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

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Follow-Up Friday

March 2, 2012 By Jodi

For those new to the blog, my follow-up Friday provides me with an opportunity to update or revise a post from the previous week.

You know sometimes you post about something and you need an update but it doesn’t warrant a whole blog.  Or sometimes someone made a comment that really resonated with you.  Yup, Follow-Up Friday baby! :-)

Yahoo – Author’s Note

As you know Delilah is a work in progress.  As well as she did on her recalls last Saturday, yesterday she didn’t do as well.

I met my walking pal after work for a quick twenty-minute walk and we let the dogs run around in the field.  In the blink of an eye Delilah was gone.  I’m always concerned when she runs through the woods that her leash will get caught somewhere and she will strangle herself.   Normally she stops when she feels a strain on the leash, but you just never know.

My friend had seen Delilah enter the woods, so we attempted to follow her.  Thankfully I had the foresight to put their reflective vests on because it was snowing, and my friend easily spotted Delilah.  She was in someone’s back yard grazing on God knows what.

Even though I had been calling her from a distance she was preoccupied with what she was doing.  When I got close enough I called her again and she looked up.  As soon as she saw me she came running.

Our twenty-minute walk turned into forty. 🙂  As we were wrapping it up the dogs saw or heard something, I had Delilah’s leash at that point but when Sampson and Brady took off at a full run, I dropped the leash.  That was my bad.  I should never have done it considering how she had taken off earlier.

Sampson and Brady came right back but someone else was MIA.  It was close on 6 o’clock and I was freaking out a little because it was starting to get dark and I did not want to try to search for her at night.

We started walking down the hill towards the field which is the direction she was headed and I somehow found the sense to scream Wooo Hoooo, well that did it and she came tearing back to me.  But I can tell you I will probably not be giving her that kind of freedom again any time soon.

What Would You Call Him – Author’s Note

Many of you left comments indicating your cats do similar if not the same things.  That makes me feel better. 🙂

While this is mostly a blog about dogs, I did write a story about Bob last year that I thought was pretty amusing.  If you’d like to read it you can find it here.  I will have to warn you, I did use the “F” word in that post.

Dog Responsibility – Author’s Note

So as I related just a few minutes ago, we went up to the park last night.  After Delilah took off for the second time we headed home.  As we approached the field Sampson  paused and when I looked I could see there was someone in the field with their dogs.

I couldn’t tell if the dogs were leashed or not, so I just headed out.  The dogs were off leash and they came running down the path.  One of the dogs was a yellow lab and the other looked like a Springer Spaniel.

I exchanged quick hellos with their dad and then he headed up the hill and I headed out of the park.  The little Springer followed me….all the way out of the park.  In fact, I think (s)he was contemplating getting into my car.  The dad had kept walking.

It was full-blown dusk at this point and I was a little freaked out for the poor dog, but didn’t want to drag my guys back into the woods, so I cracked a window and locked the car and headed back towards the field.  The dog followed me.

I walked far enough in, encouraging the dog to go “find your dad,” and at last the dog headed off up the hill.

But again I was left stunned at the irresponsibility of this guy.  He literally just walked off and left his dog.  Alone.  In a park where there are coyotes and fishers.  I hope the little dog made it back without any issues.

I don’t know how we are going to get people to understand that owning a dog includes responsibility, especially to the dog!!

That’s it, I ‘m done now.  Looking forward to the weekend and some nice long walks with the dog.  We hope you enjoy yours.

Book Update: My book has 17,746 words.

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Bob, Dog Training, Follow-Up Friday Tagged With: Delilah, Dog, dog training, Labrador Retriever, Pet, Pet Writing, Pets, Sampson, Writing

Down Stays

February 27, 2012 By Jodi

A couple of days ago I shared a video of Delilah with her recall.

True confession, I am a lazy busy dog owner.  I don’t work on training my dogs nearly as often as I should.  Honestly most days I am overwhelmed with the simple chores I need to complete.

Which is why I take the opportunity to work my dogs in every day moments.

