Katie's Page
Well, Lea got a new
little sister, Katie, who won't be Lea's "little" sister for long.
Katie is an Irish Wolfhound we obtained on January 1, 2014.
Katie is now about 10 weeks old (DOB 10/17/13) and weighs 27
pounds.
Katie's mother stands 34" at the shoulder, and her father stands
36" at the shoulder. Katie will become a LARGE dog.
Katie is a brindle coloring, mostly brown and black, sort of a
Fall camouflage job.
Here are some introductory pics:
Katie's size compared to Lea (first night home)
Katie is all legs at this age (first night home)
Katie does lots of sleeping (as puppies will - second day home)
Better showing of Katie's coloration in daylight (second day
home)
She feels at home in her crate (night-time quarters)
Watching Lea
Katie is learning about a leash, first commands, housebreaking,
and a lot more for a young pup.
======================
Update 01/05/14
Katie is now beginning her fifth day here. Ty, Anna and Dixie
have been here to visit, but left for Portland this morning.
Katie seems to be over her transplant shock. Lea is starting
to recognize Katie as a real dog and somebody she's willing to play
with. Here are recent pics:
Anna and Katie get acquainted
Katie and Dixie share an antler
Taking a break
(Note: I included several of these just to show Katie's size
compared to Lea.)
================================
January 6
Lea is getting more tolerant of Katie. They had one long romp,
mock-fighting session yesterday. Then Katie needed a nap so
she could grow another 1/2". She measures over 40" from the
tip of her nose to the tip of her tail. Katie is learning to
go to the door and whine when she needs to go out.
Synchronized napping
Fierce fighting. Lea is actually very gentle with Katie.
===================
January 13th
Stopped by the vet today for weights on Lea and Katie. Katie
now weighs 35 pounds at 11 weeks old. Like I've said, you can
almost watch her grow. Housebreaking, leash training, and
"come" are progressing. Took her to Murdoch's today for some
socialization.
Here are some recent pics:
Sleeping buddies (Katie's choice, not Lea's, but Lea tolerates it)
Both of them like to play tug of war with me. I FINALLY got
them to play it with each other.
The puppy zone - new elk antler courtesy of FWP (notice all the Lea
hair on the floor - Katie extraction).
==========================
January 17, 2014
Katie is three months old today. To get a three-month weight,
we went back to the vet office. She weighs 36.4 pounds today.
It's difficult to get pictures of Katie and Lea playing. Most
of their playing is inside, which requires flash to get anything
besides a blur. Lea likes flash. Any time I use the
flash, Lea stops playing and comes immediately right up to me - too
close for any pics.
However, Katie and Lea were playing outside today, so I got a few
pics.
I hope her coloration holds
Let's see if I can rip this ear off.
Lea's caught by the scruff of the neck.
Still a little puppy-clumsy
On the run (Hey, that big dog is after me!)
Taking a break
Showing those sharp puppy teeth
================
January 18, 2014
Comparison - size in the (dog-selected) dog zone
Lea at six months old
Katie at three months old
Outside playing
This is the branch manager
The branch manager and the wannabe branch manager
Okay, branch manager and assistant branch manager
Definitely assistant
Assistant branch manager now in training
Just a good pic of Katie's face
Learning how to manage the branch
The assistant branch manager may not be fully up to speed, but she
casts a long shadow
Close inspection of the branch manager's operation
Assistant branch manager in training dozes off during lesson
================
January 23, 2014
It's great to have a dog that doesn't lie crosswise across the most
heavily used path in the house.
The insidious Solaris Ray Of Slumber (SROS) claims two new victims.
Hoping for eventual full recovery.
Tomorrow (Friday, 1/24) Katie will be 13 weeks old. By this
time next week, she will be as tall as Lea!!!
=========================
January 27, 2014
Saturday Katie had her first-ever bath, in the shower. She
didn't much like it at first, but warmed up some to the scrubbing,
and more to the after-bath toweling. Nice to have a clean
dog. She smells better. Speaking of smell ...
