Picture Time!

Jilly got a bath today and it was nice out, so I decided to take some pictures. She's 6 months old tomorrow! And we've had her for 15 weeks. Crazy, it seems like we've always had a dog, lol.

We've been going on hikes and she loves them, even 2.5 miles. On hikes we work on teaching her that not every new person has to stop and greet her as much as she wants them to and that it's ok to walk past new people without being petted first. She's also gotten good at approaching and walking past dogs without barking at them. She's still mommy's girl, but since puppy class ended C has been doing a lot of training with her (even taught her to roll over really good!) so now she misses him more than she used to when he leaves.

Speaking of puppy class, we were kind of the Grand Champions, we won two of the contests and got second in the other, only one other dog placed in two and it got two seconds I think. We won puppy push ups (sit, stand, down as many times as you can in the time allotted), fastest down from a walk, and got second in fastest sit from a walk. Our trick for the last class was for Jilly to jump up on a stool, turn a circle, and then jump off and crawl under the stool to the other side. She did it great there and everyone was very impressed.

It was kind of hard getting pictures because it was just me and she liked sitting in the shade more than anything, which didn't make for good pictures. So...I took a bunch of balls and we played fetch and I tried to get pictures as she ran back and forth.

Tuckered Out...

Oh my, we had a *busy* day today. Craig and I went to school in the morning like normal. Then late this afternoon took Jilly to the barn to see Sophie and the other dogs while we dropped off a new container of Raspberry Leaves for Sophie. Jilly *loved* Hammer, a huge Lab mix. He liked her too. I was surprised because he's gigantic and bigger than any of the dogs at puppy class, but she wasn't scared of him at all. But now that I think about it, she liked the French Mastiff the best out of the other dogs at puppy class by the end of the classes too.

After the barn we went to Carriage Hill to go for a hike. We did somewhere around 2.6 miles and had a blast. We walked mainly, but would jog for a minute or two every now and then. Jilly did great on her stretchy lead, better than the last hike. She stayed even with us or ahead of us the whole time and when she did stop she would start walking ahead of us again as soon as we reached her, never causing *us* to stop or move her out of the way.

Toward the end of the hike we were getting back over to "our" parking lot Craig said, "There's a little dog over there, did you see it?" I hadn't seen it and asked him where it was, he told me we'd walk over so I could see it. I'm thinking it's across the pond on the trail or something. Then a little white and sable dog pops out from behind the shelter right by us...it's a Papillon!!!!! It looked like Jilly's mom. It was very cute, wearing a little pink cheerleading outfit. It was very friendly and her name is Skeeter. I didn't have my camera, so no pictures, but she and Jilly really enjoyed meeting each other. She was very tall though, like a supersized Papillon!

Jilly didn't seem tired by the time we were done, she was still racing ahead and greeting new people left and right, but she actually went up to the car on her own and walked right up to my door once I was sitting down in the seat. She also jumped up into my arms a little when I picked her up, she sat right down on my lap and after I gave her a drink in her portable water bowl she laid right down for the rest of the trip home. She did whimper a little on the way to the barn and on the way to Carriage Hill, but on the way home...not a peep.

As soon as we arrived at home our neighbors were just arriving home and Mitch was in the front yard, so Jilly chased Mitch around for a couple of minutes before he went inside. And I thought she'd be tired! We put her in the yard while we walked around the front of the house, let her in, she chased Kitty a bit, got something to drink and eat, and she is now zonked out on the couch...flat on her side. I think she is going to sleep *very* soundly tonight!

In other news, we will have to house hunt once we make it down to Florida in April. Unfortunately there was a problem with the house we were buying and we were unable to resolve the problem with the sellers. So, we're still looking.

"Grand Champion" of Puppy Class!!!

Wednesday was our last puppy class. It was "graduation" night. We started with a puppy push ups contest, where we had to have our dogs do sit, down, stand, sit, down, stand, etc. Jilly did 19, the next closest dog did 15 though most did less than 10. So Jilly got a little donkey stuffed animal.

Then we did a fastest sit competition, where we walk around with the dogs like we're just hanging out in the park or something, then the instructor says "sit your dogs" randomly and the first dog to sit wins. Jilly won her heat (there are three heats of 3 or 4 dogs each) and came in second in the final round. She got a bag of treats for that.

After that the instructor brought out a partial chute where each person got to bring their dog over and have it walk through. Despite the chute being huge and Jilly being small it still took her a few seconds to come through to my side, but she did it!

Then we had a fastest down contest, same deal as fastest sit, just walk around aimlessly until the instructor says "down your dogs". Jilly won her heat. Then she won the finals. She got a stuffed turtle for that one.

After that we were to demonstrate the tricks we'd been working on since the beginning of class (on our own). We went first, since the instructor asked who had a trick prepared and then who wanted to go first (I was raising my hand to confirm we had a trick) right away. So Craig handed me our little stool and I went to the center of the ring and put it down, then asked her to get on the stool, turn one circle, jump down to the left of the stool and crawl under it to the other side. It's so low that we have to take her harness off and put her collar on for the trick because otherwise she scrapes the harness on the bottom of the stool and she hates that. The other dogs did shake, fetch, play dead, and danced by standing on their hind legs.

Then we got our certificates and the dogs each got a stuffed animal, Jilly's looks like a sun, which the instructor thought was funny since we're moving to Florida. I really wish we could continue classes here, I did contact a dog school in Florida, but haven't heard back yet. I really want to do agility with her.

But, if you add up the "points" for the contests Jilly won, one other dog got two seconds, no one else placed in the top three of any competition more than once. But Jilly had two firsts and a second.

Jilly probably thought it was the best day of her life. She got to go for a run that afternoon (she can keep up with my jog *very* easily and loves running), then a shower, and then during class she got nothing but high value treats for performing plus she got to play with lots of toys since the dogs "picked" their prize when they won a contest.

Or maybe she thought today was the best day of her life...she got to go on a 30 minute hike in a local park with DH and I, then she got to go to the barn and smell all sorts of neat smells while I groomed Sophie. After that we set up a couple of agility jumps from the barn and she loved going over them with me. We only did a few, since we had no treats, but she enjoyed it a lot.