Heart Like a Dog

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

Comes The Darkness – Barks and Bytes

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Comes the Darkness

I love fall, I really do.

Beautiful warm days. The riot of color as trees shed their leaves, preparing themselves for their winter sleep.

The field just as the leaves were turning.

The field, almost completely surrounded by trees, is beautiful in fall.

Cool nights, perfect for sleeping or cuddling up on the couch with a dog, a hot toddy and a book.

And the food. Making jams and relishes, warm, savory stews, pumpkin muffins, it’s one of my favorite cooking seasons.

But with the fall, comes the darkness.

Suddenly our morning walks are starting out in the dark again. I’ve gone from wearing pants, a short-sleeved shirt and sandals to long-sleeved shirts, sneakers and reflective vests.

Honestly, I’m not so worried about me being seen. It’s more like making sure the dogs are seen by cars and other people and me seeing what the dogs are up to. After all, I do have one that likes to snarf things on the side of the road.

It’s so hard getting up in the dark and trying to get motivated enough to walk the dogs. Then the added gear of vests and flashlights and suddenly fall is sounding like a bad idea.

Anyone have a time turner I can borrow?

Butt Bombing

Neither of my dogs are great about posing for pictures. (Obvs, you do read this blog and see the craptastic photos I post.) There are times when they both cooperate enough to snap a decent photo, but odds are if I’m trying to get a picture of Sampson, some jealous biatch will find her way in to ruin it.

Case in point.

On our afternoon walk (which thankfully takes place in the afternoon (DUH) where it’s NEVER dark) I tried to snap a photo of a happy Sampson on the trail.

Here’s what I got.

Butt bombing. Because it's really a thing.

Butt bombing. Because it’s really a thing.

How the hell does she do it?

 

Heart Like a Dog

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I Knew That’d Bite Me In The…Barks and Bytes

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I’m not big on decorating my house for holidays.

Okay, it’s true I do decorate the inside at Christmas, but rarely do I do any type of decorating on the outside.

So when I happened to be at the Home Depot with my grandchildren for their monthly workshop, they requested we go look at the Halloween items and I’m not really sure what came over me, but I found myself picking up a few items to decorate the house.

You saw the scarecrow in the #dogfallfun picture I posted on Monday. **Side note** Have you entered our Instagram contest yet? It’s not too late, I’d love for the winner to be one of you!

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We took it out on the little balcony at the front of the house and I asked my little granddaughter where we should place it. She suggested in front of my bedroom window.

HELL NO! Do you know how many times a night I’d wake up, look out that window and crap my pants?

I convinced her to prop the scarecrow in the corner, by the slider (out of sight of any glass). I was perfectly content to leave it there, I mean in the past we’ve had things stolen from our vehicles and our yard and it would piss me off to walk the dogs up in the woods and find my scarecrow propped up staring at me. Not to mention the start I’d get from a distance thinking it was a real person.

But when I came home from work on Tuesday Hubby had the scarecrow and his sledgehammer.

“I thought I’d put this up, where do you want it?”

We debated it. He wanted it close to the house, but I was afraid it would startle mom if she looked out the window. (We don’t need her crapping her pants!)

Since I didn’t want it too far from the house, I suggested the middle of the lawn, on the other side of the sidewalk. Which meant it was in front of the front door.

She looks cute, right?

She looks cute, right?

This is going to bite me in the ass I thought to myself, but aloud I said, “It will probably drive the dogs crazy.”

In hindsight I should have taken the dogs outside immediately. During the daylight so they could check her out. But I didn’t.

Flash forward to 6:00 yesterday morning.

Did I remember that the fuggin’ scarecrow was out there?

No. No, I did not.

It’s been darker in the mornings now, and that makes it harder to get up, but I did. I’d been in that great zone, you know the one, where you sleep really good right before it’s time to wake up.

I got up, got the dog’s food ready, dressed myself and grabbed all my gear. I leashed up the dogs, opened the front door and all I can say, is thank DOG there is a storm door in place, because Delilah lost her shit.