When we eat dinner the dogs are on their ‘places,’ these used to be mats I made specifically for each dog, but in my laziness busy life I have simply replaced the mats with a rug.  (Truthfully, this also covers a horribly stained and damaged portion of the rug and looks much nicer than two rumpled mats.)

Delilah isn’t the best at staying on her ‘place.’ When we ‘place’ her and leave the room to get our dinners she will more than likely move off her designated spot.

Noticed how relaxed Sampson is....Delilah will never do that.

She is also not good with staying on her ‘place’ while we eat dinner, although we have found that if she is fed before us (no, I don’t buy into the “I must eat before the dog” deal) she usually does much better at sticking with it.

There are also days where she has moved two or three times during dinner and I end up putting her in her crate, or I will ask, “Do you want to go to your crate?” and she will oblige me.

Then there are other days (like a busy daycare day) where she will get up and go lie down on the couch.  Those are the times when we look at each other and laugh.

I know, bad dog parents!  We should make her come down off the couch and do what we said.

Whatever, as long as her face isn’t in my plate of food I don’t care if she goes to the couch.

Don’t judge.

There is however one event in our daily routine where I work on her down stay. It is when I get her Kong snack out of the freezer.  Before I even open the door she must ‘down.’  Then I take the bowl with both Kongs in it out of the freezer and I walk away, while she must ‘stay.’

Slowly I have been increasing the time that I am away from her.  I will walk into the living room and stop in front of the fireplace, look at my watch for ten seconds, then walk back and release her.

Saturday night Hubby said, “Remind me tomorrow I want a video of it, she is so cute.”

So last night I reminded him and he recorded the video.  I left her long enough to go into the living room and turn the volume down on “Twister.” (That is one movie I can watch over and over again, and I don’t know why.  It just draws me in like a train wreck.)

My best guess is she was ‘down’ and ‘staying’ for close to 35 seconds and I was out of her sight for at least 25 of them.

I think this works because she really wants that Kong, it is something she only gets once a day.  But I figure the better she gets at this, the better she will get with all her stays.

One can hope anyway.

Oh and sorry about the Pj’s.  I’m almost always in my Pj’s by 9:00 pm. 🙂

Book update: My book has 13,906 words.

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Filed Under: Dog Training, Positive Dog Training Tagged With: Delilah, Dog, dog training, Labrador Retriever, Pet, Pet Writing, Pets, Sampson, Writing

What To Do?

February 19, 2012 By Jodi

Our Thursday night training class was cancelled due to weather.  My smart phone doesn’t alert me when I get a multi-media message that only contains text, so we didn’t find out about class until we pulled in and the building was dark and the parking lot empty.

The dogs were all excited to be going somewhere in the car, so I said to Hubby, “Now what?”

“I guess we go to the high school.”

Trouble was, I hadn’t dressed for walking outside in the cold and only had on jeans and a three-season jacket, luckily for me I had some light gloves and a ball cap in the car, as well as a 30 foot leash, so off we went.

Our high school has a football field surrounded by a running track and it is fenced in, but it has a number of gates.  We decided to go inside and do one walk around the track to make sure no-one else was there and that all gates were closed.

I kept Delilah on the leash for the first lap and after we had ensured that we were alone and all gates were shut, I gave her the “free dog” command.

After her initial running burst, she stayed fairly close by me probably within 15 to 20 feet and I was very pleased that she came back to me each and every time I called her.

We did about 5 or 6 trips around the track,  just enough to give them about 1/2 and hour and then we headed home.

Cold and wet, but happy.

Book Update:  My book has 12,303 words.

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Filed Under: Dog Training, Positive Dog Training Tagged With: Delilah, Dog, Pet Writing, Pets, Sampson, Writing

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About Jodi

jodiHi, my name is Jodi. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog! I have all kinds of fun writing about my two crazy pups, Sampson and Delilah. Find out more!

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Heart Like A Dog by Jodi E. Stone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.heartlikeadog.com.

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