After much trial and tribulation, we finally managed to get Bella's "smile" caught on camera. It was unbelievably difficult due to the fact that the smile only flashes across her lips for a fraction of a second. Needless to say, I got plenty of throw-away shots that were taken at just the wrong instant. Some of them are shown below, sort of a progression toward the full smile.
Out of focus, but so funny. It reminds me of a "Far Side" cartoon with two dogs sitting together with one asking the other, "I don't know. Rex, can you make an O with your lips?"
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.
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.
February 24, 2011 It's Bella's birthday today -- she's 3 months old! (Technically, the litter is listed as having been born on November 25th, 2010 because some pups were born before midnight on the 24th and others were born after midnight on the 25th. However, Bella was the first pup born at around 10:30pm on the 24th, so we'll be recognizing her birthday one day earlier than her registration papers say.)
We celebrate with some new pictures.
Mountain-climbing puppy (we just got dumped on with a ton of snow)
A favorite pasttime -- chewing on the cat toys (or the cats, which ever is closest).
"Yeah! I LOVE the snow!!"
Spring must be just around the corner . . . do I see a hint of (can it be?) . . . sunshine? ____________________________________________________
And we come to the end of another L-O-N-G day for the Bella Pup.
