World's Greatest Dog (in Training)

My little shadow around the house and the world's best snuggle bug

My dear blog followers, I have failed you; I have left you stranded in suspense through the entire month of June. I do apologize, but life with little Lu is very fast paced, leaving me with an overabundance of potential content for the blog and very little free time and motivation for actually blogging. However, I have been taking lots of pictures and short videos to share with you all and I will try to hit the high points while giving you a general picture of what Luna is like these days. I have more pictures and videos to share so I will continue to post more often in order to share everything I have, including lots of cute stories.

Sleepy girl, but always ready to pose for the camera.

These pictures make her look deceivingly calm and quiet... She is calm and quiet about half of the time.

"Please pet me?"

"Okay, I will wait patiently right here..."

Lu is only a year and 4 months and you can definitely tell. She has such a carefree attitude and can be extremely outgoing and energetic. She loves to play and loves to do tricks. She loves clicker training and treats of any kind. She'll do anything for some snuggles or petting and thrives on attention and physical contact with her humans. She learns very fast and catches on to new words faster than you can imagine. She knows what so many different words mean and she is happiest when she pleases her humans by performing the behavior that is asked. She is extremely obedient and is even pretty responsive when she's off-leash at the dog park.

(Left to right) Annie, Chris, Jessica, Maya, Seth, & Luna at the Bloomington dog park. What a blast!!!

Lu loves other dogs and is interested in meeting and playing with any dog. When other dogs chase tennis balls that their owners throw, she speeds after them and returns back along side them, just to run alongside another dog - that's all she wants. Luna's best friends are Maya and Annie, owned by Seth and Jessica. Annie and Luna are partners in crime. Today Lu got Annie into mischief at the dog park, inviting Annie to run off exploring in the woods (in the fenced in dog park) and pop out the other side while the humans (and Maya) continued walking along the path!

Lu's favorite part of the dog park: the pond! While other dogs explore and drink the mucky water, Luna jumps in and belly flops down into the water to cool off.

Here's Luna and Annie in action

Here's Luna and "the girls", Maya and Annie.

This is also typical behavior for Luna when she's with other dogs: very happy, gentle with others and always leading others in play time and activities

We live next to protected wetlands so there are lots of frogs hopping around in the lawn and parking lot where she potties. It's delightful to see her childlike wonder when a still frog suddenly starts hopping, startling her into a fantastic state of wonderment. She follows them with tiny little hops of her own, like a frolicking fawn, ears perked high and eyes locked on these unpredictable little play things. Soon the frogs figure out that the only way of survival is to hold still, hoping their predator won't see them anymore. But this is the perfect opportunity for Luna to smoosh her wet snuffling nose right up to their bodies and check it out. When she finally gets bored and walks away there is a slick coat of moisture on the frogs' backs from her curious nose.

Tonight she followed a frog excitedly until it stopped hopping, then she stared at it intently, waiting for it to move so she can play again, but it wouldn't move. The solution? After a loooong pause staring at it, she let out a playful "WOOF!" with her mouth only a few inches from the frog. The vibrations (or sound?) of the bark startled the frog into hopping again, which reignited the playful game that she so dearly wanted to continue.

Such a pretty girrrrl. I think she poses.

Lu still LOVES water. She goes out of her way to walk through puddles (and pee in them) and her very favorite part of the weekly Gassy walks at Lake Harriet is the part where we wade into the water. She trots right in and flops down, though sometimes she slowly lowers herself down and her hindquarters quiver as she sinks into the chilly water, depending how chilly it is, but she'll lie in it anyway. Last week there were waves, which made her stop and step back for a second, but I walked right in so she saw it was no big deal. She followed me in and laid right down on my feet with a happy, dopey open-mouth grin, complete with tongue hanging out the side of her mouth (very typical expression to see on her face). She is such a happy dog.

