The Devil On My Shoulder

Sampson and Delilah get walked together, twice a day. Ideally I would love to walk them separately but most days I just don’t have the time.

During the week our first walk is before I leave for work in the morning and our second walk is on my lunch hour.

Both of my dogs can be dog reactive.

Sampson sees a dog and wants to run up and greet it. Depending on the dog he will often times jump about showing his enthusiasm and desire to greet said dog.

That’s what dogs are supposed to do.

Delilah’s trigger is mostly if a dog comes up to her and sticks its nose in her nether region when she’s not expecting it. Okay, really, are you ever expecting a nose in your nether region? (If you are, please don’t comment, that’s really a rhetorical question.) She will also sometimes react when Sampson reacts and this is mostly if it’s a dog we haven’t seen before.

We’ve worked really hard at getting past the yard dogs, but we’ve had little to no success in passing dogs that are walking on the street. Let me clarify that by saying, I’m pretty certain Delilah could do it, but I really need to work on Sampson. If Sampson wasn’t reacting, I’m almost 100% certain, she wouldn’t either.

Most of the time when I see someone heading towards us with a dog(s), I turn around and go the other way, usually urging Sampson and Delilah with “Go, Go, Go.” And I’m not quiet about it. (I’m also frantically looking over my shoulder, so if you’re paying attention you probably realize I want to avoid you.) 🙂

I’ve recently discovered there are two women in my neighborhood that also walk two dogs, but they walk them separately. I assume it’s because walking two dogs is challenging and not because they only have one leash.

One of these women has two small dogs. I’m going with Yorkies, but I’m not 100%. This particular woman walks her dog on a retractable leash, and she doesn’t pay much attention. We had a run in with her during the winter, where her little dog was zig-zagging all over the road, and I had to pull my two over into someone’s driveway and ask her to take her dog across the street. Since that encounter, when I see her, I turn right around and head the other way. I know this is going to sound harsh, but really, I don’t have time to deal with her or her dog.

Okay, the stage is set.

One day last week the dogs and I headed out for our morning walk. As we headed down the hill, I saw the woman ahead of us with one of her dogs. She was walking away from us going back towards her house. Sampson saw her and naturally increased his pace, but she was way ahead of us. I drew a great sigh of relief in and continued on our walk.

Hang with me peeps, I’m getting to the mean part.

We were returning home with only one way to go, when I saw her again, walking a little dog. (It was then that it dawned on me she was walking them separately.) The woman had her phone in hand and was concentrating on the phone, the little dog walking behind her.  I stopped where we were to give the dogs some space. Her little dog stopped to stare up at my dogs and Sampson of course, issued a verbal greeting.

Up there, up there, I see a dog!

The woman stopped, saw us and started walking again. At that point I started walking towards her.

Her little dog stopped again, but the woman didn’t. She reached the end of her leash and felt the weight resistance, turned around and looked at her dog, then she called her dog but the dog didn’t move. Meanwhile the little devil on my shoulder urged me to keep on walking, so I did.

She looked up at me again, snatched her little dog up from the road and hurried home.

The little devil smiled.

Authentic Blogging

Have you heard about the new e-book by the brilliant Maggie Marton? Those who attended Blog Paws knows that Maggie did a presentation on Authentic Blogging. I attended the session (I sat with Jan K) and it was really good.

Many of you know that two of Maggie’s pups are currently battling cancer, so Maggie thought she’d write a book about her presentation as a way to raise some extra funds to help with the veterinary expenses.  If you’re interested in purchasing it, Maggie has it for sale at her blog. Currently it’s priced at “pay a fair price”. If you’re interested, you can purchase it by clicking on this link: Authentic Blogging” (How to Find and Use YOUR Authentic Voice)

This is the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. Grab the badge and the linky code and join us! While Barks and Bytes is for everyone, we request only blog posts be linked up and as a courtesy to other hoppers, please add the code to your post or link up to Linda or I.