On Sunday it was Lea's turn for a bath. She actually likes the
shower and attention. However, REALLY FUNNY, when she cane out
of the bathroom, Katie didn't recognize her. Katie wanted to
know, "Where'd you get this strange new dog?" I assume this
was because Lea smelled so different. It took Katie almost an
hour to get reacquainted with Lea.
Katie had her first official visit to the vet today, to get her
next-to-last round of puppy immunizations. She now weighs 41.2
pounds. One more pic ...
The Solaris Ray Of Slumber strikes again. Notice that Katie is
now very nearly as large as Lea, not as heavy, but as long and tall.
===============
February 1, 2014
Interesting development with Katie. When Lea and I first
brought her home, January 1st, she traveled in the back of my van on
a nice pad in a sky crate. For the first week, I'd put her in
the crate in the middle of the living room floor for overnight,
using that to start housebreaking.
After a week in the crate and no accidents overnight, I took the pad
out of the crate, put the crate outside, and put her on a leash at
her pad for overnight. We'd already practiced quite a bit with
the leash, so she knew to respect it. She got into the good
habit, after taking the last walk outside before bed time, of going
straight to her pad and waiting to be leashed. Each morning,
she'd wait on her pad, not pulling at the end of the leash, for Lea
and I to come downstairs, and for me to give her morning pets and
unleash her.
Two nights ago, come bed time, I realized I'd left Katie's leash out
in the van. Either I could put my boots and coat on and trudge
through the snow to the shop to get the leash, or I could figure out
something else. The something else turned out to be a
four-foot piece of 1/4” nylon rope and two small carabiners. The
rope was quite stiff, but I managed to bend a bowline in each end of
this rope, with a carabiner on one end to secure the new leash, and
another carabiner on the other end to hook to Katie's collar.
Problem solved (I thought). We all went to bed as usual.
In the morning when Lea and I came downstairs, Katie was eagerly
waiting, on her pad. However, the rope was undone from the
carabiner at her collar! Smart dog, bad knot - whatever.
The good news was that there were no messes or puddles in the house,
no table legs chewed off, and Katie had apparently stayed on her
pad. She didn't even come to greet me at the foot of the
stairs in the morning, but waited obediently on her pad for my
morning greeting.
Being buoyed by that experience, I thought to try something similar
last night. At bed time, I did everything the same, except I
didn't hook the leash to her collar – just left it on the floor at
her pad.
In the morning when I got up and looked downstairs from the loft,
Katie was on the couch! She knows she's not supposed to be on
the couch (or table or chairs – preparing for her to be huge).
As soon as I looked at her, she got immediately off the couch and
went to her pad. I didn't say anything. Busted.
I thought this to be a very small infraction, since there were no
messes in the house this morning and nothing but the many dog toys
on the floor had been chewed on. Still, I did dig out a couple
of mouse traps and set them on the couch this evening. Wonder
if I will catch anything there tonight.
More sleeping
BTW, Katie now measures 54" from the tip of her nose to the tip of
her tail, stretched out (she does have a long tail, but it doesn't
quite reach the ground when she's standing).
==============
February 3, 2014
Katie had her weekly trip to the vet's office today for
weighing. She's up to 47.2 pounds. Katie's Aunt Lea is
22 1/2" at the shoulder. Katie is now 22" at the shoulder.
About Katie's main floor sleeping arrangements, the mouse traps are
getting tripped, although I hear no ruckus when that happens, and
there's no Katie on the couch in the morning.
Sometimes having long legs is a good thing
Katie and Lea get in plenty of playing in the fresh snow
===============
February 11, 2014
I took Katie and Lea to the vet's office Monday for our weekly dog
weighing. Katie is up to 49.7 pounds. She's now as tall
as Lea.
There's a lot of snow piling up here (Katie wouldn't get in the
pic).
I missed the shot of Katie with both ears on top of her head.
Here's something amusing. Lea collects some serious snowballs
on her long fur. I'd noticed that Katie looks for and eats
chunks of snow that come off my boots when I come inside. So,
when the dogs came inside today, I asked Lea to lie down and pointed
Katie at the snowballs hanging from Lea's fur. Katie stripped
them all off and ate them. It only took about five minutes for
Katie to get Lea snowball-free. Lea thought that was just
fine.
