Heart Like a Dog

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

Dog Responsibility

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Yesterday I wrote about our snowy walk in the woods, but there was something that I didn’t write about.

We ran into a woman who walks a pack of dogs up there frequently.  Her name is Brenda and she always has six dogs with her, which of them are hers I really don’t know, because she takes other people’s dogs for walks too.

She almost always has another person and their dogs with her as well.  Yesterday she had a lady who had at least three of her own dogs.

The ladies and their dogs were getting ready to leave so I took the my dogs up the hill just so there weren’t three sets of dogs attempting to get into three different cars.

Alas, when we headed back down the ladies were still loading their cars.

Sampson and Delilah jumped in the car, Brenda finished loading hers and drove off, but the other lady just stood there.  Waiting.

She said, two of her dogs had run off, but they would come back and that they did this all the time.

She told me where she thought they were and said they made her wait because they knew she wouldn’t leave them.  I suggested that maybe it was time for her to leave them and offered to stay and wait if she wanted to drive down the street.

She got in her car and slowly started driving down the street,  I called “Here puppies” and whistled.  Nothing.

I walked over to the side of the road and looked between the two houses where she thought they had gone and didn’t see them.

Meanwhile the woman had turned around and come back, and she told me that they usually didn’t make her wait longer than five minutes.

Sure enough as we were driving down the street I saw the two dogs running from an entirely different direction than where she thought they were.

The incident disturbed me for a couple of reasons, one being that her dogs were running on other people’s property and two that she has no control over her dogs and worse yet, she’s not even trying to control them.

I’ve seen this issue raised on other people’s blogs on a variety of topics but my question is, how do we educate people about being a responsible dog owner?  Or just being responsible around dogs?

Book update:  My book has 17,339 words.

Snow Fall

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It started snowing here late this morning.  I figured by the time I got home from work the snow might be too deep, so I decided to go home on lunch and give the dogs a half hour walk.

I have to say walking in the woods with the dogs during a snow fall rates in my top ten favorite things to do.

I love how the only sounds I hear are the squeaking of the snow under my boots and the jingle of the dog’s tags clinking against their collars as they run.

They stop.  Ears up, listening.  Then noses to the ground, they are off and running again.

What Would You Call Him?

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When Delilah joined our pack and we realized just how much work she needed, I admit I had hopes that some of Sampson’s goodness would wear off on her.

You know, those sweet qualities you cherish in your good dog?  Like not climbing on the counters, or dancing under your feet while you try to prepare their meals.

Yeah, those ones.

It seems that Sampson doesn’t have that much influence over Delilah, instead I’m actually thinking some of her naughtier traits are wearing off on him. 🙁

And then there’s Bob.

Bob is our youngest daughter’s cat who through a set of circumstances ended up in our care.  He has been with us close to a year now and I’ve come to realize that Bob is acting more and more like a …..dog.

Here are the things Bob does that remind me of the dogs:

Greets us at the door.

Runs upstairs, lies on the rug waiting for tummy rubbies.

Sleeps in a crate.

Sleeps on a dog bed.

Hovers around the kitchen.

Waits at the back door (as if I’m going to let him go outside!)

He drinks from the dog’s water bowl…..oh and sometimes he just sits there staring at the water.

So would I call him a dat or a cog?  What should I say when people ask me how many pets I have and what kind they are?

I know we are not supposed to humanize our pets (there’s a word for that, right?)  But what if our pets are morphing themselves, what do they call that?

Do you have a pet that has picked up a trait or quirk of another species?

Book update: My book has 15,341 words.

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