Family Pet

We've been doing our best to turn this little girl into the perfect family pet. This morning I had her outside in the dark listening to the sounds of the neighbor's snowblowing and shoveling their driveways. A month ago the snowblower freaked her out. This morning she looked in that general direction and walked away. Hoooray!!

She was also a little unnerved by my shovel the other day. So the first time I shoveled today, at 530am, I put her in the house. But when I dragged the shovel back outside at 100pm, they were having so much fun playing in the snow, that I left everybody outside. She was ok with the shovel, not great, wouldn't come near me that's for sure. But she hung around the yard.

I had a few moments of panic while I was shoveling and the big ol' dump truck with the plow came rumbling down our street. I dropped the shovel and went to stand by her. I told her she was a good dog and she was doing a great job. When he came back to do the other side of the street, I let her be. She was ok with it, not great but she did ok.

I've also been breaking her in with trips in the car. She knows that as soon as we get in the car, WE'RE GOING TO THE DOG PARK! Well, not every trip is a trip to the dog park. So, I've been putting her in the car when we do car pool with the boys on our street. The first time, a couple weeks ago, she actually barked at a kid. I'm not sure which one of the three of us was more surprised.

This morning I decided that since we only had two kids in the carpool, I would bring her along. I told her we were going to school to drop off the boys. When Connor mentioned "dog park", I told him he couldn't say that unless we were really going. We decided to call it "waggin' tails."

I managed to pull drop off AND pick up duty today. I had a prescription to pick up at the pharmacy on our side of town which is near the boys school so I piled my snowball covered Beardie and my Crazy Labradors into the car and off we went. When the lady at the window offered me treats for my dogs, she says, "Oh, you have three?"

I said yes, but only two eat the treats. So, she only gave me two.

She seemed pretty curious as to all the activity and I broke one treat in half and gave it to Mocha and Te'a. The other one I set on the back seat. Wouldn't you just know that she went and ate it? Darn dog.

She really enjoys being outside. While I was shoveling out the end of the driveway, she sat down and just watched the world go by. She stayed there as I walked up the driveway, put the shovel in the garage and went in the house and got the camera.

Here's a couple of silly snaps that I took....

Thanks for Reading!