puppy girl keeps on growing

I took this photo of Ezri this morning right before I went to work, and it's now the wallpaper on my phone. Her ears are utterly perfect this morning, and I wanted to immortalize that should they change again!

On Wednesday Ezri weighed in at 26.0 lbs, gaining just 1.2 lbs in the past three weeks. She seems to be stabilizing pretty nicely at her current size, and while she is skinny as a rail her height doesn't seem to be changing much. Last Sunday I asked Jeff to help me measure her with our practice NAFA wicket, and she came in right at the line of 18", which is the same height as Jadzia. That seems off somehow, she doesn't seem like she's as tall as Jadzia, but maybe the 10-lb weight difference is enough to skew my perceptions! We increased Ezri's food up to 9oz per meal as of last night, matching what Curzon gets and now a full 3oz more than what Jadzia gets. She's skinny enough and active enough to use it all, though, and I'm watching her like a hawk so we don't have a repeat of Jadzia's current FatDog status.

Speaking of Jadzia the FatDog, she weighed in at 35.8 lbs on Wednesday, down from 36.6 lbs on December 30th. Her thyroid levels were tested and her T3 is measuring normal, although I don't have the exact number. Hopefully the final cut in her food and the support with Thyroid Guard over the last two months is enough to drop that weight off her, as I really want her back down to at least 32 lbs and preferably 30-31 lbs. Four pounds doesn't seem like much, but when you are only supposed to be 32 lbs that's a whole 12.5% of your total body weight, which is like a standard 150 lb adult human gaining 18 lbs!

Ezri's flyball training moved up a notch last weekend, as Jeff and I transitioned her over to a regular course with 6" jumps and a real box with a training platform on it (to minimize movement when activated). The jumps gave her no trouble at all, which is unsurprising given the height she's been jumping over the 3" jumps - one photo I have shows her clearing a good 10" or so! The real box was a little more trouble, however, as it's smaller than the training platform and the ball position is a little different. We're working on her on-off technique and that was coming back nicely by the end of practice, and with another week or two of work she will probably be back to taking her ball and doing full runs. The big bonus of this is that when we go to the flyball retreat next weekend, we don't have to take a full set of puppy jumps or that big training platform!

Finally, last week I spent a half-hour and trained Ezri to do "paw" which is shake hands. She's almost got the "other paw" command as well - I love having smart dogs! Now if we can just get "Come" solidified into her spazzy little brain, we'd be all set.....