Hershey keeps surprising me with new things. All of the sudden, she’s decided she has to brush her feet off on the grass when she’s done “doing her thing” outside. It’s pretty funny. Once she’s finished, she gives all her paws a good wipe or two on the lawn. She never did this before, and I was surprised the first time I saw it. Now it’s part of her routine. So where did she get it? Did she pick it up on the street? Was it some secret message left behind by the other dogs who piddled all along the block? Is that what she’s learning when she’s sniffing around? Or maybe one of the dogs she met clued her in? Maybe the Shitzu down the block said, “Girl, you didn’t wipe afterward. Didn’t your Mama teach you any manners?” (How embarrassing for her.)
And now that the snow has melted and bits of bark and sticks are littering our lawn, she loves to sit down and gnaw on the wood. Unfortunately, sometimes she likes to do this at 3am when she howls to go outside. (That, to me, does not seem to be howl-worthy. But that’s another discussion.) And when she finds a particularly good piece, she snatches it up and trots off to her favorite shrub. She crawls underneath, digs a little hole and buries it. I feel kind of bad, like she has to settle for a stick—the poor dog’s bone. But again, I’m surprised but this new habit of hers. Is it just instinct kicking in to bury her goodies? And does that mean Hershey has bad instincts if the poor thing is burying wood? Sometimes, she grabs a big branch and tries to pull it over to her stash. It’s hilarious.
And just when I thought she was too chicken to walk down the basement stairs, we found her down there lapping up the cat’s food. A little incentive goes a long way, apparently. Now we have to make sure that gate is always locked. Soon enough, she’ll be able to jump over the gate—and she’ll probably figure out how to push against the swinging door in the kitchen to get out to the dining room. Today, she scored her first counter grab—a stick of butter I left too close to the edge. Luckily, she only got a few bites out of before I realized what she was gnawing on. Kind of like a kid; one day they don’t know how to open the sliding glass door—the next day they do. I’m a little concerned how the butter is going to turn out “in the end.”
All this just makes me wonder what other new tricks she’ll be showing us. We had her outside for a little while one day, tied up near the kids swing set, and she quickly dug a hole in the sandbox. I think summer is going to be full of surprises—for us and for her.
And if she learns to sit, heel, stay? Oh happy day. That will be a surprise indeed.
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Have you missed any of the articles in this series?
If so, you can find them at:
The Bringing Up Puppy Series page.
Related posts:
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Two Months in – Hows the Cat Girl Doing?
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Hello Stranger
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – In the Summer Time
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Holding Tight
- Bringing Up Puppy Series – Counting My Chickens Too Soon
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