Tonight Luna got a bath. We give her a bath every other week and it has done WONDERS for her skin and coat, which both look extremely healthy now! No more flakes! She has become so soft and the shedding has gone down significantly. Tonight was her third bath and while I was setting the tub up, she knew exactly what was going on. She walked right up to the tub and quietly, gently stepped into the tub all by herself, one paw at a time and then looked at me like "Okay, I'm ready". My heart soared when my little girl did this! All by herself! We have taught her well (and she's very smart).

Lovin' the spa treatment!

What a good bath time!

After her baths she must feel GREAT, because once she is excused from being dried off in the bathroom, she trots out to the living room, does lots of shakes, and then runs around happily, grabbing toys and doing more shakes. The best is her tail shake, seen below:

I love her little cowlick

Another thing I love are her long, thick whiskers that sprout out of her chin and cheeks, like a menacing catfish. And who can resist those floppy, expressive ears? When I stick my finger in her ear to itch the inside (wiggle my finger a little) she will tilt her head to the side the ear is on, then I switch ears and she tilts her head way to the side on that side. Must feel gooooood.

Car rides are the greatest! She'll often try to lead me to where the car is parked, near her potty spot, then look up at me like "Can we go?"

SQUIRREL!

Lu had a blast at Greyfest. She ran and ran and ran, and when no one wanted to run with her anymore, she ran by herself in big circles. Then she'd speed over to the pool and jump right in, flop right down. Often there would be 5 or 6 other dogs trying to use the pool too, standing room only, until Lu came barreling in and splashed right down on her tummy, pushing some of the standing hounds out of the pool. She seemed oblivious of her intrusion.

Back and forth: run run run, pool...run run run, pool.

Pool all to herself! You can see that other pups have already cleaned off in the water.

She is the greatest dog in the world (to us). She is so full of life and energy and personality. She is gentle and sweet, curious and playful, smart and enthusiastic about learning to communicate. We have worked so hard with her to help her settle in to human life and she can still be a little jumpy at times, but we try to be very persistent and consistent, never giving up just because something makes her uncomfortable. For example, a toddler pushing a toy baby stroller for her doll was making lots of noise while walking in the same parking lot as us while on our walk, startling Luna into frantic jumps and yanking on the leash with her gentle leader on. So instead of feel frustrated and embarrassed, I followed through with the opportunity at hand and I took Luna up to a brisk jog as we passed the stroller-toting toddler and her mom. I then kept jogging with her and correcting her every time her attention was pulled to the toddler with a leash tug and a sharp kissy sound, and we proceeded to basically jog in big circles around the toddler and mom until she ignored them on her own. I told the mom "We're practicing," and the mom laughed and said she completely understood. When we're out of the house it can be a constant effort to praise and soothe and correct and it has taken a LOT of practice to be in tune to her, in order to respond appropriately to her and know what she needs in order to keep her moving forward psychologically. But it seems to be paying off.

Here are two of her tricks. She has perfected the "shake", and last night during a clicker training session with her I taught her "high five", or "five". It took about 5 minutes to teach her with the clicker.

Currently our biggest challenge is still just the shyness with strangers. She will now sniff people when they put their hands out to her and she will let about half of the strangers she meets to pet her right away, but if we give her a little time (maybe 3-5 minutes) she warms up to the people we're with and will let them pet her (especially if we give them treats to share with her) and eventually she'll be nudging peoples' hands for some ear scratches. Children are still very peculiar and unpredictable to her. She is more tolerable of them now from a distance, and is letting them get closer in proximity, but still keeps them at a distance. She does not like the high pitched noises they make. But we'll get there someday, I hope.

Pig ears are Daddy's special treat to give to Lu, and there is nothing more sacred in the dog world than a pig ear. She is in the zone when she's got a pig ear in her mouth. But she does like her privacy while enjoying this delectable treat.

We have worked SO hard with Luna. I can't believe it's only been 7 weeks! There have been so many payoffs, though. It makes the hard work worth every challenging moment.

Stay tuned for more from Luna the grey! Comments and suggestions are welcome!