Heart Like a Dog

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

Christmas Eve

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It’s Christmas eve, hopefully the majority of you who ordered are receiving your Blogville Calendars today.  I apologize to our friends in Canada and the United Kingdom as I could not get priority shipping to you.

I know everyone’s busy, so I want to keep this really short and sweet.

First I’d like to thank Julie Melfi.  Without Julie this calendar wouldn’t be.  So when you get your calendars and you love them, stop by Julie’s blog and show her a little love. 🙂 (And if you ever need any graphic art work done, I highly recommend her.)

For those who didn’t order (or those whose calendar will take a bit longer) here is a picture of the cover.

You remember Kori and Ryder, the won the spot on the cover.

You remember Kori and Ryder, they won the spot on the cover.

 

Then I’d like to thank all of you who ordered.  We sold 43 calendars and collected $952.79.  (Money exchange from the U.K. made the odd amount) some people wanted to donate more than the actual cost of the calendar which explains why we collected almost $100 more than expected.  Thank you!

We found a great printer that printed and shipped the calendars for $285.85, I spent $98.78 to ship them out to all of you, which left our donation at $568.16!!

You may remember the proceeds were to be divided equally between Life With Desmond and Champion of My Heart.

Grab a tissue now, because I want to tell you what happened.

I reached out to both bloggers.

Lauren had known about the fund-raiser, but Roxanne had no idea.  “I did NOT know about the fundraiser. Thanks so much. We’re humbled and honored by your efforts.”

I sent her half the money via paypal and received this message “Thanks so very much. That will pay for one round of Lilly’s chemo injections and one month’s cyclosporine pills.”

I still hadn’t heard from Lauren and damn it, I knew she was online. 🙂

Then yesterday afternoon I got this facebook message,

“Hey jodi, yes I am aware if the fundraiser. I’ve left a few comments on your posts. Perhaps they went to spam? In any case, I think what you and everyone has done is incredibly sweet and thoughtful. My honest feeling is that I really think Roxanne should benefit from the entire amount. The troubles she is facing are so much more intense and heart wrenching than ours. We are OK; we are displaced and will be for quite some time–we would like to fast forward 6 months and move on, but she is likely wishing she could stop time if not travel back in it to before the vaccine. Her vet bills are not going to be covered by insurance the way our house is. I really want it to all go to her. I would, however, love a copy of the calendar if possible. Again–thank you so very much.”

So I sent the rest of the money to Roxanne and am sending Lauren’s calendar out this afternoon.

I didn’t think you’d mind.

Isn’t this blogville family amazing?

I Know You’re a Lab

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Thank you all for the suggestions you left in the comments regarding how to handle the situation with the dogs (mostly Sampson) and the new puppy.  Besides asking for your thoughts, I reached out to a fellow blogger experienced in fostering and introducing new dogs.  I will write more about this in my Follow-Up Friday post, but I will tell you we are managing with crates and gates. 🙂

Back before Delilah joined our pack, Hubby, Sampson and I hiked together every weekend.  One of our favorite spots was the local reservoir.  You may remember I posted some beautiful foliage pictures from it back in October.

Our local reservoir.

Our local reservoir.

 

To take the dog’s minds off the puppy invading their territory, Hubby and I decided to take them to the reservoir as there are some really nice hiking trails over there.

I had Delilah on the long leash to start, as the reservoir is bordered on the front side by a very busy road.  There are also some houses along one side and I wanted to make sure we were past a trouble spot before I turned her loose.

Delilah hadn’t been down to this spot in years so she was pulling me like crazy.  Once we reached the spot where we had to cross a stream I knew it was time to let her off.

I didn't feel like starting the walk with a dip in the water.

I didn’t feel like starting the walk with a dip in the water.

 

The pond was off to our left and it was protected by some downed trees and some shrubs, I didn’t think she could manage to get in although as soon as she SAW the pond she did try.  Hubby and I kept walking though and called her to us and she came a running.

Back when it was just the three of us, I managed to snag one of my favorite pictures of Sampson.  He had run ahead of us on the trail and when we rounded the corner, there he was.

