Puppy Milestones

It's been a big week for Abby. She's now 5 months old and a whopping 11 pounds. She's been in the middle of a teething frenzy which has been making her (and us) miserable. She's been chewing on everything and anything she can get her little teeth around. We're going through chew toys like crazy. Today she got some relief, her lower canines fell out. Joy! The upper ones should fall out any day now. The adult teeth have broken through and the baby teeth are feeling awfully loose. Premolars and molars are next. The incisors were the first to go last week.

I'm also happy to report that at the ripe old age of 5 months, she's appears to be fully house broken. Major JOY! She still sleeps in her crate, but she's no longer shut in. She has free roam of the bedroom at night which makes her a much happier puppy. Now I'm not foolish enough to leave her uncrated if I'm out of the house for 4 or 5 hours, but for short 2 hour trips out of the house she's fine. We're turning many corners right now and Abby is turning into a wonderful dog. It's taken a lot of effort on our part, but it's so worth it to have a happy stable well trained puppy.

Another big deal for her is that she played in the "big dog" section of the dog park today and loved it. Our dog park has two fenced in sections for off leash dogs. 3/4 of an acre for dogs 35 pounds and under and a 1 acre section for dogs of all shapes and sizes. Because she's so small she hasn't been in the big dog side. She wants to be there but until today has been too intimidated to relax and enjoy herself. Today there were no small dogs at all and several big dogs. She pretty much inststed to be in with the big guys today. She was relaxed and confident and had herself a blast running around the big dogs and there were some whoppers today. A pair of Cane Corsos, a Greyhound, Golden, Shepard mix Yellow lab puppy, you get the idea. The Canes are HUGE dogs, well over 100 pounds each or roughly the size of a Bull Mastiff. Abby loves the Canes. They were very tolerant of this snack sized pup prancing around them sniffing and trying to get them to play. And the weather was perfect for it too, 75 with bright sunny skies.

So there you go, real actual content. I'll get to the souffle soon. Really I will :)