===============
February 18, 2014
Did the standard Monday trip to the vet office yesterday to weigh
critters. Katie is now 52 pounds, and 60" from the tip of her
nose to the tip of her tail.
Katie is as tall as Lea and has more clearance in the snow because
of her long legs and skinny body.
I think Katie had more fun playing outside today than Lea did.
Here's a good current size comparison between Katie and Lea.
==============
February 21, 2014
Katie, now four months old, is losing her baby teeth. Time for
big dog teeth. Lea will appreciate when she sheds those sharp
little teeth. (BTW, this was not an easy photo to get.)
==============
February 24, 2014
I took Katie and Lea to the vet's office for weekly weighing
today. Katie is 55.5 pounds. We've had a bunch more
snow. I plowed a loop around the house so Lea and Katie would
have room to roam without bucking snow drifts. With Katie's
long legs, she has more clearance than Lea, and does pretty well in
the deep snow. Here are a couple of pics from today.
Katie is now about an inch or two taller than Lea.
=====================
February 25, 2014
It finally stopped snowing, the sun came out, I plowed snow, and
Katie and Lea had fun playing in the snow and on the snow pile I'd
plowed up. And, there was good light for pictures.
Playing in the snow.
On top of the snow pile
I took a bunch more pics of Katie and Lea playing in the snow.
If you want to see them, click HERE.
======================
March 10, 2014
I took Katie and Lea to the vet's office today for weekly weight
check. Lea is holding steady at 79.8 pounds. Katie is
now up to 62.7 pounds! I guess she's close to half grown,
while still only four months old. She will soon overtake Lea
in weight, as she already has in height.
Katie is still learning stuff, such as not to be too rough with cat
Salmon, because Salmon has claws and will use them if pressed,
although he tolerates a lot of play/abuse from Katie. Katie
continues to learn "good dog culture." Because she's so big,
it's sometimes hard to remember that she's still a puppy, and that
expectations should be modified accordingly. She's finally
getting good about not putting her paws on me, something that will
become important when she's grown. This is difficult because
she has limited ways to express herself, and the no-paws rule cuts
her options for expression. One of her favorite things is,
after having a drink and getting her fuzzy face all wet, to come
immediately and put her face in my lap or on my computer keyboard or
mouse pad. She and I need to have some discussion about that,
especially about her drippy face on my the computer keyboard and
mouse pad.
I've noticed that Katie has very long toes, in relation to the size
of her feet and in comparison to Lea. She also has pronounced
webs between her toes, maybe even more so than water-dog Lea.
I guess that helps Katie stay on top of the snow. Once summer
gets here, I'll have to try her in my mother's pool to see how she
takes to swimming. Since Katie is so willing to follow Lea's
lead, and since Lea is such a natural water dog, I'd guess that
Katie will quickly take to swimming. We'll see.
Here are a couple of action pics of Katie and Lea playing in the
snow.
===============
March 25, 2014
Lea, Katie and I went to the vet's office for weighing
yesterday. Katie was at 69.7 pounds. She's fast catching
up with Lea, currently just over 80 pounds. I predict that
Katie will outweigh Lea in three weeks. Katie now measures 67"
from tip of nose to tip of tail.
We had a bit of excitement Sunday with two wolves. I'm nearly
certain they were wolves. If they were coyotes they were huge
for coyotes and much more masked than coyotes usually are. Lea
could not be restrained from going out to chase them, so,
unfortunately I had to deal with that rather than getting the
camera. Alas, no pictures, but no damaged dog either.
The good news is that Katie stayed right by the house
throughout. She didn't want anything to do with these
critters. So, the retriever got retrieved and the wild canines
got chased off. All is well. I keep trying to explain to
Lea that she's the watch dog, to Katie that she's supposed to be the
guard dog (mostly to protect Lea in these situations), and that I'm
the attack dog. So far, my explanations don't seem to be
taking root.
Occasionally there's time for a nap.
===================
March 31, 2014
At the weekly dog weighing at the vet's office today, Katie weighed
73 pounds. Only seven more to catch Lea.
