Heart Like a Dog

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

Rain Rain, Go Away…(Day Eighty Seven)

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We awoke this morning to one of winter’s bleary, rainy days.  A day where you don’t want to even get out of bed, let alone go outside.  That is exactly how Sampson and Delilah felt this morning.

Traditionally they will not go outside when it is raining, no amount of explaining that they are water dogs, can convince them otherwise (except if we are hiking).  Delilah will eventually go out; do her business and quickly come in.   Sampson wants no part of it whatsoever, he will walk out onto the screen porch, sniff the air, look outside and you can almost hear him say, “eff this.”  He will turn around and come back in the house without going to the bathroom and he can hold it for a very long time.  Once I swear he held it for 18 hours.

I thought I was going to have a hard time getting them outside, so I stood by the door and told them, you don’t want to go outside, it’s raining.  Oh what is that?  Are you going to get it?  Ready, are you ready?   And I opened the door and said GO!  They shot outside like I shot them from a cannon.  Sweet deal, I had a few minutes to get myself together.

If you haven’t gathered as much by now, my dogs are spoiled, once we realized they hate to get wet we started keeping a towel by the door, so we can dry them off as they come in.  It is also really handy when it’s muddy outside to wipe their feet so they don’t drag mud through the house.  This morning they were outside for a very long time, so I went out on the porch, held up the towel and said, “I have a towel.”  They both came running. 

Here is Sampson, loving the rubbing!

Oh that feels so good.

Dogs and Rocks (Day Eighty-Five)

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I am either coming down with something, or my allergies are kicking in; I am not feeling so hot right now so therefore I have no motivation to write.  I wonder how much of this can be attributed to all of the pet sites I keep discovering, it makes me doubt myself and my ideas.  Will I ever become a writer?  Will I be able to share my dog with the world? Do I have the drive and desire to push forward?  These are questions I have for myself that I will need to really to think about, so until I throw in the towel; I write.

Currently my computer is transferring about 2500 pictures from Chet’s computer to mine, once that is done I intend on weeding through them and seeing what I have out there.  In the meantime, I decided to share a couple of pictures with stories.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Sampson loves to hike.  He listens fairly well, so we allow him off leash.  Back before Delilah joined our pack; we hiked at least once a weekend, if not twice.  We like hiking in the woods and have found a number of places in the area where we can do this.  One of these places is Risley Reservoir.  Sampson likes to run ahead, but he never gets too far, sometimes he runs back to us or sometimes he waits.  In this instance he waited, and this is how we found him:

Life on the Rock...

This next picture is the day that Delilah became a part of our family, notice my red rimmed eyes (it was a day from hell!)  Someday I will write down the story of Delilah and how she came to us, but the short of it is she came from Tennessee via a converted horse trailer.  She was wild from being penned up for so long and she smelled.  Lynn and I managed to give her a bath, which she absolutely hated and then she tore around the house acting like a total menace.  Sampson wouldn’t go near her, and I felt bad because I would have to return her.  I cried the majority of the day.

She looks so sweet right here...

 

Finally while Chet was grilling some food, Sampson and Delilah started to play, I started to cry because I knew then, it would be ok.  The poor thing was so exhausted from the trauma of the previous 24 hours but she was refusing to lay down.  She was sitting up with her eyes closed and her body would start to relax but then she would catch herself, like she was afraid to sleep.  I coaxed her to me and petted and rubbed her until she finally gave in to exhaustion and slept.  I think I probably cried.

Poor baby

Day Eighty Four-Tails, Trails and Chipmunks

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Some days this blog comes very easily to me in terms of what I want to write about.  Today is not one of those days.

What I decided to do is to post a couple of pictures of the dogs and write a little bit about them.

Tails:

Lately I have been finding that some of my favorite photos are of the backs of the dogs, while they are looking at something.  In this picture they were  in the doorway of the porch looking at a beautiful spring day. 

What does the day hold?

 

Trails:

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures.  It is of Chet and Sampson when we were hiking at Valley Falls in Vernon, I liked this picture so much that I had it enlarged to an 8 x 10 and I had it printed, mounted and framed.  The technique makes it look like the picture was painted instead of photographed.  Sampson absolutely adores hiking and when I look at this picture, I see a happy dog.

What lies ahead...

 

Chipmunks:

We have a couple of chipmunks in the yard, they have a little “highway” system, through holes, drainpipes etc.  One of their favorite places to hide is under the deck in front of the french doors.  One of Delilah’s favorite places to wait for those chipmunks is right in front of the french doors.  As soon as she sees one, she loses her mind and rushes to the door, charging through it at full speed, barking and growling.  Of course, she is warning the chipmunk that she is coming, but no amount of pep talking can convince her that this isn’t the way to capture this chipmunk.  Sometimes I swear that chipmunk knows she is waiting, I can almost see him flipping her the finger before he ducks under the deck.

Which way did he go?

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