Heart Like a Dog

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

Jump Mama

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K-9 Kamp Kounselor Delilah here again, updating you on all the things we are doing to get fit and keep K-9 Kamp F.U.N.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, this month is our 2nd installment of K-9 Kamp.  A great challenge hosted by our friends Koly and Felix at Kol’s Notes, Kelly and Ike at Peggy’s Pet Place and Gretel and Chester at You Did What With Your Weiner.

k9kampbadge-300x300 Right now we are still taking advantage of walks in the woods after The Mama gets home from work.  If she gets right to it and doesn’t diddle around, we have just enough time for a 30 to 40 minute walk.

Even so, we’ve been working on some fun things to do with The Mama to help her get into shape, as well as keeping Sampson and me, healthy and active as well.

One of my new favorite games to play with The Mama is a little game I developed called, jump the leash.

It works like this.  The Mama is always holding the leash in her left hand, so I with my Ninja like Lab skills, will dart around behind her back, and then cut across her path so she has to jump the leash.

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When I do this I say, “Jump Mama”

And The Mama says, “How high, Delilah?”

The Mama: Excuse me?  I do not say that!

Um, I’m pretty sure you do Mama. 

Um, I’m pretty sure I don’t Delilah.  And the reason I know this, is I am too busy trying to draw air into my lungs and keep from falling on my ass.  

You say Toe-may-toe and I say Toe-ma-toe Mama.  I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.  And Mama?

Yes Delilah.

Remember all those times you said, “Give me five minutes Delilah, I’m trying to finish a blog post?

Um…..yes?

In case you weren’t aware, I’m busy working on my latest K-9 Kamp post.  People and dogs are relying on me to help them get into shape and stay motivated.  Give me five minutes please Mama.

Excuse the interruption, The Mama struggles with not being in control.  Anyhoo the leaves are falling fast and furious in our little neck of the woods and we have to be super careful when we are walking because the leaves make the trails slippery, especially when we are going downhill.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA So whenever possible we try and stick to the flatter areas, although against my better judgement I have let The Mama off-leash a couple of times.  Just to get down the steepest part of the hills mind you.

Wherever we are, you can be sure we work The Mama hard, to make sure she’s going over, under or around various obstacles.

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The harder part is getting her to move along at a good pace, she’s still a little on the S.L.O.W side.

So how are you all doing with your K-9 Kamp?  Are you helping your humans get in shape or are you just keeping score at home?

K-9 Kamp Update

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K-9 Kamp Kounselor Delilah here to help keep you motivated and fill you in on some of the things we’ve been doing to keep this first week of K-9 Kamp F-U-N.

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We love to take advantage of the woods right at the top of our street.  It’s a great place to have fun.  In fact, one of the first days of Kamp, Sampson and I got to chase a squirrel!

Here’s what happened.

Before I had a chance to leash The Mama up, a squirrel dashed across my path.

Without a thought for what poor Mama might do, off I went with Sampson right behind me.

The tree rat dashed into the woods and turned left, but he couldn’t get away from me, I was in hot pursuit!

The Mama meanwhile was shouting and yelling and Sampson went back to comfort her.  Meanwhile, I kept on going. The squirrel must have been scared for his life because he ran towards one of the houses that sits on the edge of the woods looking for asylum.

Ah ha!  Here’s my chance, I made the turn for the house, thinking I could pin him down there.

All of a sudden I heard the Mama, “Delilah, NO!”  I stopped for a second and thought the poor thing, she’s afraid to walk without me.  My second thought was, what a party pooper.

No worries, the are plenty of fun things I can find to do in the woods.

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Someone has stacked a bunch of logs on either side of a large tree across one of our trails.   This is a great challenge for us.  We can either jump clear over the pile or climb the logs.  This kind of exercising helps keep the muscles in our back legs toned and strong as well as helping us with balance.

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We also use other trees to climb over.

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Or to go under. (Oops, The Mama is not fast enough to snap me!)

