Miss Puppy Fantastico’s Great Back Alley Adventure

So missy is growing up. And as a sidenote, this is the third time I’m attempting to write this entry. I had high hopes for a great entry all about the dog, but now I’m lazy and discouraged about having to retype this entry and retell this silly story THREE TIMES ALREADY.

So yeah, back to the missy dog. She was 14 lbs when we got her. When she was a wee puppy dog I would bathe her every week because she would smell like a dog all the time. Now that she’s older the smell isn’t nearly as bad. In fact I haven’t bathed her in quite some time. (Note to self: bathe the dog already.) Jim weighed the puppy a couple of days ago and now she’s 43 lbs. No wonder I’m lazy to lift her into the bathtub.

Anyhow the point of this story is that missy is growing up. She does all kinds of neat things now. She can sit and lay down on command, as long as she isn’t outside where she is terribly distracted. She can get off the bed when you tell her it’s bedtime. She’s even stopped peeing in the house, even when we have new people around. She used to get excited to see people and forget that she’s supposed to go outside to pee. But now she totally has it down.

One thing she doesn’t do, though, is bark to let us know that she needs to go outside. For a long time she’d sit in front of the sliding glass door and just wait for someone to let her out. It used to be very ineffective, especially when we were downstairs watching tv and she was upstairs trying to tell us she wanted to pee. There were several pee spots on the rug as a result of her frustration. Poor dog.

But now she is smart enought to make a little squeaky whimpering noise when she needs to go. She hasn’t messed in at least a couple of weeks.

That’s not all, though. She has graduated from sleeping in the crate. She has a little doggy bed in our bedroom. Every night when it’s bedtime she crawls up into our bed on her back and begs for belly rubs. Then when it’s bedtime she gets off and goes to her bed. Well, no. Sometimes she goes to her bed. Sometimes she just sleeps on the floor. She’s also gotten to the point where we can leave her home alone in the bedroom instead of in the crates. Which is good, because she’s really too big for those things. We’d let her run around the house while we aren’t here, but she still likes to snack on kitty poop.

She’s getting better at walking on a leash, but she hasn’t had enough practice with it (my fault.)

The other day Jim and I gave her the Big Puppy Test. We were outside getting rid of some trash and Jim decided it was time to let her run around in the alley. We stood several meters apart and called her back and forth. She loved being able to run longer distances than she gets to see in the backyard. For the most part she listened, but did try to push me a bit. She knows that I’m a pushover when it comes to her. When Jim calls her she comes right away, but when I call her, she isn’t so consistent. Darn dog. I was nervous the whole time, thinking she’d decide she didn’t want to listen to either one of us and go bolting out into the street. But she didn’t. She knew that she needed to listen to the people! Yay!

All in all she’s a very good puppy. Today she got out the front door as we were coming home, and didn’t run out onto the street. She just wanted to greet her people with that waggy tail and wet nose of hers.

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