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Follow-Up Friday – May 16, 2014

May 16, 2014 By Jodi

Welcome to this week’s edition of Follow-up Friday, where I highlight reader’s comments, answer questions and generally wrap up my week. 

You Make Me Laugh – May 11, 2014

Sherri said, “Can you imagine how wonderful a used dish towel must have smelled to her? ”

I’m sure it smelled delicious.  I have a habit of wiping my hands when I’m cooking.  I’m sure there was probably some food smells on it.

2 Brown Dawgs said, “Now see, brown dawgs would eat that dish towel.”

She was getting ready to rip it so I took it away.

Animal Couriers said, “our girl always steals knickers and socks”

She likes Grandma’s knickers. 😉

Sampson’s Saga Continues

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I do want to tell you Sampson had physical therapy on Wednesday and the therapist said she thought he was walking better and I think he is too.  There are many thoughts going through my mind, like he’s built differently than most dogs, he’s not a high energy, super active dog and maybe he’s just a slow healer.  Besides, I know when my muscles hurt I don’t want to use them,  so I think we won’t be making a decision very quickly.

I'm like a fine wine Mama, it just takes time.

I’m like a fine wine Mama, it just takes time.

Vlad and Barkley’s Dee asked, “Has anyone talked to you about, or did you try Adequan injections for Sampson’s joints?”

No, but thank you for the information, I intend to research this and be fully prepared when we meet with the surgeon next Saturday.

Run Fast, Run Free Sweet Bella

This was the sweetest comment.

Barb said, “The pain of losing one of our fur babies is never easy AJ but in time you will recall all the good memories you had with Bella, and gradually do so with a smile instead of a tear.”

West Virginia Back-woods Hood-rat

Oh yes I will.

Oh yes I will.

Genevieve said, “Get a grip, people. If you don’t care about my dog, at least care about yours. Ugh.”

Do you think that people are just clueless? Like the thought that a dog might not be friendly, or might hurt their dog just never enters their minds?

Jan asks, “Can you have the Animal Control Officer talk to the owners of these dogs? ”

I’m sure I could.  But I’m a bit paranoid, I worry that once I officially complain about someone, they will be targeting my dogs.  I do not want to get into a ‘she said – she said’ situation.

Jen K tells about a fellow that just opens his door and lets his dog out, “Once, both his dogs ran past him as he opened the door for UPS and Moses and I were walking by. My solution? I dropped the leash. I was pissed because this was like the third time they’d escaped past him through the open door, so go ahead, Moses. Let my 150lb Newf handle two 60lb dogs. Take the leash – and me – out of the equation and see what happens. They’d get close, but it was all noise – they had no intention to start something serious. Moses returned the attitude he was getting, and they both immediately backed off and the owner got them from the middle of the street, apologizing. I picked up Mo’s leash and we continued on without a word.  Seriously people. Pull your heads out of your asses.”

When we are in the woods that is exactly what I do.  When she was attacked by two bulldogs, that is also what I did and I would have argued that in court if I’d had to. What Animal Control told me was if she got away from me, she could be considered at fault.  Which I would also argue in court.  Who, in their right mind is going to hang onto a leash in a dog fight.  That’s just stupid if you ask me.  Plus, since we were already in the street, I couldn’t take a risk of having her be hit by a car.  I think if push came to shove, I would kick those dogs if I had to.

Blueberry’s human made me laugh (I like this woman) “Don’t you just wish that we as responsible citizens had the power to ticket and fine these ignorant dog owners? Wait, better yet we would have these iggies line up outside and we (the responsible dog owners) could fling dog poo at their faces. First offense: 1 load of poop to the face; Second offense: 2 loads; Third offense would be watery poo at their face in addition to a shock from a dog shock collar. Oh if only I were in charge…mwahahaha. I choose dog poop to the face for any offense – not just failing to scoop poop.”

Maybe we could run on a split ticket? 😉  I like the way you think.  I could easily become a poo flinger.

Jan K asked, “Was animal control going to go visit those people and talk to them?”

I think he wanted to, because he asked where they lived.  Granted the woman did not have control over her dogs, but at least she was outside with them, the other dog was outside by itself and he didn’t seem to be too concerned about that.

Spam be Damned!

Jan K said, “200 per day? Ha! That’s nothing…..they were hitting me at 500+ for a couple days there, to the point where my server restricted my account because it was using too many CPU’s!”

I don’t understand why some blogs get so much spam, while others get little to none.

Jenna, Mark “Husky-crazed” Drady said, ” I have only ever got one spammer. It was for a gay man and he wanted a sexual partner! ”

I hope he was interested in you or your hubby.  ;-0

Flea said, “Imagine clicking over for your dose of Heart Like a Dog and finding out that someone with a potty mouth had taken over? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I can’t even imagine.”

Ha ha, I was waiting for someone to say something.

We have to help it!

We have to help it!

Kari said, “At least she was trying to make friends with the statue.  Mia barks at reindeer statues around Christmas.

We had one of those on our walks at Christmas too.  The funny thing was at night she was fine with it all lit up, but one night it wasn’t and she was so worried about what was on that lawn!

