Heart Like a Dog

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

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!

To Boldly Go Where No Dog Has Gone Before…Day One Hundred Forty Six

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Silly me, I forgot to check the Lacrosse schedule today, sure enough there was a practice scheduled at the field.   We were already in the car and at the park, so I leashed both dogs and walked them in.  Once we turned towards the trails and I was sure they wouldn’t turn back, I unleashed them.

I knew I had to keep them busy so we headed toward the back of the trails. Many times we have stood on a ridge back there, looking down into the valley and a small river/stream that runs through it.  Today I found a trail down that was user-friendly, so I began the descent down. Naturally Delilah went ahead as she is the ultimate trailblazer in our family.

I was using caution on the trip down, so imagine my surprise when I stopped to look and saw Delilah across the stream, just running carefree and happy beside the stream.

The faint glimmer in the middle of the picture is the stream.

If Chet had been with me, he would have freaked out about her being so far away, but it made me so happy to see her so happy, I called her to me and waited for her to come back, which she promptly did.

Can you tell she is far away?

Just as we were finishing our uphill climb, Chet called to say he was on his way.  My luck on the way back ,Delilah found something nasty and rubbed herself in it; I finally got her away and headed in the right direction and Sampson went back and found it and he rubbed himself in it!  YUCK!

Right after they both rolled in it we found Chet, so we all headed out together.  The Lacrosse team was still there so I leashed Delilah sooner than I normally would and we walked out.  As we were exiting the park, there was a man walking in, he was approaching on my right side and Delilah walks on my left.  I saw her perk up in anticipation and I said, “Leave it.”  She walked right past the man without so much as a look.  If you had been walking out behind me, you would have seen me do a little fist pump. 🙂  Good job, Delilah!

New Horizons…Day One Hundred, Forty Four

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Yesterday Chet and I both had the day off;  my plan was to head to the park around 9:00 am, walk the dogs for about an hour and then have the rest of the day to myself.  Ah, the best laid plans.

Turns out we didn’t head to the park until around 10:00 am; when we got there we found it full of children getting ready to have an Easter Egg hunt!  The dogs were already loaded into the car, so we decided to check out a new hiking area the town recently opened up.

Since the area was new to us and the trail runs really close to the highway, we decided to keep Delilah on leash.  We pulled out the thirty foot leash and off we went.  Initially I had Delilah and having her on a thirty foot leash is kind of like fishing.  You let her have some lead, then you “reel” her in.

New Horizons

The trail starts out around a pond, the pond is fed from a stream or small river; the trail follows the course of the stream so you are always walking along side water.

We have Labrador Retrievers, they love the water!  Naturally they wanted to go in.  We scoped the river out looking for safe places for them to enter, where the current wasn’t too strong, then we let them go in.  We continued walking until we got to an area where it was too narrow to pass, so we turned around.

The beautiful gorge.

I was busy snapping this picture while Chet and the dogs headed back, when I heard a splash.  I turned around and Delilah had seen a stick or some reflection of light in the water and decided to go for a swim.  Trouble was, she took Chet with her!  He was so mad at her, I didn’t dare snap a picture.  Needless to say, it was a quiet walk out and a quiet ride home.

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