Heart Like a Dog

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

The PAWS Act – Blog The Change

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When I first saw that Bayer was one of the sponsors of BlogPaws, I thought, “What the hell is Bayer doing at a Pet Blogging Conference?”

I know my dogs can sometimes be a PITA with their shenanigans, but really? And if that’s what their pitch was, why wasn’t there any aspirin in my swag bag?

What I didn’t know is that Bayer makes products for animals, and they’re expanding that line! Two of their products I’m already familiar with, the Seresto flea and tick collar, and Drontal, which is a de-wormer for pets.

When you attend BlogPaws, one of the items in your swag bag is a “passport.” The passport lists all the sponsors in the exhibition hall, and if you stop at the booths and have a certain amount of sponsors sign your passport, you can enter into drawings for some pretty awesome things. (I’m sorry I can’t show you one, I turned mine in.) 🙂

I was excited to find out, that besides their animal health product line, Bayer is really behind the #PAWSAct.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what it is, I didn’t either. But today, for my Blog The Change post, I’m going to tell you, and share their video.

Blog the Change for Animals

Blog the Change is a quarterly blog hop, when bloggers united by their love and passion for animals use their voices to try to make a change.

PAWS (Pet and Women Safety Act) is a bill that has been introduced in Congress, and its main goal is for the protection of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence, and support from emotional and psychological trauma from abuse against their pets.

The statistics make me sad.

  • 71% of women who enter a shelter indicate that their abuser had also abused their pet in some way. In some cases, the pet had actually been killed or maimed. I shudder at that thought.
  • 48% of domestic violence victims will stay with their abuser because they are concerned what will happen to their pets if they leave, and most domestic violence shelters do not accept pets.

You may recall that before she sold everything to live on a boat, Pamela from Something Wagging, fostered two dogs for a domestic violence survivor who entered a shelter.

The PAWS Act provides grant funding to assist domestic violence survivors with support services that include housing assistance and training, and this program also includes their pets!

Bayer had a tablet set up at their booth, where we could send pre-written letters to our Representatives in Congress, asking them to support this bill. Once we sent the letter, we could add a pin in our state on a map they had.  It was very cool.

Today for my Blog the Change post, I’d like to ask you to follow this link, and add your voice to the many who are already supporting this much needed bill.

My goal as a blogger is to be a voice for the voiceless, and I’m asking you to join me. Please, it will take you less than a minute to do so.

For those who can’t speak with their voice, and only with their hearts, I thank you.

The Smile Says It All

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Every once in a while, I’m reminded that no matter how hard you try and protect your pets, to do what’s best for them, dogs will still be dogs.

Take Sampson. Despite the fact that he’s had a partial CCL tear for 18 months, there are still days where he has that hitch in his giddyap. If he sees a squirrel or a cat on our walks, he can get to jumping and lunging around. That’s when I rein him in.

As much as I want to protect him, and keep him as comfortable as I can, there are days, when he just gets away from me.

Like yesterday. Delilah was at the door to go potty. I was sitting on the couch, trying to determine what I was going to post today.

Suddenly, there was a ruckus at the door, and I distinctly heard the sound of dogs bolting out the door. That’s dogs….like plural. Two dogs. Not just one. Two.

It took a minute for my brain to register, but when it did, I jumped up almost as quickly as they had bolted out the door.

And there, way up in the back of the yard, was Sampson! He went out the door, down the stairs, and up the fence line!

When he got back to the stairs, he looked at me, and I was totally prepared to help him up the steps, but then he gave me that look, and climbed stoically up the steps, then darted into the house and tried to initiate a wrestling session with Delilah!

At first I was ticked at myself for leaving the door open, but he was so proud and happy with himself, that I couldn’t help but share in that with him.

It’s not often that he gets the opportunity to cut loose, so those moments should be treasured.

The smile says it all.

 

Caption This Photo

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Every Labrador Retriever I’ve ever met, has been motivated by food. Like all dogs, some are more motivated by others.

Sampson is only part Labrador Retriever, so while he’s motivated for food, he’s never been one to go into the garbage, destroy used napkins or paper towels that had food on them, run off on a walk to eat bird seed from the neighbor’s yard, counter surf (except for when he was a puppy and went for the butter, and filet mignon, but who could really blame him for that? Not me.)

Unlike a certain Labrador Retriever who has done all of the above, and then some.

Honestly, her exploits are what legends are made of. Every self-respecting Labrador should aspire to eat at least half of what she has.

Okay, so I gave you the background, now here’s the task. While I was searching for a photo for today’s post, I came across this photo.

Now, I already have a caption in mind, but I want to hear what you think, and how you’d caption the photo. And just for a little background, that container she’s holding is what stores their raw food in the refrigerator. I had used the last of the food up, and stuck the container in the sink to wash it. Delilah took it OUT of the sink, and decided to wash it her way.

True story.

I have a friend, who met her current husband in a bar. It went down like this.

My friend Charlotte was visiting from Chicago. So the Hubs and I decided to take her out to our favorite bar for a drink. Hubs was shooting pool, so Char and I sat at the bar. The TV was on, but you couldn’t hear the sound, SO…I supplied the dialogue. But in a funny kind of way, because I like to make things funny. Well, there was a guy at the bar, and he was listening in, and we all were laughing, and the next thing I knew, I was standing up for them at their wedding.

What can I say? I like this kind of stuff….and I thought it might be fun to include you guys in it.

Sound like fun? Good.

Captioning contest will end Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 3:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, and I’ll announce the winner either Sunday the 16th, or Tuesday the 18th.

Oh and to make this a bit more fun, SO…The person who has what I consider the best caption, will receive a $15 Amazon card.

And go!

 

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