That’s all for me folks, have a wonderful weekend!!

 

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Filed Under: Follow-Up Friday, Uncategorized Tagged With: Delilah, Dog, Humor, Life With Sampson And Delilah, Sampson

West Virginia Backwoods Hood-rat

May 14, 2014 By Jodi

Warning: Rant ahead.

Oh yes I will.

Oh yes I will.

Last week I came as close as I’ve ever come to going West Virginia backwoods hood-rat on someone because of their off-leash dogs.

Here’s the scene.  Delilah and I are casing walking the neighborhood.  As I approach a house, I see a small brown head peeping out at me.  Just like little Ernie from FRANKly and ERNESTly speaking. 

Frankie and Ernie - FRANKly and ERNESTly Speaking

Frankie and Ernie – FRANKly and ERNESTly Speaking

Except this isn’t Ernie (and he wasn’t wearing bunny glasses.) Then I see another dog.  I pull Delilah in just a tiny bit closer, she’s paying no mind whatsoever to these dogs.  I hear the woman call one of the dogs, “Eli, Eli come here!”  I turn.  The little dog that looks like Ernie, is steadily, stealthily, coming at us.  Not barking or growling, just a dog on a mission.

The woman says, “Oh my God!  He’s going after her.”

At which point I turned around and snarled, “She will go after him!”  As if on cue, Delilah turns around, hair up and says, “RAR, RAR, RAR” which is dogspeak for “Get the woof away from my Mama.” Because I’m pretty sure she’s reacting to me reacting.

I spin my head forward urging Delilah to move away from the dog, but when I look ahead, here comes the other dog!  We’re trapped, being stalked by two weiner dogs, one from the front and one from the rear.  My heart is racing, I’m not sure what to do.  I reach around to my back pocket fumbling for my pepper spray when I realize those few seconds might  very well mean the difference between us getting away and a horrible altercation.  I urge Delilah to move faster and I yell over my shoulder, “GET YOUR DOGS!”

Delilah and I turn the corner and I hear the woman yell, “Sorry!”

The. Very. NEXT. Night. 

The next night Delilah and I head up the hill.  From about two houses away I see a small black bundle in the road, barking it’s fool head off.

Are you freaking kidding me? I say to myself as I turn around.  I look back and the small dog has run off.  Delilah and I turn back around and as I approach the area where we saw the dog, I see a woman working in her yard.  I call to her, “Is it okay to walk past?   Your dog won’t come after me?”

She indicates a pug sitting on the front steps and says, “Her? No.”

I say, “Well I saw a black dog just a moment ago.”

“That’s their dog,” she said pointing towards the house next door, ‘They just open the door and let it out, (don’t even get me started on this) he comes over and poops in my yard.  It’s not friendly,” she adds almost as an after thought.  

Great.  Just fucking great.  There’s a mean little dog with a Napoleon complex on my street.

I’ve worked super hard with Delilah to help her not react to other dogs.  Just the other day as we walked past a house, the garage door opened and out came a dog, who as soon as she saw Delilah started barking and running around like a nut.  Delilah gave her the dog equivalent of a raised eyebrow and turned to me for her cookie.  **Random useless thought…I call this look “the Legolas”   Legolas is an Elf in The Lord of the Rings and he rarely shows emotion, but sometimes he gets this quizzical look on his face and sort of raises his eyebrow. **End Random useless thought that is not relevant to this post.

I am the peeper, a sweet chocolate seeker.

I am the peeper, a sweet chocolate seeker.

I’ve also worked her hard on the dog in the e-fence who likes to peep at her.  There used to be two dogs there, the peeper and the posturer, but I haven’t seen the posturer in a while.  Still you can tell she’s watching for it as we approach the house and I usually just pull out a cookie and hold it in my hand as a redirect and we sail past it.  Except for the times she tries to get in front of me (but that’s a rant for another day.)

Back to the subject at hand.  I called the dog warden because my concern is one day I will not be able to prevent an altercation and I’m concerned that Delilah is going to be labeled as an aggressive dog and she is not.  I’m almost 100% sure she is reacting to me, who is freaking out that she will react.  I can change this.  It will take some work on my part, but I can do it.

Animal control did assure me in that situation, if Delilah (who would outweigh the dog by 60 pounds) were to hurt the dog, as long as she was on leash, licensed and up to date on shots, she would not be in trouble.  But that little dog very well could be.  

This is serious business people and one we’ve been writing about for what seems like forever, how do we get this message across?  It’s not just the dog that is being approached that is at risk, but the approaching dog could be injured or worse!

My next question is, what makes Delilah a target for these off-leash dogs?  But that my friends is a question (and quite possibly a ran) for another day.

Rant over.

 

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Filed Under: Dogs, Uncategorized Tagged With: Delilah, Humor, Life With Sampson And Delilah, Off-leash encounters

Follow-Up Friday – May 9, 2014

May 9, 2014 By Jodi

Welcome to this week’s edition of Follow-Up Friday, the post where I highlight reader’s comments, answer questions and generally wrap up my week.

You Make Me Smile – May 4, 2014

I'm just doing my job Mama.  The world needs more love.