Katie and Lea got a new dog pack in the mail today. Here's
Katie modeling.
Here's Lea modeling. This pic shows the current size
relationship between Katie and Lea. Katie wonders why Lea
looks and smells so strange. Friends of Katie will be glad to
see that her coloration is holding. Some folks predicted that
she might turn a more standard Irish Wolfhound color of gray, rather
than the interesting brindle she's been.
=============
March 4, 2014
Katie and Lea model their new packs (Katie's came in the mail today)
while Salmon watches. Katie needs to grow a bit to best fit
her pack, but she's only five months old.
=================
April 25, 2014
Things have been busy around here. When I took Katie and Lea
into the vet's office for weights Monday, Katie weighed the same as
Lea, 80 pounds. PLUS, I left Katie at the Vet and she was
spayed Monday - no litters of puppies in her future. While in
surgery, the Vet also took a stitch in Katie's stomach to prevent a
future, life-threatening "torsion" (if you're a dog owner and don't
know about this, look it up). Katie came out from under the
anesthesia more quickly than Lea did when she was spayed.
Katie is healing up nicely and seems now to be back to 100%.
Katie is now 4-6" taller than Lea, but Lea is still the Alpha dog
here - probably always will be. We had visitors from China
this week. Katie REALLY wanted to be friends. Two of the
visitors were intimidated, despite previous warning that Katie and
Lea are family and that Katie would want to be friends. The
third visitor is a dog person and got on fine with both dogs.
I've been too busy to exercise the dogs with their packs.
Katie goes with Lea and me to my standard Wednesday evening shooting
practice. As with Lea, she likes to be able to get out of the
van and greet her people friends at the shooting range. Both
dogs go back in the van before the shooting starts, for safety and
to protect their ears. Katie seems unconcerned about shooting
noise (minimal inside the van). Maybe she takes her cue from
Lea, who is used to that. Katie, like her Aunt Lea, is very
patient waiting in the van for me (she did chew up the coax wire for
my van-mounted radio antennas, but I hope we're beyond that
now). I also let Lea and Katie have a run and another
meet-and-greet on the range after we're done shooting.
=================
May 4, 2014
WOW!! WHAT AN EVENT!!!
I was working at my computer this morning, with Katie and Lea
outside. Suddenly, I heard Katie screaming and Lea growling
fiercely. I ran to the door expecting to find Katie and Lea
being attacked by wolves.
What I found was Katie and Lea locked in apparent mortal combat with
each other. It was fierce!!! Lea was at Katie's throat
and would not let go. Katie was crying like a banshee. I
tried to intervene, but could not get the dogs separated.
This seemed really strange since Katie and Lea had been such buddies
and since both are such gentle dogs. They would not respond to
ANY voice commands.
Meanwhile both dogs continued to thrash and fight, locked in this
fierce struggle. In trying to get them apart, I somehow
managed to get a finger into Katie's mouth - totally my fault and
NOT a good move.
Then I noticed that Katie's nylon collar was wrapped around Lea's
lower jaw. Somehow in playing, Lea had gotten her lower jaw
inside Katie's collar and Katie had accomplished a twist, locking
Lea's lower jaw in place and choking Katie. ABSOLUTELY WEIRD!!
Fortunately both dogs have collars with quick-release buckles.
It took some doing to locate the buckle in Katie's collar, with dogs
continuing to thrash violently and cry and growl fiercely.
Because of the twist that Lea's jaw had in Katie's collar, the
collar was super tight and sunk way into Katie's neck and fur.
As soon as I released the quick-release buckle on Katie's collar,
the dogs gladly separated. There are no injuries I can find
except for my finger, which I soaked in hydrogen peroxide for 20
minutes now.
As you will imagine, there was no time to take any pictures.
It'll be interesting to see if these two girls relate any
differently to each other after this intense event.
I can just imagine the "kids' " comments:
Lea says, "Katie somehow grabbed me by the mouth and wouldn't let
go. It was really scary."
Katie says, "Lea was choking me and wouldn't let up. It was
really scary."
I sure hope that's all I have to report for today.
