Heart Like a Dog

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

Praying for Poop

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Yesterday morning we woke up to cold rain.  Sampson and Delilah aren’t fond of going outside to potty in the rain, but if we’re walking even if  it’s raining, they are keen to go.

The three of us were drenched when we got home.  I dried the dogs off, hung leashes, collars, harnesses, gloves and coats by the fire and threw another log on. Lucky for me my coat was dry in time to go to work.  I gave the dogs each a carrot and left them curled up toasty and warm in front of a raging fire.

I went to work hoping the weather would clear in time for our afternoon walk.

It didn’t.

It was rainy and 46 cold degrees on our afternoon walk.  We walked out the door to the end of the driveway.  Delilah stopped, rooting about in leaves.  I saw the second poop just after she swallowed the first one.

She was quicker than I was.

I don’t know about you, but when my dog is eating something my first thought is to get it away from her.  I don’t actually think about what she’s eating, just that she’s eating.

You see where I’m going, right?

Yeah, I sort of shoved my gloved hand in her mouth to try to get it out.

All I accomplished was getting a glove covered in shit.

I took the gloves off in disgust and threw them on the ground.

Yeah, there are my gloves, sitting in the rain, while I walk gloveless.

Yeah, there are my gloves, sitting in the rain, while I walk gloveless.

I’d have to walk in the cold rain without gloves.  I wrapped the leash around my wrists and shoved my hands in my pockets.

A few minutes later I pulled my hand out to untangle leashes and I smelled it.  WTF?

GREAT, not only did I get shit on my gloves, my hand stunk like it too!  I’d have to finish the walk with my hands fully exposed to the elements.  My mood toward Delilah darkened and I cast her an evil look out of the side of my eye.  In fact when she bent down to sniff at something, I pretty certain I threatened her with bodily harm.

Sampson meanwhile keeps looking up at me wanting me to treat him.

Notice I'm standing on the side with the hand that DIDN'T go in her mouth.

Notice I’m standing on the side with the hand that DIDN’T go in her mouth.

Which is hard to do because as soon as Delilah hears him crunching, she wants a treat too and I’m not sticking my hand near her mouth again!

Suddenly Sampson sees two white tail deer in a yard!  He looks at me and barks, “I know, I see it too buddy.”  I also see the glint in his eye and brace myself for the launch.  “Don’t do it, buddy!  Leave it!” I say.  He looks dejected but settles for a treat.

It’s now about ten minutes into our walk. My hands are wet, cold and red. I begin to pray that one of them will take a dump, just so I’ll  have something warm to wrap my hand around, I mean, it already stinks like shit right?  Why not go for the whole enchilada?

Finally about 1/2 way through our walk Delilah rewards me.  Actually I think it was an attempt to redeem herself.  Now at least for a few minutes I have something warm to hold on to.  And yes, I latched on to that like it was my birthday and I was being offered cake.

About 20 minutes or so after we started our walk, we arrived home once again drenched to the skin.

Thankfully we had a fire going to warm us, and a washer to clean up my gloves, the leashes and my jacket.

It was a walk I wanted over before it really began.  Do you ever have one of those walks? What are your secrets to make a bad weather walk better?

2 Crazy Dogs

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Walking with two reactive dogs isn’t easy.  Sampson reacts to everything.  He sees a person he wants to greet them.  He sees a dog he wants to greet them.  He sees a car parked on the side of the road and he wants to look inside it to see if there is a person or a dog that he can greet.

Delilah reacts differently.  Mostly I find her reacting to dogs who are reacting.  It also depends on the proximity of the dog.  For instance a dog far off in their back yard who is barking their head off is easy to walk past.  A dog who is right at the front of the yard, is not as easy.

I’ve been working on different things with the dogs.  For one I’ve been using “Look” to distract them, when they look to me I treat them, and keep pulling out the treats as we walk past the distraction.

Truthfully Delilah’s far easier to distract with a treat than Sampson is, but this past weekend I decided to add something new in.  Two or three times per walk I “Heel” the dogs.  I say “Heel”, shorten both their leashes and with one on either side of me walk past a house.  Once past the house I treat them both and release them to go about their sniffing business.

So far we have only “Heeled” past people working outside, but having both dogs focused on me has made me a feel a little more comfortable and made our walks a bit more enjoyable for me.

So much so that I can enjoy a bit of the scenery.

A few years back we had a heavy snowfall at the end of October.  Some people call it “Snowtober” while others called it “Frankenstorm”.  Regardless what we called it, the snowstorm dumped lots of heavy, wet snow and caught many of our trees still with lots of leaves.  The heavy, wet snow on the leaves brought down so many trees, and left most of our area without power for a week to ten days.  In fact, the area was declared a disaster zone.

Since that storm, I’ve been very observant of the trees and their leaves. The trees held on to their leaves quite late this year.

Even now, some of the trees are hanging on to their leaves.

Even now, some of the trees are hanging on to their leaves.

In general I’ve been watching the Japanese maples.  I was wondering when they’d be dropping their leaves.

Finally, yesterday I was rewarded.

The red of the leaves is a different shade of red than the tradition maples.

The red of the leaves is a different shade of red than the tradition maples.

The Japanese maples leave a beautiful red carpet wherever they fall.  

Mixed with other leaves, the Japanese Maple beckoned me to take a closer look.

Mixed with other leaves, the Japanese Maple beckoned me to take a closer look.

So I did.

The leaf reminded me of a beautiful flower.

The leaf reminded me of a beautiful flower.

How do you enjoy your walks?  Do you dogs behave enough for you to enjoy the scenery?

You Make Me Laugh – November 16, 2014

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You make me laugh (or smile), the sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do on a daily basis that brings a smile to my face or a laugh to my lips.

Delilah, when you stick your nose deep in the leaves while you are going potty….

Please excuse the blurriness, it was dark and Sampson jostled my arm.

Please excuse the blurriness, it was dark and Sampson jostled my arm.

You make me laugh.

Do your dogs sniff and pee at the same time?  It cracks me up when she does this.

Friday morning we had a light dusting of snow, the only thing is we still had some leaves in the road, waiting for the town to pick them up.  The snow covered the leaves, so she is actually squatting in some of the leaves, but she stretched herself out so she could get a good sniff.

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