thirteen weeks -and- three months

Yesterday little Ezri was thirteen weeks old, and today is her three-month birthday as well. As it turns out, the ground rubber floor at our puppy class is an excellent backdrop, as evidenced by this photo, taken on Monday. Over the last five days or so her ears have been standing up more and more, and as of about yesterday they're pretty much settled in a fully upright position. I'm a little sad about that, and have been threatening to tie weights to her ears to make them lie back down again. It doesn't really matter, her health and performance are what matters most of all, but all the same I'm just slightly sad that her ears popped. In happier news, her tail started flagging last week and is showing a nice little fringe already, and her adult coat is already starting to come in along the lower part of her spine. I wish I could somehow record how soft puppy fur feels, but I suppose only pictures and video are available to us now.

She's doing quite well with puppy class, flyball training, and general housetraining. This week in puppy class we did a handling exercise involving dressing the puppies in a t-shirt and socks, which led to this picture of a slightly confused and embarrassed border collie puppy. I wasn't fast enough the first time, but she did have four socks on initially but they slid right off with just walking, so I didn't get a photo. At flyball this weekend we worked on recalls to a toy, chase drills with Riker, and box motion drills on the flat board with a tennis ball. Julie had a new Tug-It, which is basically a mesh pouch that you put food or a toy inside to train tug drive, and with her squeaky toy inside it Ezri went nuts. She's not quite up to tugging on a fleece tug at flyball yet, so this is a perfect way to reinforce the tugging behavior until she does understand it, and I've ordered my own set of Tug-Its to help. Maybe later I'll even see if I can transition Phoebe to a tug!

In the housetraining world, Ezri has been going out in the kennel after Chris gets home for a week now, and it is going well. She is mostly quiet and not waking him up now, and spends most of her time chasing Phoebe as the terrier bounces around watching squirrels. Between the activity and the chilly weather, Ezri has been pretty tired and sleepy during the evening, which is an odd thing to see in a puppy! Housebreaking is going very well although we are still being very careful about regular potty breaks and keeping her within sight or on lead at all times. She has learned to sit before eating and going outside, and is picking up plenty of other household behaviors and cues. She and Curzon spend quite a lot of time playing with each other as well, and she loves playing with a tennis ball although we are still working on the fetch part of that game. So all in all, a happy, healthy, well-adjusted three month old puppy. I love her to pieces and am enjoying every minute of watching her grow.