Heart Like a Dog

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

What Would You Do For Your Pet?

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I had a totally different post planned for today and then I came upon this article on Yahoo, and the title caught my eye, Experts: Don’t attempt to save swept-away pets.

You can read the article for yourself AFTER you finish this post (apparently I have to be concerned with something called bouncing.)

I’ll give you the down and dirty.  Apparently five people have died in California in the last five months trying to rescue a dog being swept away.

The article says that most dogs are better swimmers than humans and by using their fight or flight instincts will work with the currents and find their way to shore.  Of course it might be a bit farther away than where they started so microchips and collar tags are highly recommended.

We all know that certain dogs are better in the water than others.  Labradors, German Shepards and Pit Bulls are designed for swimming. Their strong bodies, heads that stay above water, thick/and or waterproof coats not to mention the four feet vs two for humans, (with some of them being webbed) give them the advantage over two footers who can experience hypothermia due to the cold ocean water.

Animals have far better stamina than most humans and are capable of keeping themselves alive in the water by remaining calm and focusing on the task at hand vs humans who tend to panic and become confused.

And what if your pet manages to stay alive, turning up two or three miles down shore and you have died, where does that leave him/her?

Logistically this all makes sense to me, but the reality of seeing your dog struggling and being swept away is far different.  I can’t imagine the guilt I’d feel standing helplessly by.   And God knows I have enough guilt I carry right now.

Delilah-1

Sampson-1

How could I let either one of those sweet faces just drift away without trying to help?  What do you think?  What would YOU do?

Co-Hosted Follow-Up Friday – April 12, 2012

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Welcome to Co-Hosted Follow-Up Friday, the blog hop that let’s you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.

My co-hostess this week apparently likes punishment.  Not only is her female, Storm expecting puppies in less than two weeks, she also recently started the This ‘N That Thursday blog hop and today she’s back to help me out.

Please give a warm Heart Like a Dog welcome to our friends at the 2 Brown Dawgs blog.  (Sorry, I’ve always wanted to type that.)

The thing I love about Follow-up Friday is the flexibility, so since I’m struggling to respond to comments, I’m going to try answering some of them here, along with my follow-up.

Savvy?

 Emergency Recalls…WHAT?

It always makes me feel better to find that other people are doing similar things that I am (talking to your dogs like they KNOW what you’re saying.)

Thanks to Tales and Tails who said “Jen over at Never Say Never Greyhounds did a great post a while back about teaching recalls, and she does have an emergency, can never be ignored recall. She teaches it with grilled steak, if I remember right, and by golly, I’d recall for her every time, too! I think it’s definitely worth your time and effort to teach it and work on it.”

I plan on bookmarking this and checking it out when I have a few minutes.

I also started watching Patricia McConnell’s “Lassie Come!” video, which is also on my list to finish.

 Acd6pack asked, “Do you dehydrate the turkey hearts yourself?”

No, I’m lazy when it comes to making treats for the dogs, although Hubby and I have been talking about purchasing a dehydrator and once I have one, I intend on working on dehydrating certain things and hearts will probably be one of them.

My question for you is, how do you recall a deaf dog that is off-leash?

Happy Easter

Al asked, “How many takes?”

Actually I took 11 photos and only one of them was a real ‘blooper’ which I ended up using anyway.

AnimalCouriers asked, “are we seeing a little sun there?”

Yes, yes you were.  We’ve actually had a couple of spring like days.  It gives hope to the soul.

Delilah the Retriever and Oz the Terrier

Jan said, “Not many rhyme with Poodle or Chihuahua though.”

Oh yeah? ;-0

The lady named Jan had chihuahuas
They made her laugh like he he and hah, hah, hah’s
She also had poodles
who liked to eat noodles
then needed their thirst quenched with some wa wa’s.

Wordless Wednesday

Last week Caren said, “Liked your quote but was hoping you would post some of the quotes that you received…darn!  Next Time.”

So here is mine:

100_1045_2 WTF?  I didn’t know he was so delicate!

As always I loved all your comments.  Some of my favorites were:

Caren – “I can’t believe I ate the WHOLE thing!”

JoAnn – “Look mom no body!”

Houndstooth – “The thing just EXPLODED! I’m as shocked as you are!”

Georgia Little Pea – WHAT are my legs doing there?!

This ‘N That Thursday

Julie said, “that sweet face at the beginning of the video melts my heart.”

It melts mine too my friend. 🙂

Emma said, “Mom understands that poor woman all too well. She is always telling me about how my sister Katie would take off on her and not let herself get caught. One time she even ran out into a kids soccer game and was after the ball, they had to stop the whole game and mom still couldn’t catch Katie…now she is older and a bit more sensible but mom knows that it just happens and there is nothing you can do. Katie just wanted to play as well, so there was no physical harm ever done.”

I imagine that made mom very anxious Emma, I’m glad you’re such a good girl and stay close to your mom.

That’s a wrap for this edition of Follow-Up Friday, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog.  Please check out our fellow hoppers.  This is the co-hosted Follow-Up Friday Blog Hop



Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

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If you saw our post yesterday you know we had an Easter “photo shoot” on Saturday.

Sampson has had camera’s stuck in his face since he was three weeks old, he’s very blase′ about it.

Delilah is by far the harder dog to get a photo of, she’s not particularly fond of ‘smiling’ for the camera, she’s constantly looking somewhere else and for some reason, I feel like I rarely get good shots of her.

So imagine my surprise when during our Easter photo shoot, I took eleven photos with only one blooper.

To be fair it wasn’t her fault.

There we were out on the deck, both dogs posed with the eggs looking great.  All of a sudden both dogs snapped their heads to their right, my left.  What the heck I thought that’s a great shot, I’ll title it, “Is that the Easter Bunny I see.”

It worked in my head.

Monday Mischief Does she look like a dinosaur here, or is it just me?

Sadly what works in my head doesn’t work when a deer walks through the neighbor’s yard and behind our fence.

To her credit, she did lay back down and stayed while I snuck up in the back to try to get a photo (I didn’t) but as soon as we gave her the release command she went up back to check things out for herself.

Do you plan photo shoots with your dogs?  Do they turn out the way you think they would?

This is the Monday Mischief Blog hop hosted by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog and My Brown Newfies.

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