Heart Like a Dog

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

Shining Star

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Last night Delilah and I had our second tricks class.  Can I tell you something?

Delilah and I have had our share of go-rounds.  You know it, because I’ve shared it here with you. Even with the challenges she’s faced, I know deep down in my heart what a good dog she is.  And there is one place where it shows.

My dog shines in the classroom setting.

We walk into the classroom and she is focused on me, waiting and watching and willing to learn.

Our task was to learn three tricks last night, play dead, roll-over and crawl.

I forgot my point and shoot, so I had to use my cell phone, which isn’t easy to work when you’re the one doing the training.

Our instructor was quite pleased with the progress we made playing dead and rolling over.  She then asked if she could borrow Delilah to show us how to teach them to crawl.

I giggled a little inside because I’ve been trying to get Delilah to crawl for about four years.

Yup, she got out there and crawled across the floor.

When I got home I had Hubby take a video of us doing each of the tricks. Please excuse the poor lighting and my messy housekeeping, I just wanted to show you what she learned.

(Excuse my ass.)

There was a new woman in our class last night. From what I could tell her husband was supposed to meet her there with their dog but he got stuck in traffic, so she just hung out observing.  She happened to sit right near Delilah and I and we ran into her on our way out.  She asked if she could pet Delilah and then she said, she has such a calming peaceful effect.

I said, REALLY?  I don’t think so.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she really is a shining star.

Is there an area where your dog shines?

Have you voted in the Dogs of Blogville Calendar contest yet?

More Thoughts From A Walk

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A while back I wrote a post about thoughts Sampson, Delilah and myself might have on one of our walks. Since that time we’ve had many more walks, and many more thoughts. 🙂

We pull up to the park, I sling Samson’s leash over my shoulder, exit the car and open the door.  The dogs burst out and make a bee-line for the trees.

I shut the door, lock the car and pocket the key.  I reach into my treat bag and pull out some liverwurst.

Here, I say loudly and clearly. Sampson and Delilah run up to me and I give them each a tiny piece of liverwurst.  I grab Delilah’s 15 foot leash and we start hiking in.

We get into the field and all stop to check out a pile of dog poop.

Sampson, Dang, this guy gets different food than I do.

Delilah, I’ve never smelled this brand before.

Me, WTF do they feed that dog, it looks like sunflower seeds in there.

We make our turn into the woods.

Here, I say loudly and clearly.  Sampson stops, turns and looks at me.  Delilah spins on a dime and comes right back to me: where’s my liverwurst? 

I un-clip Delilah from her leash and tell her, free dog.

Sampson looks at me, where’s mine?

Me: Dude, you didn’t hustle back here, you get nothin.

We head towards the back of the woods, you know the place where all the spider parties are.

Sampson and Delilah run ahead.

Me:  Ugh, get it off me, get it off me!  (No, wait I said that out loud.)

Sampson: What’s the racket all about, why can’t we just have a peaceful walk?

Delilah turning on a dime and running back to me: What’s the matter mom, are you okay?  Where’s my liverwurst?

We all hear voices.  The dogs stop, ears up and then start to run ahead.

Here, I say loudly and clearly.

Sampson stops and looks back at me.

Delilah whips around and runs back to me.  Is this important?  Where’s my liverwurst?

I clip Delilah on leash and approach Sampson, he starts to move forward.

Wait, I say loudly and clearly. I grab his collar and clip on his leash.  Together we approach the field.

We see our neighbors with their dogs, it’s safe to let them off-leash.

I un-clip Sampson and drop Delilah’s leash, they take off at a full run.

Here, I say loudly and clearly.

Sampson ignores me, looking up at the neighbor, pet me please.

Delilah turns on a dime and rushes to my side, Again?  Aren’t you tired of this yet?  Where’s my liverwurst?

After a few minutes of playing we head off into the woods to finish our walk.

Me: Didn’t the bugs get the memo about leaving me alone?  There’s a bug on my glasses, go away bug, you’re bugging me.

Sampson: Why does she keep swatting, does she realize how stupid she looks?

Delilah:  Hey Sampson watch this, if I run up to her, I bet she gives me some liverwurst.

Heart Like A Dog

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As most of you know, I’ve been looking to take the next step with my blog.  For me that means moving it from the free WordPress account to a self-hosted blog.  My struggle has been what to name the new blog.

The problem is that the wordpress account was www.jodistone.wordpress.com.  Normally speaking you wouldn’t want to change the blog name, just remove the wordpress and make the account a dot.com.

As I’ve mentioned here, there are already at least two authors using the name Jodi Stone, one of which has the website with the dot.com, which meant that I can’t use my name.

I could have gone with, Life With Sampson and Delilah but my plan is to have an official website for all my writings, and some of those writings may not be about Sampson and Delilah.

For months I’ve been popping around your blogs saying, “Just Be The Dog.”

I really did love that saying, but as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts there is already a website with a similar name.

After months of agonizing and indecision, I saw a saying posted on facebook one day and it ended with Heart Like A Dog.  I knew immediately that was the perfect name for my blog.

When I think of a dog’s heart, I think of courage, faith, determination, persistence, generosity, wisdom, devotion, strength and love.  These are just some of the traits I admire in my dogs.

To give of myself to others like my dogs give to me, is a worthy goal in my opinion.

Yes, it’s true, I really want to be more like my dogs.

Great!  I found a blog name.  Then the real agonizing began, I didn’t want to ‘launch’ it until it was perfect. The problem is I know very little about marketing and designing websites and that’s where some of my amazing blog friends came to my rescue.

Without these incredible women, this blog would not be here today.

So I’d like to say a huge thank you to:

Jodi Chick from Kol’s Notes who spent a rainy (at least it was rainy here) Sunday afternoon listening to me whine chatting with me on facebook and who was the one who came up with the tagline, The Life, Loves and Writings of Jodi Stone.  (I think it’s something in the name.) 😉

Julie Melfi (yes, Cali’s mom) from The Daily Dog Blog, who transferred the blog from the free wordpress account to the bluehost server, and has answered many ‘how do I do this’ e-mails.  Maybe you didn’t know this about Julie, but besides writing a daily blog, she’s also a website designer.  You can check her out at legupcreative.com.

And last, but certainly not least Kari Pike from Houndgirl who designed the entire website.  That header, she whipped it up one afternoon.  I can tell you here and now, her child is extremely lucky because Kari has the patience of a saint.  I’m a bit of a perfectionist and she never said a bad thing or told me to shut my pie hole and stop e-mailing her.

These ladies all come highly recommended by me.

Jodi, Julie and Kari, thank you from the bottom of my heart. xoxo

(If I did this right, you were re-directed to this site automatically.  I’m not sure how it works as far as subscribing to the blog or how it is affected in your blog readers.  Please take a moment to add my feed to your readers.  I’ll be working on the subscribe button this week.)

Please bear with me as I figure out the social media buttons and how to subscribe features. 🙂

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