Heart Like a Dog

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

Whaddaya Think?

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I have an observation to share.

I’ve mentioned before how Sampson and Delilah must lie on mats while we eat dinner.  A typical night starts like this.

Either Hubby or myself brings them into the living room, (yes we eat in front of the tv) and tells them place.  If it’s me, I wait patiently while Delilah decides when she will “down.”  If Hubby is the one placing her, he stands towering over her, hands on hips demanding that she down.  Once both dogs are in the down, we tell them “Stay.” 

We go into the kitchen and prepare our plates, we also get some carrots and a couple of biscuits for the dogs.  When we get back to the living room, Delilah has moved.  She is still near or partially on her mat, but the fact is that she has moved and is no longer where we left her, when put her there and said “Stay!”

We give S & D the two biscuits and sit down to eat our dinner, somewhere after this point Delilah will 1) stand up and stretch, placing her two front feet forward and down while her back end goes up in the air or 2) just stand up and attempt to move.  This infuriates Hubby who will glare and point and if necessary tower over her again until she lays back down.  Meanwhile I sit there and roll my eyes.

When dinner is done, Hubby will give the release word which in our house is “OK.”  Sometimes if we don’t eat fast enough Delilah will whimper, whine or sigh.

This scenario takes place night after night in our house.

Except for last night.  Last night Hubby had one of his Christmas parties.  He was gone after work and dinner was just me…and the dogs.

Here’s what happened.

When my dinner was ready, I grabbed my dinner, a couple of biscuits and a bag with some small treats in it that I would use instead of carrots.  I went into the living room and using the biscuits as the lure, I put Sampson and Delilah in a down position. 

I sat down and started eating my dinner.  About five minutes into my dinner, Sampson got up and curled up on the couch.  A few minutes later Delilah got up and went into her crate.  And that’s where they stayed.

For the entire time I was eating, and I took my time.

When I was done, I said “Ok, it’s time for dinner.”  I picked up the bag of treats and my dishes and went into the kitchen, where I fed them.  I didn’t even use the 2nd set of treats to release them, I just said “Ok, it’s time for dinner.”

When Hubby came home, I told him I thought he was the problem with her.  (And really My Inner Bitch was very gleeful, although my Outer Self was very dignified throughout the telling of the story.)  The trouble is I don’t know how to fix it. 🙁

So whaddaya think?

I think this is the Saturday morning blog hop hosted by Two Little Cavaliers, Life With Dogs and Confessions of the Plume.  You can get your code here.  Hop on if you choose. 🙂

Saturday Morning Blog Hop

Follow-Up Friday

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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! :-)

Things I Learned In 2011 – Update

As I was surfing along today reading all of my favorite blogs I was reminded of something else I learned in 2011. 

Right clicking on a link.

When I first started blogging and began linking to other posts, I set the links up to open in a new window.  I did that because I personally don’t care to click on a link and be taken to another website, I prefer to have the new site open in a new window.

But not everyone is me.

I found out that when I go to a link, instead of using the left button on my mouse, if I use the right I get the option of opening the referencing site in a new window or tab. 

I’m pretty sure all of you know this, but I needed to share. 🙂

Death By Chocolate – Update

New Year’s day is traditionally a day I set aside to clean up the mess of Christmas and get my house back to a semblance of normalcy.  It was unseasonably warm for the first day of January and after an hour’s walk I was very warm.  I came home and slipped into shorts and flip flops.

Even after an hour’s walk Delilah still had trouble in her system.  While I was taking care of some laundry Delilah decided to go into the sink and remove a dirty plastic container that was soaking.  She took it from the kitchen and moved it into the living room where most of her destruction usually takes place.  In the process she dumped a bunch of water on the kitchen floor. 

Meanwhile, I’m blissfully unaware of what has transpired in my 30 second absence, so I flip flop into the kitchen.

I’m not sure how your kitchen floor is, but on my kitchen floor water + flip flops = FAIL. 

It. Does. Not. Work. 

I slipped and almost fell and thought, “This dog will be the death of me.”

Incidentally she also ate the what remained of a stick of butter and I caught her with a second stick, that I had to throw out.  At that point I was extremely frustrated with her and I did something really bad.  I tapped her on the top of her nose and said, “NO!”  🙁

Foster Homes Needed – Author’s Note

 

I’m really glad I found that post on Blog Paws.  Two of my readers are in the Alexandria, Virginia area!  Kim from Life at Golden Pines was thinking of calling and possibly taking a foster, and Pup Fan said she would talk to her husband about it, but regardless of what he said she would post about it as she has lots of readers in the area!

I’m hoping the shelter found temporary homes for those waiting for their forever homes.

That’s it from me, so how was your week?

 

Solve A Reader Problem

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I’m way behind on the tasks at 31 Days to a Better Blog over on Blog Paws.

I started out  balls to the wall and somewhere along the line I lost my steam.   I suppose when you are doing a challenge such as that, you can’t be picking and choosing, you should be doing them all. 

Truthfully I think the group in general slowed down some.  I noticed in the beginning tasks many people were posting their response to the challenge and then slowly but surely over time the comments petered out.

The tasks started out at two per week, then every two-week schedule is much more appealing.  But that still doesn’t mean I will rise to the occasion. 🙁

I think I will still manage to complete the 31 tasks, it just may take me long than normal.  Similar to my performance in K-9 Kamp.  Which by the way, I finally finished yesterday! 🙂   (Just kidding, I really didn’t finish it at all, I just like having the badge in my side bar.)

So the task I struggled with was “Solve a Reader Problem.”  Since most of you don’t write into me with problems I didn’t really know what to solve. 

I thought about it and decided to go with a problem that I as a blogging fan had.  I follow so many awesome blogs, and I normally get an e-mail each time there is a new post. Sometimes I have hundreds of e-mails (and that’s not counting junk) in my inbox.

I thought I could share with you something that helped me manage the blogs I subscribe to.

This may not come a surprise to some of you because many of you are very savvy when it comes to the tools available to bloggers, but it was new to me and has really helped me. 

It is google reader,  www.google.com/reader it’s free and pretty easy to figure out, unlike stumbling which I still haven’t done.

It works like this, you sign up for an account, once you sign in you open another tab (for those of you who may not have the tabs option, you can just open another window.)  Then you go to one of the blogs you read and copy  the address.  Tab over to the google reader page and on the left hand side near the top, you will see a button that says “Subscribe.”  Click that button and paste the blog address in the box and click “Add.”

That’s it.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 🙂

You can add as many accounts as you want and they don’t have to be blogs!  For instance say you love reading the NY Times, you can add that. 

Then the next time you sign into Google Reader, it will have a list of your favorites on the left side bottom and it will tell you if there is a new post, or two new posts.   Read all that you want, mark them as read or unread and viola, you’re done!

Then you can go to your trusty inbox and delete all those notices. 🙂

And by the way, feel free to tell me your problems, I’m a pretty good listener. 😉

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