At the beach
Snuggled up
In the car(please take into consideration I blindly pointed and clicked while my solid focus was on the road ahead of me!)
In the lens of a stranger (thank you anonymous stranger who emailed this photo to me)
All dressed up (I couldn't resist, it was $4 second hand)
At Whatcom falls
At one point she stood on a rock like this and whined at The Mr. who was up to his knees in the water. She wanted to go to him, but was unsure of the water, it was so cute!
In the forest
The result of all these busy daysPetra is fitting right in around here. She loves her walks, loves spending time with people, loves her fluffy pillow and blanket inside her huge dog house and is growing so quickly! She is already starting to look more like a young dog than a puppy. She is teething, which makes her ears go all crazy, and it's been funny watching their different positions. The other morning she woke up and came to the window to show me that her ears had moved to the top of her head and were touching each other! Nothing a deep ear massage couldn't fix. I try to give her three or four massages a day and it keeps them laying flat at the sides of her head. It's sure crazy how much they can move just because of teething. It will be nice when she is over that stage, but I have no clue how long that can take. We are having fun taking her to all sorts of places with us. Most parks around here allow dogs on leash and have certain areas that are off leash, so it has been fun exploring with Petra.
Life is so different with a dog, but it has been a lot of fun. It has taken a lot of learning though, because she is so smart. I am spending about 10 minutes a day with her teaching commands and it is so rewarding. She knows several words and phrases already- come, sit, leave it, "off the road" and "cross the street." She is still a puppy, so none of these work if there is another dog around, or some giggling girls. I realized she knew "off the road" the other day by mindlessly saying it, not expecting her to obey, but she obeyed! Turns out I had been saying "off the road" and "cross the street" a lot during our walks and she learned them before I even thought I was teaching them too her.
One thing I really have to be careful of is not teaching bad habits. For example, only going on a walk if there are treats every millisecond. Now how did I teach this one? When Petra was younger, she would sit down during our walk and refuse to go any further. This was around the same time that I was teaching her the "come" command. So what did I do? I started bringing the treats with me and when she would sit, I would go to the end of the leash, say "come" and give her a treat when she obeyed. This worked great! Until all of a sudden I realized that the amount of sitting was basically doubling with every walk we went on, and it was because she figured the more she sat, the more treats she could get out of me. What a sneaky little girl! So I stopped bringing the treats on our walks and the sitting completely went away. Now she loves her walks, and runs to the door in the fence when she sees I have the leash in my hand.
Life is so different with a dog, but it has been a lot of fun. It has taken a lot of learning though, because she is so smart. I am spending about 10 minutes a day with her teaching commands and it is so rewarding. She knows several words and phrases already- come, sit, leave it, "off the road" and "cross the street." She is still a puppy, so none of these work if there is another dog around, or some giggling girls. I realized she knew "off the road" the other day by mindlessly saying it, not expecting her to obey, but she obeyed! Turns out I had been saying "off the road" and "cross the street" a lot during our walks and she learned them before I even thought I was teaching them too her.
One thing I really have to be careful of is not teaching bad habits. For example, only going on a walk if there are treats every millisecond. Now how did I teach this one? When Petra was younger, she would sit down during our walk and refuse to go any further. This was around the same time that I was teaching her the "come" command. So what did I do? I started bringing the treats with me and when she would sit, I would go to the end of the leash, say "come" and give her a treat when she obeyed. This worked great! Until all of a sudden I realized that the amount of sitting was basically doubling with every walk we went on, and it was because she figured the more she sat, the more treats she could get out of me. What a sneaky little girl! So I stopped bringing the treats on our walks and the sitting completely went away. Now she loves her walks, and runs to the door in the fence when she sees I have the leash in my hand.
She's getting so big!!! :) Thats weird about the ears. I've never heard of that before!
ReplyDeleteAwwww.....Petra is so cute!! Smart, too! Looks like you are having a lot of fun with your new baby! ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute cute cute dog! I've never had one before, but my husband wants a german shepherd puppy, so we're sort of looking right now. And, while I think the sweaters can become completely rediculous, I have been researching this dog thing, and I've read that actually dogs with short fur/hair can get really cold without them in the winter, so she'll probably need one come winter. So cute!
ReplyDeleteYeah she will probably need some sort of a warm jacket in the winter. We'll see! She has a furnace in her dog house lol. So she should be nice and toasty at night!
ReplyDeleteShe sounds like a lot of fun. we're looking forward to meeting her!!
ReplyDeleteThe zoo we went to is in BC (Greater Vancouver Zoo). Its out in Abbotsford area. You can purchase tickets with Air Miles which is nice since an adult admission is $18.
ReplyDeleteThanks ioi!
ReplyDeleteShe is darling!!
ReplyDelete