Heart Like a Dog

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

West Virginia Backwoods Hood-rat

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Warning: Rant ahead.

Oh yes I will.

Oh yes I will.

Last week I came as close as I’ve ever come to going West Virginia backwoods hood-rat on someone because of their off-leash dogs.

Here’s the scene.  Delilah and I are casing walking the neighborhood.  As I approach a house, I see a small brown head peeping out at me.  Just like little Ernie from FRANKly and ERNESTly speaking. 

Frankie and Ernie - FRANKly and ERNESTly Speaking

Frankie and Ernie – FRANKly and ERNESTly Speaking

Except this isn’t Ernie (and he wasn’t wearing bunny glasses.) Then I see another dog.  I pull Delilah in just a tiny bit closer, she’s paying no mind whatsoever to these dogs.  I hear the woman call one of the dogs, “Eli, Eli come here!”  I turn.  The little dog that looks like Ernie, is steadily, stealthily, coming at us.  Not barking or growling, just a dog on a mission.

The woman says, “Oh my God!  He’s going after her.”

At which point I turned around and snarled, “She will go after him!”  As if on cue, Delilah turns around, hair up and says, “RAR, RAR, RAR” which is dogspeak for “Get the woof away from my Mama.” Because I’m pretty sure she’s reacting to me reacting.

I spin my head forward urging Delilah to move away from the dog, but when I look ahead, here comes the other dog!  We’re trapped, being stalked by two weiner dogs, one from the front and one from the rear.  My heart is racing, I’m not sure what to do.  I reach around to my back pocket fumbling for my pepper spray when I realize those few seconds might  very well mean the difference between us getting away and a horrible altercation.  I urge Delilah to move faster and I yell over my shoulder, “GET YOUR DOGS!”

Delilah and I turn the corner and I hear the woman yell, “Sorry!”

The. Very. NEXT. Night. 

The next night Delilah and I head up the hill.  From about two houses away I see a small black bundle in the road, barking it’s fool head off.

Are you freaking kidding me? I say to myself as I turn around.  I look back and the small dog has run off.  Delilah and I turn back around and as I approach the area where we saw the dog, I see a woman working in her yard.  I call to her, “Is it okay to walk past?   Your dog won’t come after me?”

She indicates a pug sitting on the front steps and says, “Her? No.”

I say, “Well I saw a black dog just a moment ago.”

“That’s their dog,” she said pointing towards the house next door, ‘They just open the door and let it out, (don’t even get me started on this) he comes over and poops in my yard.  It’s not friendly,” she adds almost as an after thought.  

Great.  Just fucking great.  There’s a mean little dog with a Napoleon complex on my street.

I’ve worked super hard with Delilah to help her not react to other dogs.  Just the other day as we walked past a house, the garage door opened and out came a dog, who as soon as she saw Delilah started barking and running around like a nut.  Delilah gave her the dog equivalent of a raised eyebrow and turned to me for her cookie.  **Random useless thought…I call this look “the Legolas”   Legolas is an Elf in The Lord of the Rings and he rarely shows emotion, but sometimes he gets this quizzical look on his face and sort of raises his eyebrow. **End Random useless thought that is not relevant to this post.

I am the peeper, a sweet chocolate seeker.

I am the peeper, a sweet chocolate seeker.

I’ve also worked her hard on the dog in the e-fence who likes to peep at her.  There used to be two dogs there, the peeper and the posturer, but I haven’t seen the posturer in a while.  Still you can tell she’s watching for it as we approach the house and I usually just pull out a cookie and hold it in my hand as a redirect and we sail past it.  Except for the times she tries to get in front of me (but that’s a rant for another day.)

Back to the subject at hand.  I called the dog warden because my concern is one day I will not be able to prevent an altercation and I’m concerned that Delilah is going to be labeled as an aggressive dog and she is not.  I’m almost 100% sure she is reacting to me, who is freaking out that she will react.  I can change this.  It will take some work on my part, but I can do it.

Animal control did assure me in that situation, if Delilah (who would outweigh the dog by 60 pounds) were to hurt the dog, as long as she was on leash, licensed and up to date on shots, she would not be in trouble.  But that little dog very well could be.  

