Raelyn at 6 months

Believe it or not Raelyn has made it to 6 months of age already! Time has flown by and she has grown into a big fun puppy. She must have hit a growth spurt during this past month as she is HUGE now! Tall and has started to fill out, so she doesn't look like a starving model anymore.

We have discovered that her all-time favorite activity is swimming. She is a crazy beaver and loves nothing more than leaping high into the air and then splashing down in the water. It is so funny to watch and she never wants to leave. I pretty much have to drag her away from the pool.

She also loves to push you around in circles when you are sitting in an office chair. If you hold a toy with a stiff arm, she will grab the toy and start walking with it in her mouth and push you around in circles. Sometimes she can get going pretty fast. Dale had to close his eyes once because she was making him so dizzy! :)

Her favorite toys (in order of preference) are: plastic jugs, the jolly ball, kongs with ropes, sterilized bones, nyla dinosaurs, and the nyla circle thing.

Raelyn is getting along pretty well with the kitties. She still tries to follow them around, but I think she has learned that no matter how much she tries, they are not going to play with her. Shadow will let her sniff and even bump noses sometimes before she goes into psycho-kitty mode.

Raelyn has been doing really well this past month. She is super well-behaved in social situations when she has her vest on and head collar. She will lay down quietly at restaurants and be calm in large crowds of people. She is very confident and nothing seems to bother her.

She is doing great, but she still has her issues. The biggest one is that she doesn't have the potty thing down yet. We went through a big intervention a while ago (read a few posts down for more details) to get her to stop going potty in the house. That is going really well even though we have had a few accidents here and there, but overall, she is doing MUCH better! I think she is getting the hint that she needs to go outside before she can relieve. Mardie, our puppy buddy, said that it takes at least a month for a new behavior becomes automatic, so we are keeping with it!

She is super dog distracted. She wants to meet and play/wrestle with just about every dog she meets. During puppy meetings, she is pretty good and doesn't go crazy, but that's probably because she is used to them and she knows she can't play with the other dogs. When we walk by other dogs in the neighborhood or while out and about she gets all excited and preoccupied.

She LOVES to meet and greet people. She does okay when I don't let her say hi, but as soon as she knows she can go get love from someone she is all squirmy and crazy. We are working on keeping a sit position and not letting her mouth/lick people.

She pulls pretty good on the leash. She is getting better and she doesn't do it all the time. She knows how she is supposed to be on the leash, but she just doesn't care sometimes and is more interested in doing what she wants. We are making progress, but it is just slow.

Raelyn can still be super whiny in the crate or on tie down. She knows when it is food time and will let us know at least 30 minutes before hand that she needs food NOW! Needless to say, she has to wait and doesn't get anything until she is quiet. Usually she complains for a while, but once she realizes that we are getting food ready she shuts up. She can also be whiny when she wants to run around and do something fun instead of being in the crate. Oh well. Deal with it puppy.

Raelyn is fun, friendly, crazy, energetic, but still can be calm and mellow when she wants to be. Overall, things are going great and we'll see how she does going to school with me for the Fall semester!

All of the pictures are courtesy of our in-house photographer, Dale!