=================
May 13, 2014
It's been REALLY busy around here, so I didn't get the girls in to
the vet's office yesterday to check weights. I'll try to get
that done next Monday for the regular record.
As the sun was going down this evening, I remembered that I'm also
delinquent posting new pictures. So, I drug the camera
outside. Katie and Lea were not cooperating very well.
They wanted to play, but not necessarily with each other. I
wanted them together, and, with the setting Sun, I need to be on the
Sun side of them but not so directly as to have my shadow in the
picture. I finally did get a couple of pics that show how much
larger than Lea Katie is now. Here they are:
=====================
May 24, 2014
It's been a while, and busy here. Katie is still
growing. Last Monday we went to the vet and the scale said 94
pounds. It's hard to get Katie to hold still on the scale so
I'm not sure I trust that number. We'll get another weight
next Tuesday.
I finally spent some time outside with the camera while Katie and
Lea were playing. Here are a couple of play-time pics.
As you can see Katie is now quite a bit taller than Lea.
Nothing keeps these girls occupied like a couple of large bones.
===========================
May 28, 2014
We stopped by the vet's office yesterday for weighing. Katie
is up to 95.3 pounds.
Speaking of weight, we have a weight and eating problem around
here. Lea now weighs 84 pounds. She's on a strict diet
because she needs to be 80 pounds or less. The problem is that
Lea keeps sneaking Katie's food.
Lea will gobble her entire meal in one minute. Although Katie
eats a LOT, she's a very slow eater, often taking two or three hours
to finish her meal. This gives Lea plenty of opportunity to
raid Katie's bowl, which explains why Lea has ballooned to 84
pounds.
I've scolded Lea many times for sneaking Katie's food. She
knows she's not supposed to, but it's FOOD. She can't resist.
So, I decided I needed a new strategy.
I had an elevated bowl with a lid I used when Whistler was
around. I'd free feed her, and just keep the bowl full,
outside. Because it was outside, I had to keep the food away
from mice, squirrels, and birds, and keep the rain out of it.
I put a stainless bowl on a stand, adding a plexiglass cover hinged
on one side with leather. Whistler quickly learned to lift the
lid with her nose to get at her dogfood in the bowl.
So, I dug this device out, rebuilt it, and Katie is now eating out
of it.
It's too tall for Lea to get into conveniently, so she seems to be
staying out of it. Katie hasn't tried it with the plexiglass
cover closed yet. I'm waiting for Katie to get very familiar
with eating out of this elevated bowl before we add the challenge of
her needing to lift the cover to eat.
Now we'll see if Lea's weight starts to come down from her
better-enforced diet.
===================
June 2, 2014
Something funny happened today. Joke's on me. It's
Monday and my day to take Katie and Lea to the vet for their weekly
weigh-in.
Before heading into town, I made a careful list of the dozen or so
errands I needed to do, including the critical "Weigh dogs" stop at
the vet's office. I made several stops, got about half way
through my list, and when I got back in the van I simply couldn't
find my to-do list. I did the best I could to reconstruct the
list from my old brain. Then, I found one chewed-up remaining
corner of my list on the van floor. Katie had eaten my
list! (Yeah, I know, it's the old "Dog ate my homework"
story. But it's true!)
The upshot was we got home before I realized that we had NOT been to
the vet to weigh Katie and Lea. Well, there's always tomorrow.
=================
June 3, 2014
We made it to the vet's office today (my to-do list survived).
Katie is at 96.3 pounds. Lea is still at 84.4 - more
diet. The next milestone will be when Katie breaks 100
pounds. Will that happen before she turns eight months old on
the 17th of this month? We'll see. It will be close.
=================
June 16, 2014
Close to 100 pounds is right. At the vet's office today, Katie
weighed 99.4. Her 8-month birthday is tomorrow. Lea
weighed 82.3, so keeping her away from Katie's food seems to be
working.
Here are some pics from today:
Salmon gets in the pic
=================
June 26, 2014
Katie now measures about 30" at the shoulder. She should grow
about another 4" and gain another 25 or 30 pounds.
