On Her Own

Mia has become a lot more independent in the past month.  Meaning, she's completely willing to leave my side for hours at a time so she can go snooze upstairs on our bed by herself.  She never would have done this before, and she was always allowed to go into our bedroom with or without us being there.  Of course it's the most comfortable spot in the house, and she curls right up on a super soft throw blanket.  The dog trainer we used about a year ago told us that dogs don't care about soft things or soft surfaces, they just don't care.  He was wrong, Mia cares.  She will hunt out the softest place she can find before curling up for a nap, you'll never find her sprawled out on hardwood floor unless she's over heating or something.

It's kind of sad that she's so willing and able to leave us and do her own thing around the house since I'm used to her being my constant shadow.  However, she's also become more independent outside.  Our free ranging sessions have become less frequent because she doesn't stay in the yard anymore and I have to retrieve her each time.  She'll run around the yard like a maniac and then end up in the woods completely focused in fun smells, and I have to jump into the woods with her leash to get her back.  She also tends to hop in and out of the street too, which makes me nervous.  For the most part, she is technically in the yard, but going 15 feet into the woods is not a good time for me when I need her to come back.  An invisible fence is looking more and more appealing for the spring time.  She just loves running free so much, but she just has to be contained otherwise it's just too stressful for me.  I'm afraid she's going to get hit by a car, or another dog is going to come walking up the street and she's going to bolt and greet him, or she'll just start walking down the street without me like she did once.

Also, I've now spoiled the shit out of her - for my own benefit.  I've started giving her chicken with each meal.  So 2 cups of dry food, 1 spoonful of wet food, and then 1 piece of chicken - the size of a tender which I microwave and then tear up into shreds.  This means that she now eats her entire meal every single time (when before she'd often skip meals here and there and generally not eat breakfast), and she's actually excited to do so.  Now I don't have to listen to her stomach growl, bring her outside only for her to eat tons of grass knowing it's because she's starving, or worry that she's not eating and is too skinny.  This is more work on my end, but not too much.  It may become an issue if we ever need to leave her somewhere and someone else needs to feed her, but then again with the baby on the way we're not going anywhere for a long time.  She hasn't had a stomach issue ever since I started this about 3 weeks ago, and she hasn't skipped a meal, so it's a win/win for now.  This is probably like bribing a kid to eat their dinner so they can get dessert... oh well.  

Welcome Home

Oh my princess!  Ignore that scratch on her nose... she totally didn't get that at daycare from another dog because she deserved it.  This was a text photo update from one of the daycare people while we were en route to Maui.  She looks so cute, sort of like she's wearing her tail for a hat.

I figured that she'd probably be boarded for 8 days and then come home and be a little insane for like 3-4 days getting back into her routine.  That was not the case at all, she was back to normal like 24 hours later.  She was basically normal the first night she came home, the only weird thing she did was a lot of extra backwards walking in the kitchen (which she usually does) and she didn't go right into her crate at bedtime (I had to scoot her in there).  I feel like the difference here is that we boarded her at her daycare where she knows the people and the dogs and the smells.  My childhood dog Buffy would be boarded when we went away (at her vet), and when she came home, she was bat shit crazy for like a full week and her eating and bowel movements were all off.  She was so confused and annoyed and surprised all at once for a full week, but not Mia.  We picked her up on Monday, and by Wednesday the house was her's again - including her favorite nap spot on the bed.

I did miss her a lot when we were away, but... not as much as I thought I would.  I mean, I love her and her company but it also felt kind of nice to have a week where my life didn't revolve around her needs like my weekends typically do.

I picked her up yesterday at daycare, and two boys were telling me how they took her to the agility course in the back yard to play fetch and they were like, "your dog is So Fast!!  We'd throw the ball and she'd get it and bring it back in like 4 seconds!  She was jumping over all of the course obstacles, she's such an agility dog."  She's totally super fast and athletic.  Sometimes when she's in the yard, if I turn my back for 2 seconds, she's gone... usually she's just in the front yard running at top speeds for fun, but man she's crazy fast.  Later that night, I noticed that she had scratched her upper foot pads... like the ones on her ankles, they are all scraped up like the equivalent to little kids skinned knees or something.  I sprayed Neosporin on them but since she doesn't actually use them to walk, I figured they'd heal on their own.  I think I have a full first aid kit in her cabinet at this point: hydrogen peroxide, tweezers, gauze, athletic tape, athletic wraps, Neosporin, Claratin etc.  I'm happy to patch her up at home when I can, it saves us the $65 vet visit, but why must she be so rough and tumble?!