Heart Like a Dog

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

Is She Going To Fart and…

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I talk to my dogs all the time. In fact, I talk to them like they can understand me.

But sometimes, sometimes I just can’t believe the things that come out of my mouth.

Like Friday when Delilah farted and I said to her, stand up when you do that, I want to get that on video.

I'm not bad, I'm just photographed that way.

I’m not bad, I’m just photographed that way.

Let me back track a bit.

Friday when I came home from work, I discovered Delilah had eaten some bubble gum. I typically don’t have bubblegum in the house, but I’d bought some for my grandchildren for their Easter baskets and left three pieces on the top of my desk.

The top of my desk, which is a good 4 feet high. It had been sitting there for the entire week, but for some reason on Friday, Delilah decided to climb on the top of my desk and eat the gum.  

Wrappers and all.

Of course I panicked.  I know certain sugarless gums contain ingredients that can be deadly to dogs.  

While I was dialing the vet’s office, I was looking up the ingredient list online.  As best I could tell there was nothing that could harm her, but better safe than sorry.

Most of the time when I call the vet’s office a person answers the phone, but there are occasions when the staff is busy and an answering machine picks up.  The spiel is if you can leave a message please do so, if you feel you have an emergency press zero.

I pressed zero.  

Me, after identifying myself: Yes, Delilah ate bubble gum. 

Vet tech: How much gum did she eat?

Me: I think it was about three pieces. With the wrappers.

Vet tech: What kind of gum was it? Did it have Xylitol in it?

Me: It was sugarless Bubble Yum, original flavor. I don’t think it had Xylitol, but she ate the wrapper too, I’m on the website and I don’t think it does.

Vet tech: Hold on a minute, let me ask the vet.

Vet tech: How is she acting?

Me: She seems fine. 

Vet tech: Okay, let me talk to the vet and check the information we have.

Half a minute passes.

Vet tech: Okay, I checked the information we have and that gum had no Xylitol in it, Dr. B says Delilah should be fine, but just keep an eye on her.

Me: Is she going to fart and blow a bubble out her butt?

Vet tech laughing: Oh my god, that would be awesome.  No, no she shouldn’t, but if by chance she does, make sure you get a picture of it, I’m pretty sure it would make you some money.

Me: I bet it wins America’s Funniest Videos.

Flash forward a half an hour.  I’m in the kitchen prepping dinner.  Delilah saunters in and sits down.  As is her custom when she sits in the kitchen, she farts.

Which is when I say, stand up when you do that, I want to catch that on video.

And for the record, she did not fart and blow a bubble out her ass.  Truthfully, I’m kind of disappointed, I imagine I could have got a lot of mileage out of that one.

Teach by Example

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Teach by Example:

Monday afternoon I went home on lunch to walk the dogs.  I typically walk the dogs at lunch, mostly because there are far less people and dogs out at that particular time of day, and after work I tend to get busy.

I changed into walking clothes, hitched the dogs up and headed out the door.  As soon as our feet touched the stoop I heard my neighbor say to her young grandson, “Get Gutter.” (Gutter is the name of their dog and he likes to roam the neighborhood.  Incidentally, he was found in the gutter many years ago, hence his name.)

The boy reached for Gutter and Gutter…well you know what dogs do when you chase them.  Gutter left his yard and crossed the street.

Notice I'm standing on the side with the hand that DIDN'T go in her mouth.

He looked both ways didn’t he?  You know you have to look both ways before crossing the street.

I turned around, put the dogs back inside the house and offered my solution, “I have treats.”

“Oh, that might work,” said the grandmother.

I suggested the boys break up the Lamb Lungs and toss them toward Gutter.  Except the ground was a bit muddy and the grandmother said, nix, nix. She didn’t want the dog eating treats out of the mud.  (She’s never been on a walk with my dog.)

Then Grandma said, “He’s already been around the block, if we just go inside he’ll come back.” And so they went inside.

Meanwhile my lunch hour is ticking away.

Tick tock, tick tock.

I stood in the doorway with Sampson and Delilah all ready to go.

Gutter strolled over to the yard and started picking up bits of Lamb Lung.

Tick tock, tick tock.

The oldest boy came outside with a leash, if I had to guess his age I’d place him at about 7 or 8.  He reached for Gutter and Gutter once again moved away.

The child look up to me, I opened the door and walked towards him.  “Here try using the treat again.”  I handed him another bit of lung and stood on the stoop watching.

The child held the treat out.

Tick tock, tick tock.

“Take the damn treat Gutter,” I screamed silently from my perch on the stoop.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Suddenly the boy looked up at me, “I got him!”  He exclaimed.

“Good” I shouted back, “Give him another treat.”  (And get your dog inside, I’ve got a walk to take.) 🙂

Gutter is a wanderer.  He takes any opportunity to check out the hood.  I’m hoping the next time he’s close to home, the child will remember the success he had with treats and use those to lure him home.

