Heart Like a Dog

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

To Boldly Go Where No Dog Has Gone Before…Day One Hundred Forty Six

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Silly me, I forgot to check the Lacrosse schedule today, sure enough there was a practice scheduled at the field.   We were already in the car and at the park, so I leashed both dogs and walked them in.  Once we turned towards the trails and I was sure they wouldn’t turn back, I unleashed them.

I knew I had to keep them busy so we headed toward the back of the trails. Many times we have stood on a ridge back there, looking down into the valley and a small river/stream that runs through it.  Today I found a trail down that was user-friendly, so I began the descent down. Naturally Delilah went ahead as she is the ultimate trailblazer in our family.

I was using caution on the trip down, so imagine my surprise when I stopped to look and saw Delilah across the stream, just running carefree and happy beside the stream.

The faint glimmer in the middle of the picture is the stream.

If Chet had been with me, he would have freaked out about her being so far away, but it made me so happy to see her so happy, I called her to me and waited for her to come back, which she promptly did.

Can you tell she is far away?

Just as we were finishing our uphill climb, Chet called to say he was on his way.  My luck on the way back ,Delilah found something nasty and rubbed herself in it; I finally got her away and headed in the right direction and Sampson went back and found it and he rubbed himself in it!  YUCK!

Right after they both rolled in it we found Chet, so we all headed out together.  The Lacrosse team was still there so I leashed Delilah sooner than I normally would and we walked out.  As we were exiting the park, there was a man walking in, he was approaching on my right side and Delilah walks on my left.  I saw her perk up in anticipation and I said, “Leave it.”  She walked right past the man without so much as a look.  If you had been walking out behind me, you would have seen me do a little fist pump. 🙂  Good job, Delilah!

Knothead….Day One Hundred, Forty Three

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Last year Sara and I noticed Sampson had some bumps on his head, when I felt them with my fingers they felt like scabs. At first we thought it was from rough playing with the other daycare dogs; but then Sara observed Sampson sniffing the floor and said, it looks like hives to me, I bet he stuck his head under a bush and had a reaction to it.Chet and I noticed the bumps again. We noticed it first by a large scab he had on one side of his head. We noticed it about 5 days ago; at first we only noticed the one bump. We watched it every day and put Neosporin on it, but yesterday when I got home Chet said, “Have you looked at his head?”

The scab is visible, but the knot is not.

I had looked at it in the morning, but I looked again and he had the one scab, and then a big knot slightly off to the side of it. Upon closer inspection it looked to me like a clump of fur that was matted with blood. I took a wet cloth and held it to the lump, rubbed it gently and pulled it away. Sure enough, it had blood on it. Chet really wanted Sampson to see the vet to be sure it wasn’t anything too serious, so we made an appointment for this afternoon.
 
The vet took one look at his head and said, “Let me get the clippers.”

Shaving the head.

They shaved my baby’s head!  My poor boy!  What the vet found under the fur was a number of scabs a couple of which were infected.  So now he is on Prednisone and antibiotic. There must be something in our yard that blooms or grows in the spring and when he touches the plant or bush with his head, he gets an allergic reaction to it.  So once he comes off the medications, we will put him on Benadryl and monitor him.  In the meantime, I’ll be looking for a hat that he can wear when he goes outside. He may look a bit silly with a hat on his head, but he won’t look any sillier than he looks now, with a big, scabby, bald patch on his head.

Poor Handsome Boy.

The good boy got a strawberry shake for the ride home.

Trials and Tribulations…Day One Hundred and Forty Two

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 Chet joined us late on our walk last night.  Since I knew he was coming, I was on the watch for him. 
 

“Who’s that?”  I said to Sampson and Delilah, while pointing with my finger to the general area where I could see Chet approaching.

Naturally, the dogs got all excited even though they had not yet seen him (I had the advantage of being at a slightly higher elevation.)  They picked up their pace; head and tails up, eyes alert looking, searching.  Sampson saw Chet first and high-tailed it directly to Daddy; Delilah was slightly slower in spotting him, but once she had  him in her sites, she was full-out running; and this dog is fast!  She beat Sampson by about 15 to 20 seconds.  I on the other hand was much slower in re-joining the pack, but once I had we had an interesting conversation.

Chet: “Do you know what I saw in her, right then when they were running to me?”

I’m clueless and not really sure where the conversation is going but willing to participate to see where this takes us; “What?” 

Oh lord, the suspense was killing me.  “A retriever.”

“Oh my GOD, really imagine that, I had no idea that my Labrador RETRIEVER looked like a retriever! ” (The inner bitch inside of me said.)

The rational me, the one who actually has control of my mouth said, “What do you mean?”

While I mentally shushed  the inner bitch, he went on to explain to me how he saw a field trial dog in the way Delilah was running.  Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. 

He’s right (I won’t say of course because it’s not like he’s right ALL the time,) when Delilah runs her nose is to the ground and she zigs and zags as she runs, it seems like she is constantly looking for something and Lord help us when she finds it.

Monday night she saw a squirrel in the woods and that was it.  She was gone, no amount of coaxing, pleading, yelling, even “yum yum” while I fed Sampson Roast Beef would bring her back.

Tuesday night, she took off in the same spot; Sampson and I walked away.  When she caught up to us, I leashed her and kept her with me for the rest of the walk.

Last night, I didn’t give her the opportunity.  As soon as we got close to the spot, I called her to me and leashed her until we were well past it; then I let her off leash.

My point is from our observations she needs a purpose when she is on the trail and we as her caregivers are required to provide that for her,  trouble is I don’t know what she needs or how to go about getting it for her.

I've thought about dock diving.

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