Heart Like a Dog

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

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You Make Me Smile – Pet Photos

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As I mentioned last week, I’ve been doing “You Make Me Laugh” or “You Make Me Smile” posts for at least three years.

That’s a lot of smiles and laughs. I still smile and laugh every day with these guys. Whether it’s Sampson’s smile when I come home from work, or Delilah’s shoving her head between my legs before I leave for work, there is ALWAYS something to laugh or smile about with these two.

I don’t want to say the dogs are boring now, but they are both seniors and those days of Sampson shoving his head in a hole and digging like crazy

Then coming up covered in dirt with a big smile on his face

 

Or Delilah climbing into our trainer’s car trunk looking for goodies

Just a little bit further, we can’t take the chance of missing something.

Happens less and less frequently.

So yesterday I started going through photos to see if something would hit a cord with me, and I thought, I wonder what the first dog photo I shared was?

Well, this may come as a surprise to some of you, but when I first started blogging 1) I didn’t know what I was going to blog about 2) I didn’t decide to blog about my dogs until about three or four months in and 3) I didn’t add photos to any of my posts.

I know, right?

Then I got bored of looking at blog posts, so I went to the media, and the very first dog photo I shared was this one.

T-Shirt Design

Do you know Sampson?

When I was going to my very first writing conference, I wanted to wear a shirt promoting Sampson, and this is the photo I put on that shirt.

It’s one of my favorites, and looking at it, always makes me smile.

What made you smile this week?

Yes, I Make My Bed – For My Dog

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When I first rejoined the work force after having my girls, my manager at the bank was a lovely Jamaican woman. She would tell us stories of her life in Jamaica, before she came to the states.

One of the ‘lessons’ she gave us, was telling us how her mother told her, to never leave the house without making her bed, and putting on clean underwear, BECAUSE, if you got hit by a car and they had to bring you home and put you in your bed, that bed needed to be made, and your underwear needed to be clean!

Making my bed before I leave for the day is something I always make sure to do, but not because I’m worried someone is going to bring me home and put me to bed. No, I make my bed for another reason.

Some people, when they sleep, are restless and move all over the place. They get up in the morning and their bed coverings are all over the place. It looks like a WWE match took place there.

You gotta smooth those covers out, and make that bed look nice.

WHAT was I thinking when I sponged that wall?

I’m not (at this menopausal stage of my life) what could be termed a ‘restful’ sleeper. What that means is most nights, I sleep, but I wouldn’t consider it a deep sleep. I wake up frequently, to shift positions, or flip that pillow over, or get up to pee. But even in my restlessness, I take care with those covers.

Maybe it comes from the days of kids climbing in bed with me, or the days when both dogs slept on the bed. Whatever the reason, most mornings I can get up and my bed mostly looks made.

We have dog beds all over the house. Two in the living room (plus the dog’s couch,) one dog bed in my room, and a crib mattress (that doubles as a dog bed) also in my room.

And yet, there’s a certain dog in my home, that loves to snuggle down on the Mama’s bed, when the Mama is at work.

I’m truly okay with that. Both dogs are in those senior years where I really want them to have comfortable, happy lives.

What I don’t want, is for my bed to be mussed and trussed like it’s a Thanksgiving turkey. Nor do I want to climb into my bed and have the sheets look like someone dumped a container of chocolate sprinkles on them.

After that fiasco, and having to change my bed sheets at bedtime, I started making my bed in the morning.

For Delilah.

Shhhhh……All this yapping makes it hard for me to get my beauty rest.

I determined, based upon her habit of pulling the bedspread back, and sleeping on the sheets, that she likes the feel of the sheets.

And while it’s true, I want her to be happy and comfortable, I also don’t want to have to change the sheets every night, so I came up with a compromise.

Okay, you don’t have to point out that I am the one compromising. I understand that. She is after-all a dog, and has no verbal negotiating skills. Unless you count her barking, groaning, sighing….okay, so she does have some verbal skills, but NO reasoning skills. Of course, she’d argue she has reasons for ALL her skills.

Sigh.

Back to the subject at hand.

I had an old, over-sized queen sheet, and my little futon (if I’m being generous,) is a full-size bed.

You follow?

So every morning, I get up, walk both dogs, and then come home and make my bed for the day.

Siriusly, that wall.

For Delilah.

Yes, I always make my bed before leaving the house, but I don’t make it for me, I make my bed for my dog.

What do you do to spoil your pets?

Next!

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Sampson and Delilah get walks twice per day, at almost exactly 12 hours apart. Typically around 5:00 am and 5:00 pm.

Because most of our neighbors aren’t outside at 5:00 am [some people are actually sensible and sleep in 😉 ] we visit our neighbors in the evening.

Sampson is drawn to people more so than Delilah, and he’s made a few friends on the street that loops around behind our house. Because of this, we tend to head that way in the evenings.

He’s made friends with the families in three houses, right in a row. His favorite (don’t tell the others) is by far, is the Whinnems, and they live in the middle of these three houses. Mrs. Whinnem in particular is typically his target. I know when I see the garage door open that Mrs. Whinnem is probably outside working in the yard. When the garage door is closed, she’s usually in the house, but sometimes she sees us through the window, and will come outside to love on her favorite dog.

As soon as we turn the corner onto her road, Sampson heads right for her house. Usually he stops as soon as he hits her property line, and I have to coax him up a bit to sit in front of the window, so she can see us.

That’s what he’s doing here. He’s staring at Mrs. Whinnem’s house, hoping he can will her outside.

This particular day, Mrs. Whinnem did not come out, so I got him up and moving again, and he went up to the next house, and tried to will Mrs. James out.

Failing that, he went back to the Whinnem’s and I coaxed him past. Then he noticed that Mrs. Swanson’s garage door was up, so he roo’d to her, but she didn’t come out either, so I finally convinced him to head home.

Honestly, his persistence in trying to see his friends, really made me smile.

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

You make me smile, or laugh. The sweet, funny, loving things our pets do that make us smile or laugh.

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