Heart Like a Dog

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

The Evolution of a Blog Post

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Did you ever wake up in a great mood and then have something miniscule happen that turned everything sour?

If you have labs you know they’re sloppy drinkers.  Delilah is the worst.  She sticks her face in the water, and raises it dripping from the bowl and then she walks away, taking the water with her.

Yesterday morning in the midst of my daily rituals I got a pant leg soaked with water.

Thank goodness it wasn’t oil

 

The combination of cold/wet startled me, I looked at Delilah and said through gritted teeth, “Delilah!”

Such a miniscule occurrence that got me thinking of personal struggles and the seemingly small incidents which wear us down.

I think in most relationships (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) we weather the big stuff.  We somehow manage the financial struggles, the differences of opinions, the illnesses, yet it is the small things that truly wear us down. The underwear that doesn’t quite make it to the hamper, the toothpaste in the sink.

I can manage to remain calm when Delilah runs off on a  walk or won’t perform a trick as quickly as I’d like, but dribble water on my pants and I lose my mind.

This was the train of thought I had in the morning.

By evening it had evolved into the whole nature vs nurture theory.  If we’d gotten Delilah at eight weeks old like we did Sampson would she still be a vacuum when she ate, would she come when she was called, would she not slobber at the water bowl?

Then I sat down to write the post and I couldn’t put it all together.  I sat on the couch with my laptop, I checked my e-mail, I checked facebook, still the post remained unwritten.

I looked over at the dogs, Sampson wanted to play, he put his paw on Delilah’s head and it was so cute, it reminded me of a father, patting a child’s head.

I grabbed the camera and missed it!

So I sat there watching the dogs play and snapping pictures.

I love watching the two of them play, one of them has the toy and the other one tries to get it away.  They both have their mouths on the toy.  It reminded me of the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp.

Some privacy would be nice.

 

 

Then Delilah put her paw over Sampson’s eyes.

Don’t look at the flash Sampson.

 

That was my post for the day.

And then Delilah and I went to tricks class.

I readily admit, we did not practice our tricks at all last week, with the exception being to show Hubby what we’d learned when we got home.

Come on, I mean it was Thanksgiving and a long weekend to boot.

So we went back to class, a bit rusty, yet Delilah still did great with her roll over.

We were shown how to teach three new tricks this week, Spin, Bow and Say Your Prayers.

Delilah got spin almost immediately, of course it helped that besides the banana chips I had some stinky white fish in my pocket.

Bow was hard and our instructor Ariane told us three different ways to train/lure it.  The easiest way is to catch your dog doing the behavior and reward for it.  I’ve been saying “Good Bow” to Delilah every time I catch her at it, but it’s never been treated.  (I’ve got to start stashing treats all over the place so I can treat her when she does it.)

Ariane came over to help me and she almost had her into a bow once, but it just wasn’t a trick Delilah learned easily.

When it came time to teach Say Your Prayers, Ariane asked if she could use Delilah and I finally confessed to her that I wrote a blog and asked if I could take pictures. 🙂 She said, Sure!

First Ariane lured Delilah onto a chair using her Paws Up command.

Paws Up, where’s the treat?

 

Then she lured her into a Shame on You, which is simply placing her head flat on the floor (in this case the chair.)

I’ll climb through this space if you’ll give me the treat.

 

Because Delilah is a bigger dog, Ariane stuck her hand through the back of the chair and lured Delilah in that manner.  For smaller dogs, you could just place your hand (with the treat in it) on the chair.

By the end of class, she was doing a decent imitation of Say Your Prayers.

And that my friends is the evolution of a blog post.

Has your post ever evolved in an unexpected way?  How do you conquer writer’s block?

Shining Star

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Last night Delilah and I had our second tricks class.  Can I tell you something?

Delilah and I have had our share of go-rounds.  You know it, because I’ve shared it here with you. Even with the challenges she’s faced, I know deep down in my heart what a good dog she is.  And there is one place where it shows.

My dog shines in the classroom setting.

We walk into the classroom and she is focused on me, waiting and watching and willing to learn.

Our task was to learn three tricks last night, play dead, roll-over and crawl.

I forgot my point and shoot, so I had to use my cell phone, which isn’t easy to work when you’re the one doing the training.

Our instructor was quite pleased with the progress we made playing dead and rolling over.  She then asked if she could borrow Delilah to show us how to teach them to crawl.

I giggled a little inside because I’ve been trying to get Delilah to crawl for about four years.

Yup, she got out there and crawled across the floor.

When I got home I had Hubby take a video of us doing each of the tricks. Please excuse the poor lighting and my messy housekeeping, I just wanted to show you what she learned.

(Excuse my ass.)

