Heart Like a Dog

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

Our First Shivie

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In yesterday’s post I mentioned that we had received two awards and told you I would share the second award today.

Well as you can see from the title I’ve been awarded “Shiva the Dog’s PerSeverance Award” from Kristine and Shiva over at Rescued Insanity.

Perseverance Award 2012

When Kristine established the ‘Shivies’ last year, she gave the award to ten dedicated bloggers.  This year she dedicated the ‘Shivie’ to ” People who have sacrificed their very sanity for the love of a dog.”

And she awarded it to us and nine other incredible blogs.  You can check out the complete post here.

When I was in college my favorite class and the very last one I took to complete my degree was Interpersonal Relationships.  I missed the very first class because we were away on vacation but I had e-mailed the instructor to let him know why I would be absent.  Yes my kids called me a brown-noser, but I chose to think of it as….um…interpersonal relationships.

This class was very diversified and there were some students much younger than I was, in fact I might have been the oldest in that particular class, but that isn’t the point.   The point is we got to talk about relationships and get to know each other by sharing thoughts, opinions and feelings.

This may come as a surprise to you, but I was very verbal in that class.  I know, I surprise myself sometimes too.

The instructor had devised awards for this class, he called them “The Stoneys” and I loved it because well, my last name is Stone. Duh.

The Stoney’s had something like five different categories (I can’t remember what they all were now) but the twist was the instructor didn’t choose the students to present the awards to, he let the class choose.  He passed out a sheet with each category on it as well as a sheet with each student’s name on it and he asked the students to choose which among their peers was deserving of each award.

For the last class of the semester we had a potluck supper and we all gathered in a conference room to celebrate our successful completion of Interpersonal Relationships.  At that time, our instructor presented the Stoney Awards.  Before he began his presentation he made a little speech where he said that the class chose exactly the way he himself would have.

Imagine my surprise when the instructor presented “Contributed the Most to the Class” to me.  I was stunned, humbled, flabbergasted, excited, proud and honored all at the same time.

The Stoney

And that is exactly how I feel about receiving the Shivie.

Kristine says the Shivie is for “People who have sacrificed their very sanity for the love of a dog.”

Ok, ok, she does at times drive me to the brink of insanity. 🙂 No, not Kristine, Delilah!

But the thing is I don’t feel like I am doing anything different from any of you would or have done, including Kristine herself.

I mean, yes there are days when I truly wonder if Delilah will eventually be my downfall.  Whether it be by driving me to insanity or physically killing me, I’m not entirely sure.

Hubby always says, “She is one dog that is happy to be alive.”  And that is true, Delilah embraces life, she runs head on full throttle at it.  Her attitude is “bring it on.”

There are many days where I have to laugh at this zany, exuberant, jumping, crazy dog because if I didn’t, I would put my head down and sob.

I waffle between thinking she is mildly retarded to down right dumb to just excited to have someone who wants to spend time with her.  I can’t help but love her, because she gives me no other choice.  She demands that.  She has that “You will love me and you will have fun doing it” attitude.

Life isn’t always easy and we have to find our joy and laughter where we can, Delilah brings both of those things into my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kristine, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful award and I only pray that someday Delilah will be as good as Shiva.

 

 

HUG Award

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This week I’ve been truly humbled and honored by two of my fellow bloggers.

Because I am probably going to blather on and on over each award, I intend on blogging about one today and one tomorrow.

The first award came from our dear blogging friend Misty Shores Chesapeakes it is called Hope Unites Globally and is also known as the HUG award©.

“The HUG award was initiated by Connie Wayne at A Hope For Today, which promotes hope, love, peace, equality, and unity for all people.”

When you check out A Hope For Today, you will see the Hug Award© also has what I’m going to refer to as a motto that says,

Hug the hurt.

Kiss the broken.

Befriend the lost.

Love the lonely.

Do you find that as beautiful as I do?

I like to think I apply those traits in my life as often as I can, but so many times I feel like my resources are stretched too thin and I don’t have the time, energy, finances to do all that my soul wants to do.

Most times I feel woefully  inadequate to even write a daily blog, never mind heal the broken.

