Heart Like a Dog

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

Good Girl Delilah!

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Our next door neighbor’s dog is chained up outside.  Not in the way you typically think of a dog chained up.  Since their yard is not fenced in, when Gunner has to go out he goes out on a chain, he is not left out there all day and night long.

My experience with dogs that are chained is if the opportunity ever presents itself, they will take off and go exploring.  Gunner is no exception.  As far as I can tell he is not a mean dog, he never barks at my dogs even though the two fools are barking their heads off at him.

I really don’t know what kind of dog Gunner is, I know he is black with longish fur and probably a bit smaller than my dogs.  If truth be told, he sort of looks like a Grim from Harry Potter.  Siriusly.

Last night he got loose.  I could hear my neighbor out their calling him, but he didn’t care, he was too busy enjoying his freedom. 🙂

Hubby and I were planning on walking the dogs around the block when he got home.  I was kind of nervous about Gunner being on the loose and running into him on our walk.  Since Delilah can get so snarky on her leash, I try to avoid other dogs.

Luckily for us we didn’t run into Gunner, BUT the dogs in the house with the invisible fence were out, at least the one that likes to run back and forth barking, you know the one who gets Delilah’s dander up.

Thankfully when the dogs are out their porch light is on which usually gives me the heads up.  Although sometimes we can’t see the dogs until we are almost upon them, because the part of the yard that runs along the road is in shadow.

Delilah you may recall is on the 30 foot leash, so I pulled it in and gave her maybe about 12 feet.

Normally even when the dogs aren’t out she lifts her head up and looks over there, looking for some action.  I try not to yank her instead I will try to guide her toward me with the leash and say, “This way” or “leave it.”

I just have to tell you how damn proud I am of her, the dog was barking and running back and forth and she looked over and I said, “Leave it.”  She turned back to the grass and even though the hair at the base of her tail raised up a bit, she walked calmly away.

No barking, no yanking, no growling.  She just walked away.

Yup, I Tebowed right in the road. 🙂

Book update:  Still at 12,303 words.

 

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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