I’m just doing my job Mama. The world needs more love.

Cupcake said, “Love and licks and you are also my best friend.”

Awe Cupcake you are so sweet!  This comment made me smile.

Sophie said, “There are so many things that our sweet Gus does, but the most endearing is the way he plays ball…..He knows I don’t see well. I don”t have any peripheral vision, so sometimes I can’t find the ball when he drops it in front of me. He watches and if he sees that I am having a hard time finding the ball, he will run back to me, get the ball, and steady it in front of me until I see where it is! He never gets irritated with me, no matter how often he has to come back and help me.”

Sophie, you are a very lucky woman.  Aren’t animals amazing?  So patient and intuitive, it constantly amazes me. And yes, this comment made me a wee bit teary.  Do you have a blog?  If you do, would you live the name and addy in the comments?

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

Blueberry’s Human said, “I have to admit when I saw the title of this post, I thought it would be about dog poop. Let me explain…my mom always called dog poop “doggy diamonds” as in “Oh no! You stepped in doggy diamonds and tracked it in the house!”.”

BAH HA HA, you know poop is always a great topic on this blog.  BUT I have never heard it called “doggy diamonds” before.  Do you know how she came up with that?

2 Brown Dawgs said, “Beautiful pictures. Irish whiskey coffee, huh? Might explain the attempt to walk two at once…lol!”

Sadly I wasn’t drinking at the time, if only I had been, who knows, I might have managed better, sort of the way Kristine did in Drunken Master IV: Canine Fu.

Roxy the Traveling Dog said, ” Sometimes trying to save time is not the very best plan.”

I really know this too, I guess maybe I was just feeling nostalgic.

The Sights, the Sounds, the Smells!!!

Jan K said, “I can hear the robins when I’m still lying in bed. Though I think they wake the dogs up earlier! The dogs love all the seasons I think, with each one varying their routines.”

Dogs live in the moment, they seem to always adapt to whatever life throws at them.  That is the lesson I would love to learn from my dogs.

I Always Feel Better After I Talk to MY Vet

I know so many of you are dealing with or have dealt with similar or far worse situations.  It’s hard sometimes when we are doing the best we can and not seeing the progress we should be.  And it’s hard to watch someone you love struggle, especially when you cannot convey to them what is going on.  When I was speaking with my Vet on Wednesday night, I told her I really thought Sampson was depressed.  And I don’t blame him.  Everything has changed for him and he doesn’t understand why. It pains me to look at his sad face and not know whether he will experience again all those things he loves.

Mama how can you look at this face and tell me no?

Mama how can you look at this face and tell me no?

To top it off as I was walking him last night a neighbor from up the street stopped me.  His dog had the same surgery at the same Vet’s three weeks ago.  He said he was not as strict as he should have been, leaving it up to his dog to determine what was comfortable and she was doing stairs at 10 days!  And she’s doing very well (according to him.)

Hubby thinks I’ve been too strict with Sampson and I feel like I’ve totally failed him.

Beth said, ” I definitely understand the emotional, psychological, financial burden of lots of time at the vet–for a while, both of my pets had so many problems (chronic FLUTD, xylitol poisoning, a worm, a run-in with a bottle of aleeve, lyme disease) that I was pretty sure they just wanted to spend more time with the vet than with me.”

Wow, you’ve been through it.  I hope all is well now.

Frankie and Ernie said, “WE are SURE that Sampson is going to show improvement VERY soon. It takes a bit of time for thingys to HEAL and for him to TRUST that he is actually BETTER.”

And the therapist did say that as well.  She said sometimes the dog seems slow and then boom, he turns the corner and flies through recovery.  We will know more today after the X-rays and I’ll make sure to update my Facebook page and I’ll add an update to this post as well.

Jan K said, ” It sounds like the therapist could do better, and not be so vague.”

That’s exactly it.  I don’t like not knowing, if you can tell me what could be wrong and how it will be fixed I am okay with that.  Some people can fly by the seat of their pants with no issues, I can’t.  I’m just not wired that way.

Kirsten said, ” I’m betting he just needs more time for that leg to feel better.”

I’m hoping he’s just a slow healer.  He was using his leg a little more in the house yesterday.

Carol Bondy said, “I think..if I’m remembering right..that happened to Donna’s Leah. I think it was the screw and was giving her pain..had it repaired”

It was the sutures Carol, Leah was allergic to the material used in the sutures. Once the sutures were removed Leah did great!

SAMPSON UPDATE:

Sampson’s X-rays are good.  Surgeon  felt the psoas and said it is tender, so he put him on Gabapentin.  He said it “could” be the meniscus, but he’s not willing to call it yet.  Two weeks on the Gaba and a recheck.  It’s as good as I could hope for.  

PLUS he gave the okay for Sampson to be out of his room during the day.  I think that will help a lot!

That’s it for now, thanks for all your encouragement and words of support and comfort.  It helps knowing we are not alone in this.

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About Jodi

jodiHi, my name is Jodi. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog! I have all kinds of fun writing about my two crazy pups, Sampson and Delilah. Find out more!

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