Week 20!

I am taking off the rest of the day due to low work load, so have some time finally to post. Ardella is taking a nap because she still thinks it's work time.

The last 2 weeks have gone by so fast! Ardella is now 5 months old and looks great. She looks lean and muscular and has gotten quite tall. I realized this when she tried her "let me in your lap" look on me and she wouldn't fit on my lap when I lifted (hefted) her up. She was 26.5 pounds at her 4-month checkup and I know she's gained. Her nose has a pink spot. I want it to stay black.

As far as her behavior, Ardella is mischievous. However, she still continues to learn, but maybe I'm teaching her too much because she gets confused with commands sometimes, especially sit-down-sit and go to bed. Still, she's a fast learner and is a joy to teach. Inside with Aidan I still have to keep the two dogs apart because they both want to be rowdy, chasing, barking, pawing, etc. If they could be outside together this wouldn't be a problem. However, Ardella still eats pine cones and bark dust and I can't let her loose with Aidan right now. Oh - she's recently discovered earth worms. I'm pretty squeamish about digging those out of her mouth. I have played hide and seek with her outside and as long as she's busy she doesn't pick things up off the ground, except when it's time to come in and she picks something up to bring inside.

I think we're making progress with house training and relieving on walks. Ardella has started eating twice a day and this has helped some with predictable times to go. She has also started standing by the door, but it just means she wants to go out, not that she needs to relieve herself. We've been told that on walks that if a puppy starts to go to make the dog sit until the urge passes and then go home. This has worked twice for us now. We can't be too far from the house to make it back, but that's usually all it takes to get her to go. At any rate, we're on 2 days without an accident. Either I'm catching on or she is. I sometimes think this house training is similar to toilet training a toddler - that the parents are trained more than the child until the child is developmentally able to have sphincter control. I'm not sure about puppy development. Does anyone have a good resource for developmental stages of puppies? It would be nice to see if Ardella is on track or if I need to find a different approach.

Now that I have the rest of the afternoon off, we can't go anywhere. Ardella is getting a new coat tonight and I had to wash the one she has clearly outgrown. Hers is going to new puppy - Mardella (I kid you not) - who is one of the cutest puppies I have ever seen (next to Ardella, of course). We're going through an puppy population expansion in our puppy group: Pecoe, Katysue, Virgil and now Mardella. Guess we'll go for a long neighborhood walk. I'll add a picture later today - something other than Ardella going to bed on the rug by her tie-down.

Lyn and I will be celebrating wedding anniversary #27 tomorrow. I haven't forgotten this year!