Heart Like a Dog

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

W.T.F./Whoo Hoo Wednesday

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Here comes another W.T.F. Wednesday where I can’t even make fun of someone.

Police Dog in Tucson Dies After Being Left in Hot Car – Tucson Arizona

The title alone is awful, another dog left alone in a hot car.

In Tucson no less!

The line under the title is worse, “Officer switched cars, forgot about his partner.”

Say it with me.

What the f*ck!

Apparently this police officer switched cars and left immediately for the scene of an accident, as he’s on his way to the scene he suddenly remembers his partner.

Gee, I’m thinking you go to get into the car and think, weapon – check, keys – check, cell phone – check, billy club – check, partner ?, um partner ?

If I worked for the Tucson police department and was assigned to partner with this guy, I’d think long and hard about resigning.

I’ve already said this once this week,  I’m in the mentalpause stage of my life.  I’ve forgotten quite a few things, most notably inanimate objects that I’ve misplaced somewhere.

Alright, I might have forgotten the kids at work once or twice, and there was that time I left my niece home on the couch while I went to the bus stop, but they weren’t locked in a hot car!

I was reassured however (she says sarcastically) by the final line of the article, “DPS is conducting an internal investigation, and Tucson Police Dept. has agreed to do a criminal investigation to determine whether there was any negligence or other criminal behavior involved.”

I’m sure, unless this guy hates dogs that he did not intentionally leave the dog in the hot car.  I would still however question his abilities to remain calm under pressure.  If he can forget his dog in a car because he is responding to an accident, what might he do should he discover say….

a tunnel full of illegal immigrants.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Switching gears to the Whoo Hoo portion of today’s post which ironically also includes a police officer.

There have been a number of W.T.F. Wednesdays where I wrote about a police officer responding to a call and shooting an innocent dog.   Have you seen this post?

Officer Responds To Dangerous Dog Call, Comes Home With New Best Friend – Baltimore, Maryland (Courtesy of Modified k9 Blogspot)

The officer (Dan Waskiewicz) responded to a ‘vicious dog‘ call and upon arriving at the scene OBSERVED the dog.

After ASSESSING the situation he determined the dog was in distress.  He called the dog to him and shared his water, then as he was driving the dog to the shelter, he decided he wanted to keep the dog!

Luckily for Bo, this officer was 1) a dog lover and 2) sensible enough to know the difference between dangerous and distressed, otherwise this story might have ended up in the W.T.F. portion of this post.

Lately I’ve been hearing at least one story a week where an officer shoots an innocent dog. Perhaps observing and assessing should become part of their training.

What do you think?  Do you think police officers are properly trained to handle situations involving dogs?

The Correct Way

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Tonight during our training class the instructor said, “Hold the leash the correct way.”

What?

Back the truck up a bit, you mean there’s a correct way to hold a leash?

Well dip me in ice and call me a popsicle, I had no idea.

But apparently one of the show-offs other students, knew the correct way, and she promptly showed off us.

Our instructor says your thumb goes through the leash and you can then accordion the leash into your hand.  The leash goes in the opposite hand of the side your dog is on.  So if your dogs heels on your left side, the leash is in your right hand and vice versa.

The leash is loose and forms a slight ‘J,’ if your dog gets too far ahead you use your left arm to control the dog.

The instructor says this works better than wrapping the leash around your fist, and also gives you better control.

Did you know this?  Why didn’t anyone tell ME?

Our instructor also fit Delilah for a harness tonight, she says it will help with her pulling.  We didn’t get outside to practice though because it was too hot.

Do you use a harness on your dog?  Have you always used a harness or did you switch?  Have you found it makes a difference?

Monday Mischief

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I’m in that Mentalpause phase of my life.

If you haven’t experienced this yet, enjoy it while it lasts.

If you’re like me though, you will know exactly what I mean when I say, I’m constantly misplacing things.

There are four things I can never find in my house

1) Cell phone

2) Camera

3) Dog collars

4) Treat bag

No I didn’t forget the keys, I remedied that by putting a bowl close by the door and MOST days, that’s where the keys go.

In order to make my life easier I try to always put things in the same spot so they are readily available for future use.  I’ve taken to setting the dog’s collars on a little shelf in the kitchen and the treat bag I hang inside the food closet.

Until I don’t.

Saturday morning I couldn’t find Sampson’s walking collar or the treat bag.  I remembered using both the day before but couldn’t remember where I’d put them.

The collar was the bigger mystery, because I figured either Delilah or Bob had found the treat bag, but a quick search of the house before our walk turned up nothing. 🙁

I do have nice collars for Sampson and Delilah that I use when they are going to daycare or to the vets, etc.  But the old buckle collar is what we use for walking in the woods.

I had no choice, I broke out the nice collar.

When we came back from our walk I went on the hunt for the missing items.  I remembered seeing the buckle collar on Friday because I had removed his tag holder so I could add his newest town registration tag to it.  I remembered standing right at the counter using the pliers to try and wrench the old one off.

I looked down at the counter and the pliers were still sitting there, so I opened the drawer.

Viola, there was the collar.

The only thing left missing was the treat bag.

Delilah tends to be a creature of habit, when she gets a hold of something she’s not supposed to have she takes it to one of three places.

1) Her crate turned up empty.

2) The dog bed in the bedroom turned up empty.

3) The rug in the living room had no evidence of the treat bag, but when I lifted my eyes up, I found it sitting next to the dog’s couch.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like now.

Yeah, it’s a treat bag, what of it?

As you can see from the photo, the treat bag had not a speck of treats left in it and yes, it is inside out which is exactly how I found it.  You may also notice it now has quite a few holes in it.

I’m pretty sure I can rule out Bob.  Notice his nonchalance in the background. 🙂

What kind of Mischief have you been up to?

This is the Monday Mischief blog hop hosted by Snoopy’s Dog Blog, My Brown Newfies, Luna a Dog’s Life and Alfie’s Blog.  You can get your link at any of the listed blogs.

Hop on, hop on.

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