Heart Like a Dog

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

Change is Inevitable

By

I think I’ve mentioned before, the past couple of years, I’ve really struggled with the writing of this blog.

I’m struggling to get this dish full. Can you help a dog out?

In part, I think it was a depression of what was going on in my life.

  • I was in an incredibly toxic job. Initially they just cut my hours down, and six months later they cut my hours again, but this time they wrote me up. If I’m being honest, I could have been putting in more effort, but the bulk of what I was written up for was bogus. That was when I saw the writing on the wall and knew I’d need to find another job, before they chose to fire me. (FTR, I did and now have the nicest boss!)
  • Things aren’t great at home. I won’t go into details here, but will just say, sometimes people drift apart. People grow, people change and sometimes there are real struggles with that. I’m not sure how it will resolve, but eventually we’ll figure it out.
  • The dogs are aging, and with that comes health challenges and decisions, and the reality of facing some hard and painful events.
  • With the aging of the dogs, they do less. Sampson is limited physically, so they don’t get to play much together. They do make me smile or laugh every day and I do try to capture that for a post. Thankfully, I do have the DADO’s in my neighborhood to help, when the dogs aren’t doing their job. 🙂

Truthfully, there were times when I just wanted to quit. Stop blogging all together, but something just wouldn’t let me. (It’s true, it could have been Jan, she forbids me to stop.)

Honestly, I think it’s the community that revolves around this blog that kept me going. All of you reading, and commenting, helped keep this blog alive.

I want you to take a moment and really let that sink in. YOU kept me going. YOU made a difference for me, and I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the reason this blog still is active today.

Things change.  All the time.

The pet bloggers are seeing that right now with BlogPaws. BlogPaws has been acquired by a larger company, and with the exception of one, all the people we know and love, who have mentored us over the last ten years, have either been let go, or chosen to move on. Whether this is a good move or a bad move for the community is yet to be seen.

The purpose of this blog has changed. Originally it started out to garner an online presence. (Mission accomplished, I think.) 🙂

Then it became something so much more to me. It was a place to connect with people like me, people who loved their dogs like crazy and totally ‘got’ that I had to skip happy hour to hurry home from work, because…dogs.

A place where I had friends, where I didn’t feel so alone or lonely.

Delilah’s training was at times extremely challenging. I was struggling trying to find what worked for her, so I knew others must be too. I wanted to give those people hope. I wanted to find the humor in and share the struggles I had with training a crazy chocolate lab. I wanted to let people know that even when it felt hopeless, find the humor, pause and laugh, then carry on. Some dogs just need more time than others to find their happily ever after, but the struggle is SO worth it when it pays off, and it WILL pay off.

We faced medical issues. Sampson with his CCL’s, heart issues, adrenal issues, and those little hormones that keep rearing their little heads. Delilah with elevated liver levels. I like to approach these as holistically as I can. I thought maybe others might too, or perhaps something we did would help another person deal with the same issue. So, I wrote about those.

At various times over the years, people have reached out and thanked me for a particular post, as it gave them an option for their dog that they weren’t aware of, or hadn’t considered.

Helping became important to me. Whether it was a supplement, or a training tip, or making you laugh or smile, or just making you feel like you weren’t alone with whatever you were facing. If I touched your life in some way, I’m truly grateful for being able to do so.

I think that’s where I’m at right now. I want this blog to be somewhere you come to, for help, encouragement, inspiration, humor, or just to sit down and not feel like you are alone in whatever you are dealing with.

Change as they say (there THEY are again, who ARE they?) is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be bad, right?

Make Like a Tree

By

Any of you a Winnie the Pooh fan? When my niece was little she absolutely adored Winnie the Pooh. She’d watch it every morning, and since I was her babysitter, naturally I watched it with her. One of my favorite Pooh stories, was the one where Pooh got stuck in Rabbit’s door after he ate too much honey.

I was reminded of that story one day last week.

We’ve been having some fairly mild weather this past week. I think the little animals are finally coming out of hibernation, at least if my dog’s noses are any indication.

Sampson in particular has been using his nose an awful lot.

I’ve noticed there are a couple of bushes/trees where he pays a lot of attention.

I don’t know what kind of tree/shrub this is, I know it’s some kind of evergreen, but I’m not sure what. It reminds me of a Bonsai tree, because of the way the limbs are bare on the bottom.

Anyway, Sampson was sniffing away at it.