One of my favorite photos of Sampson.

Already posing.

 

We kept our eyes peeled for the rock and thought we’d stage a little reenactment.

Delilah wasn't quite as comfortable posing on the rock as Sampson was.

Delilah wasn’t quite as comfortable posing on the rock as Sampson was.

 

There was a tree that had fallen across the path, it had two branches that were about 1 1/2 to 2 feet high and about 3 to 5 feet apart.

The dogs were running ahead and my jaw dropped as Delilah cleared the tree.  Notice that Sampson jumps, landing between the two branches but Delilah doesn’t.

We hiked in about twenty minutes or so before turning around.

The dogs were having a blast, at one point they found a small puddle and got their zoomies on, so they were both muddy.

Delilah was off-leash for almost the entire walk, she ran back and was treated so often, that I ran out of treats.

I was leery about the pond on the way out, I knew she wanted in, so as soon as it came into my sight, I leashed her up.  Truthfully she probably could have stayed off-leash for a couple of minutes longer, but I wanted to err on the side of caution.

I forgot about crossing the stream though, as soon as I unclipped her….she found her way into the pond

She’s a Lab, through and through.

Home For the Holidays

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Thursday evening my youngest daughter came home.  It’s been two years since she’s been home for Christmas, hence it’s been two years since I’ve seen her.

You may recall our trip to visit her in California was cancelled due to Snowtober 2011.

As you can well imagine anticipation was coursing through my body as we shot texts back and forth to each other.

Her last text to me said, We are at the tunnel! (Which put them about a minute or so away from the house.)

My next text to her read, We are at the door!!

And we were.

Along with her husband she brought her new puppy, Beauregard.  They call him Bo, I think I’m going to call him Bodacious.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Hey there.

Hey there.

 

We thought it best to introduce the dogs outside.  After hugs in the driveway we trudged to the back yard with the two fools Sampson and Delilah losing their minds eagerly watching from the front door.

Sampson (aka Bull #1) came out of the chute first.  He’s more interested in his sister and our son-in-law than he is in the puppy.  There was some sniffing but it seemed to go okay.

Who are you, you little runt?

Who are you, you little runt?

 

Delilah (aka Bull #2) came charging out of the gate next.  She’s more interested in the dog than the humans but we all stood around telling her to be nice and she was.

Do you have any food? Because if you don't I could care less about you.

Do you have any food? Because if you don’t I could care less about you.

 

Since it had started raining about 10 minutes before they arrived, we moved inside.

Bodacious was so cute and very happy to finally be out of the car, he ran around all over the house scoping out toys.  There was lots of play bowing and he acted very appropriately around the two older dogs.

Delilah growled a couple of times but not in a menacing manner, more of a I’m not that kind of girl, we need to know each other first kind of way.

Sampson on the other hand turned into a dick.  He snapped at the puppy once and I pulled him aside and had him sit, and told him he was not a good boy.

I thought maybe it was better if he went into our bedroom so I put him in there for a few minutes.

I explained to my daughter and SIL that if they are petting Sampson and their dog walks up to them Sampson WILL snap at the dog and sure enough my SIL was petting Sampson and little Bodacious waddled over, I saw Sampson’s upper lip do a good impression of Elvis and I said, He’s going to snap.

Situation diffused.

Now the dogs are all running around and we are chatting when all of a sudden for no reason any of us could see, Sampson lunged at Bo again.

This time Bo retreated whimpering and Sampson went back in the bedroom.  Thankfully he didn’t appear to be hurt.   My daughter said sometimes if he moves to quickly his little legs don’t support him properly and it’s almost like he twists his ankle.

Sampson was definitely thrown off by having a puppy in the house, as he had me up twice during the night.  Once around 12:30 pm and then again at 4:00 am.

Both times Delilah got up too and scoped out the situation and both times I made them go outside and then right back to bed.

I could really use some advice here from those of you who foster frequently or have introduced other dogs to your pack.

How do I stop Sampson’s nasty behavior?

Please GOD make it go away. I promise I'll be a good dog.

Please GOD make it go away. I promise I’ll be a good dog.

 

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