Heart Like a Dog

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

What's In A Name?

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This technically should have been a Follow-Up Friday post,  but it was pretty long and I felt it deserved its own space. 🙂

A little background, please.

Last Saturday I wrote ‘Expect The Unexpected.’  In that post I made mention of a woman named Brenda.  I’ve mentioned Brenda before, she always walks with about six dogs.  Many times she has other people and their dogs with her as well.

Brenda trains dogs.  I have no idea what her qualifications are, but her methods are if you don’t pay attention to me, I’ll leave you.  Brenda is friends with the woman who owns the dogs I wrote about on Saturday.

The stage is set.

Flash forward to this past Monday.

I pulled up at the field to walk the dogs and encountered…the LaCrosse team.  Yes, it’s that time of year when the town LaCrosse team commandeer the field.  This means both dogs walk in with me on leash and I keep them on the upper trails so they don’t bust up a LaCrosse practice/game.

I got Sampson and Delilah almost all the way up to the top of the hill and noticed someone walking in with a pack of dogs.  The dogs saw mine and started running at us at which point I always drop the leash.  Far better for Miss Delilah to meet and greet others on the playing field to keep her from reacting.

Sure enough as I got closer it was Brenda.  Included in her pack was a small dog and her little puppy and he was a real cutie.

I said, “The LaCrosse team is down in the field, it’s that time of year when we need to check the schedule before coming out.”

Brenda said, “Like that will happen.”

Ok, whatever.  I’m just sayin’ if you don’t want to worry about your dogs running off and jumping on some four-year-old you might want to do some planning.  But who am I?

Brenda had entered the ‘loop’ which is fairly small but allows you pick up two different trails.  Coincidently that was where I was headed and I didn’t see an issue, but apparently she did.

She said to one of the dogs, “We’re going to have to wait.”

Ok.  Again.  Whatever.

She decides to head down the wide path towards the field with her entire pack of dogs, except for…puppy.  Who decided he liked my pack better.

Meanwhile I’m trying to get my dogs on the trail and puppy is right there, jumping at my dogs saying, “Come on let’s play.”

Brenda is still walking down the path.

I don’t know what to do.  Do I stop and wait for her to come get the puppy or for the puppy to figure it out or do I keep going with the puppy following me?

I’m unsure.

All of a sudden from down the path I hear “F***!”

Here comes Brenda, “F***, I’ve got F***ing 20 f***ing minutes to take a f***ing walk.”

She gets to the top of the path and points in front of her and says, “Get your little a** over here” and then to me, “Excuse my language.”

Excuse your method of dog training is more like it I thought to myself.

The scary thing is, she calls herself a dog trainer and oh yes, she has the business cards to prove it.

Expect The Unexpected

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A few weeks back I wrote a post about responsibility, if you missed it you can read it here.

My intention this morning was a half hour morning walk and then another half hour, forty-five minute walk this afternoon.

Alas the best laid plans……

We were joined this morning by Brady and his mom, and then shortly after we were joined by three more dogs.

Just dogs.  No person.

The dogs were the ones I wrote about in this earlier post.  But their human was nowhere to be found.  I’m pretty sure I heard her whistle a couple of times, but she never called for the dogs, and she never showed her face.

There are two entrances to the park. We noticed a vehicle at one entrance, which is the one Brady and his mom use.  The next time we approached the area, there was no vehicle.  But we still had two extra dogs.

Both dogs had collars on, but there weren’t any tags to identify them.

I called them:

White Dog

And

Brown Dog

At first I couldn’t place the dogs, but eventually I remembered the woman and how the two brown dogs (not to be mistaken for the 2Brown Dawgs) had taken off on her the last time.  I thought maybe she had parked at the entrance I use, so I told my friend I would try to take the dogs with me and see if she was waiting.

She wasn’t.

I didn’t know what to do.  I text my friend and asked her if any vehicles were up her way.

There weren’t.