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I decided it was time to let The Mama try rock climbing.  Rock climbing/walking is another good exercise for balance and toning. The poor Mama, it was raining that day and she slipped.  I coaxed and wheedled and even dangled an M&M in front of her, but I couldn’t get her to try again.

I’m so glad we are participating in K-9 Kamp because the Mama is severely out of shape.  I’ve tried these past three years to help her, but despite my best efforts, she still can’t make it up the hill by herself.  You try dragging 140+  of weight behind you, all the while listening to this:

“I can’t breathe.”

“AH my thighs, my thighs, they’re burning!”

And silly phrases like, “Oh my Dog I’m so tired, why can’t this field be full of poppies?”

The Mama calls it torture.

I call it weight resistance training.

Eh, some folks say TO-MAY-TOE and some say TO-MA-TOE.

How are you all doing with your K-9 Kamp challenge?  Do you need any tips or motivation?  Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll share some fun things to do inside for those like us who are being challenged by daylight hours and weather.

This is the K-9 Kamp Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Peggy’s Pet Place.

He’s Different on Leash

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Despite challenging weather and sometimes being bombarded by bugs, I enjoy walking with my dogs.

Most of the time.

Ideally for me, both dogs are off-leash, sticking close by me and responding when I give them a command, more specifically when I recall them.

And my dogs always come when they are called.

Siriusly, you didn’t buy that did you?  Because if you did, please contact me privately, I’m sure I have something very special that is one of a kind that I can sell you, for a large amount of money.

Delilah has proven time and time again that she is not reliable off-leash.  So now Delilah walks on a 15 foot leash, I also have one the same length for the times I need to leash Sampson as well.  No point having one dog on a six footer while the other leads the charge.

I carry treats, plain old treats and I also carry beef hearts.  The plain old treats are for when I say, “This way” or “No” or “Leave it.”  The beef hearts are for when I say “HERE!”

I try and use HERE at least once or twice per walk, because I want to reinforce that I have good treats and when you come when called, you get the goods.

My biggest struggles are when we encounter people or other dogs.  Last Sunday for instance, I had let Delilah off-leash in the deep part of the forest to practice her off-leash.  The first time she’d been off-leash in six months.  She was doing great and then she spotted some people.

Here did not work and both my dogs ran up to a woman with two children and a small dog.  Thankfully the small dog was super good with other dogs, so there was some sniffing but no barking or growling.  My dogs are not typically jump up on you dogs, so I think the kids (who seemed to be in the 7 to 10 year of age range) were mostly startled to see two large dogs charging at them.

Naturally I apologized profusely and leashed both my dogs.

And here is where my walks become stressful.  While it’s true, Delilah on a long leash can be a pain in the bum, for the most part we manage well.

When Sampson gets on a leash, he turns into a different dog.  If you don’t believe me, here are the pictures to prove it.

9-25-13 010 Sampson off-leash; notice how he’s ahead of Delilah, enjoying his walk.

9-25-13 003 Now add the leash.  As you can see he’s crossed her more than once and tangled his leash up.

9-25-13 006 You may have also noticed how close he is to me.

9-25-13 008 I can’t get him to move out of the way.

That and his leash drags on the ground, which means I’m either jumping leash or stepping on it.  Neither of which is very fun, not to mention all the crap that the leash picks up from dragging on the ground.

This has a tendency to turn my nice, relaxing walk, into a frustrating, stressful experience.

I’d love your suggestions for ways to handle this.  I’ve tried so many of the recall methods, but nothing I have in my pockets can compete with other dogs or people.  And in Delilah’s case, I can’t figure out what she’s hunting when she runs off into people’s yards.

AND for those of you who walk more than one dog on leash, how do you manage?

P.S. Have you seen the Dogs of Blogville Calendar?  Julie has the entire calendar up on her blog so you can check it out.  Remember ordering is finishing up today!!  Be sure you don’t miss out on this opportunity to have this one of a kind calendar.

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