Heart Like a Dog

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

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?

Paws To The Rescue

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Have you ever wanted to get involved in rescuing or helping animals, but you’re not sure where to start or you don’t have a lot of time to spare?

I know I’ve spoken of my desire to help and I’ve started working with a couple of different rescues offering some limited services.

Last Saturday at the Marion County Animal Shelter in Mullins, South Carolina a few cats and a number of dogs/puppies, totaling 28 in all were loaded into crates by volunteers.  This group of volunteers goes by PTTR or “Paws To The Rescue.”

Their destinations were rescues and Humane Societies along the east coast.  Every hour or hour and a half, after a quick leg stretch, potty/drink break these animals were transferred from the vehicle of one volunteer to the vehicle of another volunteer.

Some of them arrived at their receiving shelters sometime on Saturday.  Some of them spent the night at a host shelter and continued their journey on Sunday.

By the time the human chain  reached Vernon, CT it was down to six of the “P” pups; Paige, Paisley, Patton, Perry, Patsy and Peony.

We expected they would be restless and cranky, but that was far from the case.  These sweet little fur babies were so loving it was hard not to pick them up and cuddle them.  But it is strictly forbidden.

Due to the risk of Parvo, you are only allowed to pick them up wearing disposable gloves, and you should change gloves after handling each dog, unless they belong to the same litter, which these guys did.  There are a number of other precautions you must take, such as bleaching all crates and any towels or blankets you used.   We also had a bleach solution in a spray bottle just in case.

Once we had them loaded in the car Hubby said, “Let’s just go home.”  But we were on a schedule and had to have the pups in Worcester, MA by a certain time.

There was a little excitement when we first started.  Somebody pooped in the crate and somebody (not sure if it was the same somebody or not, decided they were hungry.)  This was accompanied by me screaming, “No puppy no!  Pull over, pull over,” and me jumping out on the side of the highway to remove the dirty towel.  (I put it in a garbage bag and threw it away.)

We got back on the road and then one of the puppies decided they would chew on the paper tag from the towel, which resulted in me trying to jam my hand through the bars of the crate and finger/paw wrestle the puppy for the tag.  Eventually I won and the puppies settled in for their ride.

Not one peep, out of any of these guys.  They were so good and so cute.

These little guys came in jammies.

 

Please can I come out and play?

 

Are we almost there yet?

 

This little guy kept looking up every time I snapped a picture.

 

How much longer?

 

What is that flash I keep seeing?

 

Finally, a picture of them all snuggled up.

 

This was the tiniest one and so, so sweet.

All too soon we were in Worcester and it was time to say goodbye.

Thank you sweet puppies for letting us share just a small part of your journey to your forever homes.

We hope you have the best of everything that life has to offer.  xoxo

I have to thank PupFan for this experience, I saw her post on facebook a few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail and it was that easy.  Because of my busy schedule I can’t do this every weekend, but when I can I intend on participating.

If you live on the east coast, close to Interstate 95 and Interstate 91 and would be interested in helping with the transportation of any of the precious fur babies, PTTR does this run every weekend.  You can check out the available legs on their blog post.

Together we really can make a difference.

Embrace Who She Is

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I made a promise to myself when I started this blog that I would always be honest, which is why there were two very emotional and raw posts last week.

I was extremely disappointed in Delilah last Monday and in my abilities to train her.

In two short months, on May 26th we will celebrate the five-year anniversary of Delilah’s “Gotcha Day.”  Which means I’ve been working with her for a very long time, as I am not one of those people who get  a dog and think by some miracle they will know exactly what is expected of them without any training.

We went through all the training classes with Sampson and he did marvelously, I figured we had this in the bag.  I quickly realized Delilah would need formal training.

We enrolled in classes.  Sara reminded me last week when she yelled at me to quit writing bad stuff about Delilah on the blog, of our first class.  Our classes were stubborn meets stubborner and I don’t know which of us was which.  That first class I had to practically lay on Delilah to get her into a down.  I’ve since (thanks to all of you) revised my training philosophy and will never again lay on her to get her into a down.

My walking friend also made me realize that she hasn’t been working off-leash for very long at all, just over a year.  It was only January of last year when we started walking the trails.

Saturday I went to pick up dog food and spoke with Sandy our raw food mentor.  Somehow we started talking about Delilah and I was explaining how excited Delilah is around food and how she jumps backwards all the way to the place where she gets fed, never once taking her eyes off her food bowl.

Sandy just stood there, nodding her head up and down with a huge smile on her face.

“What?” I asked, “Why are you standing there smiling?”

“Embrace who she is, someday she won’t be able to do that” was her response.

I get that, I really do.  I already see the white in Sampson’s face and it makes my heart hurt.   But I want the best of both worlds, I want a dog that can run around and have fun but listens to me when I need or want them to.

Is that even possible?

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