Heart Like a Dog

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

Inquiring Minds

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Like most of you (I’m pretty sure) I love the weekend.  Although mine do tend to fill up quickly, what with house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping etc.

In the midst of all the chaos that comes with my weekend, I try really hard to get the dogs out for a couple of nice long walks.  Most of the time I try to get them out for at least an hour each day.

I am really looking forward to the longer days when I can come home and grab them after work and take some long walks, while Hubby stays home and cooks on the grill. 🙂

I can’t always connect with my walking pal during the week (at least not right now) but on the weekends whenever possible, we try to get the dogs all out together.

While she only has Brady, she very frequently has her friend’s dog, Kodak.  All the dogs get along pretty well with the exception sometimes of Sampson whose been getting a little bit snarkier the older he gets. 🙁

Saturday we had all the dogs out and walked them around the woods for an hour and twenty minutes, it was awesome.  It’s nice to have someone to chat with while walking and I hate to say it because I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, but I really feel Delilah does much better with a larger pack of dogs.

When all the dogs take off through the woods chasing a herd of deer, nine out of ten times Delilah is the first one back after being called.  She’s been doing so good I’m actually considering cutting her leash down to fifteen feet.

When we aren’t walking with the other dogs, I hold her leash in certain areas and in other areas I let it drop, for the most part she is always in my sight and if they get too far ahead of me, I call them back.

She’s been pretty good about returning and I am very generous with the treats.  I’m a firm believer in treating and I don’t care if I have to carry treats with me all the time as long as my dogs return when I call them.   Judge me if you want, I’m tough. 🙂

So here’s my question, I’ve never trained a dog using the long leash before.  Have you?  How long did you keep them on the long leash?  Did you slowly cut the leash back or did you just stop all together.

Inquiring minds want to know. 🙂

Book update:  My book has 11,023 words.

The Importance Of Business Cards

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Do you have a business card for yourself?  Your blog?

I made a card up for myself for my “Along Came Sampson” website.

The card was made up with this picture on it.

The front of the card  says, “DO YOU KNOW SAMPSON” and it lists his website address along with my name.  On the back of the card, I have my e-mail address, my cell phone number and this blog address.

I had these cards made up when I was focused on my children’s book, “Along Came Sampson.”  I still have the website, but I really don’t do much with it, instead my focus has changed and I now work pretty diligently on this blog.

The reason I bring all this up is, today when I was at the grocery store I stopped at the Deli.  I ordered some all beef bologna and the man who was taking my order asked how thick I wanted it.  I told him the thickness and indicated it was for the dogs.

“Oh, what kind of dog do you have?”

“They’re labs.”

His eyes lit up, “You don’t happen to be a breeder do you?”

Turns out he’s been looking for a lab for months, he’s looked at the lab rescue sites but has been put off because the dogs are from out of state and he wants to meet the dog before he adopts it.

I get that.  So I said, “Here’s my card, I know the woman who does placements for Labs 4 Rescue and I know they have dogs in CT.  There are also options of fostering to adopt.”

Turns out he’d never thought of that.

Now, if I hadn’t had my card I could still have given him my information, but I would have had to write it on the back of a receipt or something.  This way he has my name, number, e-mail addy and blog address all in one place.

If you don’t have a card for your blog, Vista Print does a really nice job and you can get 250 cards for $10 which includes shipping.  I don’t think that’s a bad deal at all.  In fact, I’m thinking of ordering myself some more cards with the focus on this blog.  I’m not really sure whether I will keep the Along Came Sampson website or not.

If you don’t have cards for your blog, do you think you could benefit from having cards?  If you do have cards, do you use them and have you found them to be beneficial?

Book update, still the same.

Who's Eating The Cat Food?

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post for this special announcement.

I forgot all about the Mr. Chewy giveaway!!  After putting the comments thru random.org, the winner of the Mr. Chewy $50 gift certificate is…..drum roll please…..Mami2jcn .  Please send me your e-mail address and I will send you all the details!

Weekends are tough in my house, if I don’t have anywhere special to be it’s very easy for me to sit on the couch with my computer in my lap and just….well sit.

Hubby left early to go work on his jeep, so when I got up I fed the dogs and then Bob, made myself a cup of tea and fired up the laptop.

I was intently involved in catching up on some blog reading when a weird sound penetrated my concentration.  It was the distinct sound of a dish tapping against the wall, which meant Bob had his dish against the wall and was working it pretty good.  Then I looked up and saw Bob sitting in front of me.

Damn it Delilah!  Then I saw Delilah curled up on the couch.

When Delilah joined our pack I had hoped that some of Sampson’s good behavior would rub off on her, I certainly didn’t expect some of her bad habits to rub off on him!

He had pushed the gate that keeps the dogs out of the room in on one corner and was lying on the floor eating what was left of poor little Bob’s cat food.

I know I found it hard to believe myself, so I took a picture as proof.

If you look closely you can see how the gate is pushed in on the bottom left.

How is it that bad habits rub off, but good ones don’t?

Book update: It is the same as yesterday.

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