cross-stitch and a growing puppy

So thanks to my friend, I've decided to pick up cross-stitch again, at least for a Halloween-themed project.  This isn't my first one, as I completed a pretty good-sized one in the early 2000s and have a smaller one that I did about half of a few years back, but it will be my first one on linen and first time using hand-dyed fabric and floss, so that's kind of neat.  We started on Saturday, and I've spent a lot of time working on it since then, even though I had to buy a pair of reading glasses to see the fabric better and have to have a nice bright light to see by.  So far I've completed the pattern grid (it's a Halloween sampler, with one letter per grid space) and about a quarter of the lace border (with bats, skulls, and spiders).  I love it so far!

When I'm working on it in the evenings, Martok usually ends up curled up near me to snooze, and last night I let him climb up and curl into my lap while I worked.  He did very well, sleeping quietly and not interrupting my stitching - pretty impressive for an (almost) seven-month-old border collie puppy.  There was even a stretch of time where my pattern sheet was resting on his head, and he didn't notice or care.

Chris got me an adorable little "My Little Demon" plushy dragonesque stuffed toy from a Kickstarter campaign, complete with "Danger" wrapping and a personalized Demonator certificate.  Of course, I had to use the Danger wrapping appropriately on my young border collie puppy - they SHOULD come with "Danger" warnings after all!

Last weekend was pretty quiet and calm, so much so that I ended up buying a new shelf to organize all of my fiber craft stuff.  I went to Storables and found this shelf, which perfectly fits six of the Sistema bins I use for yarn/fiber storage per shelf, and I bought it immediately upon realizing this.  It does add some clutter to my room, but it's providing a lot of useful storage and has allowed me to collect all of the fiber things together (instead of strewn about the place), so that's a worthwhile tradoff.  Plus it just makes my organizational heart happy.

One of the things we did do this weekend was pick up our RV trailer after it's long stint at the dealer, where it had various small repairs performed and also had slide rollers installed.  These are like little awnings for the slides, which protect them from weather and minimize any dirt/debris/water from being pulled back into the RV when you close up for travel.  Plus they dampen the sound of rain on the slides, since the rain will hit the awning and not the slide roof itself, a big bonus in this climate!  I'm super excited and can't wait to use it again for a tournament this weekend.

There are a few things that I am keeping in mind these days, of course, with the primary at the moment being Martok's shoulder.  He's demonstrated a bit of limping twice in the past few days, and since this is the age when OCD (osteochontridis dissecans) will present plus his sire has thrown pups who have had it, I'm now a little worried that we could be seeing that with him.  OCD is basically a cartilage disorder where a piece flaps or breaks off within the joint, causing inflammation and pain and later joint damage if it's not resolved.  Martok is exhibiting no pain, full extension and flexion of both shoulders (both manual by me and spontaneously by him while playing), and the stiffness seems to pop up after a nap after exercise, which is different than typical OCD presentation.  So it might be growing pains, as it does seem he's doing nothing but growing legs right now, and that's what we'll hope for, but I'm still waiting to hear from the vet about whether we should bring him in for an exam and radiographs.

My other nearly-constant thought companion is of course our lost Curzon.  Time is helping heal that wound, but it's still definitely a wound and it's not healed over by any means, nor do I think it will be any time soon.  It's hard to make plans for the tournament next month, which would've been his tenth birthday, his ninth anniversary of racing flyball, and his Iron Dog award, all in one weekend.  I'm not looking for him quite as often as I used to, but I still miss him so much, especially as little Martok in all innocence displays so many of the silly border collie boy behaviors that Curzon exhibited.  Ah, well - if I hadn't loved him so, if he hadn't changed our lives so deeply, then it wouldn't hurt to have lost him - and that is something I couldn't bear.

