Her Mission...

...should she choose to accept it: Shred up every bit of cardboard that comes through the door. And she takes this work very seriously.


Stella's eye is soooo much better. After the first night of growling, snapping, and general awfulness trying to put ointment in her eye, we worked out a much better routine where she lays on the couch and I bring a hand over the back of her head and drop the medicine into her eye. She's actually been very patient about it, which is great.

She also isn't pawing at her eye anymore, so I don't have to make her wear the e-collar. It's still going to be handy to have around- who knows what other scrapes she's going to get herself into?

PS If you look veeery carefully, you can catch a glimpse of Fireplace Dog! Crazy coincidence- Fireplace Dog had to wear a collar TOO! And oh boy did that require a ton of barking! Fireplace Dog is SUCH a copycat. Dog.

Eye Eye Captain!

Stella's got an en eye infection. I took her to the vet and they took a good look at it. Her eye isn't scratched so basically she's got puppy pink eye. They put some ointment in it which she immediately started pawing at, and in the interests of keeping her eye scratch free (dang dew-claws) we put an e-collar on her.

So now she's sitting around with a goopy eye (which sort of makes her look like she's crying) and a collar, looking PATHETIC. Like so:


Also, she keeps running into everything with the collar which is pitiful and hilarious.


I tried taking it off of her but not 20 seconds later she was pawing at her eye again. It's staying on! Poor puppy, the things I put you through to keep you healthy and happy.

Dog Park Adventures!

We went to the dog park this morning. It was HOT. Lots of dogs laying around in the shade panting, followed by running, followed by more lounging. Here's some video of Stella and her buddy Bennet. The met in puppy class and now they're BFFs. At the end of the video she and Stella are so tired that they just lay around and gnaw at each other. This is big bonding fun when you're a dog.



Stella is about six and a half months old and 36 lbs (!) as of tonight.

This evening Stella experienced lightning bugs for the first time. She really didn't know what to make of them. She was too scared to go close to them and too intrigued to run away, so she just stared at them for a while. It was one loooong potty break.

She's been a real cuddle bug lately. Most evenings about 45 minutes before she's ready for bed she'll start chewing on one of her bully sticks. (They're her favorite- I actually started buying them in bulk on Amazon.) She will climb up next to me on the couch and rest her head or her foot on my leg. Or if I'm on the floor leaning on the couch she'll put a paw on my shoulder. She just likes to be close I guess. It's adorable.

She's finally figuring out that it's really nice to be pet. She used to think it was just ok but now she will stop what she's doing and let me pet her for a while.

She's growing up so fast. I'm going to try to take pictures or video at the dog park in the morning to post. It's amazing.

Best Day EVER!

Today I took Stella to the dog park for the first time. She had a blast. It was very clean, the dogs were totally friendly, the people were great, and now she's taking a nice long nap.

She enjoyed it because she got to run like mad and wrestle with other dogs. I enjoyed it because the other people were all extremely nice men. And dogs are a perfect conversation starter.

I think I'm going to like this dog park stuff. :)

Lunchtime Video

Here's Stella staring out the window. You can see at right around 10 seconds she gets REALLY fascinated with something... a wasp? A fly? Who knows. But she sure is CUTE! Had to stop because she wanted to jump over the back of the couch and that's soooo not allowed.

Tough Day at the Office

Or, you know, a hard day of playing at daycare. Stella came home, jumped onto the couch, and didn't move for 3 hours.

I think it's so funny when she puts her head on a pillow.

No Dating Until You're 30

My dad used to tell me when I was a kid that I wasn't allowed to date until I was 30.

In the same vein, Stella isn't getting another crate pad until she's at least 5. Here's what I came home to after leaving her in her crate for the afternoon while I was at work:

She was SO proud of herself. All wiggly and excited, tail wagging, and if she could talk she would have said, "HEY! Check out the cool thing I did while you were gone! Let's chew on some foam together!"


Hmmmmm, let's NOT!

Videos!

I finally have the ability to upload videos from my phone thanks to some snazzy hardware!

So here's Stella at about 2 1/2 months old. She dumped all of the water out of her water bowl and then fought it in the living room. (Now she has a bowl that she can't knock over.)


And here's Stella today. She enjoys pulling the pad out of her crate and throwing it around. She's one week shy of 6 months old.


I cannot get over how tiny she was! And now she barks at video of herself. So weird.