Heart Like a Dog

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

Our Story – Happy Birthday Delilah

By

I sometimes wish I’d known you when you were a puppy. I know I could have provided the love and security that every dog deserves from the beginning.

But that isn’t our story. Our story is a far different one.

Our story began when I agreed to adopt a 2 to 3 year-old Chocolate Lab named Ginny, sight unseen. Our story also almost ended on that day. In fact, for some people, it would have ended. But when you finally gave in to your exhaustion, and fell asleep with your head on my knee, I knew our story would be great.

Chocolate Lab

She trusts me enough to sleep.

I just didn’t know HOW GREAT.

Our story is one full of challenges and learning experiences, patience and frustration, failure and success, sadness and joy, mistakes and forgiveness.

Our story is about two strong-willed individuals who learned to trust each other and eventually to work together as a team. Our story is a complicated, but beautiful story. It is a story about heartache and hope, faith and kindness.

Our story is all of these things and more, our story is a story of great love.

Today is the day we chose to celebrate your birthday. It is a day of happiness and joy, a time of reflection, of thinking back to where we were and where we are now. It is a day to celebrate the amazingness that is you.

Because you really are amazing. You’re smart and stubborn, sassy and fun, focused and determined. And loving, oh so loving.

You’ve grown into an amazing dog. A good dog. Anyone who knew you in the beginning, knows exactly what that means, and how far you’ve come.

So today, on a day we choose to celebrate the wonder of you, I want to thank you. Thank you for hanging in with me and being patient in your lessons. Thank you for licking my tears when I’m sad, for jumping for joy with me when we succeed, for guiding me home when I feel lost, and for loving me when I feel unloved.

You have been one of the greatest challenges of my life, but you’ve also been one of my greatest joys.

Chocolate Lab

“Baby” Delilah

Happy 12th Birthday Delilah, I love you to infinity and beyond.

You Make Me Laugh – December 10, 2017

By

Does your dog walk when they poop? Sampson does not.  He simply squats, drops and then he’s done. Delilah on the other hand, Delilah squats and while she’s dropping, she sometimes walks.

We call her Delilah Shitwalker. 🙂

Before I leave for work in the morning, I let Delilah out to potty. Usually she runs out, tinkles and runs back in, but the other morning she tinkled and then she pooped.

I came out on the deck just to catch the grand finale.

See if you can figure out what happened by the diagram I made on this photo.

Did you guess?

She started over by the barrel (that’s where Hubby burns leaves), then she walked on the front side of the barrel, then between the wood pile and the shed. When she had finished she was over by the wood pile.

She turned around, sniffed the poop and I’m not sure why, but decided she couldn’t go back the way she’d come.

She tried going behind the woodpile and under the deck, decided that wasn’t working. Then she thought she could go over the woodpile, but then decided that wasn’t working either. She went back to under the deck, back to the woodpile, back to under the deck, before finally carefully walking OVER the woodpile.

And that made me laugh.

You make me laugh, or smile. The sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do that brings a smile to my face or a laugh to my lips.

What did your pet do that made you smile this week?

You Make Me Smile – December 3, 2017

By

I’m beaming from ear to ear over this little girl right here.

.

Yesterday we were taking our afternoon walk. We were hitting e-fence ‘row.’ It’s a spot in our neighborhood where six houses in a row have dogs, and three of the dogs are on the e-fence. (Coincidently, all three of those dogs have come out of their yards after us, at least one.) As we started down the ‘row,’ I noticed the dog on the end house was in her yard, and one of the kids who live there was mowing the lawn. I say kid, but he’s really a teenager, I’d guess in about the 15-year-old range.

Roxy started barking at us right away, which was unusual, but I think it had to do with the fact that her ‘kid’ was outside with her.

We were on the opposite side of the street, and Delilah was walking like a dream beside me, looking to me for treats and direction.

The young man had moved to the back of the house, to put the lawnmower away. We had just passed the driveway when Roxy started running along the front of the yard, and then it happened.

She broke the fence and started charging across the road at us.

I stopped and yelled, “HEY! GET BACK IN YOUR YARD.”

She stopped and then, to my horror, Delilah caught me off guard with a little tug, and the leash came out of my hand and Delilah was a free dog.

Delilah is not a dog that tolerates a charging dog very well, she is fierce and unafraid and she took off after Roxy, who had the good sense to retreat.

The young man, hearing my shout, came around the corner of the house and called for Roxy. Delilah meanwhile, was still on a mission.

Just as she was ready to follow Roxy into her own yard, I called to her, “Delilah, come!”

And this dog, this dog that has had me chasing her through woods, knocking on doors because her leash got stuck on an air conditioning unit, sneaking her out of a neighbor’s garage, going into yards because something was far more interesting than me.

Yes, this dog, turned on a dime when I called her and came right back to me.

And THAT makes me smile.

You make me smile (or laugh), the sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do on a daily basis that makes me smile or laugh.

What did your pet do that made you smile this week?

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...