Katie and Lea got in some play time outside today in between rain
squalls. Lea's not as fierce as she looks.
Playing keep-away with a pine cone.
===========
August 13, 2014
Katie is still growing. She's now nine months old and weighed
108.8 pounds at the vet's office last Monday. Her weight
actually leveled off for a couple of weeks, and even dropped a bit,
as she went through something of a growth spurt.
I've finally figured out how to keep Lea out of Katie's food, so
Lea's weight is starting to drop. Lea is down from 86 pounds
to 84. She needs to be 80 or a bit less for best health.
Lea disagrees, BTW, and thinks I'm starving her.
To keep Lea away from Katie's food, I put Katie's bowl in a
cul-de-sac behind the stairs and installed a cross-bar that Katie
can step over but Lea can't.
Friend Dixie (left) is visiting Katie and Lea again.
Lea is still Alpha dog, but visiting Dixie displaces Katie from Beta
to third in the pecking order (sorted, in this case, by age).
======================
October 26, 2014
It's been a while. Katie's birthday came on the 17th.
For her birthday celebration, I took her to wander Murdochs for an
hour. All the employees petted her and gave her treats.
She had a great time.
She's now up to 111 pounds and 32" at the shoulder. In the
next six months she should grow another 2" and gain maybe 20
pounds. She seems to be getting more responsive to low volume
and subtle instructions from me - hand gestures, etc. I guess
some of the puppyness is starting to wear off.
When Katie came in from playing outside with Lea this morning, she
had a gazillion beggars lice (1/4" burrs) in her coat.
While combing out the burrs, I discovered a hole in her side.
It was a tear in her hide about 1 1/2" long. When stretched
open by skin tension it made an elliptic hole about 1" in diameter.
We saddled up and went to the emergency vet clinic on S.
Reserve. With local anesthetic, the wound was clipped trimmed,
and stapled with five staples. No injury beneath the skin.
Katie and Lea tend to engage in a vigorous run-and-chase play
session outside in the mornings. I assume Katie just ran into
something during this play. Don't know what.
We'll have Katie's regular vet look at this tomorrow. Staples
should come out in two weeks. I'm supposed to keep her
activity down for a couple of weeks. We'll see how well that
works out.
==================
November 18, 2014
Concerning the last post above, Katie did have a couple of staples
come loose, I'm sure from being too frisky. She can't reach
this area for licking. On a visit to her regular vet for
annual physical and shots for Lea and Salmon, on Monday following
Katie's injury, the vet put in three or four replacement/additional
staples.
At our regular weekly weighing at the vet's office yesterday, Katie
now weighs 115 (about 125 eventually expected) pounds, and Lea is
down to 81 (target of 78 or 80).
Katie's injury is now healed and she's allowed back to full play
level. Now she just needs to grow some fur over the area that
was shaved to expose her wound for treatment.
Katie's wound now healed; needs fur.
=======================
November 27, 2014
A German TV crew was here yesterday doing an extended
interview. They had trouble believing that Katie is just a
puppy.
Katie no longer fits so well in places where she used to hang out.
A carpet-level view.
=====================
January 6, 2015
Katie weighed 117 pounds at the vet yesterday. She now
measures 33 inches at the shoulder.
Ellen, Lea, Katie and I drove in the van to spend Christmas with Ty,
Anna, Dixie and Reggie in Portland. Katie did well in the
van. We stopped for outside dog breaks three times. She
and Lea took turns using the mid seat and the floor (with a dog
pad).
Ty and Anna have a new dog, Reggie. He is a one-year-old
shelter dog, and theoretically came from the "wild." Reggie is
black and white, fuzzy, and about the size of the average cat.
When Ty and Anna first got him, they report that he was entirely
uncultured. He didn't know any commands, and had apparently
never navigated stairs. He's now doing better, understands
most commands, and takes the stairs at Ty and Anna's place on the
run. However, Reggie is still insecure and fearful of new
things (such as strange dogs), which accounts for him being
aggressive.
While we were visiting, Reggie attacked both Lea and Katie.
