Heart Like a Dog

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

Lessons of Love

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My little grandchildren were over on Sunday for our traditional St. Patrick’s day dinner.  My grandson is five and my granddaughter is two.

They’re both a little shy with the dogs when they first come in and truthfully I can’t blame them.  I mean to put it into their perspective the dogs look to them like a bull or horse look to us.

And if I saw a bull or horse running full at me, I’d whimper a little bit too, even if my Daddy were holding me and telling me I was okay.

But once the dogs settle down, the kids are very comfortable around them.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t watch them, I’m constantly watching and educating them.

Watch out for the dog.

Don’t do that to the dog.

She doesn’t want you to pet her right now!

The last one was after my grandson decided he wanted to pet Delilah. Which is in and of itself a good thing.  I was in the kitchen doing something (now here’s a surprise, I can’t remember what) when he made the announcement, “I’m going to pet her.”

The assumption is if I’m in the kitchen and both dogs are with me, I’m probably working with food.  Delilah can get a little snarky around food, so my eyes were focused on the interaction.

He proceeded to stroke his hand down her back and then back up, moving her fur in a way she is only accustomed to when she is being toweled.

Delilah shifted slightly to her right.  He moved with her and continued his stroking.

Delilah moved again, again he moved with her.

Delilah barked and walked away.

At which point I said, “She doesn’t want you to pet her right now.”

He decided he would then pet Sampson.

I took the opportunity to explain to him that dogs cannot speak to us and tell us that they do not like something, instead they might bark at us like Delilah did.

I also showed him Sampson’s teeth and said, do you see these big teeth?  If you continue to do something a dog doesn’t like, the dog might bite you.  And that would really hurt.  Then I showed him a scar I have from a dog bite and explained that I didn’t get it from either Sampson or Delilah, but we should still be respectful about what dogs need and how they speak to us.

A few moments later my grandson had taken off the door-sized magnet of Sampson that I have on my refrigerator and was showing it to Sampson.

IMG_4497 I heard him say, “This was when you went to the beach in North Carolina Sampson when you had little teeth.”

It was a cute ending to our lesson of love.

It’s not just a lesson of love to prevent my grandchildren from being bitten, it’s also a lesson of love for my pets.  To be their voice and not put them in a position where they are forced to speak for themselves.

What types of lessons of love do you teach your little friends?

Counter Surfing 101

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Saint Patrick’s day is over, the corned beef was delicious and now we look forward to next Sunday’s breakfast, which is corned beef hash and eggs.

Sometimes I’m not sure which we like more, the corned beef or the corned beef hash.  Hubby makes a killer corned beef hash.

The year was 2008, it was a couple of days after Saint Patrick’s day and Hubby was preparing our corned beef hash for dinner.

He had come home and taken the left over corned beef and put it through my grandmother’s meat grinder and it was all set, sitting on the counter until I came home and he could start dinner.

I had picked the dogs up from daycare and they rushed in all happy to see Daddy after a long day of being apart.  Hubby met me in the dining room with something he wanted to show me.

I can’t for the life of me remember what we were talking about, but it took a few seconds for the sound of slurping to register.

“What the hell is that noise?” I asked.

“I don’t know” he said, “but it’s coming from the kitchen.

DELILAH! We both shouted.

Counter Surfing 101 She’s bold that one.

She had managed to eat the entire plate of corned beef!

I’ll handle it, I said and promptly locked her in her crate for her own safety.

She’s damn lucky you were here, he said to me later and I’m glad I was.

She’s a counter surfer that one. (No, that is not the original picture, I was too busy saving the dog’s life to snap a photo.)

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

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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My ethnicity would be 100% Irish if my mother had only been a bit more particular when choosing her mate.

Ah well, we can’t have everything in life, right?  I guess, I’ll just have to settle for 50%.

Wearing of the green, some call it, but I was brought up that Irish Catholics wear green, while Irish Protestants wear orange.  As a kid I’d wear orange, but as I grew up I stopped wearing specific colors and instead bedecked myself with hats, pins and ears.

Yes, I have Leprechaun ears.

No, you can’t see a picture.

Our traditions for the day is to have a Corned Beef dinner.  This is one of our favorite dinners.  We put the Corned Beef into a pot and into that we throw potatoes (a great staple of the Irish,) carrots and cabbage.

If I can find a recipe for Gluten-Free Soda bread, we will have that as well.

I buy enough Corned Beef to have leftovers, because Hubby makes an awesome Corned Beef Hash.  Which is as good if not better than the original dinner.

Because I waited until the last-minute, I once again did not plan a photo shoot for today’s post.  Instead I slapped my Irish hat on each of the dogs and attempted photos.

IMG_4472 Sampson is tolerant, he doesn’t care for it, but he’ll do it.

IMG_4476 Delilah not so much, I was lucky enough to snap this before she tossed it off and carried it away.

And just because I can, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Irish Blessings, whose author is unknown.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? If not, what are your cherished ethic celebrations?

Happy St. P Day, from all of us at Heart Like a Dog!!

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