Trying Again to Get "The Smile"

Well, I tried to snap a pic of Bella doing her smile thing. Of course, when I first got home I asked her to "smile" and she immediately "grinned," showing her teeth. So, I went and got the camera and tried to get it immortalized on film. The best I could get was one of her looking sort of like an alligator (and again, out of focus).



Alligator dog



A nice pose

Smiling Bella?

Here's the latest Bella update. She did quite well in puppy class tonight -- much better than last week. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that there were two dogs missing, so we had only 4 dogs there instead of 6. Whatever the reason, I was thankful for a somewhat calmer Bella at the end of my leash.

We've been working on a variety of different tricks with Bella. She's so smart that she catches on almost immediately to everything. And now that we have a small collection of tricks, we can ask her to do them "rapid-fire" and she loves it. She now knows how to "talk" (a quiet, low, grumbly doggie talk; e.g., "roo, roo"), "roll over" (she learned that one today), "sneak," "pounce," "smile" (see the picture below), "dance," and a version of "shake." I think that's it.


Getting ready to bother one of the cats . . .


She loves yogurt! She always gets to lick out my dish when I'm finished. Tonight I polished off the last of the tub and she got to clean it out. I tried to get a picture of her yogurt-covered face, but it didn't turn out.


Pretty pose


This was me trying to catch Bella doing the "smile" trick. Her lips were either on the way down or the way up, I'm not sure; but I didn't catch it at the right moment, and she just looks goofy.


What a grown up lady.

Bella Update -- Nearly 4 Months Old

Here is a Bella update. She'll be four months old on March 24th. She's growing so fast.



What an elegant lady.




"Miss Busy" on the move.





We've been going to puppy class on Mondays, which is very fun, but very draining (for me). I swear, she has ADHD! (Just getting her to stay still long enough to take these pictures was a lot of work.) At class she's always wanting to go see THIS dog, and THAT dog, or to just go exploring around the building . . . it's a lot to ask of a young puppy to sit quietly next to her owner while the instructors explain (thoroughly) what task we'll be doing next or what behavior we'll be working on. I notice that none of the other dogs seem to be as busy as Bella. Some of them are older than she is, but they're still young dogs. One little mini-beagle is younger than Bella, but he sits down on the other end of the row of chairs and I never get a chance to see what he's doing. I'm too busy getting my arm yanked out of the socket every few seconds. I come home on Monday evenings completely worn out. Thankfully, there are only 2 more weeks to go. The class has been great, but I'll be glad when we're done.

I do think Bella will do very well with agility. All the activity will be good for her personality. You can see a lot in her eyes . . . she's always processing and thinking, which is a good thing. I just have to remind myself of that next week in class.