LOST. HER. SHIT.

I took a deep breath, grasped the leashes tightly, opened the storm door and was dragged eight feet to the scarecrow, where she inspected it thoroughly.

What the woof are you doing on my lawn?

You let your mom dress you like that when you go out?

And then again when we got back home because there was more light and she could.

You don't smell like any dog I've ever sniffed.

No wonder you’re so stiff. You have a pole up your ass. You know that right?

I knew that’d  bite me in the ass.

Heart Like a Dog

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Nose To The Grindstone – Barks and Bytes

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Often times when I’m walking my dogs I think about the differences in their personalities.

Delilah can easily be distracted from most things by reaching my hand into my treat bag. If she is totally focused (like say on a cat or something) sometimes the simple act of reaching into the bag does not work. In that instance, I start feeding treats to Sampson. Usually after a couple of crunches or “Good Boys” her focus is broken and her focus comes back to me.

Sampson on the other hand, sees another dog and loses his stuff. Sometimes feeding Delilah treats is NOT enough motivation to distract him. I literally have to walk up to him and stick the treat in front of his nose and lure him away.

When we walk, I try my best to keep the dogs on the inside of me, and when a car approaches, I hold the leashes close so there’s little chance of one of them getting hit by the car.  On our walks, Delilah ALWAYS takes the inside track, meaning she likes to be closest to the curb. I’m not sure how much of that is our training (she’s a left side heeler) or the fact she wants first dibs on any manner of disgusting items she finds on the side of the road.

If they stop to sniff something and somehow Delilah ends up on the outside, they walk a few steps and switch places. It’s actually pretty cool to watch. Sampson on the inside and Delilah on the outside, and within five steps, they’ve switched it up.

A lot of these times Delilah has her nose to the ground…like this.

Nose to the grindstone.

Nose to the grindstone.

I really have to try and keep my eyes sharp, because somebody around my neighborhood feeds the birds with bread. Not just bread crumbs, but large hunks of bread. Apparently they never got the memo that most bread is bad for birds!

Most times in our travels Delilah finds something she deems edible. And I’m stupid, because I will shove my hand down her throat to keep her from eating it. I can’t even begin to tell you some of the shit I’ve pulled out of this dog’s mouth/throat. (Hmmm, maybe that’s a blog post….LOL)

Then there are other times in the process of her scavenging when she finds things that make her jump. I know it’s mean to laugh, but I can’t help it. (I consider it payback for all the shit I’ve pulled out of her mouth). A LOT of times when she jumps, it’s like a cat, all four feet off the ground. 🙂 (Those are the times I laugh the hardest, because siriusly, that’s funny shit right there, a 70 pound dog jumping like a cat.)

And then there are other times when she finds things and we both jump. And I laugh again. First at her and then at myself.

Saturday was one of those days.

We were almost home, in fact we were right at my next door neighbor’s yard. Delilah had her nose to the ground and was hugging the curb.

SUDDENLY, Delilah popped up off the ground like a cat  and at almost exactly the same time, something else popped up out of the road. I (being so well versed in the various types of wild life living in a rural area brings) jumped and squealed like a little girl.

A wee little mousey.

A wee little mousey.

It was a small field mouse. I could tell by the way it stayed there, pressed against the curb that something wasn’t quite right with it, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

What I could do was call Delilah off it, because once she got over her initial fright, she wanted back at that mouse. It was one of those times when the rustling treat bag, Sampson’s treat crunching, my Good Boys and coaxing of her wasn’t going to cut it. I had to literally take her by her harness and gently lead her away, after which I liberally rewarded her.

Of course, she headed back for the mouse, because, well she heard they taste like chipmunk. 😉

Heart Like a Dog

This is the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. Grab the badge and the linky code and join us!

Please only link up blog posts and as a courtesy to the other hoppers, please add the linky to your post and/or link back to the hosts’ blogs.



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