quick vet visit that was unnecessary

Last month we went to Lake Tahoe for a flyball tournament, and since California does have heartworm endemic to the state, I investigated to find out what I needed to do to protect my dogs. I was told at the time to get their blood tested three weeks after we returned to see if they had been infected, and so today I dutifully took the girls to work (daycare for them) and then left early to take them to the vet. After the blood draw was taken, Dr. Nobrega called the lab and it turns out that you cannot test for heartworm until six months. So she wrote me a scrip for a six-pack of Sentinel to treat all three of the girls with, and did not charge me for the visit - but I'm still irritated that I made a completely unnecessary trip. Oh well, better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Weights:
Ezri - 35.6 lbs (she can stop growing now!)
Jadzia - 33.3 lbs (finally losing weight, yeah!)
Phoebe - 9.6 lbs (lean and trim)

In other health news, little miss Ezri developed a hotspot on her behind that I caught her chewing on Saturday. Quite a bit of fur trimmed off later (a splotch about the size of my spread hand), and everything has dried out, scabbed up, and is healing nicely. Good thing she's a merle, it makes the weird cut pattern look less obvious!

Thursday I will take all four of them to the nearby doggy daycare which has a pool, which is ours for one hour in the morning. I figure an hour of swimming, followed by a rinse-off with fresh water, will be enough of a bath and activity to mellow them out for the impending arrival of our friends and their two young children. We'll see!

border collies do not do "rest" well...

It's been a week since Ezri was spayed, and her recovery has gone well for her, although not so well by the vet's standards. We started off with her wearing just the softcone that Ben lent us, but unfortunately on Thursday evening she got around it and pulled out one of her stitches. This meant a quick trip to the vet on Friday to check on it, and that she then got to wear the big plastic cone around the softcone. The vet was very impressed with her healing so far, and saw no problems with the incision or remaining external stitch, so she was let be without any additional modifications.

Then the vet noticed how active Ezri was, and how excitable she was, and finally agreed to give me tranquilizers for her to keep her calm/quiet for a few more days. She had been pretty zonked on Wednesday, and sort-of calm on Thursday, but by Friday she was happily trying to leap up stairs and goad Curzon into playfighting with her. The tranqs worked to contain that, neatly taking the edge off her with a half-tablet and sending her to snoozetime with a full tablet, and so she made it through the rest of the weekend without much more activity.

Yesterday Chris came home from work to find Ezri had some diarrhea in her crate, poor thing, likely due to a combination of the tranqs and two meals of sheep organs on Monday. He cleaned her up and put her bedding in the wash, but didn't put the plastic cone back on her as he figured since she'd be sleeping in the bedroom with him, he'd hear her tags rattle if she went after the incision. This did not work out as intended, as puppies who are itchy are very sneaky, and when I got home her second stitch was long gone. I was already planning to stop by the vet today with her, as I'm going to Bellevue to pick up this quarter's order of dog food, but now it will be an incision check instead of a stitch removal. The incision looks pretty good, it's neatly healed up on the lower part where the first stitch was pulled out, and mostly healed at the top except for a small knot where the second stitch was. It's no longer open at all, and is no worse than a scratch on the arm as far as I can tell.

Ezri will be on half-tranqs today as she is in the car here at work and through her check at the vet this afternoon. Assuming no issues at the vet, I'm planning to return her to normal activites tomorrow (i.e. going out in the kennel) and back to running and racing this weekend.

Oh, and the tech at the vet said that they've only given out tranqs for one other spay recipient in the past...and that was apparently Ezri's sister Indigo.

ten months, and a door closes

Ezri turned ten months old last Friday, and yesterday she had her spay surgery (i.e. a hysterectomy). She is officially out of the gene pool, and will not be having any puppies. It was a hard decision, as I think I've written on here before, but it is done now.

When we walked into the vet yesterday, Ezri weighed 33.8lbs, which is an increase of 1.8lbs in seven weeks. I think she's very close to her adult size, and will probably not go above 35lbs as a healthy running weight. Her surgery went very well according to Dr. Obando, and she recovered nicely at the vet during the day. When I picked her up she was definitely stoned and instantly clingy, not wanting to be away from me by even a few feet. She will stay where I put her right now, which is a new experience, and is minimizing the movement she has to do at all times. She's had no problem with her soft cone collar, and slept quietly through the night. The incision is much smaller than I expected, only about 2.5" long with two stitches, and is looking just fine so far. We are carrying her up/down stairs and putting her on the couch with us, as she is not supposed to do stairs or jumping for a few days.