I believe our children will be the change for animals and hope I have shown him by example a good way to interact with his dog.

Alternative titles: Tick tock, tick tock and Get Gutter

The New Puppy at Our House

My sister gave me a new puppy as an early birthday present.

I couldn’t believe it.  No-one has EVER given me a puppy as a gift.  Normally I would frown upon this, I mean, puppies are a lot of work and require a lot of commitment.

Everyone was excited to meet the new puppy too!  Even Hubby who thus far has been very against adding another dog to the pack. The best part is that the puppy looks exactly how Sampson looked when he was a puppy.

Our puppy was greeted enthusiastically by the dogs too.

Golden Lab

I know you said he looks like me, but I can’t see the resemblance.

Sadly it turns out that Puppy is an outside dog.

Heart Like a Dog

Welcome to this week’s edition of Barks and Bytes hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. Barks and Bytes is for anyone and everything! Please share the linky code in your post and if your blog does not support linky tools, please link back to either Linda or I.

The Exodus of the Worms

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Saturday morning Sampson, Delilah and I headed back to the scene of the crime. You know, the place where Delilah tried to kill me.

The day was mild enough and I was wandering along behind the dogs, enjoying the smell of early spring on wet grass (it had rained the night before) and of course keeping my eyes sharp for challenges.

There are a LOT of dogs in and around our neighborhood on e-fences.  I know where most of them are and do my best to cross the street so we are not on the same side.  (It makes wrangling easier, if we are across the street from the barking dog.) Sampson and Delilah are really good about it, all I say is, cross the street and they willingly oblige.

This probably explains why I didn’t notice it right away, because the street we were on has dogs on the e-fence on both sides of the street, but only about one house apart.  Yes, it WAS early, but one never knows when someone will open their door and just let the dogs out.

Who let the dogs out?

Woof, Woof, Woof, Woof.

Sorry, that song got stuck in my head for a minute.  Now it’s stuck in yours.  You’re welcome.

Anyway, we were just passing the second house when I looked down in the street and noticed the…worms.  There were a lot of worms in that one particular spot.  Then I looked around me.  There were more worms and even more worms, everywhere in the street I looked, I saw worms.

Worms making mass exodus

See how the worm turns?

Now I’m not necessarily a screamer.  I mean if I see one ant or spider crawling in the house, I calmly kill it.  But if I lift up a paper and 100 ants run at me, odds on favorite, I’m going to scream.

Like a girl.

So when I looked around me and saw I was literally surrounded by worms, I had to hold back a scream.  I mean, it was a war zone for worms.

It reminded me of Tremors. Except these worms weren’t that big.  THANK DOG. And they weren’t popping up out of the ground swallowing things either.  Phew, that’s a weight off.

You know when you have a heavy rain storm that brings down a whole bunch of twigs and debris?  It looked like that.

At first I thought there must be hundreds of worms and then I looked around some more and realized there weren’t hundreds of worms, there were thousands of worms!

Exodus of worms

Oh look, it’s a worm. I wonder if you can eat them?

Sampson and Delilah could give two figs if they step on a worm or not, but I won’t knowingly step on a worm.

Abundance of worms

It’s like Twister.  With worms instead of colored squares.  And no, I’m not putting my hand down there.

I mean they’re SQUISHY.

Suddenly, I’m worried about where I’m putting my feet.  I mean, worms are slimey, and the road is wet.

What if I slip on a worm? Or slip on a worm and fall?  Then I’ll be lying in the wet road, surrounded by worms.

Why oh why couldn’t I discover the worms when I got to the end of the street?  Why did I have to see them in the beginning?  Now I had to walk the entire street, trying to play Dodge Ball with worms.

UGH.

I’ve never seen so many worms at one time.  Nor do I ever want to again to be truthful.  But it did get me wondering, just what all those worms were doing in the street. I mean, do they have a Mardi Gras for worms?  

I looked for beads, nothing.

Hubby said it was because of the rain.  So I googled it.

Some people believe the worms come out of the ground in a hard rain to keep themselves from drowning.

“Dr. Dennis Linden, Cindy Hale, and other worm experts say that worms do NOT surface to avoid drowning. In fact, they come to the surface during rains (especially in the spring) so they can move overland. The temporarily wet conditions give worms a chance to move safely to new places. Since worms breathe through their skin, the skin must stay wet in order for the oxygen to pass through it. After rain or during high humidity are safe times for worms to move around without dehydrating. It is true that, without oxygen, worms will suffocate. But earthworms can survive for several weeks under water, providing there is sufficient oxygen in the water to support them.” Source

I also read that sometimes if it rains hard enough, the sound of the rain hitting the ground sounds like predators such as moles, and the worms will leave the earth to flee their predator. Source.

Makes me wonder if I should get a pet mole, just to stave off the worms.

Funny things dogs do.

A mole?  You can eat those right?

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