Heart Like a Dog

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

Embrace Who She Is

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I made a promise to myself when I started this blog that I would always be honest, which is why there were two very emotional and raw posts last week.

I was extremely disappointed in Delilah last Monday and in my abilities to train her.

In two short months, on May 26th we will celebrate the five-year anniversary of Delilah’s “Gotcha Day.”  Which means I’ve been working with her for a very long time, as I am not one of those people who get  a dog and think by some miracle they will know exactly what is expected of them without any training.

We went through all the training classes with Sampson and he did marvelously, I figured we had this in the bag.  I quickly realized Delilah would need formal training.

We enrolled in classes.  Sara reminded me last week when she yelled at me to quit writing bad stuff about Delilah on the blog, of our first class.  Our classes were stubborn meets stubborner and I don’t know which of us was which.  That first class I had to practically lay on Delilah to get her into a down.  I’ve since (thanks to all of you) revised my training philosophy and will never again lay on her to get her into a down.

My walking friend also made me realize that she hasn’t been working off-leash for very long at all, just over a year.  It was only January of last year when we started walking the trails.

Saturday I went to pick up dog food and spoke with Sandy our raw food mentor.  Somehow we started talking about Delilah and I was explaining how excited Delilah is around food and how she jumps backwards all the way to the place where she gets fed, never once taking her eyes off her food bowl.

Sandy just stood there, nodding her head up and down with a huge smile on her face.

“What?” I asked, “Why are you standing there smiling?”

“Embrace who she is, someday she won’t be able to do that” was her response.

I get that, I really do.  I already see the white in Sampson’s face and it makes my heart hurt.   But I want the best of both worlds, I want a dog that can run around and have fun but listens to me when I need or want them to.

Is that even possible?

Defeated And Lost – Part Two

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When we left off, I had just gotten Delilah free from her concrete entrapment.  If you missed that story you can read about it here.

I head into the woods where I unclipped Sampson so I can at least have one hand free and I wrap what’s left of Delilah’s leash around my hand.

We meet Kingston’s mom about half-way up, get into the field and walk to the area where we part ways.  I walk out to the car, load the dogs and head home.

I am defeated and resigned.  I am lost, treading water in a vast ocean of disappointment.  I am an utter failure in trying to train this dog.

After almost five years, I give up.  I’m done.

Hubby comes home and says, “How are you?”

“I’m ok.”

“What’s up?  You seem like you’re in a pissy mood.”

“Yup.”

Then I go on to tell him the story.

We talk about it.  Seriously talk about it. I am conceding, I am giving in and getting an electronic collar for her. I don’t know what else to do.

I thank him for not being an ‘a’ hole about the whole thing and saying “I told you so.”

Meanwhile, the dog that sprang from Satan’s loins will not sit while I’m in the kitchen.  After trying to teach her for 1,746 days, I’m frustrated.  I yell at her to “SIT DOWN.”

It’s time to feed the dogs.  They need to sit on the edge of the kitchen when I am preparing their meals.  She will not.  She gets up, she changes spots for a better vantage point.  She tries to advance into the kitchen.  My frustration with her from her earlier adventure hasn’t gone away.  I have no patience for this.

Then yesterday morning she comes into the bathroom while I am trying to get ready for work.  My frustration with her from the previous day has not gone away.  She comes in and shoves her head between my legs and gets brown goo (from Dog knows what) on my work pants.  I banish her from the bathroom and once again I feel lost.

Hubby says she is stubborn.  It’s not that she isn’t smart, she is stubborn.

So am I. I am not a defeatist. You can knock me down and I will get back up. Do it 100 times, I will get back up.  I might cry and rage, but I will get back up and I will figure out a way to knock you down.

Not this time.  This time I’m defeated.  It’s a horrible feeling.  I’m not quite sure how to deal with it.

Crying, lots of crying.  Which is another thing I don’t do well.

I have no confidence, if I can’t help this dog after almost five full years, then maybe I’m just not the right person for the job.

I’ve failed.  I failed myself.  I failed you, my faithful readers.  I’ve failed all the positive reward based trainers out there but most of all I’ve failed my dog.

I wonder if the rescue will take her back.  I wonder if this is the reason she was surrendered in the first place.

I wonder how people do this, day after day and still manage to put a smile on their face and accept the uniqueness that is their crazy, wild, untrainable dog.

P.S. This was written yesterday and I am in a much better place today, I haven’t put the collar on her yet (even though I borrowed one from a friend.) I want to order the DVD by Dr. Patricia McConnell and give it one last shot.

Defeated and Lost – Part One

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Did you ever have one of those days where you just feel defeated?

Today is one of those days for me, I can tell because I’ve  gone through two packs of Skittles, normally I’m just a one pack a day girl.

