaffed with…well staff.

They see the horrors of the rescue world on a daily basis.  The dogs that have been neglected or worse yet, abused.

In many instances they have the unbelievable task of choosing which dogs will live and which ones will not.

Day in and day out they see the result of people not being responsible and spaying and neutering their dogs.

I get it.  I really do.

And yet, I wonder how many more dogs could be saved, if their guidelines were a bit less stringent.

Case(s) in point:

Stay at home dog mom.

When we made the decision to enlarge our pack I went immediately to Petfinder.  Honestly I spent hours and hours on that website searching for the right dog.

I submitted a fair amount of applications for puppies.  I was turned down on each and every one.

Why?

Because I wasn’t home during the day to let the puppy out for potty breaks.

I couldn’t understand that, we both worked full-time and had managed to successfully raise Sampson from a puppy.

Yes it was true someone wouldn’t be with the puppy 24/7, but my mom lived next door and could go over at three and four times a day to give the puppy a break.  By that time we had fenced in our yard so exercise wouldn’t have been a problem, plus there was already an older dog to provide companionship.

A Tale of Two Labs.

I mentioned in my Tick Tick Boom post there were two wildly crazy labs in the drop-in agility class.  The mom told me, they’re sisters and are inseparable.

I questioned Sara afterwards.

This well-dressed, established couple in their mid-fifties, with a beautiful home, a fenced in yard with a pool, applied to rescues and were turned down.

Why?

Their yard was too narrow.

The result was they went out and bought two dogs. The woman said, what else could I do?

Spaying and Neutering:

A young couple I know rescued a 16 week-old lab mix, the female dog was altered before being adopted.

The dog has urine leakage, which I’ve heard can happen if they are spayed too early.  A perfectly healthy dog now on medication, making an additional expense for the adopter, because the rescue spayed too young.

A friend whose rescue dog, came unaltered.  The rescue sent a van out to spay the dog, 15 minutes later the young woman gets her dog back, still groggy on anesthesia. 15 minutes!!

Newsflash, my mammogram takes longer than 15 minutes and they’re just squashing boobs!!

What’s the answer?

I’m not sure I know.

I do know having someone home 24 hours a day does not necessarily make them a great dog owner.

I do know having a narrow yard is not the end of the world and does not mean the dog won’t be exercised.

I do know the numbers of animals in shelters and rescues is astronomical, but I don’t believe creating health problems in healthy animals will resolve the issue.

The key to changing any behavior (as those of us in the dog world know) is education.

Educate yourself and educate others, it’s the only way to stop the bleeding.

Obstacles – Be The Dog

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Before I start this post I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Chuck and Collies of the Meadow, last week they bestowed their Collies Choice award on this blog.  If you have a minute pop over and say hello to Chuck.  His collie Trevor is failing and I’m sure a kind word would make him feel better.

Sampson is a people dog.  Don’t let his enthusiastic run up to your dog fool you, once the greeting is over he will be leaning on your leg encouraging you to pet him.

When we pulled up to the park yesterday morning Bob and Marge (a couple we’ve met on the trail) were just walking in.  Sampson was super excited.  By the time I opened the door to let the dogs out Bob and Marge had made their way into the field.

Sampson jumped out of the car and started to run up the path.  He’s usually very good about not getting too far ahead of me and apparently he had reached his comfort zone and turned around and came back to me.

Being a projective thinker I figured by the time we got to the field they would be long gone.

I was wrong.

They were stretching.  Still I felt like we shouldn’t bother them, so despite the eager look in Sampson’s eyes, I told him, no let’s go this way.

We headed up the hill.

I enjoy the hikes as much as the dogs but I usually let them choose the walk, and yesterday Sampson chose to head back to the field.  Not being a projective thinker, he assumed Bob and Marge would be where he left them.

Sampson was wrong, but that doesn’t matter.  What matters is being the dog, he found a way around his obstacle (which was me not allowing him into the field.)

Sampson came at his obstacle from a different direction.

You can over-come your obstacles. Be The Dog.

 

What kind of obstacles are preventing you from achieving your goals? What can you do to over-come them?

Don’t let obstacles get in your way.

Be The Dog.

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