Heart Like a Dog

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

To Sampson, on your Fifteenth Birthday

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My love, today you turn fifteen.

.

Fifteen years ago I had no idea how much my life would change when I said, “I want a golden male.”

Sharing my journey with you has been one of the greatest joys of my life. You made my life better, saved me from a path I wasn’t meant to go on. Your easy and loving demeanor brought so many people and places into my life.  People and places I might never have known without you.

Watching you age has been both a blessing and curse. The blessing is you don’t know that you are aging, you aren’t embarrassed when you fall down, or fart in public. A curse because watching you fall and struggle break my heart. I worry I’ll miss the signs and you’ll suffer.

I’ve had dogs in my life as long as I can remember and with the exception of my first dog, Washy, none of them have affected me the way you have.

You make me better. You make me a better person, a better mom, a better dog mom.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me and for molding me into the person I was meant to be.

Golden Lab

Snuggle bug

You are and always will be, my heart dog.

Love, Mom

Uncooperative Dogs

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Good morning,

I’ve been trying out a new product on Sampson (hope to be able to share that soon.) Part of the agreement in exchange for the product is that Sampson and I need to make a little video talking about what we’re doing.

I thought the best place to film would be in the living room, so I wanted to move the dog bed in front of the fireplace.

The problem was, Sampson was already there.  SO, I moved the bed anyway, thinking Sampson would move.

He didn’t.

But boy did I laugh.

Do you have a cooperative or uncooperative pet? Mostly mine are the latter.

 

How To Train Your Human – The Stare Down

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Hey guys, Sampson Stone here again, with more tips on how to train your Human. You may recall last week when I told you how I’m working with my Momma to get more treats.  If you missed it, you can read about it here.

Golden Lab

Some dogs get normal people for moms. Apparently I’m not one of them.

At the end of the post, I asked if anyone had any tips for training their human, and my brother-from-another-mother, Merlin (and his Human, Meagan) left this comment.

“If someone is sitting somewhere where you want to lay, you just stare at them. They ask you what do you want. You stare at them some more until they eventually move over and let you have their seat. If you must, kick them a bit to make them make more room for you.”

The stare down is an important training tool in training your humans, and as Meagan and Merlin pointed out, the stare down works in a number of situations. It can also be used on someone who NOT YOUR Human.

Such as the time Mom and Dad were having a Super Bowl Party and one of their guests sat on my couch.

Side note: I don’t know why they call it a Super Bowl, I looked in those bowls and there was nothing super about them or anything in them.

Anyhowl, this person Ray had the nerve to sit right down on my couch and in my spot too! I stood right in front of him staring him down. He wouldn’t budge. That’s when I had to take matters into my paws and squeeze up on the couch next to him.

Honestly, some humans can be so dense.

The second part of Meagan and Merlin’s comment was this, “This method works well in other areas, such as: wanting to go outside, breakfast/dinner time etc. Extra points for making a point of staring at what you want and then back at the human.””

My Momma keeps our food in the frigerator, she takes it out a couple of hours before she’s going to feed us. Sometimes she puts it on top of the frigerator to come up to room temperature.

If she lets it sit too long, I have to remind her about it, which is when I stare up at the food, then at Momma, then back at the food until she learns the trick.

My look says, “Hey Red, you see that food on top of the fridge? We aren’t at Hogwarts. It won’t levitate itself down to me. You do know you’ll have to reach up and get it, right? I mean, like now.”

Silly fool, Momma laughs and says things like, “I’m busy…I just have to finish washing this dish…I’m cooking my supper too…Jesus Buddy, give me a break, I’m moving as fast as I can.”

How do you use the stare down in your house?

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