Changes

Airlie will kinda-sorta be 6 months old tomorrow. If you're counting by the calendar date and her estimated date of birth (9/1/10) she's six months old. If you're counting by the week, like the vets do, she's not quite 30 weeks yet (30 weeks, because most months have closer to 5 weeks in them, rather than just 4). Either way, I've been waiting for this 6-month mark to switch her from 3 feedings/day to just two. This past weekend, I noticed she seemed pudgier than usual, and her poop has been a bit soft, which indicates overfeeding. Plus, she's getting on a more normal pooping schedule- no more  pooping 4x/night! She might go once, then is able to hold the rest til morning and has successfully taken entire walks without stopping to poop! She's also going more during the day, instead of it all happening between 5pm and 7am. This is a good thing, she's finally keeping weight on, instead of gaining it only to outgrow it again. I don't think she's done growing yet, and she could still shoot up and out again and go through another skinny, knobby phase. I'm hoping she tops out at around 35lbs, so... another 5lbs to go. Today was also the last day of the most recent batch of Crystal's Grama's special recipe, so I'm going to wait and see how Airlie does before making any more of it. If she ends up burning off the little bit of filling out she's done, I'll make some more- I have half the last lb of ground beef in the freezer, ready to go. Today she was so busy playing outside that she went right through her usual "lunchtime" meal without noticing, so I just decided to go with it, instead of waiting until tomorrow.

Also, she's almost outgrown the temporary crate. We bought her her own, full-sized crate after Christmas, and she's been sleeping in that, but we've kept the puppy crate in the living room and that's where she goes for a few hours while I'm at work. She still fits in it ok for these intermittent respites, but she has also indicated that she expects to be left lying on her pillow next to the"big kids" when I leave, rather than being crated. I am tempted to try her out leaving her loose in the house soon. I normally would wait until a dog is a full year old, but she's shown so much initiative when it comes to following the other dogs' lead, and since there's really not anything around here she can get into and damage while we're away... I just might give it a try once she is really, obviously too big for the puppy crate.

She had a few experiences last week with regard to digging holes in the yard. I've been tolerating the little, shallow patches where she's rooted up things to chew, or pawed at the ground a bit, but she graduated to digging elbow-deep, full-on HOLES, complete with dirt on her snout and everything. 3 rounds of deliberately leaving her unsupervised long enough in order to catch her in the act, follow up with a good, solid "NO!" and then re-filling the holes (I recently read that after enough re-filling a dog will get frustrated and give up- not something I'd heard before, but figured I'd give it a shot), she hasn't returned to any of the "crime scenes", nor dug in any new places. I'm hoping this holds true for the spinach and cucumbers I just planted. I toyed with the idea of doing it while she was indoors, but opted instead to let her watch what I was doing, get her attention and instruct her to "leave it". I'll have to monitor the garden site, of course, and she did paw through one mound of cucumber seeds while standing right next to me, but I just reprimanded her for it and molded it back into shape.

Also, she's taken to sussing out her own places about the house for nap time. It's funny. Yesterday she was lying in the exact same spot Leo used to sleep when he was a pup, in pretty much the exact same position.

February 27th, 2011

.July 10th, 2006