Heart Like a Dog

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

To Boldly Go Where No Dog Has Gone Before…Day One Hundred Forty Six

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Silly me, I forgot to check the Lacrosse schedule today, sure enough there was a practice scheduled at the field.   We were already in the car and at the park, so I leashed both dogs and walked them in.  Once we turned towards the trails and I was sure they wouldn’t turn back, I unleashed them.

I knew I had to keep them busy so we headed toward the back of the trails. Many times we have stood on a ridge back there, looking down into the valley and a small river/stream that runs through it.  Today I found a trail down that was user-friendly, so I began the descent down. Naturally Delilah went ahead as she is the ultimate trailblazer in our family.

I was using caution on the trip down, so imagine my surprise when I stopped to look and saw Delilah across the stream, just running carefree and happy beside the stream.

The faint glimmer in the middle of the picture is the stream.

If Chet had been with me, he would have freaked out about her being so far away, but it made me so happy to see her so happy, I called her to me and waited for her to come back, which she promptly did.

Can you tell she is far away?

Just as we were finishing our uphill climb, Chet called to say he was on his way.  My luck on the way back ,Delilah found something nasty and rubbed herself in it; I finally got her away and headed in the right direction and Sampson went back and found it and he rubbed himself in it!  YUCK!

Right after they both rolled in it we found Chet, so we all headed out together.  The Lacrosse team was still there so I leashed Delilah sooner than I normally would and we walked out.  As we were exiting the park, there was a man walking in, he was approaching on my right side and Delilah walks on my left.  I saw her perk up in anticipation and I said, “Leave it.”  She walked right past the man without so much as a look.  If you had been walking out behind me, you would have seen me do a little fist pump. 🙂  Good job, Delilah!

New Horizons…Day One Hundred, Forty Four

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Yesterday Chet and I both had the day off;  my plan was to head to the park around 9:00 am, walk the dogs for about an hour and then have the rest of the day to myself.  Ah, the best laid plans.

Turns out we didn’t head to the park until around 10:00 am; when we got there we found it full of children getting ready to have an Easter Egg hunt!  The dogs were already loaded into the car, so we decided to check out a new hiking area the town recently opened up.

Since the area was new to us and the trail runs really close to the highway, we decided to keep Delilah on leash.  We pulled out the thirty foot leash and off we went.  Initially I had Delilah and having her on a thirty foot leash is kind of like fishing.  You let her have some lead, then you “reel” her in.

New Horizons

The trail starts out around a pond, the pond is fed from a stream or small river; the trail follows the course of the stream so you are always walking along side water.

We have Labrador Retrievers, they love the water!  Naturally they wanted to go in.  We scoped the river out looking for safe places for them to enter, where the current wasn’t too strong, then we let them go in.  We continued walking until we got to an area where it was too narrow to pass, so we turned around.

The beautiful gorge.

I was busy snapping this picture while Chet and the dogs headed back, when I heard a splash.  I turned around and Delilah had seen a stick or some reflection of light in the water and decided to go for a swim.  Trouble was, she took Chet with her!  He was so mad at her, I didn’t dare snap a picture.  Needless to say, it was a quiet walk out and a quiet ride home.

Knothead….Day One Hundred, Forty Three

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Last year Sara and I noticed Sampson had some bumps on his head, when I felt them with my fingers they felt like scabs. At first we thought it was from rough playing with the other daycare dogs; but then Sara observed Sampson sniffing the floor and said, it looks like hives to me, I bet he stuck his head under a bush and had a reaction to it.Chet and I noticed the bumps again. We noticed it first by a large scab he had on one side of his head. We noticed it about 5 days ago; at first we only noticed the one bump. We watched it every day and put Neosporin on it, but yesterday when I got home Chet said, “Have you looked at his head?”

The scab is visible, but the knot is not.

I had looked at it in the morning, but I looked again and he had the one scab, and then a big knot slightly off to the side of it. Upon closer inspection it looked to me like a clump of fur that was matted with blood. I took a wet cloth and held it to the lump, rubbed it gently and pulled it away. Sure enough, it had blood on it. Chet really wanted Sampson to see the vet to be sure it wasn’t anything too serious, so we made an appointment for this afternoon.
 
The vet took one look at his head and said, “Let me get the clippers.”

Shaving the head.

They shaved my baby’s head!  My poor boy!  What the vet found under the fur was a number of scabs a couple of which were infected.  So now he is on Prednisone and antibiotic. There must be something in our yard that blooms or grows in the spring and when he touches the plant or bush with his head, he gets an allergic reaction to it.  So once he comes off the medications, we will put him on Benadryl and monitor him.  In the meantime, I’ll be looking for a hat that he can wear when he goes outside. He may look a bit silly with a hat on his head, but he won’t look any sillier than he looks now, with a big, scabby, bald patch on his head.

Poor Handsome Boy.

The good boy got a strawberry shake for the ride home.

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