But apparently he couldn’t get quite a good enough sniff to satisfy his nose. So he stepped further into the tree.

By this time, I was starting to get concerned, because it was a really tight squeeze, and with his bad back legs, I was worried he wouldn’t be able to get out of there.

I was thinking about Pooh and picturing myself as Christopher Robin, trying to pull him out of the tree, or having to call the fire department, but it took him only a couple of seconds and he figured it out, and slid his back legs over the lower branch.

Notice the branch towards the end of his back. It was quite a tight fit.

And just like that, he was out, none the worse for wear.

I breathed a sigh of relief because I wouldn’t have to call the fire department and tell them my DOG got stuck in a tree, and also because he’s just so darn cute.

You make me smile, or laugh. The sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do, that bring a smile to my face, or a laugh to my lips.

What did your pet do that made you smile this week?

Meet the Fairweathers

By

Okay, I might have tricked you with that title. Maybe you’re thinking…hmmm, she got new neighbors? Are they DADO’s?

Or maybe you’ve been reading this blog so long, that you know Fairweathers, should really be Fair-weathers, or fair weathers. You know, those folks who only seem to come outside when the weather is…fair.

Perhaps you yourself are a Fair-weather. And that’s okay. What you do doesn’t bother me, it’s what the Fair-weathers in my neighborhood do that we’re talking about right now.

There are two kinds of Fair-weathers. The Dog Fair-weathers, who only walk their dogs in nice weather. And I’m proud to say, we don’t have a lot of those dog owners in my neighborhood. No, the dog owners in my neighborhood just never walk their dogs.  But they are DADO’s and we all know DADO’s are…well let’s be nice and say DADO’s are a special kind of people.

The other type of Fair-weather people, are the people who come out to bike, run, walk, but only in the nice weather.

Now you see why I’m calling these folks, Fair-weathers.

And truthfully, I don’t mind the folks who only go out when the weather is nice. Hell, if I didn’t have to walk two dogs, I’d probably be a Fair-weather myself. Or maybe I’d be a barfly, or an actress playing a barfly.

Who the hell am I kidding? I’d probably just stay in and be a couch potato.

But I digress.

Anyway, what I do mind about Fair-weathers is they seem to have forgotten, or perhaps they never knew the protocol about sharing the road with people and their dogs.

When I walk the dogs, or just walk in general, I try to walk facing oncoming traffic. Yes, there are places in my neighborhood where I have to disregard my rule, because of dogs, or people who hate me, but whenever I can, I face oncoming traffic. How else can you see what’s happening in enough time to try and avoid it?

Two weeks ago, this happened to Delilah (of course) and me.

We were on our evening walk, and going down a hill, when I heard some slapping behind me.  I turned around to see a jogger runner towards us. I quickly moved Delilah to the other side of the road, as I did not want the woman running past us, and startling Delilah. One never knows how a startled dog will react.

For the record, she never said a word. Didn’t acknowledge us in anyway. (At least the guy that was chasing her was kind enough to wave.)

Now when I’m coming up behind someone, I like to let them know. You know, so they don’t crap their pants, or a have a heart attack. Because I’ve wet my pants before and I’m telling you, it’s no fun. Nor is the walk home afterwards.

There’s that digression again…

The woman never said anything, not a word.

Now I’m thinking back to a story one of my neighbors told me two summers ago. Her daughter was out jogging and she came up behind a woman walking her dog. The girl called out hello to the woman, and went to pass her and the dog, and the dog bit the girl on the back of her leg. Right below the butt.  It was a pretty bad bite (from what I saw of the photos) and of course, there was a lot of drama, because, well you know….DADO’s. (If anyone wants to read that story, let me know, and I’ll schedule it for a future post.)

Beautiful photo editing and image lettering by the amazing Mary Hone.

Ever since I heard that story, I’ve tried to be aware of people coming up behind me, because I think it’s something that people just don’t think about.

When we walk, I will always cross the road to be on the opposite side of a walker, jogger, biker. And of course another dog. To me, it’s just being courteous, but it’s also looking out for my dog and making sure she doesn’t fail. Because if she fails, that means I’ve failed her.

And I don’t like failing.

So tell me, do you cross the road when you encounter someone, whomever it might be? Are my expectations of people and their behavior just too high? Is that do unto others saying just a load of bunk? Am I wasting my time trying to be nice in my neighborhood?

 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...