Ezri ate a few cookies around 7pm last night, and happily ate 1/2 of a normal meal at about 9pm with no problems. I put her back on her full meal size this morning, and she was rather thrilled about that. The only problem right now is that she needs to poop, but apparently this hurts and so she tries and then gives up and just looks at me pathetically. Poor baby! She is in her crate today and tomorrow, with Chris letting her out when he gets home. I gave her a chewy stick this morning and left the radio on, so hopefully she will just chew and snooze the day away.

This weekend will probably prove to be challenging, as she feels better but still needs to be restricted. We'll see how it goes!

first swim of the spring

Yesterday was a beautiful day (as is today), with bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid 60s, so I took the three border collies to the nearby park to play. They all heat up pretty quickly, and since it was warm enough I walked them over to the swimming hole on the other side of the park to cool off and get a different form of exercise. Curzon and Jadzia are well used to this routine, with me usually having to pull Curzon back multiple times from simply sprinting off to the water without me - all it takes is looking at him and saying "Do you want to go swimming?" and he's off like a shot. I wasn't sure what Ezri would do, as she liked playing fetch in the pool well enough at her first swim back in January, but this was natural water and she had hated climbing in and out via the ramp.

I shouldn't have worried.

As we got to the swimming hole, both the adults ran right by me and flung themselves into the water, trusting a ball would appear in front of them to fetch. After the first two were thrown, I turned to Ezri to watch her follow her older sibs right into the water with only a little hesitation. It took a few tries to get her to be OK with getting the ball (the technique does take practice), but she was enjoying herself greatly by the time we were done. I managed to take two videos of her with the camera (you can see Curzon swimming around in both of them as well).

Video one - learning to pick up the ball in the water

Video two - showing a nascent dock dogs jump

After playing in the water, I returned to the meadow to run them some more to dry them off a bit, and took a couple pictures of them as they ran. The one of Jadzia did not come out well, but the ones of Ezri and Curzon that did and are posted here and above. I'm glad that Ezri is willing to swim without the intensive bribing that it took to get Curzon to swim for the first time.

In other news, I have scheduled Ezri's spay appointment for Wednesday, May 20th. I spent a lot of time thinking about this decision, as while I do not intend to become a BC breeder at this time, she is such a sterling young dog that the thought of having a pup of hers was awfully tempting. Realistically, however, we would not be ready for another puppy for at least 5 years (whenever Curzon is ready to retire), and it's not fair to Ezri or to ourselves to keep her intact and going through heat cycles for 5 years in case we wanted puppies from her. I also don't think I would have the time to ensure the puppies got the best start they can, nor do I want to ship Ezri off for her pregnancy and whelping, so that was another mark against keeping her intact. Her full brother Remy and her 3/4 sisters Sprint and Hex are all definitely being kept intact for breeding, and I'm sure at least another few puppies from Race and Dazzle/Prancer are also being kept intact, so I'll be able to get a neice or nephew when the time comes.

But being logical doesn't mean I can't wish that I could do something. It would be a joy to have Ezri's puppies...just not practical. Le sigh.

to be healthy...maybe?

A few weeks ago I learned that nearly everyone in the Pacific Northwest is probably Vitamin D deficient, especially in the wintertime. We're so far north that our sunlight is weak, and that combined with the cloudy weather for most of the year means that most people don't get enough sunlight to make the Vitamin D that their body needs.

Somehow I still get sunburn in August, though.

You can get more Vitamin D from food, especially dairy, but it is not always enough. I recently visited a naturopathic doctor (who is also a registered nurse), and one of the tests she ran was for Vitamin D. Turns out my level was near the limit of quantitation at about 12, when the acceptable range is about 35-100 and she prefers people to be up to at least 60. So I am now taking 5000 ID of Vitamin D every day to get my levels up, in addition to a few other supplements that she suggested based on other lab results. My magnesium is a bit low, as is my DHA, so I'm taking supplements for both of those, as well as an Omega 3-6-9 fish oil pill that she likes to see everyone on, and a regular multivitamin.

