Do I even remember what happened on Monday?

Happy Canada Day to my friends up North!

Down here in the middle part of the USA, a storm front was coming through, right behind sunrise.  Sunrise being on the east, and the storm front coming from the west, we got rainbows!  

I had let the sprinklers run at 4 a.m., but then when the front came through, I turned them off, so that the noon watering did not happen.  Rain is expected again from 10 p.m. to midnight, so I have left it off, and the 7 p.m. run will also not happen.

Born on January 31st, I'm counting Ember as 5 months old today!

But boy did she wake up grumpy!  What I mostly remember is Ember chewing on my feet, jumping and nipping and in general being not at all the calm puppy I need her to be!  I tried the ignore, Mommy not playing, etc. strategy and it didn't work very well. (See what happens when you brag on her, Barb?) 

Finally, about ten 'til six a.m., I talked her into a leash walk, meaning she had to allow me to put on her harness, clip on her leash, sit pretty for her front door treat, and wait for mommy as we exit, mommy closes and locks the door, and goes down the steps one at a time.  

This means Mommy needs her feet!  Inside her shoes!

The sky was stunning.  Rumbles of thunder rolled through.  Ember did pretty much OK outside on leash, but she hadn't pooped, either on the back patio or on leash for walk number 1.

I was concerned that she had not pooped, and kept trying to get her outside on the patio before I would put her away for her first puppy nap, but this did not happen.  

We kept having tussles.  At one point, I shut her outside on the deck while I calmed myself down.  I hate it when I yell, "ouch" or "ouch, dammit" and eventually "dog!"  I ended up putting on the cut resistant sleeves.  It was cool enough to wear a sweatshirt, anyway.  During the time I put her "out", she bullied the cat.  I rescued the cat and "explained" (again) to Ember that she needs to let the cat "get away", just as she needs to let Mommy get away when we don't want to play the same way she does.

I know there are people that don't believe animals understand our reasoning, but the calm explanatory tone telling them that this is all OK has to be doing something.

I cooked my breakfast, but while I was getting the blueberries out for my bowl, a pair of charcoal paws invaded my counter space and spilled about a quarter cup of the berries onto the counter.  I scooped them into my bowl, removed the paws, admonishing "where do our paws belong?"  "That's right... on the floor!"

She settled down with the normality of the routine and let me finish cooking the oatmeal.  I managed to get her into the crate around 7:30 and she settled into a nap.  I continued to be concerned about her biological needs and let her out after just two hours, and we went on leash walk #2 at 9:59 a.m.  This one produced!  By then the rain had stopped; we got all the way around our normal block.  Ember was finally settling down... was it anxiety suppressing the processing?  Or did the processing settle her down, with the root cause of the wild behavior being constipation?  She can't tell me!

Her normal 8:30 nap began two hours late.  I did a couple of things in the house, then took off on a shopping trip.  I stopped at Zoom Room and got some "calm down" herbal drops for her, re-thinking that maybe part of this craziness Monday morning was anxiety over the thunder. She might have trouble with the fireworks to come with the holiday, and I want to be prepared.  I also stopped at the place I get her pet food and bought a 40-pound bag of "all life stages" chicken and rice blend.  I hope to transition her to this at the end of her current bag (about 25 pounds of it left).  The new food is about 10 bucks a bag cheaper than the "large breed puppy" lamb and rice blend she's been eating since she was weaned.

At each place, I looked over the toys, hoping to find something to help her with both boredom and teething.  I bought three new toys for her.  One is a replacement for a toy she's wearing out (the old green toy in the back, the new orange one between her paws).  Another seems like a great teething toy, softer than some of her others.  The last one just appealed to my whimsy, and I hope both that she likes it and that it survives her attention for a while.  Happy five-month day, Ember!

Since I was already in the neighborhood I stopped and got coffee, peanut butter, and a different flavor of the Eclipse gum (that doesn't have xylitol in the ingredients list) at a different store from my usual grocery stop.  

I got home about 12:45 and sprang Ember from her puppy nap #2 in time to share some of my lunch salad.  She also polished off all of the breakfast she didn't eat earlier.  She looked longingly at the purple treat bag, and I gave her another thing I'd bought:  a pig's ear.  I used to treat my GSP Diamond with pig's ears and she loved them.  Turns out, Ember seems to as well.  She finished it ALL, being content the whole time.

Leash walk #3 happened at 2:13 p.m.  Another poop!  Yes!  

The mowers came, too. Normally they come on Tuesday, but weather was such that this afternoon was better.  They mowed both front and back.  I snuck out to see what they were doing, and Ember demanded to know what I was up to when I came back in, so I put her on leash and we went out front so she could collect pets from the mowers.  The head mower told me he would be coming back tomorrow to add more grass seed because it didn't all take.

They used a hand mower, not the big riding kind, on the back, and it looks gorgeous!  I could not resist.  I had told Ember she could have her back yard on the 4th of July, and it's two and a half days early, but I let her loose on the new sod.  She was overjoyed!  She first peed, then sniffed her way around the perimeter, then raced in circles!

Then she got into the sandbox and dug, flinging sand everywhere.  She looked so happy!  I smiled a lot.  I dug out a couple bits of freeze-dried raw chicken liver as her recall treat, one at the top of the deck stairs, the other as she came inside.  Happy puppy, happy mommy!  And I'm thinking now that she has space to run, a number of issues with behavior will be resolved.

We are closing out Monday on a note of hope, after starting it on a note of frustration!

Life is good!  Spark on!