It’s been an eventful couple days. First, thanks for the encouragement on pretty much everywhere…facebook, twitter, comments, it’s really helped a lot to know this is all pretty normal.

This morning on Pet Life Radio, a rerun of one of their shows, in fact, one of these, talked about how your puppy can be interested in lots of things more than you, and how puppy being interested in dirt was a real blow to the ego. Yeah, that was kind of appropriate. There are a couple of shows I really like on Pet Life Radio. Teoti’s is one, another one is It’s A Doggy Dog World, and of course Working Like Dogs. Other interesting stuff there too. But I digress.

Yesterday was a water day, I guess. Water coming out of a dog, water on the floor. Hilda peed a bucket in the crate. Twice. My timing appears to be a little off. But that’s even getting better, because accidents today were very minimal and I got it together. She also dumped over a full bowl of water. Twice. Two different times. I’m here to tell you, that’s not a whole lot of fun.

Once, she got away from me in the kitchen when i didn’t have ahold of her leash, and she went after Jasper. She wrestled him to the ground, they rolled around some, somehow got back to me, I rescued Jasper, and he ran off. I’m not sure what he thought of the encounter, but he didn’t make any noise at all. No yowling or snarling or spitting in protest. I suspect if she got into it with Abigail, Abigail would be a lot less likely to be intimidated by her antics, anyway.

In good news, she’s chewing on me less, and also trying to chew on her leash less. My fingers are thankful. So are my toes. Also, it looks like she is capable of climbing stairs. She went about halfway up before I picked her up. I’m pretty sure she’d have made it the rest of thew ay. Sharon doesn’t recommend letting them go down for a while yet, to help ensure good hips. I did let her go down the front steps, just to see if she would, and she did, hesitantly, but without any problems.

I guess it’s also safe to say Hilda still thinks I’m OK, even if my role lately has been “the guy who puts me in the crate and pulls stuff out of my mouth”. She definitely came over to me more and lays down to relax and chew on a bone next to me.

I’m amazed at how she’s growing, too. Her head is up to my knee if she sits up her tallest. She’s got to be getting past 15 pounds if not closing in on 20, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to see.

Just for fun, I let her run and chase Abigail. Again, wrestled Abigail down, Alena said Hilda was beating Abigail up. No complaints from Abigail. The palayed chase, Abigail ran into the basement, Hilda waited for her to come back up, and off they went again. I don’t think they’re going to have a problem.