As you know I’ve been working with Delilah on her off leash behavior, she drags a 30 foot leash on our walks.  I really don’t like her dragging the leash because there are times when the dogs start running and chasing each other through wooded areas.  I have pictures in my mind of her running full-out and having that leash get stuck, stopping her short and snapping her neck or breaking her back.

It scares me.

If I am holding the leash, even when I know she is about to bolt she can still pull me off my feet.

Or worse, once I braced myself because someone entered the trail with their dog and Delilah took off after them.  Since I was prepared she hit the end of lead and just about flipped herself.

Many times on our walks I drop the leash and let her run, but there are certain areas where I hold fast.

I use a good quality, no grain kibble to reward the dogs when they return to me.  Many times I give them kibble just for checking in, whether I call them or not.

The best way I can explain the area I walk the dogs in is to say my road ends in a cul-de-sac, if you drove straight off the road, you would go through a wooded area and into a large open field which is used for LaCrosse or Soccer.  The field sits in the middle of a wooded area and there are houses beyond the woods on three sides.

In my Follow-up Friday post I wrote about a new spot Delilah had found to the left side of the field, when she took off on me last Thursday evening.  Since then when we’ve gone to the field I make sure to hold her leash or keep calling her back to avoid that area.

In that same Follow-up Friday post I wrote about two more dogs we had encountered on our walks where the dog owner, just walked away leaving their dog and expecting the dog to follow.

Last night I rushed home from work, changed into walking clothes, clipped the 30 foot leash on Delilah and headed out for a quick twenty-five minute walk.

Forty five minutes later I came home with Delilah on a 10 foot leash, I was frustrated, angry, embarrassed, sad and above all else, I felt defeated.

We ran into the two new dogs yesterday with their mom.  I found out their names were Norbert (siriusly love this name) and Kingston.  I sort of joined her on her walk, asking questions about the dogs.  Turns out Kingston (the one who practically followed me home) is a rescue they have had for about two weeks.

Two weeks and they are letting him run around without a leash.  But that’s another topic.

We got to the field and Delilah headed over to the left, she was too far away from me to grab that leash, so I called her.  She came back.  I rewarded her, good girl!

She headed over there again, I called her.  She ignored me and started stepping into the woods.  I called her, “DELILAH!  Don’t do it.”

She was gone.

I pulled out the training whistle and blew it, and blew it, and blew it.  Nothing.

I knew I was going to have to go in after her, so I headed into the woods.   She was in someone’s backyard and as soon as I saw her I could see that she was stuck, but I didn’t know on what.

Meanwhile Sampson and Kingston are running all over the place.  Into the woods, out of the woods.  Kingston’s mom is calling him and Sampson keeps running back following Kingston.

Delilah’s leash had slid under an outside, central air conditioning unit, which was sitting on a concrete slab on top of some paving stones that are secured in the ground.  The leash must have hit that perfect spot on the corner of one of the stones and I couldn’t pull it out.

The houses in this area are absolutely gorgeous.  This person’s yard is beautifully landscaped and immaculate.  There is a fifth wheel pull behind trailer right next to the air conditioning unit.

I pull, tug and manipulate and I cannot dislodge the leash.  I have nothing on me to cut the leash (and if I did, I would be leaving a piece of it there and they’d know SOMETHING had happened) and Hubby is not home for me to call for a bail out.

I have no choice but go ring this person’s door bell.

Utter and complete humiliation and embarrassment.

I leash Sampson and walk up to the house, I don’t see any lights on, but thankfully the owner was home and saw me approaching.

She came to the door and said, “Can I help you?”

Stuttering and apologizing I explain the situation and ask her if she has something I can cut the leash with.

I’ll be right out.”

She comes outside, where she is accosted by two dogs.

I try to calm them down.

She says, “It’s okay, I love dogs” as Delilah jumps up, desperate for someone, anyone to help her and reassure her that it will be ok.

She bends down and tries to tug on the leash, which doesn’t budge.  I tell her we can just cut it, she tells  me she would hate to cut my leash.

Really?  Really?  My dog is in your yard stuck on your property and you don’t want to cut the freakin leash?

I tell her I hope we haven’t done any damage to her property and she says, “No, you can’t damage this.”

She goes into the garage (Sampson tries to follow her) and comes out with a pair of scissors. They weren’t the sharpest pair but eventually they did the trick. She tells me maybe I can just tie the leash together.

Are you kidding me?  I don’t care about the freaking leash, I am standing here drowning in embarrassment and humiliation.  I just want to take my dog, go home and cry.

As we are standing there and I am trying to escape, here comes Kingston again.

More conversation about the dogs, “Now, who is this?”

I try to explain and inside I’m screaming, “Please just let me leave so I can find a hole to crawl into and die.”

Finally, finally, I have thanked her profusely and the three dogs and I head off.

There is of course more, but I realize how long this post is, so look for part two tomorrow (and I’ll post it early.)

And if you’ve hung in there this long, thank you!

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