There are many reasons why a person could receive the Hug Award© but this one really resonated with me, “The HUG Award©is for people who have a hope or an expectant desire that the work or talents they use in things such as blogging, public speaking, charity work, etc., will make a positive impact on the world.”

I’d like to hope at some point in my life, my actions or words will make a difference for someone.

That someone stumbling across this blog will read about Delilah’s exploits and will find hope that they too can live with a dog that at times does exhibit some wild, crazy behavior.

That someone will read my words and have hope that they are not alone, that there are others who will offer you encouragement and support when you need it the most.  Which is something I feel I receive from you on a daily basis.

The award can be passed on (but it doesn’t have to be) it does require linking back to the original site, which I have done and I also need to leave a comment with Connie, letting her know who I am passing the award on to.

You are all so deserving of this award because at some point in time, you have given me hope, but I am going to limit my choices to two.

Kristine at Rescued Insanity.  Honestly, Kristine gives me so much hope and inspiration.  Her whirling dervish known as Shiva has done things that I don’t think Delilah in her wildest dreams would think of doing.  (Seriously, I’m going to ask Kristine to link the Tim Horton’s incident.  It is priceless.) But does Kristine give up hope?  No, instead Kristine works her dog, she finds new experiences for Shiva and she finds so many valuable blogs, training guides/books/tutorials that I sometimes wonder where she finds the time to write a blog, nevermind train her dog. 🙂

Pamela Douglas Webster at Something Wagging This Way Comes.  Pamela is another blogger that inspires me.  Pamela inspires me to be a better person.  Pamela has the rare gift to see both sides of a situation but better yet, she has the intelligence and finesse to simplify the facts and present them clearly and concisely.  If ever I am unsure of what to do, or what’s going on, I check out Something Wagging to see what Pamela has to say.

Pamela is currently using her Golden Retriever, Honey for the “Puppiness Project” based upon Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project.  Every Tuesday Pamela posts about something that makes Honey happy and how Pamela can learn to live as happily as Honey does.

Thank you again to Misty Shores, I am truly honored and touched by the HUG award.

Book Update: My book has 12,000 words.

My Little Diva

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I wanted to share a little Delilah story with you.

First I have to tell you, I’m not very good about setting time aside to actually work on training my dogs, which is one of the reasons I really, really like our Thursday night drop in obedience class.

I also think it’s a really great opportunity to expose and work the dogs around other dogs.

Last Thursday we went to our drop in obedience class after having missed it for about a month, for whatever reasons health, weather, a soldier returning home 🙂  it had been a long time since we’d gone to class.

Hubby goes with me and he works Sampson, while I work the Diva.  Apparently even though we do make the dogs sit, down and stay at home, someone forgot the rules in obedience class.  It really didn’t take her TOO long to go into a down for me, but she had a real problem ‘staying.’

Anytime I would walk away and she would follow, I would turn around and gently lead her back to her place.  We’ve got a real great group of people in that class so a couple of times she got up and someone would take her leash and stop her.

I’m the only one in the class that carries a treat bag on my hip (and trust me, all the dogs know it!) And I was running pretty low on treats and basically had to let her lick the bag to reward her, so during a ‘stay’ command, I took the opportunity to run out to the store in order to grab a sample bag of kibble.  I’ve been using Taste of the Wild in my treat bag and I’m telling you, if I could figure out how to get my dogs to stand on their heads, they would do it for this kibble.  They like it THAT much.

I’m sorry, I do digress at times.

Delilah happened to be on the far end of the training room in a ‘down stay,’ and Hubby and Sampson were at the front of the training room, so if you were looking at the shop as a long rectangular room Delilah would be at one end, I would be at the other and Hubby and Sampson would be about half way in between.  Also at the far end of the room was my friend Dave with his dog Molly.

I had put the kibble in the bag and was throwing the wrapper out when I heard Molly, for no apparent reason let out a noise, which if I really think about it, sounded like a howl.  Whatever it was, it scared the Bejesus out of my little Diva who with no mommy to reassure her she was ok, sprinted across the room for daddy.  Needless to say the entire class burst into laughter, while I walked in saying, “What?”

Yes, my dogs DO make me laugh on a daily basis.

Book update:  My book has 11,324 words.

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