Heart Like a Dog

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

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.

The Importance Of Business Cards

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Do you have a business card for yourself?  Your blog?

I made a card up for myself for my “Along Came Sampson” website.

The card was made up with this picture on it.

The front of the card  says, “DO YOU KNOW SAMPSON” and it lists his website address along with my name.  On the back of the card, I have my e-mail address, my cell phone number and this blog address.

I had these cards made up when I was focused on my children’s book, “Along Came Sampson.”  I still have the website, but I really don’t do much with it, instead my focus has changed and I now work pretty diligently on this blog.

The reason I bring all this up is, today when I was at the grocery store I stopped at the Deli.  I ordered some all beef bologna and the man who was taking my order asked how thick I wanted it.  I told him the thickness and indicated it was for the dogs.

“Oh, what kind of dog do you have?”

“They’re labs.”

His eyes lit up, “You don’t happen to be a breeder do you?”

Turns out he’s been looking for a lab for months, he’s looked at the lab rescue sites but has been put off because the dogs are from out of state and he wants to meet the dog before he adopts it.

I get that.  So I said, “Here’s my card, I know the woman who does placements for Labs 4 Rescue and I know they have dogs in CT.  There are also options of fostering to adopt.”

Turns out he’d never thought of that.

Now, if I hadn’t had my card I could still have given him my information, but I would have had to write it on the back of a receipt or something.  This way he has my name, number, e-mail addy and blog address all in one place.

If you don’t have a card for your blog, Vista Print does a really nice job and you can get 250 cards for $10 which includes shipping.  I don’t think that’s a bad deal at all.  In fact, I’m thinking of ordering myself some more cards with the focus on this blog.  I’m not really sure whether I will keep the Along Came Sampson website or not.

If you don’t have cards for your blog, do you think you could benefit from having cards?  If you do have cards, do you use them and have you found them to be beneficial?

Book update, still the same.

Has The World Gone Crazy?

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I JUST FOUND OUT THAT WHAT IS PRESENTED HERE IS NOT THE TOTAL FACTS.  I WILL BE UPDATING THIS POST TONIGHT SO PLEASE WAIT BEFORE YOU TAKE ANY ACTION.

I know the Aztec calendar stops in 2012 and Doomsday predictors say the world will end, but did any of them mention the world would go crazy in the meantime?

Last week I wrote about Justice For Putz, you may remember Putz, he was the pitbull that was euthanized in Michigan for biting a man who was going to harm his mistress.  Rather than choose a number of other options, the town decided to go with their original plan and euthanized poor Putz.

As I posted about Putz, 2 Brown Dawgs left me a comment making me aware of another pitbull euthanized in Michigan.  Ace was picked up in an Ace Hardware store, and due to liability issues, the City of Detroit will not release pitbulls to anyone but their owner.   While several people came forwarding claiming ownership of Ace, none could provide proof.  Rescue groups rallied and petitioned for Ace, but in the end the city of Detroit euthanized the dog.

Hot on the paws of Ace’s death, comes the tragedy of Heidi.  I found this information courtesy of The Elka Almanac’s post on facebook, I then went to her page and read the story.

Heidi is a Doberman Pinscher in (dut dut duh) Michigan who has been ordered put to death.  Heidi and her owner were out walking when a stranger approached and asked if he could pet Heidi, as he bent to pet her apparently Heidi jumped up.  The man claims that Heidi broke his nose and reported the incident to the police.  The police in the City of Royal Oaks is prosecuting this as a dog bite/attack and will only drop the charges if Heidi is destroyed or removed from her family of four years.

Her family has started a petition requesting the city allow them to keep Heidi  restricted to her family’s private yard.  Would you take a minute and sign the petition?  If you tweet or blog, could you include a link?

I’d like to think if it was one of us, that people would help.  We couldn’t save Putz or Ace, but maybe if we all work together we can save Heidi.

Book update:  Still the same. 🙁

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