Gracie, Gracie, Gracie

I am sure you all have been wondering what Gracie has been up to??? No, you say. Well let me just update you anyway.
Gracie is 5 months old tomorrow, and she has the energy of 5 dogs. She is growing very quickly, and in case you forgot let me remind you that I thought that we were getting a dog that weighed around 50 lbs, and at 4 months Gracie already weighed 33 lbs. I would guess she weighs about 40 lbs right now. The vet thinks she will at least weigh 70-90 lbs-Shiyu only weighs 90.

** Gracie is very, very smart, actually she may be the smartest person in the house. Trust me having a dog that is as smart as Gracie makes it very hard to train her.

** We have hired BarkBusters to come and help us train Gracie. We have our 3 rd visit tomorrow. Gracie is still training us. But we are slowly making progress in becoming the pack leader.

** Gracie is no Matty, and I still have moments when Gracie makes me miss Matty more than I ever thought possible.

** Gracie can run faster than any dog I have ever seen, and she will retrieve a ball or toy all day long if you are willing to throw it for her. In turn D is convinced that she can become a fly ball champion. If that works off some of her energy, I am voting yes on this proposition.

**Gracie loves to dig, and sometimes par take in her poop, so she can not be left outside unsupervised by a responsible adult. We are working on these things. Although if she can dig a hole to China I might not care so much about the digging. The latter must stop and we have the medicine to help curtail it. The vet seems to think this is very common, and that I should not be too concerned. Concerned?? Grossed out is more like it.

** Gracie will ride in the car now, she will even jump in and jump out......you have no idea what progress this actually is.

** Gracie is basically housetrained. She never seems to have an accident in her living quarters(the gated kitchen) but we can't have her upstairs for much longer than 20 min or so and she is rooting around looking for a nice piece of carpet to potty on. I am not sure she will ever get to live outside of the kitchen. She does still do the submissive wetting thing with strangers or if she is punished. That sucks!!

** For the most part it is great to have a dog in the house again. I try to not compare Gracie to Matty. But it is hard when she chews up the baseboard, or tears up something(Matty never tore a thing up in her life) Matty was easy to housetrain, and never puddled. But Matty also never retrieved anything in her life, and she also had zero interest in toys. Gracie loves toys more than any dog I have ever met. I have to buy them in bulk. So it is very fun to play with her, she is not much on snuggling, but she sure can get to the ball quickly!!