Heart Like a Dog

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

HUG Award

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This week I’ve been truly humbled and honored by two of my fellow bloggers.

Because I am probably going to blather on and on over each award, I intend on blogging about one today and one tomorrow.

The first award came from our dear blogging friend Misty Shores Chesapeakes it is called Hope Unites Globally and is also known as the HUG award©.

“The HUG award was initiated by Connie Wayne at A Hope For Today, which promotes hope, love, peace, equality, and unity for all people.”

When you check out A Hope For Today, you will see the Hug Award© also has what I’m going to refer to as a motto that says,

Hug the hurt.

Kiss the broken.

Befriend the lost.

Love the lonely.

Do you find that as beautiful as I do?

I like to think I apply those traits in my life as often as I can, but so many times I feel like my resources are stretched too thin and I don’t have the time, energy, finances to do all that my soul wants to do.

Most times I feel woefully  inadequate to even write a daily blog, never mind heal the broken.

There are many reasons why a person could receive the Hug Award© but this one really resonated with me, “The HUG Award©is for people who have a hope or an expectant desire that the work or talents they use in things such as blogging, public speaking, charity work, etc., will make a positive impact on the world.”

I’d like to hope at some point in my life, my actions or words will make a difference for someone.

That someone stumbling across this blog will read about Delilah’s exploits and will find hope that they too can live with a dog that at times does exhibit some wild, crazy behavior.

That someone will read my words and have hope that they are not alone, that there are others who will offer you encouragement and support when you need it the most.  Which is something I feel I receive from you on a daily basis.

The award can be passed on (but it doesn’t have to be) it does require linking back to the original site, which I have done and I also need to leave a comment with Connie, letting her know who I am passing the award on to.

You are all so deserving of this award because at some point in time, you have given me hope, but I am going to limit my choices to two.

Kristine at Rescued Insanity.  Honestly, Kristine gives me so much hope and inspiration.  Her whirling dervish known as Shiva has done things that I don’t think Delilah in her wildest dreams would think of doing.  (Seriously, I’m going to ask Kristine to link the Tim Horton’s incident.  It is priceless.) But does Kristine give up hope?  No, instead Kristine works her dog, she finds new experiences for Shiva and she finds so many valuable blogs, training guides/books/tutorials that I sometimes wonder where she finds the time to write a blog, nevermind train her dog. 🙂

Pamela Douglas Webster at Something Wagging This Way Comes.  Pamela is another blogger that inspires me.  Pamela inspires me to be a better person.  Pamela has the rare gift to see both sides of a situation but better yet, she has the intelligence and finesse to simplify the facts and present them clearly and concisely.  If ever I am unsure of what to do, or what’s going on, I check out Something Wagging to see what Pamela has to say.

Pamela is currently using her Golden Retriever, Honey for the “Puppiness Project” based upon Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project.  Every Tuesday Pamela posts about something that makes Honey happy and how Pamela can learn to live as happily as Honey does.

Thank you again to Misty Shores, I am truly honored and touched by the HUG award.

Book Update: My book has 12,000 words.

My Little Diva

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I wanted to share a little Delilah story with you.

First I have to tell you, I’m not very good about setting time aside to actually work on training my dogs, which is one of the reasons I really, really like our Thursday night drop in obedience class.

I also think it’s a really great opportunity to expose and work the dogs around other dogs.

Last Thursday we went to our drop in obedience class after having missed it for about a month, for whatever reasons health, weather, a soldier returning home 🙂  it had been a long time since we’d gone to class.

Hubby goes with me and he works Sampson, while I work the Diva.  Apparently even though we do make the dogs sit, down and stay at home, someone forgot the rules in obedience class.  It really didn’t take her TOO long to go into a down for me, but she had a real problem ‘staying.’

Anytime I would walk away and she would follow, I would turn around and gently lead her back to her place.  We’ve got a real great group of people in that class so a couple of times she got up and someone would take her leash and stop her.

I’m the only one in the class that carries a treat bag on my hip (and trust me, all the dogs know it!) And I was running pretty low on treats and basically had to let her lick the bag to reward her, so during a ‘stay’ command, I took the opportunity to run out to the store in order to grab a sample bag of kibble.  I’ve been using Taste of the Wild in my treat bag and I’m telling you, if I could figure out how to get my dogs to stand on their heads, they would do it for this kibble.  They like it THAT much.

I’m sorry, I do digress at times.

Delilah happened to be on the far end of the training room in a ‘down stay,’ and Hubby and Sampson were at the front of the training room, so if you were looking at the shop as a long rectangular room Delilah would be at one end, I would be at the other and Hubby and Sampson would be about half way in between.  Also at the far end of the room was my friend Dave with his dog Molly.

I had put the kibble in the bag and was throwing the wrapper out when I heard Molly, for no apparent reason let out a noise, which if I really think about it, sounded like a howl.  Whatever it was, it scared the Bejesus out of my little Diva who with no mommy to reassure her she was ok, sprinted across the room for daddy.  Needless to say the entire class burst into laughter, while I walked in saying, “What?”

Yes, my dogs DO make me laugh on a daily basis.

Book update:  My book has 11,324 words.

Inquiring Minds

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Like most of you (I’m pretty sure) I love the weekend.  Although mine do tend to fill up quickly, what with house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping etc.

In the midst of all the chaos that comes with my weekend, I try really hard to get the dogs out for a couple of nice long walks.  Most of the time I try to get them out for at least an hour each day.

I am really looking forward to the longer days when I can come home and grab them after work and take some long walks, while Hubby stays home and cooks on the grill. 🙂

I can’t always connect with my walking pal during the week (at least not right now) but on the weekends whenever possible, we try to get the dogs all out together.

While she only has Brady, she very frequently has her friend’s dog, Kodak.  All the dogs get along pretty well with the exception sometimes of Sampson whose been getting a little bit snarkier the older he gets. 🙁

Saturday we had all the dogs out and walked them around the woods for an hour and twenty minutes, it was awesome.  It’s nice to have someone to chat with while walking and I hate to say it because I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself, but I really feel Delilah does much better with a larger pack of dogs.

When all the dogs take off through the woods chasing a herd of deer, nine out of ten times Delilah is the first one back after being called.  She’s been doing so good I’m actually considering cutting her leash down to fifteen feet.

When we aren’t walking with the other dogs, I hold her leash in certain areas and in other areas I let it drop, for the most part she is always in my sight and if they get too far ahead of me, I call them back.

She’s been pretty good about returning and I am very generous with the treats.  I’m a firm believer in treating and I don’t care if I have to carry treats with me all the time as long as my dogs return when I call them.   Judge me if you want, I’m tough. 🙂

So here’s my question, I’ve never trained a dog using the long leash before.  Have you?  How long did you keep them on the long leash?  Did you slowly cut the leash back or did you just stop all together.

Inquiring minds want to know. 🙂

Book update:  My book has 11,023 words.

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