Heart Like a Dog

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

Where The Wild Things Are…Day One Hundred and Thirty

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Chet was outside working in the yard; I went out to ask him something and I noticed the neighbor’s dog.

Notice the tail....

Immediately I thought, “Isn’t the dog a little old to have his tail docked?”  Then Chet told that the dog had gotten loose and gone to the park at the top of the street and came back missing his tail.  Something ferocious that is not afraid to attack a large dog lives in the woods at the top of the street.  The poor dog had bite marks all over his tail.  The neighbor told Chet the story and also indicated, “This dog does not back down from a fight.” 

I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out.  Without knowing the entire story, such as the time of day the dog got away, if it was gone overnight etc…it makes me a little nervous taking my dogs up to the woods.  I’m not entirely certain that Delilah wouldn’t want to try to fight. I do carry  Pepper Blaster II and had really thought about it more for protection against the two-legged predator as opposed to the four.  From what I’ve read, it should work on a wild animal.

 I wonder what kind and size of animal might be up in the woods and hungry and vicious enough to take on a large dog.  I know you can’t tell from the picture but this is a decent size dog; I would say somewhere in the weight range between Delilah (78 pounds) and Sampson (97 pounds.)

Chet said he thinks the dog is part Chow....that is nothing to fool with.

I’m very grateful that most days/evenings Chet goes walking with us, still I’m a wee bit  nervous about taking my dogs to where the wild things are.

Meet and Greet…(Day One Hundred and Twenty)

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What do you want your pet to do when you are walking or hiking and meet another person that does not have a dog?

What I want is for my dog to ignore that person unless they express an interest in meeting my dog.  The last thing I want (which happened to Chet on Sunday) is for my dog to go charging happily towards someone and jump at them.  Good thing Chet is a big guy, cause that chocolate lab could have really knocked him down and hurt him.

That being said, I would like to share two experiences that recently happened when we encountered “dogless” people.  The area we walk our dogs is owned by the town and has a small town garage on premises; as we were leaving the park we noticed that a man was at the garage removing some stored items.  Since we saw him well in advance, we called the dogs to us and leashed them.  Then we started to walk past;  Delilah got a little bit antsy, so Chet said walk on the other side of me, which we did.  I am here to tell you that if I could have picked my dog up and danced with her that is exactly what I would have done.  She was spot on perfect!  She walked slightly ahead of me, tail and head held high and never looked once at that man!  I wanted to buy her a filet mignon!   Exactly what I expect from her.

The other experience happened today; we met an older man on the trail, I saw him first so I called the dogs to me and made them sit as he approached.  I put one finger through each of their collars and told them to stay.  After the man had passed us, he stopped to inquire about the dogs, after a minute or so I let the dogs free and they ran on ahead completely ignoring him.  Of course, Sampson had to run back to the man and get a pat, but he did it very cautiously and respectfully; I couldn’t have asked for more.

New Horizons….Day One Hundred and Nineteen

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Today when we went to take our hike, there was a woman who was walking up to the park with her two dogs; the problem for me was that she was on her cell phone.  This is the third time we have encountered this woman and all three times, she was on her cell phone.  Don’t get me wrong, if I need to be on my cell phone when I am out, I will be; but for me it is more important that my dogs and the trails have my full attention.

We quickly got the dogs running into the park and huffed and puffed our way up the hill; we jumped on the orange trail and followed it completely around; whew what a workout.  The dogs did really well, at one point we could see two guys and a dog on the trail but they were some distance away, we stopped and made the dogs stop, and then I continued on towards our destination; Delilah immediately followed me, but Sampson was sorely tempted to go and greet the other dog.  Eventually he headed back onto the orange trail with us.

Then we got to the open field and there was a group of three people standing in the middle, naturally the dogs wanted to head that way and we tried to distract them, but the people were headed to our side of the field, and so it was inevitable the dogs went to greet the people.  This is something we will work on, because some people don’t like dogs (GASP!) and don’t like to encounter a dog charging at them on their walks!

Still it was a very enjoyable walk and the dogs got to check out some new places.

New Horizons

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