Heart Like a Dog

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

The New Normal

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We see horrific things on the news every day.  There are shootings at malls and theaters, terrorist attacks,and even natural disasters.

We hear about them, we watch the news for a couple of days, maybe we even write a check for a disaster relief fund, or charity.

They affect us in the moment.  We can relate to them, indirectly of course because we aren’t specifically involved with them, then life gets in our way, we get busy and back to the day-to-day things which affect us directly.

But people who are directly affected can’t do that.  Their normal changes and sometimes very dramatically. Just as “pink is the new black” they have to learn to find a new normal.

How do you find a new normal, when your child, spouse, parent, sibling, or loved one is taken from you in a senseless act of violence?

Newtown is a small town (population around 2,000) nestled in the rolling hills of southwest Connecticut.  In terms of wealth, it’s fairly affluent (for today’s economy) with family income ranging over $100,000.  Having visited it myself once, I can say it’s a pretty nice little town.

Newtown is about an hour and twenty minutes away from where I live, yet I feel like it happened in my backyard.

This shooting affected me because first and foremost I am a mother, and a grandmother. My grandson will be five in February and next September he will be going to school.

Quite frankly, I’m terrified by this.

I’m terrified to think that someone can walk in and steal the lives and innocence from our children in a matter of seconds.

I’m terrified to think of the new safety measures which will more than likely be put into place to keep him safe.  Will he have to walk through a metal detector to get to school?  Will there be armed guards at the doors?  How will these measures numb him and other children to the violence that will continue in this world?

It’s not very often that my children see or hear me cry.  If you asked them, I think they would tell you that I’m a strong woman. They are 33, 33 and 26 and they can probably count on one hand the times they’ve seen me cry.

My grandchildren go to daycare about a mile down the street from where I work.  Yesterday at 4:00 pm my daughter had a phone call, with my voice breaking I asked her to bring my grandchildren by on their way home so I could give them a little hug.

We had movie tickets to go see The Hobbit last night, I tucked my pepper blaster into my purse and every few minutes pulled my eyes away from the movie to skim the crowd for signs of trouble.

Is this my new normal? Has your normal changed?

Follow-Up Friday 12-14-12

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Today is the day we chose to celebrate the great being we refer to as Delilah a.k.a. Sweet Pea, Baby Girl, Big Girl, Sweetie Pie and sometimes PITA.

Happy Birthday baby girl!!

Today is also the Follow-up Friday blog hop (fondly referred to as FUF by me)  because sometimes you write something that requires a follow-up or someone will leave a comment that really resonates with you…Follow-Up Friday Baby!

Feel free to copy the badge and join the party.

I still need co-hosts for Follow-Up Fridays.  I’d really like a co-host every week if possible.  If you’re interested whether you’ve already done it or not please let me know.  I think I’ve learned enough to help walk you through it if you’re unsure. 😉

How Do You Clean Your Dog’s Teeth? – Author’s Note

Am I ever glad I put this post up.  I learned so much from you, that I really feel a lot better about Sampson going under anesthesia.  I will check in with our vet in the spring and make a decision then.

Thank you so much for your informative comments.

The Fog Was Freaky – Author’s Note

I’m glad I’m not the only one that gets freaked out by the fog.

I’m not big on horror movies.  Some people love to be scared, I do NOT.  There aren’t very many horror movies I will watch, but many years ago I did watch “The Fog” with Adrienne Barbeau, and every time I’m in the fog I say, “The fog is rolling in tonight” that might not be the right line, but it’s what sticks out in my mind.  Which is probably why the fog freaks me out.

Monday Mischief – Author’s Note

When I did speak with the vet on the phone she said actually the popcorn is worse for her than the chocolate.  I should have asked why, but I didn’t.  Do you know?

It’s funny because I could really set a plate of food down in the middle of the floor and tell Sampson to leave it and he would.  I sometimes wonder what he thinks when he sees Delilah doing all her mischief.

In my mind, he rolls his eyes and says, “Oh Delilah.”

Dogs of Blogville Calendar – Update

We hit a little snafu with the design of the calendars.  Apparently the calendar we chose has 28 pages. Julie designed 25, so we have to figure out how to rearrange the calendar and fill out those three extra pages.

We are working on it.

Originally I had chosen 5 to 6 business days for processing, which was the least expensive ($22) option.  I can go in and adjust that to expedited shipping, which I think is about $58, but I’m not sure.  It will depend on how quickly we can get it straightened out.  If it’s a quick fix and expediting the calendars will get them here a couple of days before Christmas, I might just go for it!

By the way, you can no longer order the calendars.  HOWEVER if there is a big demand after you all see how beautiful they are, I can always reorder. 🙂

Canvas Art – A Review and Giveaway – Update

I had completely forgotten about this giveaway until I saw Bringing Up Bella running one on her blog.  I immediately went in to Rafflecopter.  This is a great tool!  Not only will it randomly choose the winner for you, it posts it on the blog post!

I just wanted to let you know the Canvas Art was won by our very good friend Misty Shores!  Misty let me know that her canvas print shipped today, she’s super excited to see it and so am I.

Congratulations Misty!!

Oh and did I mention, this is the Follow-Up Friday Blog Hop…


get the InLinkz code

 

 

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.  As 2 Brown Dawgs says, This ‘N That Thursday is for times when you want to post about unrelated topics or each topic isn’t quite long enough to make up a whole post.  It can be anything you want, so feel free to grab the button and join us!

Courtesy of 2 Brown Dawgs Blog

Tuesday Night Tricks Class

You may remember last week I showed a picture of Delilah balancing a banana chip on her nose.  There is a second part to this trick, it’s having your dog catch the treat, once you’ve given the release command.

Her eyes are focused on that treat!

Her eyes are focused on that treat!

 

The way you teach this is to throw treats at your dog and tell them ‘catch.’ This is supposed to be pretty easy to teach as the reward is instantaneous.

Delilah does catch fairly well (if my toss is good) and she has managed to balance the treat on her nose 9 out of 10 times.

But she doesn’t quite understand the dynamics of the two tricks together.  If I put the chip on her nose and don’t hold another treat in front of her, instructing her to wait, she will snap at the treat almost instantly.

If I tell her to wait long enough so I can get my fingers out of harm’s way, she sits there with the treat on her nose and doesn’t understand that I want her to catch the treat.

We’ll keep working on this. 🙂

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that we were working with a hula hoop.  When I went into my camera to find the video of the treat, I realized I had a video of her and the hoop. It’s not the greatest, but you will get the general idea.

The ultimate goal would be to have her jump through the hoop at different heights.

Dogs of Blogville Calendar

Just a quick update.  I ordered the calendars last night, they will be printed after the proof is approved (which should be sometime today,) as of right now it doesn’t look like the calendars will be here in time for Christmas. 🙁

I will do my best though, I intend to get all the labels ready this weekend, so when the calendars do arrive, I can get them out the next day.

I of course will keep you posted and let you know as soon as they ship. I did go into the ordering post and took the order form out, because I cannot accept any more orders at this time.

I also have to tell you that they are simply GORGEOUS and it is all due to the amazing and extremely talented Julie Melfi.  Julie did the entire design, from adding the print to the photos, selecting the design, the arrangement and the upload (and probably a whole bunch more stuff that I have no idea of.)

This calendar could NOT have happened without Julie Melfi.

I highly recommend Julie for any of your website or graphic design needs.  She is truly amazing.

Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU JULIE MELFI.

I cannot wait for you to see the calendars, they are better than I ever dreamed they could be.

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