Sometimes walking my two wing-nuts is very stressful. What should be a relaxing, enjoyable walk looks more like a three-ring circus and I come home feeling more tense then when we started.
Stop your griping, you don’t see us barking about this weather.
Sampson thinks he’s the dog ambassador to every person he sees. And he watches for them. He can spot someone four houses away and then he gets a pep in his step and starts pulling like a sled dog.
Then there’s Delilah who is on the hunt for a crumb of anything she construes as food. She would drag me through a snowbank if she could score a flake of tuna.
We are working on both these issues while walking, along with walking past other dogs. Using food to help the dogs make the choices I want them to, comes with its own set of problems.
Remember that three-ring circus I mentioned?
I reach into my treat pouch and Delilah rushes over and tries to grab the treat as I’m pulling it out. Sampson moves to get out of her way and a car is coming. I’m trying to get the treat out of my treat bag, Delilah’s trying to get the treat, Sampson’s trying to get away from Delilah, a car is coming and I’m trying to get Sampson between the snowbank and me.
In between all this, there is usually a leash passed behind my back and yet, somehow someone always ends up with their leash stuck underneath someone else.
Sigh.
BUT then there are times where the walk is so enjoyable just because of something one of the dogs does, that it erases all that crazy.
Saturday afternoon it started snowing and it continued until yesterday afternoon. All told we probably got another six to eight inches to add to the 3 1/2 feet already on the ground. With the snowbanks on either side of the ride, it’s almost like walking in a tunnel.
A wind tunnel.
Yesterday afternoon about half way through our walk, the wind kicked up and starting blowing….leaves. Don’t ask. I have no idea where leaves could possibly come from considering all the snow we have.
Maybe someone female squirrel got pissed off because her mate didn’t clean off the nest and threw a few leaves (and his sorry ass) out into the snow, I don’t know. All I know is all of a sudden there are leaves.
Do you see anywhere these leaves could have come from?
Leaves, blowing up the street. I could see they were leaves, but Delilah could not. All she could see was something on the ground moving very quickly.
Her body tensed, her head lifted and her ears perked. She started moving a little faster, so I moved with her.
Wait. What is that?
These are the times when I wish I had strapped the Hubby’s Go Pro Camera to my chest. The faster I moved, the faster she moved. Sampson sensing her excitement increased his pace.
The leaf kept blowing, Delilah and Sampson kept chasing, but I couldn’t keep up. Delilah was bucking like a bronco, and I was a laughing so hard, I almost fell down.
Yes, there are times, times when they frustrate me beyond belief, but then there are other times (most of the time) when they bring so much joy and laughter into my life.
Have you ever laughed really hard at something your dog did? I’d love to hear about it.
Love this Delilah vs the Blowing Leaf story!! Ducky barks at the howling wind at times, or a dog barking at its owner up in the ball field across the street. And, of course, I can’t help but laugh until my sides hurt when I watch Ducky hump Callie’s waistline! But yesterday she gave me another good laugh — Sam had left the book he was reading on his chair when he got up to get something to drink. The next thing I know, Ducky was standing in the middle of the living room floor barking at the book because it was on the chair. Reminded me of my sweet little Kissy. She once barked at a pair of my shoes that I had left on the kitchen floor, next to her crate. I couldn’t imagine what she was barking at, mostly because it was quite a while after I’d taken the shoes off and had forgotten about them. They were in the wrong place. As soon as I picked them up to put them away, Kissy stopped barking. She just didn’t like things being where they didn’t belong.
So nice to stop for a moment and think of the joy and laughter they bring to our lives. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
Sounds like a very special moment – treasure it!
We’ve had blowing leaves the past couple days too and Bailie goes nuts chasing them. Mom is used to walking with two nuts on the ends of the leashes, so it rarely stresses her out because it has become the norm. People who see us think we are totally out of control, comment to Mom that she sure has her hands full, etc, but really, it doesn’t phase her. Plus, she is always busy, so the hour or so walk time flies by! If she has a dog like Katie who walks along at a snails pace in a heal position, it bores her to death. I think it is all in what you are used to.
Yes, My yellow lab Merlin will bark and growl at anything that is not in the place where it should be. Once I caught him growling at a moth in his kennel and yesterday he was carrying on at a dead fly on the ground lol.
Just the other night. Torrey has never barked or howled at sirens. The other night she was sound asleep and a siren went kinda close by. She started howling in her sleep, I have never ever seen this dog howl. I laughed so hard.
OH YES…. the SCARY Blowing Leaves… those dudes can keep one on the tips of the paws…
You never know when a leaf might be a piece of dried liver in disguise.
mom said she walks a nice peaceful doggy and a monster
Snorts,
Lily & Edward
When I take Teddy for walks he cracks me up! We’ll be walking and all of a sudden something will scare him, like a car driving by or just about anything, and he will immediately drop down to the road. He just falls down and lays there. It’s the craziest thing I have ever seen!
Delilah is still a puppy at heart to be chasing leaves like that.
Sometimes you just have to laugh when those kinds of walks happen…rustling leaves, tangled leashes and a little bit of chaos keeps life interesting! 🙂
Love those sweet, unexpected moments! We’ve had a lot of leaves blowing around because of some nearby construction taking down some trees (boo.) but it’s been so funny watching Cooper try to snap them out of the air. Yesterday he made a game of it, and John and I just sat and laughed! Who knows what goes on in their heads sometimes! 🙂
🙂 Our lives would be so boring without our pups wouldn’t they?
I think your humorous posts are my all time faves. You remind me of the Erma Bombeck of “Dogdom”…you kill me! What can go wrong, WILL! (I mean that in a GOOD way!) You speak for all of the less-than-perfect-but-with-good-intentions doggie parents such as myself. You tell it like it is, and you admit that your dogs aren’t perfect, which, truth be told, NONE of them are!!!! The part about the female squirrel, the “doggy ambassador”, etc., etc., cracked me up! You are just great!
LOL! I can totally relate to mayhem on walks! I’ve managed to teach my two to untangle themselves and they can as long as they are tangled in their own leash. I can also relate to having those absolutely brilliant walks where everything goes great and erases the bad. 😀
I feel the same way, there are so many times I want to shake Gambler then when he kicks the closet open grabs my clothes and prances in the living room with them with this shit eating grin on his face, he makes me smile.
Silly pups finding fun where they can. 🙂