Vitamins and supplements are such tricky things, with bioavailability being difficult to quantify, little regulation on quality, and constant arguing by doctors and councils about what people really need. So many products are not usable by the body, basically resulting in expensive urine, so I've never really seriously looked into taking anything more than the occasional multivitamin or some Vitamin C when starting to get sick. I'm glad that this doctor had a range of tests she could run to find out what my body needed, and I'm hoping that this will improve my health and alertness. I'm so annoyed with being naturally cold and tired all of the time! I will go back to visit her in a month to see what effects, if any, are seen and to possibly retest a few levels to see how I am improving.

For now, I'm taking seven pills with my dinner. I feel a bit like an old fart with my packed-full pillcase. I've seen one improvement already, though - at my blood donation at work on Wednesday, my hematocrit was 46, which is a record high for me. Usually I'm flirting with anemia at their lowest acceptable level of 36. So if this is not a fluke, at least one thing is improving with the use of the supplements!

In addition to taking the vitamins, I am paying more attention to what and how much I am eating. I've been doing pretty well with meat portions for quite some time, as I tend to buy things like chicken when they're buy-one-get-one-free and then portion out 8oz servings into zippy bags to freeze. Pasta and potato portions are trickier, as somehow what the correct portion is doesn't actually seem that way. I've gone from using three potatoes to just two, and making sure that my serving of spaghetti is 1/3 of what I cook (3 servings in a half-package) rather than 1/2. Even the rice cooker usage has gotten slimmed down from 1 cup at a time to just 1/2 cup, meaning a perfect serving for both of us when cooked without any leftovers. I got into the habit of using 1 full cup with my first rice cooker, in order to account for the burned crusty stuff at the bottom, but with the Zojirushi there is never a problem like that, so everything cooked can be eaten.

Watching portions has the additional beneficial effect of reducing our grocery bill, or at least the amount of food we buy. I still wish I could buy a small stasis chamber for fruits and vegetables, however. But for now, I'll take what I can get, and any reduction in a recurrent bill is a good thing these days.

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.....

from puppy to young dog

Tomorrow Ezri will be six months old, and she's definitely made the transition from puppy to young dog. The picture to the left was taken on December 30th, as she played with Christy's puppy Edison, and it's not only a good shot physically but also captures her spirit and attitude quite nicely. She weighed in at 24.8 lbs that day, and has pretty much plateaued at her current size (height and weight) for the past few weeks. Her right ear has been down for over a month now, and her left ear alternates between up and down depending on the day.

Training-wise, Ezri is doing very nicely with learning manners, tricks, and flyball. We haven't had an accident in the house in about two weeks, and the change was almost like a light switch so I think that is tied to her maturity in some way. She's picked up so many general commands just by watching and learning as we go about our day that it's been easy - I know for sure I never specifically taught her "off," "out," or "upstairs" but she understands and responds to them all. We still need a stronger recall outside, especially if Curzon is around, but inside and at flyball she is doing well with recalls. At flyball she is nearly to single-stepping every single jump, and at practice last Sunday ran a 4.94 on the puppy course with a full single-step run. Next Sunday we will move her to a real box with a training board, so she won't be triggering the box just yet but will be modifying her high turn slightly to fit better on the actual box. I'll move her up to 6" jumps when she hits 8 months or so, although she can probably run them now with no danger I'd rather be safe and keep her on the 3" puppy jumps for a little longer.