There was a new woman in our class last night. From what I could tell her husband was supposed to meet her there with their dog but he got stuck in traffic, so she just hung out observing.  She happened to sit right near Delilah and I and we ran into her on our way out.  She asked if she could pet Delilah and then she said, she has such a calming peaceful effect.

I said, REALLY?  I don’t think so.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she really is a shining star.

Is there an area where your dog shines?

Have you voted in the Dogs of Blogville Calendar contest yet?

A Brut Moment Challenge Starring Delilah

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I saw this challenge on the No Dog About It Blog Thursday, at the time Thursday’s post was already up and Friday’s post was planned.

I mean the whole point of the Follow-Up Friday blog hop is to have a follow-up, what kind of host would I be if I didn’t?

I noticed yesterday that a couple of other bloggers did the challenge and I thought, oh good there’s still time for me.  I wandered over to 24 Paws of Love and realized the blog hop would end before today’s post.

Seeing my fellow blogger’s sharing their stories, made me a little misty and even though I mentioned it in a couple of comments, I thought it was worth sharing with everyone.

The challenge was such:

Tell us in a post what was the most monumental moment that you and your dog shared, that changed the course of your lives together.  How ever big or small, what happened that brought an understanding between you and your dog and brought your relationship closer than it was before.  What is that one story in your mind that stands out and you repeat over and over to anyone that will listen?  Tell us all about it!!

This is Delilah’s Brut Moment.

Delilah’s been with our family for 5 1/2 years.

In Delilah’s Story which you can find directly under my header, under the drop down labeled the Cast of Characters, I wrote about Delilah’s first day with us.  She was frustrating that day, but she was also strong and vulnerable.

It was a rough first day, noticed the red-rimmed eyes.

 

The moment I watched her struggle to stay sitting up and not fall asleep was the moment I vowed, that I would not be another human that failed her.   I was determined to help her, yet I didn’t feel like we were bonded.

The moment I feel in love with her.

 

Early this spring when I had the most frustrating walk with her, (you can read about it here) I felt defeated.  I remember saying to Hubby, I don’t feel like I matter to her, it’s as if we aren’t bonded.  Sadly he agreed with me.

I love her, don’t get me wrong and I know she loves me, but I still didn’t feel like we were bonded.  Maybe it was me, I couldn’t tell you for sure.

I remember the moment it all changed for me, I was so proud of her, I could have burst.  It made me feel SO good that if I were Harry Potter I could have produced a Patronous. (Which by the way, I hope it would be a dog or a wolf.)

After I let myself wallow in my sorrow for a few days, I set out to find a way to bond with her.  I read, “Bonding With Your Dog” by Victoria Schade, which gave me some great insight. (Thank you Pamela!)

I have been wanting Delilah to try a nosework class, the training group that was offering it requires you take an intermediate dog and handler class first.  Since it was all positive based training, I thought what the hell, it never hurts to try different trainers.

I’d been doing positive based training on my own for some time, but I was super excited to find a positive training class.  I am one of those who learn better by seeing.

I had mentioned to the instructor Jackie, that Delilah sometimes reacted to other dogs.  Jackie suggested I really watch Delilah to determine what exactly she was reacting to.  She also suggested I begin using the LOOK command.

Using this command really helped Delilah focus on me.  As soon as I saw her tense up as if she was set to react, I would say LOOK and she would whip her head back around and refocus on me.

I think it was during the fourth (out of six) class, Jackie was working the class on the leave it command and was testing us, on how well we could redirect our dogs.

Jackie was going to come around and drop some treats on the floor near us, our goal was to redirect our dog to ignore, or leave the treats.

The class was small and people really had lots of space to spread out with their dogs, if you have a reactive dog, you can appreciate how important this really is.  As it turned out we ended up being the last pair tested.

I had Delilah’s attention as Jackie started around the room, I kept her attention with a treat up near my nose and i talked to her the entire time.

That’s right, focus on me.  You’re doing great.  What a good girl you are. We can do this. Were all phrases that came out of my mouth as one by one my classmates were put through the test.

I could hear Jackie making her way around the room and then it was our turn, Jackie approached us from the right side.

Now here’s the thing about Delilah and distractions, you can bounce a ball in front of her face all day long and she won’t even flinch, but drop a treat and all bets are off.

Delilah’s head turned slightly at Jackie’s approach but I was spot on, LOOK, she whipped her head back to me, LEAVE IT I said as a handful of pupperoni’s hit the floor.

There we were, her sitting and me standing, eyes locked.  We were a team.

To me, that was our bonding moment.

Did you have a bonding moment with your dog, one that stood out like no other?  Please share in the comments, I might not be responding to you, but I sure am reading them!

The word count for my NaNoWriMo book writing challenge is just over 3.600 words.

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