Today this little blog is one year old!!!!  Exactly one year ago today, I wrote my very first post.  Interestingly enough, it wasn’t about my dogs.

Before you go blowing horns and whistles, I have a confession.  I missed day forty-one.

It was the day after my granddaughter was born and I was taking care of my grandson. With all of the business associated with taking care of a toddler and running back and forth to the hospital, I plumb forgot about it.

I woke-up at 1:45 in the morning and realized I had missed the date, at which point it was too late.

So Jodi + Blogging 365 days in a row = FAIL.

But I don’t consider myself a failure, looking back at blog posts I wrote in the beginning and comparing them to the posts I write today, I can see how my writing has improved. I can see how I have grown as a person and a blogger.

I started this blog not knowing what I would write about, but I was determined to write.

I was so naive, I couldn’t even come up with a clever name for the blog, I just simply used my name.

In the beginning, my posts had no form, they were like one long paragraph.  I thought that was how a blog was supposed to look, I had no real idea what a blog was back then. 🙂  And how little I knew about blogging….

My first posts….had no tags  and were not categorized.

My first ping back…. I deleted as spam.  I didn’t even know what a ping back was.

I left comments up that I later found out….WERE spam.

Those first few months I was basing my blog posts about whatever struck my fancy.  It may have been a recipe one day and a current event the next.  I was searching for my voice, my passion as it were.  Round about Day Forty Six, I started writing about the dogs and Eureka, my voice was found.

So right now I want to thank you all for supporting me and hanging in there when I really didn’t know what I was doing, I wouldn’t be here writing today if it weren’t for all of you and I want you to know how much I appreciate you.

In honor of our blogoversary I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, I’m going to give something away. It will either be a toy or treat for your favorite furry friend and if you don’t have a pet, then I will humanize it.

All you have to do to enter this give away, is leave me a comment at the end of the blog.

Please make sure to leave your comment by end of day Sunday, I will choose the winner randomly and let you all know on Monday.

Oh and please don’t think just because my year is up I’m going to stop blogging.  You can’t get rid of me that easily. 🙂

Thank you again for the support, you will never know how much it means!

Sampson wasn’t much of a chewer when he was a puppy, mostly he chewed on his own toys.  If I CAUGHT him chewing something he shouldn’t, I would tell him “No” and give him a toy that he was allowed to chew.

One time I caught him plucking at the loveseat, but he stopped when I refocused his attention on a toy.  He never touched that loveseat again, except to lie on it.

He did have a tendency however to chew wood.  I had to use bitter apple on my antique coat rack in order to deter him, though truth be told I didn’t really care that he had chewed it, because it needed to be refinished anyway.

There was one time though that I came home to find he had chewed the end of the foot rest on the breakfast bar.  I was scared to death to tell Hubby, because I was afraid he would want to punish Sampson.  Imagine my surprise when I told Hubby and he laughed and said, “I didn’t like it anyway.” 🙂  We took that foot rest off and threw it away.

Sampson was never much of a counter surfer either.  If memory serves me he only went on the counter once when there was some steak up there, but we were going to give it to him anyway.

Oh and butter, he would go up on the counter for butter as often as he had the chance.  In fact, he loves butter so much, that my sister calls him, “Butter.”  And he answers to it.

It’s fairly easy to puppy proof your house when the puppy stands about 10 inches tall and is easily redirected.

It is quite another when the ‘puppy’ is 75 pounds and her head just about comes to your waist.

Delilah is not so much a chewer as she is a tearer upper.

I’ve been giving lots of thoughts to why she tears things up, and I don’t believe she’s stressed.  Nor do I think she’s suffering from separation anxiety.  And she’s certainly not doing it out of spite.

I think she MAY  be bored, but it is more likely she is looking for food.  Most of the items she has chewed have or had food in them. I was reminded of this when I used my 1/3 measuring cup this evening and saw all her bite marks.

She certainly keeps me on my toes about putting things away, because I can be quite lazy at housekeeping sometimes, then there are times when I think I have picked everything up and lo and behold she finds something.

What do you do?  Do you have a chewer, or a tearer upper?  How do you handle this issue?  What creative methods have you used to deter your little tearer?

We started out for our walk around 10:40 this morning.

Just as we entered the field I heard my walking buddy, up in the woods, “Wooo, Wooo.”

This is the sound she makes when she calls Brady.  So we turned around and headed up the hill.

“Go Sampson, go find Sheila.” I said, and Sampson took off into the woods.

Delilah and I met up with Sampson and Sheila a few minutes later, she was on the hunt for Brady, “He doesn’t have his collar on” she stated flatly.

Sheila has an e-collar for Brady and she had the remote in her hand.

“Does he have his regular collar?” I questioned.

“No.”

“Oh Sheila!” I was surprised.

“The hunters gutted a deer back in woods and he got into it, I took off his collar so I could wash the blood off it.”

By this time we were both calling for Brady and had reached the crest of the hill.

Sheila said she was going home to check and to see if Brady had gone home.

“Let me know if he’s there, in the meantime I’ll keep calling him,” were my parting words.

A few minutes later my cell phone rang with the news that Brady was indeed waiting for Sheila at home.  What a great relief!  Sampson, Delilah and I continued our walk which was fairly uneventful until the end.

As we approached the field I checked to make sure no-one was there before dropping Delilah’s leash.  She took off running.

Once I arrived at the field I called the dogs to me, Sampson came right away, but Delilah had found something she thought was edible.

“DUH-LIE-LAH, DROP IT!” I shouted as I raced towards her.

She knew she was had, and started walking towards me, but she was still chewing.

What is it when our dogs are eating something they aren’t supposed to, that makes all our dog managing skills go out the window?  As I approached her I made a grab for her head, and with my hand on the back of her neck I am giving her little shakes, the whole time screaming “Drop it.” “Leave it.” “Drop it.” “Leave it!”

Then I heard the crunch and what little bit of my mind remained, left me completely.

I shoved my hand in her mouth.

What is it about our dogs eating something they shouldn’t that makes us lose all fear of what we might actually pull out of their mouth?

Yeah I got it, about 4 inches of bone, meat and blood.

I took once glance and flung it away from me, wiping my hand on my pants.

Oh God I thought, I just pulled a freakin dead mouse out of her mouth.

I took about five steps forward and then I saw it.

It looks like ribs to me.  Size wise, it is about 10 inches, sitting out there in the middle of the field.  If I’d had a plastic shopping bag with me I would have picked it up, but I didn’t.

Don’t you think someone who is hunting near a public area has some type of responsibility regarding their kill?