This was amusing. Standing tall on his hind legs he could
maybe have bitten Katie on the belly. Without getting his
front legs off the floor, no way. Still, Katie is so timid it
was amusing to see Reggie chasing Katie around the house.
Eventually Katie figured out that Reggie was not a serious
threat. Fortunately, she never retaliated by biting at Reggie
(I was watching for that). When Reggie attacked Lea, he
managed to get hold of a mouthful of her thick fur and Lea growled
at him, but no damage done.
Mostly, all four dogs learned to tolerate each other in that small
space. Lea and Dixie are old friends, and get along
famously. Dixie was very tolerant of Katie - even offered to
play with her some.
Lea wanted to enforce her position of senior mom-dog, keeping all
others quiet and in line, even to the extent of preventing
play. We had to interfere with Lea's bossiness some.
Then, Ty and Anna's downstairs roommate, Phil, has a new Pitbull
puppy, Lucie, who is an absolute ball of energy. When Lucie
would come upstairs, she'd be just a meteor around the house, barely
pausing in any one place long enough for any proper dog-style
introductions.
Here's Ty providing dog instructions - Reggie, Dixie, Katie and Lea
(left to right). It was very difficult to get all four to hold
still in one place for any pictures.
===============
March 1, 2015
Katie's weight gain has sure flattened out. She weighed in at
the vet's office last Monday at 118. She is now 33" or 33 1/2"
at the shoulder. She still has a bit of growing and filling
out to do, but not a lot. She is quite athletic and loves to
run and play with Lea outside in the mornings. It helps
running and playing that the snow is mostly gone. Katie went
with me to visit Murdoch's a couple of days ago, mostly for
socialization. While there I got a couple of packaged bones
for Katie and Lea, bones about 1 1/2" in diameter and almost two
feet long. When we got home and I gave them these bones, Lea
chewed on hers but Katie ATE hers (and then Lea's). No more
bones that size!
Both Katie and Lea went to Pet Smart for a manicure last week.
Both dogs have been traveling to Helena with me when I go for
legislative hearings. Lea is an old hand at staying in a
motel. Katie takes to it just fine. We've found a friend
for them to stay with in Helena during the day if it's a day when I
will be occupied in the Capitol all day.
Here's a pic of Lea and Katie from yesterday.
==================
May 17, 2015
In the mornings when I let Katie and Lea out after their breakfast,
and also when I'm out walking in the yard, Katie and Lea play chase
games. Typically, Katie will tease Lea by nipping at her,
until Lea runs growling after Katie. This is what Katie
wants. Then the chase is on. Of course, Katie, with her
long legs, can outrun Lea, which is exactly why Katie loves this
game.
However, Katie had a misadventure with this chase game a couple of
days ago.
Lea chasing Katie.
In escaping Lea, Katie dodged to run under my solar panels.
Bad call. Katie cut her right turn too close and ran under a
portion of the panels that was not as tall as she is. Running
at high speed, Katie whacked her head soundly on the underside of
the solar panel support beam. The beam didn't give but Katie
lost a patch of hair on her head.
Poor baby! The next day I was out walking in the yard.
Instead of provoking Lea for a chase game, Katie walked right at my
heel. I asked her why she wasn't playing with Lea. She
said, "Yesterday when I played with Lea and she clubbed me over the
head. I don't want that again!"
September 6, 2015
A couple of weeks ago my grandson Michael, his wife Virginia, and
their two sons (my great-grandsons, can you believe it) Aden and
Ethen were here to visit. I was surprised how much Katie
actively liked these "little people." While Katie's friend Lea
was perfectly friendly, Katie was very curious about and solicitous
of Aden and Ethan.
Here's a marginal pic of Ethan going for his first bareback
ride. Katie was perfectly patient with this. I think she
though it was just another form of petting.
Today, friends Nick and Diana took Katie on a hike high into the
Bitterroot Mountains, nearly to St, Mary Peak.
Nick and Katie
Diana and Katie
It is reported that all had a great time. Although not very
visible here, Katie is wearing a pack in which she carried her
water, a collapsible bowl, and a few dog treats.
Here's a pic of Katie and Lea and me that was in the Missoula
Independent in July of 2016.
More soon