What’s The Ruckus?

October 22, 2012 By Jodi

The day started routinely enough.

I was busy in the kitchen prepping Sampson and Delilah’s breakfast.

Sampson was sitting quietly waiting, while Delilah danced back and forth looking for the best spot to observe the process.

From her temporary post at the edge of the kitchen she sat facing the back window.

All of a sudden she darted to the window, paws on the sill, barking frantically.

Sampson rushed over and joined her.

Both of them stood there for a few seconds, then dashed to the door.

As soon as I opened the door, they pushed through it, then out the screen door, where Sampson turned sharp left and ran up the stairs, and Delilah turned sharp right and rushed up the fence line.

I remember thinking, Gosh I hope a skunk didn’t get trapped in the yard or something.

As I turned around to head back into the kitchen I walked past the window and glanced up into the yard.

And that’s when I saw it.

Photo courtesy of www.wookmark.com

“Ho” “HO!” I said. (Apparently I was channeling my inner Santa.)

Then I thought, oh my god, what if they actually corner it, or it gets stuck in the yard?

I rushed out the door after the dogs and ran up the stairs.

My next thought was, Thank God they can jump fences.

Have you ever let the dogs out without thinking what MIGHT be out there waiting? Good or disastrous results?

Monday Mischief is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, Luna and Cinder and My Brown Newfies.

Michael Vick

October 21, 2012 By Jodi

Yes, Michael Vick has confirmed he has a dog.

Many of you expected this topic to be included in my WTF Wednesday post, but it turned out to be rather longer than I expected, so I gave it a post all its own.

Grab a cup of coffee, put some Bailey’s or Sambuca in it and pull up a chair.

To do this properly I have to go back to last year, when I heard that Michael Vick had teamed up with the Humane Society. At that time I was still on the free WordPress and fully expected The Legacy of Michael Vick to be pressed. (I don’t know, maybe it was the picture of the hanging black man that prevented it.)

If you read that first post you’ll notice that at first I was outraged that the Humane Society was working with a convicted (insert your derogatory word of choice here,) but then I started thinking about the influence athletes have on our children and I thought maybe, just maybe if someone like Michael Vick warned our children about the evils of dog fighting he could actually make a difference.

Flash forward to Michael Vick tweeting a photo that included a box of Milkbones. As you can imagine dog and animal lovers reacted quickly and angrily.

More than one of you sent me a link to the article. I started prepping my post for WTF Wednesday, it was scheduled to look like this.

Michael Vick confirms he is again a dog owner, Philadelphia, PA

The very first thing that comes to mind is, what idiot gave this person a dog? I’m pretty damn sure it’s no rescue that I’ve heard of. I mean you know, you’ve seen those applications. “Have you ever been convicted for abuse of an animal?”

Then I thought, maybe someone bought it for him.

My next thought was, can’t this million dollar quarterback afford a treat a little more expensive than Milkbones? Not that I’m knocking Milkbones per say, for those of you who may use them, I’m just saying my income vs his income I’d think he could afford say a box of something along the lines of Mother Hubbard or Blue Buffalo.

I set these thoughts in my WTF post and continued with my week.

In the meantime, Monday was Be The Change 4 Animals, after I’d posted my contribution I started hopping around to see what you all had written about.

You all had some wonderful, wonderful posts. There was one however that really touched me and made me think.

Maps of Reality from Julie at The Daily Dog Blog.

I won’t post the whole thing here, but the paragraph that really resonated with me was this:

“Several years ago I listened to a speaker talk about “maps of reality”. Every single person has their own map of reality based on what they have learned from teachers, parents, friends, acquaintances and experiences. These maps of reality make up our “beliefs” about what is right and wrong and how we should act. Sometimes we fail to realize that our map of reality might be skewed and it’s quite possible that what we believe really isn’t true.”

I thought of how much MY map of reality has changed since Sampson entered my life.

This may surprise you to know, but I haven’t always been the dog mom that I am today.