This is serious business people and one we’ve been writing about for what seems like forever, how do we get this message across?  It’s not just the dog that is being approached that is at risk, but the approaching dog could be injured or worse!

My next question is, what makes Delilah a target for these off-leash dogs?  But that my friends is a question (and quite possibly a ran) for another day.

Rant over.

 

The Sights, the Sounds, the Smell!!

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Spring is my favorite time of year.  I’m not sure if it’s because I was born in spring, but there is something about the new birth and the resiliency of life beginning afresh after a sometimes long and hard winter that I find simply amazing.

I love being able to open my windows and leave them open at night while I sleep, snuggled down under a blanket with a dog (or two) plastered against me.

I love the smells.  The smell of rain, dirt, freshly mowed grass and of course the flowers.

I love the sound.  I’ve really been enjoying walking Sampson early in the morning and listening to the birds whistle, warble and chirp back and forth to each other.

I love the colors.  The green of the earth contrasted against the blue of the sky.  The way the grass sparkles and glistens in the sun after a fresh spring rain, the explosion of colors from the flowers.

Hello, I'm supposed to be walking, not posing for pictures.

Hello, I’m supposed to be walking, not posing for pictures.

Yes, I love spring.

I’ve been noticing my dogs seem to be loving spring too.  So I asked them, Sampson, Delilah what’s your favorite part of spring?

Paws down Mama, it's the sunny and warm spots, perfect for snoozing.

Paws down Mama, it’s the sunny and warm spots, perfect for snoozing.

You are siriusly asking me that Mama? It's the smells Mama, the smells!

You are siriusly asking me that Mama? It’s the smells Mama, the smells!

Do you or your dogs have a favorite season?  What is it and why?

 

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

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Life with Sampson and Delilah has been keeping me very busy of late.

Sampson gets a walk in the morning and a walk at night, while poor Delilah has been limited to one walk in the evening.  The other night I was totally insane, feeling adventurous, thought maybe I could walk them both at the same time and then I could up Delilah to two walks a day also.

Walking one injured dog and one healthy dog.  Epic Fail.

Sampson is on a special harness designed to help him with not pulling, it is shorter than Delilah’s leash.  That’s the first challenge.   It works (mostly,) unless it’s a person that Sampson really wants to see or a bush he really wants to pee on and then nothing in the world will keep him from pulling me.  Delilah who walks amazing when it is just she and I also becomes a pulling machine when she’s competing (in her mind) with Sampson.  I found myself cursing profusely, came close to tears at least once and am pretty sure I yelled a couple of times.  I decided it was not worth the aggravation to try and save myself 20 minutes of time, so I went back to walking them singly.

With Delilah’s jaunts around the neighborhood I’ve been noticing all the little signs that indicate spring has arrived.  From the lush green of the grass that sparkles like diamonds after the rain, to the daffodils peeping their yellow faces upturned towards the warming sun, to the lovely forsythia bushes that take me back to my childhood having our Easter photos in my grandmother’s back yard.

So intent have I been on watching other people’s yards, I failed to notice the beauty in my own yard.

Saturday I was walking Delilah up the hill towards our house when I noticed my one of my rhododendron trees had flowered.  The poor trees took a horrible beating from the heavy winter snows and Hubby and I had to trim them quite extensively, yet they resiliently returned this year.

Sunday after a frustrating morning where Delilah 1) sat on me pinning me to the bed 2) licked at the box of necks I was defrosting and 3) drank my Irish Whiskey laced coffee, I determined to try and get a photo of her in front of the rhododendron tree.

She watched as I took two cookies and put them in my pocket and then she quickly followed me out the door and up the stairs to the back yard, where I positioned her underneath the tree and told her to stay.  I climbed down over the wall and she jumped down after me and looked expectantly for her cookie.

I brought her back up and told her again to stay.  This time she did.

You Mama, are a cookie tease. There are no cookies on this tree so why, pray tell am I setting here?

I was told there would be cookies.

I was trying to get as much of the tree as possible in the photo, but it required Delilah being too far away.

Still no cookie. WTD Mama? I want a cookie.

Still no cookie. WTW Mama? I want a cookie.

Even though she can be totally frustrating at times, there are other times when she shines like the diamond that she is.  Diamonds really are a girl’s best friend.

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