Heart Like a Dog

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

The Dogs of Blogville Calendar Contest

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The Dogs of Blogville Calendar contest is an online fundraising event to benefit two of our fellow bloggers.  Lauren from Life with Desmond and Roxanne from Champion of My Heart.

Lauren, her husband Joey and their dog Desmond were hit very heavily by Hurricane Sandy. They lost everything on the first floor of their house.

Lilly from Champion of My Heart is fighting a serious, extremely rare reaction to the Rabies vaccine.  Roxanne and her husband have spent thousands of dollars trying to save Lilly’s life.

My hope is the proceeds from this calendar contest/sale will help each of them in some small way.

You’ve waited very patiently for this contest and I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.  So let me set forth some guidelines.

  • This is a Dogs of Blogville Calendar, your photos should include dogs.  If a cat happens to be in a photo with the dog, that’s fine.  No pictures will be accepted with only cats in them.
  • Thirteen different dogs/blogs will be showcased on the calendar (one for the cover and one for each of the 12 months of the year.)
  • The 13 photos with the top votes will be included in the calendar.
  • Which photo is showcased for which month will be determined randomly.
  • Because of time constraints and fairness, only one photo per blog can be submitted. (I know in a previous post I said you could submit more than one, but I think it needs to be fair and we need to make sure that 13 different blogs are showcased.)
  • No photoshopping allowed.  The experienced photo shoppers that have offered to help will make the decision regarding editing of pictures.  For fairness the only editing that will be allowed will be removing unwanted items from the picture, cropping and adding text which will include the pet’s name(s) and the blog name and address.

If I submitted this photo, I would want the bag removed.

You can see how the bag spoils this picture.

 

  •  Photos should be submitted in jpeg format.
  • The photo should be original digitals, no scanned photos!
  • The submittal phase starts now and will run until midnight eastern standard time next Tuesday, November 13, 2012.
  • Pictures and voting will take place on this blog.
  • The voting process will run for a week.  I don’t as yet know which week, it will depend upon how many photos are submitted and how long it takes me to get them all organized.
  • Heart Like a Dog reserves the right to change or modify the rules as needed.
  • If a photo is deemed of poor quality we reserve the right to request a different photo.

I realize some people may have an advantage in promoting their picture.  Some of you have hundreds, if not thousands of blog subscribers, twitter and facebook followers, some people thrive on competition, I can’t change that.  I would just ask that you be kind to your fellow bloggers as you promote yourselves.

By submitting a photo for this contest, you agree to abide by the above stated rules.

So I suppose you want to know where to send your photos to?

Submit your photos to stone.jodi@ymail.com  be sure to include Calendar Contest in the subject line.

Make sure the name of your pets and the name and address of your blog are included in the body of the e-mail

Any questions?  Have you already picked out a picture?

 My book word count is 7,576

Laprador Retrievers

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There are certain spots on our walks where the dogs like to run off to investigate.  These areas are usually deep in the center of the woods, if I had to guess I would say it is where the deer sleep at night.  Either that or it’s the deer’s toilet, either way it’s worth investigating to Sampson and Delilah.

Since Sandy the Hurricane came through here last week there are even more limbs and branches down.   If the branch is on the smaller side, I or Hubby attempt to move it off trail.  Even so, there are still a number of areas where trees block the path.

If the dogs are close by me in these spots, I will usually approach and say, “Jump.”  I think it’s helpful to Delilah to understand the term in an area other than the agility ring.  (I could be wrong, but please…just humor me.)

Saturday Delilah decided to run off to investigate, she hopped over a bunch of branches that had to be about 3 1/2 feet high/wide.  I looked at Hubby and said, did you see that?  Her athleticism never ceases to amaze me.

Hubby said, she makes it look so easy too.

Saturday night Delilah did something that reminded me of an incident that took place at our other house.  That house has a lovely bay window.  I always dreamed of lining that window with pillows or cushions to make it a nice cozy reading area.  But I never did.

Delilah lived with us in that house for five months, before we moved to our current house.  She always gets super excited when we come home from work.

On this particular day I was already home and was sitting on the couch when Hubby pulled in.  Delilah ran, jumped and with one movement sat in the bay window like a cat would.

Did I have my camera ready?

Of course not.

But I did have it ready on Saturday.

 

What do you mean, I don’t fit? I’m a Laprador Retriever.

 

This is how dogs differ from people.  Dogs see something they want and they go for it, we see something we want and then we think of all the things that could prevent us from accomplishing our goal.

Dogs don’t have an understanding of can’t, they just do.  Some day I hope I have a heart like a dog.

Has your dog ever done anything that you never thought they would/could?  Please share in the comments.  Remember I may not be responding, but I’m reading them!!

My book count is at 6,863 words.

Ode To Fall

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I’ve mentioned before that fall is my favorite time of year.

I love the beauty that comes with the changing of the leaves.

I welcome the cooler air, which allows for cozy sweaters, cuddles by the fire and hot toddies.

I’m grateful the bugs seem to go into hiding.

There is one thing that comes with fall, that I’m less than thrilled with.

It gets dark too early, which means the wood walks that I love taking with Sampson and Delilah only happen on the weekends, or on the rare day I can steal a longer lunch.

Which means our weekend walks are something to be treasured.

I’ve been working Delilah really hard on her recall, she’s gotten so a good part of our walk in the woods is off-leash.  Granted there are certain areas that I simply can’t take the chance of her wandering somewhere she shouldn’t, so I call her to me and she stays on leash.

I can live with this.  I like the fact that she gets some off-leash time to really run, which should help her keep her weight down.

There are many times during our walk, when Delilah is off-leash, but still right next to me.

Yesterday the four of us headed up to the woods.  I let Delilah off-leash right away, only clipping her when we approached those danger zones.

At one point I realized that Sampson was on one side of me and Delilah was on the other.  I turned to ask Hubby if he could take a picture.

Would you mind taking our picture?

 

But he was already on it. 🙂

This my friends, is my ideal walk.

Do you have an ideal walk?  Do you love it when a plan comes together? 🙂

My current word count is 5,078.
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