Heart Like a Dog

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

Stress, Stress and More Stress!! (Day Ninety)

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What does your dog do to relieve stress?  Some people will say that dogs chew to relieve stress and they would be right.  But some dogs also like to tear things up.

It took me a while to figure it out with Sampson.  He was always such a good boy and very rarely chewed anything (well except for that footrest on the breakfast bar but we didn’t like it anyway.)  Chet and I have a fairly quiet life and Sampson was raised in that lifestyle and he is probably one of the most mellow dogs you will ever meet. 

But I noticed one time after we had a house full of people, that Sampson had taken one of his toys and ripped a hole in it and pulled all the “fluff” out.  I thought for a moment and realized he always did that after we had a larger than normal crowd (such as what gathers for the holidays.)  Then it dawned on me that because of our normally quiet lifestyle a crowd with the noise and commotion that goes along with it, could be somewhat stressful for him.  Rather than locking him away from the crowd, we make sure he has plenty of inexpensive toys that he can pull the stuffing out of.  Sometimes I even pick the stuffing up and shove it back inside so he can pull it out again!

Delilah loves to pull the stuffing out too, but not in the same way Sampson does.  You can tell when he wants your help too, because he brings the toy to you and he tugs on it, when he hears the first ripping sound he pulls all the harder.  They both love to find the little squeaker and “disable” it; then they play with the plastic bubble and will actually toss it up in the air.

I don't know what happened; it came like that. Honest.

 I love the way he is looking at this out of the corner of his eye, as if to say, “I didn’t do it.”

Whoo, that relieved some stress and now I can sleep.

It never fails, as soon as I put the vacuum away they tear up a toy!

Mmmm that was one tasty toy!

As I said, Delilah even likes to get in on it; although I think she might be prone to eat the fluff!

So don’t get angry when your little bundle of fur if he/she tears something up, there may be something that is stressing them out or maybe they are bored; try to encourage them to chew their own toys and provide them with lots of inexpensive toys that they can tear up.

Along Came Sampson (Day Eight Nine)

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So the website has been up for a while;  the concern I had about the book has been resolved and the book is finally up on the site!  Please check out the book and let me know what you think!  When you go to the website, click on “Sampson Says” and once you are in there, you will see a page that says, “The Book!”  click on that and you should be able to read the entire book.  There is a place for you to leave a comment or you can just drop me a comment here. 

I truly want to know what you think and if you have any constructive criticism for me I really appreciate it.

A is for Agility…(Day Eighty Eight)

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A little blurb about agility class.  Delilah likes it pretty well (honestly as long as you have a speck of food in your hand she is mesmerized.)  But Sampson doesn’t really care for it much.  In fact, he sat down in class with his back to the course as if to say, if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist! Chet tried to run him today but as soon as he gets to a point in the course where he can see me, he runs right to me.  It made everyone laugh.

The area we are in is pretty small, so it’s kind of tight running the dogs, that combined with the ridiculous amount of people who show up as well as the fact that the dogs all have spring fever and act really nuts make it a little difficult to really work your dog.  But we still try.  Delilah can really be a tax at times, but she does all right when she wants to.

I had a couple of small clips, but the blog does not support the format, so I will work on getting them converted so I can post them.  Meantime here are a couple of pictures of this morning.

Sara climbing the A-Frame to assist one of the dogs.

 

If I don't open my eyes, it doesn't exist!

 

All tuckered out.

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