Heart Like a Dog

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

Down Stays

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A couple of days ago I shared a video of Delilah with her recall.

True confession, I am a lazy busy dog owner.  I don’t work on training my dogs nearly as often as I should.  Honestly most days I am overwhelmed with the simple chores I need to complete.

Which is why I take the opportunity to work my dogs in every day moments.

When we eat dinner the dogs are on their ‘places,’ these used to be mats I made specifically for each dog, but in my laziness busy life I have simply replaced the mats with a rug.  (Truthfully, this also covers a horribly stained and damaged portion of the rug and looks much nicer than two rumpled mats.)

Delilah isn’t the best at staying on her ‘place.’ When we ‘place’ her and leave the room to get our dinners she will more than likely move off her designated spot.

Noticed how relaxed Sampson is....Delilah will never do that.

She is also not good with staying on her ‘place’ while we eat dinner, although we have found that if she is fed before us (no, I don’t buy into the “I must eat before the dog” deal) she usually does much better at sticking with it.

There are also days where she has moved two or three times during dinner and I end up putting her in her crate, or I will ask, “Do you want to go to your crate?” and she will oblige me.

Then there are other days (like a busy daycare day) where she will get up and go lie down on the couch.  Those are the times when we look at each other and laugh.

I know, bad dog parents!  We should make her come down off the couch and do what we said.

Whatever, as long as her face isn’t in my plate of food I don’t care if she goes to the couch.

Don’t judge.

There is however one event in our daily routine where I work on her down stay. It is when I get her Kong snack out of the freezer.  Before I even open the door she must ‘down.’  Then I take the bowl with both Kongs in it out of the freezer and I walk away, while she must ‘stay.’

Slowly I have been increasing the time that I am away from her.  I will walk into the living room and stop in front of the fireplace, look at my watch for ten seconds, then walk back and release her.

Saturday night Hubby said, “Remind me tomorrow I want a video of it, she is so cute.”

So last night I reminded him and he recorded the video.  I left her long enough to go into the living room and turn the volume down on “Twister.” (That is one movie I can watch over and over again, and I don’t know why.  It just draws me in like a train wreck.)

My best guess is she was ‘down’ and ‘staying’ for close to 35 seconds and I was out of her sight for at least 25 of them.

I think this works because she really wants that Kong, it is something she only gets once a day.  But I figure the better she gets at this, the better she will get with all her stays.

One can hope anyway.

Oh and sorry about the Pj’s.  I’m almost always in my Pj’s by 9:00 pm. 🙂

Book update: My book has 13,906 words.

Let Me Rip It, Let Me Tear It.

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Yes, the title is referencing a Harry Potter book.

I was in the bathroom this morning getting ready for work and listening to the dogs wrestle.  Sampson and Delilah are very verbal when they wrestle and if someone didn’t know better, they might think they were fighting.

Their play usually involves a lot of “Arghhhh” and growling, and this morning there was even some barking.  There is also play bowing and laying on their backs, twisting with joy.

Their play doesn’t usually last very long, maybe for five or ten minutes, but the sounds of them playing fill my heart with joy.  Many times when they wrestle at night Hubby and I just stop what we are doing and watch them, it is that joyful for us.

As I was applying my make-up, listening to them play I thought back to last night’s post about what a fantastic job Delilah did on her walk and how their antics had provided me with basically a year’s worth of blog material.

I thought wow, she’s doing good on her walks and decent on her recalls in the woods, what am going to be blogging about?

I heard the sound of something being ripped, and even though we buy them inexpensive toys that can be torn apart I always like to check.

Good thing.

Sampson's Bed

Yup, that’s Sampson’s bed, the one he occasionally sleeps on.  At one time I had two of these but you know how beds go.  The dogs dig at them and eventually they wear out.  I had noticed it had a small hole in it a couple of weeks ago and a bit of the stuffing had been sticking out, but I didn’t think anything of it.

Apparently Delilah had noticed it too.

I guess you’re stuck with me.

Book update: I’m still at 12,303 words.

Inquiring Minds

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Like most of you (I’m pretty sure) I love the weekend.  Although mine do tend to fill up quickly, what with house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping etc.

In the midst of all the chaos that comes with my weekend, I try really hard to get the dogs out for a couple of nice long walks.  Most of the time I try to get them out for at least an hour each day.

I am really looking forward to the longer days when I can come home and grab them after work and take some long walks, while Hubby stays home and cooks on the grill. 🙂

I can’t always connect with my walking pal during the week (at least not right now) but on the weekends whenever possible, we try to get the dogs all out together.

While she only has Brady, she very frequently has her friend’s dog, Kodak.  All the dogs get along pretty well with the exception sometimes of Sampson whose been getting a little bit snarkier the older he gets. 🙁

Saturday we had all the dogs out and walked them around the woods for an hour and twenty minutes, it was awesome.  It’s nice to have someone to chat with while walking and I hate to say it because I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, but I really feel Delilah does much better with a larger pack of dogs.

When all the dogs take off through the woods chasing a herd of deer, nine out of ten times Delilah is the first one back after being called.  She’s been doing so good I’m actually considering cutting her leash down to fifteen feet.

When we aren’t walking with the other dogs, I hold her leash in certain areas and in other areas I let it drop, for the most part she is always in my sight and if they get too far ahead of me, I call them back.

She’s been pretty good about returning and I am very generous with the treats.  I’m a firm believer in treating and I don’t care if I have to carry treats with me all the time as long as my dogs return when I call them.   Judge me if you want, I’m tough. 🙂

So here’s my question, I’ve never trained a dog using the long leash before.  Have you?  How long did you keep them on the long leash?  Did you slowly cut the leash back or did you just stop all together.

Inquiring minds want to know. 🙂

Book update:  My book has 11,023 words.

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