Many of you come from the same era that I did and know thirty years ago, the majority of people had a different view of dogs. Don’t get me wrong, our dogs lived in the house, but they were considered animals.

Thirty years ago I wouldn’t have left a party early because the dog needed to go out, or it was an hour past their dinner time.

Truthfully, even twenty years ago I didn’t even know dog’s toenails needed to be clipped!

Until Sampson owned me, (and this really saddens me to say this) dogs were just dogs.

When I sat down to write my WTF post for last week, I thought it might be good to include a picture of Michael’s dog so I googled.

No, I did not find a picture but what I did find was this article, “Vick has a dog? Might be just what’s needed to break the cycle of cruelty.”

Imagine my surprise as I found myself agreeing with the article.

I know, it floored me too. This one paragraph stuck out.

“It’s going to be emotional torture for Vick, but it will be more than that. It will be healing. That dog’s going to make him a better person, and when someone as influential as Michael Vick is a better person, the effects ripple outward.”

Since my map of reality has changed I have a lot of guilt and a lot of regrets, regarding the previous dogs in my life. There’s very few things in my life that I regret, except for when it comes to the animals in my past. If I had one and only one do over, it would be for them.

I suspect Michael Vick’s map of reality is about to change. And the guilt and regret will eat at his heart and do far more to changing him than prison, bankruptcy and public outrage ever could.

What’s a map of reality and how have I changed yours?

Have you ever heard of a ‘map of reality?’ Has your map of reality changed over the years?

Fall Foliage

October 20, 2012 By Jodi

I sat at this computer last night struggling to 1) finish my Michael Vick post 2) come up with a different post. I couldn’t do either.

I’m a little under the weather right now, nothing major, just a cold but it’s making me feel pretty yucky. I’m a big germ-a-phobe and am very careful about cleaning my hands after touching anything. The office I work in shares a lobby with a Pediatrician’s office so you can imagine there are always sick kids running in and out of there.

The bathroom is in the lobby and I’m extremely careful about using a paper towel to open and close doors on my way back from the bathroom.

I have hand sanitizer in my car, my purse and a big ole industrial size, wall-mounted beast close to my desk.

I take germ fighting seriously.

My boss came in on Monday with a cold. I remember saying to him, stop touching everything, you’re sick! But when you work closely with someone I guess it’s inevitable, I must have missed a key sanitization moment, because here I sit, whining about a cold.

Pre-cold symptoms I did spend some time this past week taking pictures of the beautiful area I live in, I shared some of those photos yesterday but thought I might take an opportunity to put some more up here today.

All of these pictures within a couple of miles of our home. Pre Delilah we walked here a lot, post Delilah, not so much. I do hope we can get back to walking in some of these areas again.

I’m using the Gallery feature that 2 Brown Dawgs turned me on to, so I can fit the pictures here. Hopefully this is more convenient than getting tendonitis in your finger from scrolling too much.

The Gallery option for inserting photos will only allow me to install one gallery, so while these are four different locations, unfortunately they are all lumped together.

A quick index.

Valley Falls (indicated with a (VF) in the descriptions) is a park which Sampson, Delilah and I can access from the trails in our woods. There is a pond used for swimming in the summer (no dogs allowed) and a beautiful trail system.

Risley Dam (RD in the photo descriptions) is actually a reservoir (no dogs swimming) about a two miles from our house. The photos I shared yesterday were taken just before sunset on Wednesday evening, while these photos were taken from the other end of the pond on Thursday afternoon.

The Tankerhoosen (Tank in photo descriptions) is a couple of bodies of water that pool in one area, turn to running water and pool in other areas as well. I guess you could say it’s a series of small bodies of water. We’ve taken the dogs swimming here last year, but there was too much goose poop and I had a hell of a time keeping Delilah out of it.

Finally Bell Sanctuary (BS in photo descriptions) is another series of walking trails not far from us. We have yet to thoroughly check this area out, although Sampson, Delilah and I have explored it a bit.