Pushing Boundaries

This is after a back yard free ranging session with mom.  Look how happy she is?  Like everything in the world is right with her.  The session went pretty well: she ran around, jumped in the garden, sniffed at the shed, and then bounded into the woods.  This is the first time that she's ever shown any interest in the woods... mom didn't like it.  I tried to get her back - with no luck.  So then I just turned around and walked back towards the house and luckily she followed me back inside.  There is perhaps nothing worse to her than being all alone, it's just not her style, she likes to be with her pack.

All Alone

Mia's day today, which is completely out of her usual daycare routine.

6:10am wakeup barking at some noise or something
7:00am 40 minute walk with mom right before a massive downpour
9:00am mom leaves for a meeting
12:00pm Charlotte comes with Shadow for a 1 hour buddy walk
3:45pm mom comes home and finds nothing out of place!

I kept her home from daycare today since I planned on having much shorter hours away from the house and I'm so pleased that she behaved herself while I was gone.  I somewhat expected to come home to at least one thing chewed up or something like that, but no, it appears that she slept the entire time I was gone.  Two long walks seemed to really have tuckered her out, even now at 4pm she's dead asleep on the couch!

What an angel.  Also, she's extra super smelly right now, and I can't even stand it: Bath time on Sunday.

Hot Dog

Yeah, mom didn't fill the pool up all the way because she accidently put it on a slight hill.  The pool is a little bit too big... but it didn't matter.  We really need to get one of those really small plastic ones I guess!

Mia is free range pooling in this hot weather.  So far so good.  The pool is just like Ok, but she loves sprinting around the yard at full speed and then getting some water from her gigantic water bowl.

Not in the mood

Someone is feeling a little under the weather today...

Moving Up

Mia really wants this Molly Mutt crate cover - such an amazing invention.  She's sick of using her ghetto blanket.  She's going to have to start working more hours to buy it for $60!

Free Range Doggie

Mia had such a nice day yesterday.  First she had a tree to deck runner installed to allow her 80 feet of movement in the yard - and I think she likes it.  Later, her friend Jasper (an Irish wolf hound) came over for a cookout.  They played well indoors and on the deck, so we figured that we should just see what happens if we let them play in the yard together without any leashes or anything to keep them from running off.  At first they ran at full speed around the house in circles and then they settled into rolling all in the grass.  There was really no urge from them at all to wander off out of the yard into the street or anything.  This was the first time that we've ever let Mia off her leash because we really thought that she would run away like a jerk.  A major factor in all this was that there weren't any other people or dogs walking by the house to distract them, if that were the case then I'm sure Mia would run off to bark at the passers by.  I'm so proud of her though, she really did so well!  Jasper is invited back anytime.

Stay

Stay.
Sometimes she listens to me - most of the time she doesn't.

Moving On

I didn't end up taking Mia to the vet last week, her illness seemed to pass pretty quickly - luckily for everyone especially my wallet.  I've started a log of how often her tummy bothers her though for the next time we go to the vet for something like this.

Mia attends daycare 5 days a week when we are at work.  At first we really loved it, but they've had a lot of staff turnover.  At least 5 of our favorite people have left since October with no explanation or warning.  Everyone else there is fine, they just aren't Great.  I don't think they particularly care about Mia, and the other people seemed to know Mia really well.  The owner is a little crazy... a lot crazy, and they keep messing up the billing.  Anyhow, so this summer we are going to pull Mia out of daycare 2-3 days a week and have the high school girl down the street that we use on weekends sometimes walk Mia for an hour with her own dog on the days she stays home.  We really like this girl and she is usually available last minute.  Mia has been allowed to stay out of her crate when we're gone these days with no incidents, so she can continue with that.  This will also save us a decent amount of cash and 20-30 minutes per day of commuting - which saves our sanity.  I'm hoping that Mia's stomach issues will calm down too... if they are somehow daycare related.  When fall comes we'll have to figure something else out, but this seems like a good solution right now.