Personality-wise, Ezri is a sweet and inquisitive little border collie who is a joy to have in the house, much like her big brother Curzon was at this age. She definitely has her opinions, especially on when she wants to be fed, but we can redirect her into toy-chewing or naps without too much effort. Her current idiosyncracy is chewing on my desk chair to get my attention - hard to just ignore that one, so I redirect her to a toy and otherwise ignore her, then a moment later give her some pets and attention as a reward for -not- chewing the chair any more. She's still definitely destructo-puppy, able to chew just about anything into pieces and often happily ingesting said pieces. Right now there are only two safe toys in the house that we don't have to supervise - a hard plastic ball with holes and a soft rubber ball inside it, and a medium-hard plastic ball. She'll shred fleece, defuzz tennis balls, and even chew pieces from Orbee toys. If she didn't eat everything she got loose, I almost wouldn't mind, but she does do so and thus we can't let her have such things unattended.

Next Saturday (January 24) Ezri's cousin Teal will come home to live with our friends Ben & Deb, who also have Ezri's sister Indigo. It will be great fun to watch the three interact when Deb and Indigo return home from Boston this June!

happy new year and more

A bit belated, but I would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009! That last bit may be more difficult due to the economy, but with some thought and a bit of luck I am sure that everyone will do just fine this year. Best wishes to all!

On a slightly less chipper note, my male cat Obsidian is at the emergency vet right now and has been since last night. Last Saturday morning I discovered that he and his sister Onyx had managed to find a way to open the cat treat jar (involving knocking into the sink), and he had overeaten by quite a lot. Later that day he threw up most of it, and then was not feeling well on Sunday either - that seemed reasonable, as I certainly wouldn't feel that great in his situation either. Yesterday morning he was still uninterested in doing much, and after I got home from work it was apparent that he was not improving. I cleared a clot of something from his nose, got him to lick a few smears of baby food on his mouth, and finally read his temperature to discover it was 105 (normal for cats is 98). So off to the emergency vet in Lynnwood we went.

I got him checked in and sent back to be stabilized right away while I did paperwork, and the initial exam confirmed his high fever and also noted that he was at 9 lbs instead of his usual 12-14 lbs weight. We went forward with an x-ray and blood work, with the x-ray appearing largely clear with no immediate danger signs. However, his blood work came back with a white count at 1900, when the low end of normal is 3400, so he is clearly losing a fight with something right now. I left him there overnight so he could be treated with fluids, antiemetics, antibiotics, and general monitoring to be sure he stabilizes.

So far his blood pressure has returned to normal (from 50 up to the low end of normal at 100), he's looking more alert, and actually ate a little bit on his own. The detailed blood work results from the pathologist and the re-read of the x-ray by a radiologist should be done first thing this morning, and hopefully those results will also be clear. Assuming he continues to respond to treatment, I hope to bring him home tonight. If nothing else, that will shut up Onyx who has been lonely and yowling for attention whenever she hears us walking around upstairs. Either that or she's annoyed that she's only getting half-rations so she can't steal his food too.....

vet visit yesterday

Yesterday I took Jadzia in to the vet for a followup to her thyroid/endocrine blood panel from a few weeks ago as well as her annual exam. The results from the thyroid blood panel showed very low T3 and low-ish but still in range T4 numbers, indicating that she may have a thyroid problem but probably not. Jackie did a physical exam, finding no problems whatsoever, and drew blood to do a regular/geriatric test panel just to be sure. She's not expecting to find any problems, and her guess is that Jadzia's thyroid is slightly underactive and if there are no issues with the new panel then she'll have us put her on a mild thyroid support supplement to basically "feed" the thyroid and help it behave properly. Jadzia weighed 35.4 lbs yesterday, up from 35.0 lbs just two weeks ago despite cutting her food to 7oz, so I hope that a supplement will help her out. I don't want to cut her food again, though perhaps cutting another ounce of meat and replacing it with pumpkin would not be amiss.

Since I was going to the vet anyway, I took all four dogs with me to weigh them all. Phoebe came in at 9.1 lbs (perfect), Curzon came in at 40.1 lbs (perfect, at last!), and Ezri came in at 18.7 lbs (up 1.5 lbs in two weeks). Because I am a nerd and I use Excel an awful lot anyway, I made a graph of the growth pattern information that I have for Curzon, Indigo, and Ezri.


