I may have mentioned a time or two, that we do not live in a very friendly neighborhood. We do know our neighbors on either side of us but for the most part, the neighbors keep to themselves. Maybe we get a wave here or there, but mostly they stick to themselves.

We have met one lovely neighbor who lives across the street from us. We met her when a branch from her tree fell, and brushed Hubby’s Jeep as he was coming home from the park with Sampson in the car. Hubby and I went over to help clean up the tree and that’s when we met Ms. Erika.

She is an older woman who lives with MS and she is truly one of those remarkable people. Even though she has bad days, most days you’ll see her slowly making her way down her driveway with her walker in order to get her mail. In fact, the very first time we met her, she was outside picking up small bits of branches and carrying them to the trash using her walker.

Miss Erika is originally from Sweden and she lives alone. Her husband passed away before we met her and she recently lost her furry companion, her kitty Molly.  Miss Erika absolutely LOVES Sampson and Delilah and they love her in return!

Every time we walk past her house, Sampson and Delilah look up at it, hoping to see her. If she’s at the window and calls to us, we have to go see her. She’ll come out and sit on her steps and then the dogs go over to say hello.

If I run into Miss Erika without the dogs, like in the grocery store…she always asks after Simon and Delilah. LOL, sometimes she forgets and calls Sampson, Simon. But when she sees him, she remembers his name.

Miss Erika has a friend that brings her to the grocery store every Sunday. She pulls up to the store and lets Miss Erika out, then they both do their grocery shopping.

Sunday, the dogs and I were just coming back from our afternoon walk when Miss Erika and her friend Denise passed us. They both waved excitedly and since we were almost home anyway, and Miss Erika’s house was just one house up, I thought I’d take the dogs over to say hello.

Miss Erika was sitting in the car when we got to her driveway, while Denise was setting up the walker. Sampson quickly said hello to Miss Erika and then started ‘chatting’ with Denise. I was paying attention to Sampson and Denise, while Delilah was saying hello to Miss Erika.

Suddenly Miss Erika said, “And there goes Delilah.”

I turned in time to see Delilah pushing her way past Miss Erika’s legs as she climbed into the front floor of the car. Before you could say, “DELILAH” she was over the front seat and into the back one, inspecting the groceries.

I had to drop her leash, run around the car and extract her via the rear passenger door. Yeah. You read that right. My dog climbs OVER a disabled woman to try and eat her groceries. There goes my hopes for the Canine Companion certificate.

No! Of course, I didn’t pull out the camera to snap her picture. Can you imagine? “Um, excuse me Denise? Would you mind holding Sampson’s leash while I take a photo of Delilah scavenging through your groceries?”

Because clearly, Delilah is so food motivated that she is fearless in her attempts to find food.

Need proof?

This was Delilah checking out an empty crate after one of our training classes. Note, the crates are stacked on top of each other and she’s working on the top one.

Or how about the time Delilah decided to ‘inspect’ our trainers car trunk?

Yup, there goes Delilah.