Heart Like a Dog

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

Down Stays

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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.

Yahoo!

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I’ve written many times that Delilah has a 30 foot leash for our hikes in the woods.    Normally the dogs are pretty close to me, but if they make a turn and I can’t see them or they get out of my range of vision, I sort of panic.  That is why I work on her recall every single time we are out there.

I’ve noticed that different people have different words for calling their dogs.  Some people use front while others simply say, come.  Most of the time when we are in the training center I say here and put my hand on my chest.

When we are off leash walking, I have a variety of words/phrases that I use.  Sometimes I say, this way, other times I say, did you forget where the mama is? or where are you going, silly?  Sometimes I simply use a traditional here or come.

Then there are times like today when I just say,

What words do you use to recall your dog?  Do you find that one works better than another?

Good Girl Delilah!

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Our next door neighbor’s dog is chained up outside.  Not in the way you typically think of a dog chained up.  Since their yard is not fenced in, when Gunner has to go out he goes out on a chain, he is not left out there all day and night long.

My experience with dogs that are chained is if the opportunity ever presents itself, they will take off and go exploring.  Gunner is no exception.  As far as I can tell he is not a mean dog, he never barks at my dogs even though the two fools are barking their heads off at him.

I really don’t know what kind of dog Gunner is, I know he is black with longish fur and probably a bit smaller than my dogs.  If truth be told, he sort of looks like a Grim from Harry Potter.  Siriusly.

Last night he got loose.  I could hear my neighbor out their calling him, but he didn’t care, he was too busy enjoying his freedom. 🙂

Hubby and I were planning on walking the dogs around the block when he got home.  I was kind of nervous about Gunner being on the loose and running into him on our walk.  Since Delilah can get so snarky on her leash, I try to avoid other dogs.

Luckily for us we didn’t run into Gunner, BUT the dogs in the house with the invisible fence were out, at least the one that likes to run back and forth barking, you know the one who gets Delilah’s dander up.

Thankfully when the dogs are out their porch light is on which usually gives me the heads up.  Although sometimes we can’t see the dogs until we are almost upon them, because the part of the yard that runs along the road is in shadow.

Delilah you may recall is on the 30 foot leash, so I pulled it in and gave her maybe about 12 feet.

Normally even when the dogs aren’t out she lifts her head up and looks over there, looking for some action.  I try not to yank her instead I will try to guide her toward me with the leash and say, “This way” or “leave it.”

I just have to tell you how damn proud I am of her, the dog was barking and running back and forth and she looked over and I said, “Leave it.”  She turned back to the grass and even though the hair at the base of her tail raised up a bit, she walked calmly away.

No barking, no yanking, no growling.  She just walked away.

Yup, I Tebowed right in the road. 🙂

Book update:  Still at 12,303 words.

 

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