Heart Like a Dog

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

Proper Dog Greetings

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We’ve lived in our current house for almost five years.

About two years ago the neighbor’s daughter moved home with two kids and a dog.  Their yard is not fenced in and Gunner (their dog) is tied out when he needs to do his business.

He is not a chained dog, he is very much part of their family.  Whenever they are outside Gunner is out there with him, secured of course with a lead.

Sampson and Delilah know Gunner through the fence, Hubby did say a few weeks back Sampson and Gunner met on the street, but other than that one encounter, the dogs have had no real interaction.

A couple of months ago I ran into my neighbor in the woods at the top of the street. She, the boys and Gunner were sitting on top of a large boulder enjoying the day and a late afternoon snack.

The dogs were all eager to greet each other, but with Delilah’s snarkiness I was a bit leery, and I told her so.  She said Gunner was very chill, but the only time she had ever seem him aggressive was when other dogs  were around the children.   I said I’d rather wait until Hubby was there thank you very much.

Yesterday as Sampson and Delilah were having our walk we heard voices.  The dogs were going nuts and kept trying to figure out exactly where the voices were coming from.

I could tell they were in the field and there were children, so I decided the best approach was to bring the dogs down to the field and ask if they could greet everyone so we could enjoy the rest of our walk.

I leashed up both dogs and we headed into the field.

As we entered the field I saw our neighbor and she said, I just let Gunner loose.

I asked if he would be okay and she said yes, so I dropped both leashes.

Accompanying my neighbor was her sister and her sister’s dog, a 4 month old yellow lab named Sadie.

Sampson and Delilah rush forward, as did Gunner and Sadie.  The dogs all sniffed each other and then kind of did their own thing.

Now, this type of greeting might be great for when dogs are off-leash or meeting each other in the woods or field, but what is the proper way for dogs to greet when they are in a public place, a place like let’s just say…..Blogpaws?

I’m really considering bringing Sampson to Blogpaws next May, but his greeting skills are a concern to me.  He has a tendency to rush up to other dogs. Besides not wanting to be pulled across the floor on my face, I’d like to make sure he is properly behaved.

The probability is that if Sampson goes, Hubby will as well.  Hubby of course will not be attending the seminars and conferences, his job at this conference will be to handle Sampson, and Sampson does listen well to Hubby.

None-the-less I would still like Sampson and Delilah to learn proper greetings.

What are your thoughts on this?

Would You Pay?

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I think I’ve mentioned this before, but much of my thinking about what to blog about is done on our walks.

Not only do I depend upon the dogs to provide me entertainment and material, I often times am thinking of something one of you wrote about, whether it be in a post or a comment.  If I’m not doing that, I’m daydreaming.

Here is my latest daydream, it’s for a dog park that is completely fenced in, so all dogs can be off-leash.

There would be a nice field, for fetching or playing games and a great big pond for swimming.  There would also be wooded trails and picnic tables so a person or family could go and make a day of it.

There would always be someone on duty during hours of operation and you would check in at a little gate and get a wrist band for yourself and your dog would get a matching band that would attach to the collar.  This would be designed along the lines of the bracelets used on maternity wards to prevent someone other than you leaving with your dog.

The park would offer classes, such as rally, agility, nosework, obedience, etc.

It would look something like this:

The blue circle indicates the pond, while the dark green circle is the playing/training field.  The smaller squares of green are trees, while the brown squares would be the walking trails.  The two gray lines in the front indicate the path in to the park and the large gray building to the right of the path is the guard shack.  The red lines are picnic tables.

Of course this is just a quick sketch meant to give you a general idea.  I forgot to add a large indoor ring that could be used to hold matches or indoor training when the weather is poor.

The park would definitely be a member’s only park.  There would be specific rules and regulations and all dogs would need to be friendly and you would need to sign something saying you agreed to the rules.

Here’s the question, if something like this were available in your area would you pay to belong?  How much would something like this be worth to a dog owner?

Would a park like this generate enough money to pay for the taxes and any upkeep as well as the security and trainers, or would it need to supplement by offering classes to the general public and reduced classes to members?

Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

Here Has Many Meanings

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We’ve had a humid streak in the northeast for the last few months.  It’s actually been so bad that I’ve had to keep the dog’s walks to about 30 minutes.  Much more than that and we are all just about ready to drop.  Even on those mornings when we’ve been able to get out early, the humidity really does us in.

Friday night we got some big thunder storms which thankfully drove the humidity away.

Hubby and I take turns sleeping in on the weekends.  Unless Hubby has to work on Saturdays, that is his day to sleep in, while mine is Sunday.  I love sleeping in on Sundays.

Yesterday was no exception.  I’m not sure if it was the cooler, fresh air pouring in through the open windows or the Xanax I took just before bed, but I slept pretty darn good; only pulling my lazy butt out of bed just before nine.

It was so nice yesterday morning I couldn’t wait to get out with the dogs in the cool morning air.

As I’ve noted before, I’m calling the dogs back to me quite frequently.

What I found out yesterday is the Here command can be used for more than one purpose.

Delilah loves to roll in things, especially when she’s in the soccer field.

Usually it’s a clump of fresh-cut grass, but you never know with Delilah.  I’ve caught her rolling in worse.

I can tell she’s on the scent of something and I try to distract her, but some days it’s just inevitable that Delilah will roll in something.

Yesterday was one of those days.

She was just too quick for me.  Maybe it was the after effects of the Xanax but before I knew it there Delilah was rolling around on the ground.

Here, I said reaching into my treat bag.

She immediately stopped what she was doing, jumped up and ran over to me. 🙂

Focusing on just one command has been beneficial to the dogs but it has also been really good for me.  It is far easier to remember one command rather than here, come, leave-it, wait, sit, down.

Well you get the point. 🙂

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