Heart Like a Dog

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

A Walk in the Blizzard

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Well it seems our area of the country is quickly turning into the Super Storm capital of the world.

Apparently our local weather station has been naming snow storms for a number of years.  They are calling this one Charlotte.

Recently the National Weather Center began naming winter storms as well, they’re calling this one Nemo.

I’m calling it Charmo.

No matter what it’s called, we’re having a blizzard.

It started about mid-morning yesterday and our Governor was requesting people stay off the roads, since I work literally five-minute from work, I stayed for half a day.   Then went home to get the dogs out for a walk.

We had just entered the park when I saw movement up the hill and to my right.  It was a herd of deer.  The dogs were easily redirected although they were definitely searching for something.

S and D What does that smell like to you?

Snowy D I love pictures of Delilah in the snow, she is so beautiful against the white background. (Is it just me or does her nose look crooked?)

Blizzard Wind So that’s what a blizzard wind feels like.

  Snowy Mama The snow melts on the dog’s fur, but not on mine.

All walked and happy, we went back to the house and are all hunkered down waiting for the blizzard to pass.

Are you in Charmo’s path?  Did you get a chance to walk before the storm or are you playing indoor games?

This ‘N That Thursday

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Today we’re joining our friends over at 2 Brown Dawgs Blog on This ‘N That Thursday.  Some days you have a little of this or a little of that. 

Many thanks to 2 Brown Dawgs!!

Facebook

Facebook is a time suck for me.  I sign in to post my blog or check a story and before I know it, an hour has passed.

There’s a lost dog or a dog that’s on its last hours, I need to share those, and sometimes there’s a LOT of them.

Then I have the Oooh look, Nancy has the top score in Mahjong Trails or Oh my god, Kim is playing Criminal Case, a Hidden Object game moments.

And there I go, an hour gone that I’ll never get back.

But sometimes….you get that story that just grabs your heart.

A Special Valentine

(I think Mel actually shared this one.)

Valentine is a five-month old German Shepard. Unfortunately both of her front paws are deformed because her bone growth has occurred too fast and instead of the bone growing into the joint, the bones are pushing against them.

She is in incredible pain and rarely uses her front legs, but just look at this sweet girl!

295406_10150272550109955_162750503_n I took this photo from Trio Animal Foundation’s Facebook page.

The good news is there are surgeries and procedures which can help her, the bad news is the cost is a minimum of $10,000.

The very idea that the rescue was willing to work towards raising the funds just boggled my mind.  I quickly shot off an e-mail committing to a modest amount and stating I would share Valentine’s story with you today.

I’m so happy to report that they had actually ALREADY raised the funds needed for Valentine’s surgery!!  They posted the story on Friday and by Monday they had raised the money.

If you have a mo (moment for you non-Harry Potter readers), and want a feel good story, go check out their Facebook page.

Knock Knock

About two weeks ago Delilah and I hopped in the car to head to our Rally class.  Just as I hit about 40 m.p.h. I heard this knocking on my driver’s door.

I looked back at Delilah to see if part of her leash was hanging out of the window hitting my door.

It wasn’t.

I pulled over, got out and checked my door to see if anything was hanging.

Nothing.

I got back in the car and got on the highway.  Just as I hit 40 m.p.h. the rapping started again.

WTF is that?  I thought to myself. 

I hope there isn’t some animal that somehow got stuck inside my door. (I had just read somewhere about beeping your horn before starting your car because sometimes small animals climb up inside the engine because it’s warm.)

In the dark of the car, my next thought was Oh. My. God.  I wonder if it can come out and get me?  I thought back to the story a co-worker told me of a friend of his who had a snake come up the front of her car between the windshield and the hood and hang on her wipers.

I scrunched over as far to my right as I could get, without climbing into the passenger seat while still maintaining my vice-like grip on the steering wheel.

As soon as we got off the highway, the noise stopped.

Thank God!  Whatever is in there doesn’t like speed.  I can tolerate it, as long as it’s not knocking on my freaking door.

Ooops, I hit 40 m.p.h. again and there it was.

Knock. Knock.

Who’s there?

I don’t know, but whatever you are, you’re scaring the shit out of me.

Finally, twenty long minutes later we had arrived at our destination.  I parked under a light and got out of the car and inspected the door again.

Guess what I saw?

I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Relax already, I’m just kidding.

It was the auxiliary cord to plug my phone/iPod into the radio.  The damn thing is SO long and I have a habit of sitting my phone in my lap and just unplugging it when I get out of the car, sometimes the cord falls out.

Had I looked closer the first time I stopped, I could have saved myself a terror filled ride.

That damn cord hangs over my rear view mirror now.

Have you ever had anything surprise you in your car? What does your imagination tell you about strange noises in the dark?

Holler Holler for a Collar

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Every single day at least one lost or found dog comes across my facebook page.  It breaks my heart, not just for the dog, but for the family who is missing their fur baby.

My dogs always have a collar on, even in the house and when we go outside, they have two.

S w 2

Why you ask?

Just in case they slip their collar and get away from me.  I think of it like a security blanket.

The flat buckle collar has three tags on it, their rabies tag, their town registration and a tag with their name, my name and my cell phone number on it.

2 Collars

The small collar is the one they wear in the house all the time.  That’s their just in case they escape from the house collar.

Which has happened, with both of them.

This is a hotly contested topic, some people don’t leave the collars on because they are worried about the dog getting hung up on something.  I’m lucky, both my dogs are pretty mellow during the day, moving from their spot on the couch to a spot on the bed or a spot in front of the sliding door.

But my dog is chipped.

Your dog might be chipped, but if they aren’t wearing a collar and someone finds them, the chip doesn’t help unless the person who finds them has a scanner.

I don’t know if my animal control facility has a scanner, if they don’t that means a trip to a local veterinarian that might be avoided if my name and phone number is on my dog’s tags.

Not a person in sight

A few years back on Christmas Eve I was driving home and I passed by our local reservoir.  I was shocked to see two yellow labs running along dragging their leashes.

I was concerned that someone had slipped, been mugged or hurt and dropped the dog’s leashes.  I was worried because the reservoir is on a busy road, and the dogs could very easily gotten hit by a car.

I pulled over and by using some treats, I coaxed one dog over to my car, the second dog followed.  Luckily the dogs had tags with a phone number on it.

I called the number and the man who answered said, “My wife is walking the dogs.”

I explained that the dogs were alone, and I couldn’t see his wife.  He responded, “I’m on my way.”

He was there within five minutes and told me his wife was on her way and when she walked the dogs she liked to drop the leashes to let them run.

In this instance they took off on her and she couldn’t catch them.

Once the man had his dogs, I headed for home and passed his wife, still making her way to where her husband was, I shouted to her that he had the dogs and they were safe.

The whole event, from start to finish was probably 15 to 20 minutes long.

15 to 20 minutes that her dogs were out of her sight.  Had they not had tags on them, I probably would have called animal control to come and pick them up.

Yes she had about a half an hour of panic, but it could have been a lot longer and it could have been a lot worse.  I think she also learned a valuable lesson that day: most people can’t run faster than their dogs.

I’ve asked this before, but I’ll ask it again, do your dogs wear collars in the house?  Why or why not?

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