puppy report

Minnie went in for her rabies shot and got weighed and got her nails clipped (again! third time) and she weighed 8.1 pounds about three weeks ago. She was also getting her adult teeth so at the end of September I declared her 6 months old. That means she was 3 - 3 1/2 months when she showed up in the yard. I've been trying to get a picture of her mouthful but she's not very cooperative. She's like a cartoon dog with all those new teeth.

She's grown but she's still small and long. Everything about this little dog is long...her torso, her legs, her neck, her face, her ears, her tail. She's the only dog I have ever seen that can sit on her butt and her head at the same time, literally. And this dog runs so fast, 'like a bullet' my neighbor said, her feet pound the ground like a horse on a racetrack. I take her over to the shop with it's fenced acre and a half and let her run. She tears huge loops around the yard and figure 8s with me at the cross point. Sometimes I think she's a rat terrier crossed with a miniature greyhound instead of a chihuahua.

yoga dog

Because she has a tendency to want to expand her territory and also because she thinks everybody is her best friend, we got her a collar and tags, rabies and one with her name and address on it. So far the immediate neighbors know where she lives because they hear me calling for her or at her as the case may be. She's a good little dog though...mostly. She does make us laugh. I can't get pictures of her antics because, well, movement.  Unless she's doing this:

shop dog

With the collar came a leash and the first few days she was confused about all this apparatus and what is this thing on me and what am I supposed to be doing here and where are we going. She's been a free range doggy up to now, (still is mostly, hence the collar). But now she's got the hang of the going for a walk on the leash thing and she mostly doesn't try to go faster than I can walk...mostly. On occasion she was determined go faster than I was and then she was doing that gak gak thing that dogs do because her collar is straining around her neck so I decided to get her a halter and now she's all, what the hell is this thing, I just got used to the collar and now you have me in this contraption.

She's so funny when we walk. She's got her head up, ears alert, tail up and she prances down the street.

The other thing is, she and the cat play! I kid you not. If you had told me before this puppy showed up that my cat would not only accept another animal, and a dog at that, into her house as a resident but would also play with it, I would never have believed you. But they do. They chase each other around the house and yard. Well, mostly the cat charges at the dog who runs in a big circle back around to the cat who sometimes chases her right up on top of Marc. Minnie will take a flying leap and bound up him to his shoulders or she'll stand on the back of the couch and put her paws on his head, like 'come and get me now, cat!'.

When I got back from Canada, Marc had her sleeping in the bed so now she sleeps with us. She starts out by our knees and as we shift during the night she creeps up til she is between us and by morning, she is sleeping on my pillow next to my head. But she is very good about not waking us up early. She waits patiently til she knows we are awake and then it's oh boy! new day! happy dog!

It's a good thing she makes us laugh so much.

the orange sheet is because we haven't quite given up the couch to the dog