It's shrunk down a little in this post, but if you click on it it should open in a larger size. Basically Ezri looks to be tracking Indigo pretty closely in weight so far, with a slight difference in when they hit their growth spurts in the 3-4 month age range. She's well under Curzon's weight at the same age, which is good. Looks like she'll probably be dead on with Indigo in size, which is just fine with me!

vet visit and behavior training

Yesterday I took both Ezri and Jadzia to the vet, with the latter tagging along to see if she could be squeezed in during my trip. I lucked out and Jackie had time to see Jadzia, saving me another trip out to Mercer Island later this week.

Ezri is sixteen weeks old today, and weighed 17.2 pounds yesterday. This is an increase of only two pounds over four weeks, but I think she has been putting most of her energy into lengthening and less into putting on weight, so that's fine. She's well under Curzon's weight at that age (about 22lbs) and just under Indigo's weight at that age (about 18lbs), which tracks out very well. She got her distemper shot yesterday, which is her last vaccine until her rabies at a year of age, and also got microchipped. I updated Facebook with her 12/13/14 week photos on Sunday and will put up her 15/16 week photos tonight after I take the 16 week set.

Jadzia got to go along because she is fat and cutting her food hasn't done much good, so I wanted to get her thyroid checked out. She weighs 35 pounds, which is [b]well[/b] over what she should weigh at about 30 pounds. They did a blood draw on her and will send it to California for a comprehensive endocrine panel, and I should get the results back in a week or so. Meanwhile I'm going to cut her food slightly more to just 7 ounces per meal and see if that produces any change. Jadzia also got a chiropractic adjustment, with her L4 vertebrae being stuck and limiting movement, so that will hopefully help improve her flyball times at practice and at the December tournament. Jackie said that everything else looks really good joint-wise, and she's very muscular and strong despite her extra padding. So that is great news, as I was a little worried she was falling apart on us at just 6.5 years of age!

The last week or two have really shown great strides in Ezri's behavior and learning, with her really following the house rules very well especially in the last few days. She is sitting and waiting for her food with the other two border collies (Phoebe is under special "shut-the-heck-up" training at meals right now), and also sitting and waiting at the door when it's time to go out. She has learned that some mornings we sleep late and not to fuss when we do so, and also has had very few accidents in the house in the past week, and those were all our fault. It's still very frustrating that she holds #2 until she's back inside at times, but if we keep her tethered to us that nixes her instinct to run off and do business elsewhere in the house. I'm hoping that by Christmas she will have free run of the house and be fully potty trained.

12 weeks old!

Today Ezri is twelve weeks old, although it will be another week until she is three calendar months old. Her second vet appointment was yesterday, and she weighed 15.2 lbs and had her parvo vaccine. She'll have her next vet appointment at sixteen weeks where she'll be microchipped and get her distemper vaccine.







I found the pet records file that I kept up until about 2005, and Curzon's growth pattern was as follows:
8 weeks - 12.0 lbs
11 weeks - 16.0 lbs
14 weeks - 21.4 lbs
20 weeks - 24.6 lbs
6 months - 27.2 lbs
8 months - 31.0 lbs
11 months - 34.6 lbs
13 months - 36.0 lbs

So far Ezri was 10.3 lbs at 8 weeks and 15.2 lbs at 12 weeks, so she is tracking just behind where he was growth-wise. I was a little worried that she was bigger than him, as I thought he was only 8 lbs when he came home, so I'm glad I found the data sheet. I should get photocopies of their 2005-2008 records and update the file. Also, it would be interesting to see how Indigo grew if Ben or Deb happens to see this and have the information.

Behavior-wise I think she had a maturity leap in the last few days, combined with stricter discipline by us with regards to keeping her leashed to us physically if she is not actively playing under supervision. She's doing much better with the going outside to potty, is quickly learning tricks and commands (some by observation), and is having a ball at both flyball practice and puppy kindergarten. Of course right now she is chewing on her tail, so not showing much of that vaunted intelligence at this particular moment.....