It's been close to a month now, a few days shy and Murphy has gotten bigger as in longer AND heavier. Of course she was only 3.9 lbs to start off with when we brought her home. The g/f has been working hard with her to learn new things - so far we have seemed to master Sit, Lay Down, and is learning Roll Over right now. Murphy doesn't pay attention well when other people are around though.The neighborhood kids have taken a keen interest in Murphy and take her for mini-walks up and down the cul-de-sac. Murphy prances around like a bunny knowing she isn't on an official walk, but is out for a good time. (Official walks mean business - exercise and potty time).
We have mastered walking down stairs now. She will run down the stairs into the family room full throttle and try to stop but will slide a good 4 to 5 feet on the wood before she hits the sofa.
She is kenneled during the day while we are work, only 2 - 3 days per week. It makes it hard to get her into her kennel at night time and she usually ends up at the bottom of our bed because we are too tired to listen to her whine all night. Yeah yeah, starting bad sleeping habits but it's not like she's a Great Dane - she's a mini-dog. This morning I woke and looked at the end of the bed and she wasn't there, during the night she had crawled up and was sleeping right between our heads on a special pillow. Spoiled baby is what she is!
We have taken a camping trip and she enjoyed it a lot! She loved taking the long walk to the potty's and loves to run around with sticks in her mouth.
While she is a very good dog, she can also be the red-headed step-child. She is still biting, but
more puppy biting and is starting to break that! She grabs ahold of pant legs and growls at it, shaking her head, body, and the pant leg all together. She will also do this when you wear shorts, she doesn't discriminate, she leaps up, grabs, and shakes, hanging every so cutely off your short leg. She has gotten into the toilet paper and dragged it around the house and just yesterday she was left outside on her leash and was being awfully quiet so when I checked on her I was greeted with a black muzzle Murphy - she had dug through our
flower box by our front stoop.
We have been to the dog park a couple of times and both times she's been very submissive to the other dogs. The first trip she got her butt kicked, the second she just laid under the picnic table watching everything and was learning the ropes. Of course, she has such long hair (which isn't really *that* long) she had to have a bath the instant she got home!
Murphy is also an attention whore. She whines and whines when no one is paying attention to her - and it's not to just us, strangers. If they don't stop to pet her or admire her in some way she whines and sometimes barks. That is going to be annoying some day!
Yesterday she pee'd on our neighbor. While she got a "Murphy! No!" right away - when we got inside, she got a high five and a special treat. I'm pretty sure Murphy was already going potty when the neighbor picked her up.
We (me) call her everyname in the book though - Murph, Smurfy, Murphinator, Smufette, Smuphinator, Murphy Smurfy. I've decided that she is going to be smurfette for halloween. It'll be the only day I will probably ever dress her up!
The g/f attempted the first nail cutting and it went ok! She slept through the entire thing, even that one time we got to close to the quick and she bled just a little :(
Anyway - we have met a lot of new friends, humans as well as animals, and are meeting new people every day! We are going camping again next weekend and the weekend after so she is going to turn into the camping pro pretty soon! We have a vet trip coming up soon, so a weight and health update should be coming shortly. She will be getting her rabies shot and licensed!
