Heart Like a Dog

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

Can I Bring My Dog?

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We’re having a cookout on Saturday.  It’s actually our Easter dinner.  You may recall I was in Florida on Easter, so I decided our family gathering would be a cookout.

I got a text last night from my cousin who asked, “Can my boyfriend bring his dog?  He’s a good dog as cool as Sampson, you will love him.  You will want to blog about him.”

My immediate response was yes!  Of course, all dogs are welcome at my house.

Then I started to think of the logistics of it.

  • People will be coming and going. Some people can only make it early in the afternoon and some can’t make it til later.  I figure this will go down in two waves.  The early crew and the late crew.
  • Hubby and I will be busy, he will be cooking and I will be monitoring the food to make sure Delilah does not eat it.
  • We will not be able to watch the dogs or monitor their meeting as closely as we would like.
  • My friend’s dog is a 120 pound Bull Mastiff…..I picture him like this:

Photo courtesy of http://dogbreedinformations.com

  • Sampson can get snarky with male dogs, especially those that are bigger than he is.
  • Little children will be running about.

I started to get a feeling.  Not one I could put my finger on, just a feeling way down in the pit of my stomach.  I thought back to the party I was at where I was the only one sober enough to drive the hysterical mother and her sobbing son to the emergency room so he could get his ear sewn back on after being bitten by a dog.

I sent my cousin a text: “I’ve been thinking about the dogs.  I hope you understand, Sampson can get snarky with other dogs especially males that are bigger than he is.  I’m concerned that Hubby and I won’t be able to keep an eye on him like we would want to and with the little ones around it makes me a bit nervous.  Could we wait on this?  Hubby and I can have you, H and his dog over when it is just us and we can see how Sampson does.  Sorry to be such a nervous Nellie…..if the grand kids weren’t going to be there it would be entirely different.  I will tell you a story on Saturday that is weighing heavy on my heart and guiding me with this decision.”

She understood of course.  If she didn’t she wouldn’t be one of my oldest and dearest friends.  And I don’t mean I wouldn’t speak to her, what I mean is she knows me and she knows my heart and my love for animals and she knows I wouldn’t make this decision lightly.

She said her boyfriend won’t come without his dog, which makes me sad but I understand.

Just as I have to do what I feel is right for my dog so he succeeds, her boyfriend feels he must do what is right for his dog.

What do you think?  In a situation such as I just described, would you have someone bring their dog if your dog(s) had never met them before?

What Keeps You Awake At Night?

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I’ve been having trouble sleeping.  Not just lately either.  In my adult life, I’ve struggled with sleep for about the last 10 years.  Some nights are better than others, where I do sleep but wake frequently, whether it be to use the bathroom or to just turn over.  Sometimes I go right back to sleep and other times it takes a while.

Then there are those nights when I can’t seem to fall asleep.  My mind is racing with all kinds of important and unimportant thoughts.

I’ve been working on it.  I am currently seeing a Dr. that leans towards the Holistic side, which is exactly what I am looking for.  I try to stay with the natural remedies, but when I go two, three, four nights with little to no sleep, I always have my trusty Xanax. 🙂

I think part of it is noise.  It used to be that I could not sleep without a white noise fan.  A troublesome issue if you are traveling, as this means you must always bring your fan with you.

We started using the noisemaker when our daughters got into their late teens.  Many nights they would be coming home much later than we went to bed, or they were up late watching TV in the living which was just below our bedroom. The white noise machine helped cut down on the noise, enabling us a better sleep.

When we had the freak snowstorm last October and lost power for a week, we had no white noise.  We adjusted to life without it and haven’t been using it since.

I didn’t sleep well Sunday, which wasn’t surprising, since I don’t usually sleep well on Sunday nights.  I think Monday morning and the work week weigh heavily on my mind on Sunday nights.

This past Monday it was incredibly hot and became necessary to turn the air conditioner on in the bedroom.  Monday night I didn’t sleep very well.  (I think it was the noise from the air conditioner and me not being use to it.)

Tuesday it was cool enough to sleep with the windows open, but we used the fan to cut down on the outside noise.  This was more or less to keep a crazy chocolate lab from barking in the middle of the night.  (It didn’t.)

