Our furry troublemaker is five months old tomorrow, and still as rambunctious as ever. She's good at getting into mischief, like stealing socks from the hamper, tissues from the bathroom trash every time the door is left open, and sneaking into Gavin's room to hide under his bed with legos in her mouth as soon as she discovers his door hasn't been closed. Boy, is she fun?!?
We found out in September that Phoebe has a form of mange that we have been treating. We'll go back next week for another skin scrape to see if the medicine she's been on for the last 30 days have taken care of the mites, and hopefully her fur starts to fill in again. Poor girl has lots of small patches on her face and legs where the fur is thinning or bald. Of course, she now has a large scrape on the top of her head that she did to herself yesterday during a game of fetch when she decided to try to jump through the swing set. That one may or may not fill back in....we may end up with a dog that has a bald spot on the top of her head for the rest of her life. Typical Phoebe, I suppose! Crazy girl.
I try to take her with me as many places as I can through the day, but she doesn't exactly make car rides enjoyable. She's still such a puppy and likes to try to chew on seat belts, the rubber mats, or whatever else she can figure out how to get her mouth around. I can't wait for the teething/mouthing phase to pass. She's lost five teeth over the last week, so I know we're making progress, but geesh! All the kids clothes seems to have tiny holes in them and I'm over it....
Unfortunately, Phoebe is a digger. Thankfully, the yard can be easily repaired! I guess it's the lesser of two evils. I'd much rather her be digging the yard than chewing baseboards and furniture. But still...ugh! I hate that she's a digger, but she is a dog! She's also become food aggressive and now eats only in her crate. I'm hoping she grows out of that, but I know it could be a long time before that happens.
I am determined to get her trained to be a well behaved dog, and I'm so glad we enrolled in Puppy School that our vet's office was offering. We took a chance because it was the first time this class was ever offered, but Jarrod and I have both learned so much and I totally adore the instructor. She's brilliant and so knowledgeable about dogs. I love how she's been extremely available and excited to work with us on Phoebe. She sees every Sunday how she tests us and has offered us so many suggestions. We're working hard on getting Phoebe to walk with the gentle lead, and this week we actually started tethering. If she's not in her crate, she's usually tied to me so that she can't be getting into trouble. I'm committed to trying this for a week or two and seeing the progress we make. I'll update soon!
