Heart Like a Dog

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

Team Delilah

By

I wanted to share something really amazing that happened at Delilah (and my) training class last Tuesday.

The class is held in a smallish size gymnasium.  I’m very grateful the class is small because it gives us a bit of room to spread out and not be too close to another dog.

It was our next to the last class and Jackie, our instructor had a little Rally ring set up.  Just to give people a small taste of what Rally is all about.

Before we had the opportunity to do Rally, Jackie stated she was going to test us with our leave it command.  (Coincidentally this is also the class where I had my light bulb moment of everything I’ve been doing wrong, but that is a post for another day.)

I watched as Jackie, armed with a squeaky toy and a handful of treats approached each team in turn.  For whatever reason Delilah and I were last.  I stood facing Delilah, waiting anxiously,  worried that I would fail Delilah and myself.

Finally it was our turn.  From the corner of my eye I saw Jackie approaching from my right, I can’t tell you how close she actually came but I would guess it was within three to four feet.

I had Delilah focused on me, by having a treat in my right hand, with my right fore-finger resting on the tip of my nose.  Our gaze was intent, there is no other way to describe it, I didn’t dare look away.

Squeak.

Delilah’s head shifted slightly to her left.

Eck!  Look, I said.

Snap her head turned back to me.

Squeak, squeak.

Look. That’s right, stay focused on me.  Good girl, you’re doing fantastic.

I heard the handful of treats drop, but neither Delilah nor I looked, or even flinched.

Our eyes were locked and Team Delilah rocked.

Follow-Up Friday

By

For those new to the blog, my follow-up Friday provides me with an opportunity to update or revise a post from the previous week.

You know sometimes you post about something and you need an update but it doesn’t warrant a whole blog.  Or sometimes someone made a comment that really resonated with you.  Yup, Follow-Up Friday baby!

Please feel free to grab the badge and join me in recapping or wrapping up your week.   It doesn’t matter if you do it every week or just once in  a while.

Drifting – Author’s Note:

This week I was back at work and found I did much less drifting.  I was more focused on getting done what needed to get done.

I caught up on the blogs in my google reader, managed to get most blog posts up in a timely manner.

Walking the dogs wasn’t too bad.  Monday I gave them a quick walk after work.  Tuesday was training class so I left Sampson’s walk up to Hubby.  Wednesday was too hot to walk during the day so Hubby and I had a quick walk around the block at dusk.   Last night we ran into our walking friend and her dog and ended up going to check out her house, where the dogs got some swimming in.

This time my friend was able to show Delilah how to get into the pool.  Her first couple of returns were a little panicked as she tried to find a way out, but by her third time in, she knew right where to go.

Here is a little video I took of her fetching a toy.

I’m not sure if you can see in the video but she opens her feet so wide, it almost looks like a duck’s foot.

Here Here! – Author’s Note:

When Delilah and I were at training class on Tuesday, our instructor commented on how well she was doing.

Yes she really is.

I really have hope.

Did You Ever Have One Of Those Days – Author’s Note:

When you are having a day like I was, it is sometimes hard to spin it and find the positive, but somehow you need to.  So here is how I spun that.

Work – The little rush to clean the office resulted in me finally getting the majority of my desk cleaned off.  I finished it up yesterday morning.  I switched my phone and calculator and found that I like it much better.  The phone cord is no longer interfering with my mouse which is causing me much less stress.

The Screen – The best thing is that Delilah did not hurt herself in her frenzy to get the cat and the bonus is I get a new screen out of the deal.  The best part is Hubby recently learned to repair screens and the cost will be minimal.

It’s all about the positive here at Stone Manor.

How was your week?

Did You Ever Have One Of Those Days?

By

Did you ever have one of those days, where no matter how hard you tried to be positive, the negative tries to drag you down?

It was really cool here yesterday morning with the weather person predicting it would become more hot and humid as the day wore on.

Rather than turn the air on at 8:00 am while it was cool, I turned the whole house fan on, opened a couple of windows and gave my mother explicit instructions.

ME: After you’ve finished your laundry Cinderella, before you head back down to your dungeon, shut the window and the two doors, and shut off the whole house fan.  You can turn the air conditioning on as you head down stairs.

Now repeat it to me.

MOTHER: Yes, Queen Mother, shut the back door, the sliding door, the window by the pool table as well as the whole house fan and turn the air conditioning on.

She repeated that to me three times.

Okay, you got me.  I did not really call her Cinderella, and she definitely does not call me Queen Mother.

(She may call me a mutha, I wouldn’t put it past her, but she wouldn’t dare say it to my face.)

Sounds like a fine start to the day, no?

I work for an engineering firm, the office we work from is in the basement of a building.   I don’t know what type of business existed here before us, but there isn’t one damn closet in the whole place.  After much whining and crying negotiating on my part, I finally managed to procure some storage and filing cabinets.  Still we’re an engineering firm, we produce a lot of paper, much of it is rolled up plans.

Which have nowhere to go.

I have the ‘eh’ attitude where I just pile it up.  Really if you insist upon saving every scrap of paper (which my boss does) don’t look to me to find somewhere to stuff file it.

We had three hours notice that our biggest client was coming in.  Naturally my boss turns into what I fondly refer to as “Captain Chaos.”

Trust me, it fits.

The otherwise peaceful day has now turned into what can only be construed as aggravating, still I manage to get through it.

As I’m getting ready to leave to drop my co-worker off to his car, I remember we are having some trees cut down today, and the crew will be starting first thing in the morning.

I need to move the survey truck.

I go into my desk drawer where the keys are kept and nothing.

No keys.  One of my co-workers must have used the keys and not returned them.

She’s on vacation this week and her desk is locked.

I frantically dig through my desk as well as the office safe looking for the spare keys and eventually find them.  I move the truck, we hop in the car and I run my co-worker out to his car.  Then I have to stop at Fed-EX to drop off the plans that are going out to a contractor.

The damn thing weighed 17 pounds and I hurt my shoulder as I muscled them to the Fed-Ex box.

Finally, I am on my way home.

As I stopped to get the mail on my way in, I looked up at the house and noticed Cinderella mom had forgotten to close the sliding door to the small porch over-looking the driveway.

What the hell I thought, she thinks I can afford to cool all outdoors? (It sounds like something a mother would say, right?)

The dogs heard me pull in and rushed to door to greet me.

I pulled into the yard and saw the dogs faces at the window.

You know how sometimes things  happen so fast that you sort of see it coming, but not really?

Apparently the neighbor’s cat was kind enough to come over and hunt chipmunks.  Thank you neighbor’s cat, we do appreciate your help!

Poor neighbor’s cat is afraid of cars.

The cat ran across the front lawn to escape the car.

As the cat crossed the front lawn in search of greener, car-less pastures.

Delilah’s head went through the screen door.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...