Tuesday night I woke up a LOT.  Every time I woke up there was someone else that woke up too.  Someone who had their body pressed up against mine, who lifted their head, or shifted themselves to be closer to the Mama, encouraging physical contact.

Please pet me Mama, he seemed to say.  And pet him I did.  Over and over.  Ear rubbies, head rubbies, belly rubbies; all night long I pet Sampson.

Hubby said when he got up to shower Wednesday morning he thought Sampson was going to lay on top of me, he was that close.

Mornings Delilah gets up and heads out to the kitchen with Hubby, because she knows when he has finished packing his lunch, he will give her a couple of carrots or biscuits.

Sometimes Sampson goes, sometimes he stays in bed with Mama for morning rubbies.   Surprisingly enough, he stayed with me Wednesday morning, despite all the attention I had showered upon him during the night, he still wanted more. 🙂

Last night Hubby said he couldn’t sleep because Sampson was running against his back.  He says Sampson must have run for miles in his sleep, all the while his feet against Hubby’s back.

I slept like I was getting paid to do it.  (I had popped a Xanax.)

Do your pets ever keep you up because they want attention?  What do you do when you cannot sleep?

The Optimism Of Cats And Dogs

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Yesterday I Still Want More Puppies had a very cute video of a cat.

Honestly, I don’t know where some of you find the time to do all the things you do.  If I had about 8 more waking hours in a day, (and the energy to go with it) I might be able to do half of what some of you do.

But I digress.

I changed the comment I was going to leave on that particular post, because I realized the story would be quite lengthy and it would make a good post. “-)

The year was 2005 B. D. (Before Delilah.)

Sampson was about a year and a half at the time, my daughter and her husband had just gotten married, and they moved from FL to CT and were staying with us.  They brought their two cats with them, Percy and Knuckles.

Percy was a big boy, my boy. Even though he was my daughter’s cat, he was very attached to me and Hubby.  Before she moved to Florida she was in her early 20’s working part-time and going to school full-time.  Percy spent a lot of time with us.  Then she moved and took him to Florida and he hated it.

He was very happy to come back home, but not at all happy that Sampson was now living there. Percy spent a lot of time puffed up at this intruder in his home.

Knuckles was rescued from the mean streets of Lakeland, and was still a kitten.  He rode the entire trip from Florida in my son-in-law’s lap.

To accommodate the two cats, Hubby had installed a cat door in my daughter and SIL’s room.  We figured if the dog was antagonizing them, they would at least have a safe place to retreat to.

Knuckles was/is a pretty cool cat.  He had a little foil ball that you could throw and he would run after it, pick it up in his mouth and bring it back.  It was just about the cutest thing I’d ever seen. 🙂

He did like to tease Sampson though and would wait outside my daughter’s door to get Sampson’s attention and then when Sampson was almost upon him, he would dart inside the room via the cat door.

The house has three bedrooms.  Our bedroom was at one end of the hall facing the bathroom and Lisa and Steve’s room (with the cat door) is to the left of the bathroom door.

This was a time in his life when Sampson would eagerly wait at the door, because he knew Knuckles would be out and he would have an opportunity to meet him.   He did this every morning while Knuckles and Percy lived there.

Seriously you’ve got to love a dog’s optimism.

On this particular morning, Lisa was taking a shower when I opened the bedroom door. As usual Sampson tore down the hallway.  Knuckles (as usual) waited until the last possible minute and turned for the cat door.

Seriously, you’ve got to love a cat’s optimism.

Here’s the thing about cat doors.  In order for them to work, they need to be unlocked.  For some reason on this particular morning, it wasn’t.

God how I wish I had this on video.

Knuckles, the little antagonist, turned for the cat door and finding it closed, spun in the air, twisting and turning looking for escape.  He ended up against the bathroom door.

Sampson, sensing victory, charged forward, all 90 pounds of him.

Lisa screamed and tried to cover herself, as Sampson and Knuckles burst through the bathroom door.

Knuckles was air born at the time and spinning, twisting and snarling as only cats can do and in short fashion sought refuge…..under the tub.

Sampson had him pinned under the tub and he knew it.  He bent down in a play bow, tail wagging happily, only to be defeated once again because he was too big to follow Knuck.

After that day,  when Lisa took a shower, the bathroom door was always locked and the cat door was always unlocked.

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