I then asked her for Brenda’s number so I could call and let them know I had two of the dogs, but Brenda didn’t answer.

The white dog left, but the little brown dog stayed near me and took little bits of kibble from me.  I tried to get him into the car so I could at least bring him home and put him in the fenced yard, but he wouldn’t do it.

I put Sampson and Delilah in the car and started walking back up the hill, hoping I could get the dogs to follow me, but the brown dog wandered off too.

Since they didn’t answer to white dog and brown dog, there wasn’t too much I could do.

So as much as I hated it, I got in my car and left.

About an hour and forty-five minutes later my friend text me and said they WERE Brenda’s friend’s dogs and they were at home, safe and sound.

I’m not kidding when I say this woman LEFT the area, without her dogs and was gone a minimum of an hour.  Not to mention her dogs have no form of identification on them!

Sampson and Delilah ALWAYS have a tag with their name, my name and my cell phone number on it, even in the house.

Because you just never know!

When we were in the process of trying to sell our old house, during one of the showings the prospective buyer let Sampson out.  OUT.  Not in the yard where it was fenced, no out in the front which was very close to the busy street.

Luckily for us our neighbor saw him just walking around and was kind enough to get him and put him inside the fence.  Thank god we didn’t have Delilah at the time because that would have been a whole different story!

If our neighbor hadn’t seen him, at least he would have had a tag with a phone number to call.

What about your dog, does your dog have tags?  What kind?   Do they wear one all the time, or only when you are out?

Oh and Happy St. Paddy’s day, we had a yummy corned beef dinner!!

Sharing Knowledge

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A couple of months ago I wrote a post about a dog named Murphy.

To date I haven’t seen Murphy or either one of her parents at obedience class.

This morning though, I stopped by The Mellow Mutt to drop off a crate I had borrowed from Sara, for our Paws To The Rescue run, and there behind the gate sat poor Murphy, panting.

Yes, Murphy was panting just sitting there. I think she’s gotten even bigger since the last time I saw her.

Sue said, “It makes me sad to look at her.”  I agree.

Then Sue said, “She’s also got some disposition issues.”

No doubt she does.

I’m carrying a few extra pounds myself and I know how cranky and unhappy I feel.

Once upon a time I had a philosophy about Sampson, that it was ok if he was a little over-weight as long as he was happy.

Naturally that attitude has changed.

Why you ask?

Besides the obvious health reasons of less stress on his heart and less stress on his bones, it’s really the change I’ve seen in him.

Since Sampson’s lost weight, I’ve seen how much happier he really is.  How he enjoys the simple things, like running as fast as his legs will carry him up the hill to the field, or play bowing before jumping up and wrestling with Delilah on the bed.

The last time I discussed Murphy’s weight with her, Murphy’s mom (K) said, “How can you deny your dog treats, when they look at you and you know they want a treat?”

I explained that Sampson and Delilah get treats, they just get a low-calorie treat like carrots.  Heck, I will reward my dog for a good down, with a pea.

Oh. Yes. I.  Would.

Somewhere in all of my rambling blog posts I wrote how I would love to take people’s dogs home with me, feed them a good quality food, work them for three weeks and then have the person join us for the last week so they could 1) see the improvement in their dog(s) 2) learn how to train their dogs.

But that was back when I thought I wanted to be a dog trainer. 🙂

Still I have one really well-behaved and one reasonably (most of the time) behaved dog, they have both lost a lot of weight in the last two years, look and feel great.  We are constantly getting compliments regarding Delilah’s coat.

Why wouldn’t someone want their dog to look and feel great?

Our vet has said we have given Sampson and Delilah a couple of extra years to their lives, which makes me extremely happy.

So how do I impart this knowledge to someone with an over-weight dog, who is probably rushing full speed down the road to bad health? Who probably doesn’t want to hear it?

And how, pray tell does their vet not say something to them about this poor dog’s weight?

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