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| Yakira with Christmas tree in the background |
Today was a big milestone in a young puppies life. At 16 weeks they get the last of their puppy vaccinations. Now she is fully immunized against all those yucky puppy diseases. The restrictions are now lifted on going to parks and other high traffic dog areas and having to carry her into the vet. I’m looking forward to taking her down to the Jordan River Trail in the next week or so. I know she is going to love it.
Yakira went on her first sleepover this weekend. Lisa has been wanting to take her and show her off at church so she took her for a few days. She was a good girl on Friday and on Sunday but Saturday she was a real challenge to handle. Now Lisa knows some of the challenges we are facing with the spunky little girl. It was good for Yakira to have her first sleepover. We went to Lisa’s tonight to pick her up. Lisa kind of wanted to have her stay another night but I just wanted her to come home. It is so good to have our little black monster back home.
Our local cub scout pack has a tradition of going to a local nursing home called “Our House” each December to decorate their Christmas tree and sing carols with the residents. As part of my job as the cub scout committee chairman for our pack I go along. So Yakira came with me. We all had a good time singing. One of the boy’s mother is a rather talented piano planner and I put together carol books so we would know the words. The funniest part was when one of our boys picked “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” to sing. I had never really paid attention to the words before. So there we are singing about Grandma being dead with a bunch of old “grandmas”. They seemed to enjoy the song anyway. Maybe they enjoyed the humor of the situation.
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| Yakira in the parking lot |
My family has the tradition of going into the mountains to cut down our own Christmas tree. We like to go the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There wasn’t much snow down in the parking lot but it got deeper as we climbed the hill to our favorite area to find a tree. Yakira had a great time. She got a little cold when we got off the beaten path and the snow was deeper than her legs. I sat down on a log and picked her up, cuddling her inside my coat until she warmed up. Meanwhile Bill got our tree cut down and headed off to help Eric and Danny get their tree down the hill. Our tree is rather little because we put it up on a trunk. This keeps the tree from being too tempting to the puppies. But my sister’s house had 16′ ceilings in their living room so their tree is much bigger and is hard to get down the hill. I was really impressed by Yakira on our trek back down the hill with the tree. She just plugged her way along, keeping a steady pace until we got back to the car.
After the trees were all back to the cars we ate baked potatoes with chili, hot chocolate and other yummy treats. Yakira was very tired after her tromp through the snow and slept on the way home. She loves to put her chin in the notch in the folded up seat in the back of our station wagon.
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| Yakira sleeping in the back of the car |
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| Yakira on a quilt |
Today Yakira is three months old. She has been with us for a whole month and it is hard to believe that it has been that long already. She is such a smart little girl. In someways too smart. She makes connections sometimes that are not intended. Yakira is a very oral puppy and she likes to not only put her mouth on you but she likes to clamp down with her sharp little puppy teeth. I’ve been working do redirect that biting to toys but instead she has learned that if she bits me I will give her a toy and play with her. Opps! So now I’ve got to work to teach her another way.
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| Yakira sleeping on the quilt |
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| Yakira taking a snooze in her jacket |
Big milestone today with Yakira, she got her jacket. We had puppy class at the South Towne mall today and so she needed her jacket for that anyway. But she did so good. We went to a quiet corner of the mall and all the dogs practiced recalls and go to bed. She did great on recalls and almost did as good on go to bed as at home. She did better on that than some of the older dogs. Nothing wrong with Yakira in the smarts department. She is plenty smart. The challenge is figuring out how to communicate in a way that she understands. She was so cute in he little jacket. And she walked through the food court like a little pro. I forgot to take my camera so no pictures. Today is the last puppy class where she will be the youngest puppy. The Millars are getting a second puppy on the truck on Thursday, a lab/golden cross with the letter “S”. There other puppy, Santini is now the oldest puppy in the group since Cobb got career changed. Santini is just a week or two older than Waffle. Boy they grow up so fast.
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| Yakira in her Halloween costume |
Last year we had Banta’s farewell party on Halloween so I made a couple of orange and black ruffles to go around their necks to celebrate the season. So this year I pulled one out to put on Yakira for the day. It was big but it worked fine anyway. We set up a couple of x-pen panels so she couldn’t get to the door when the trick or treaters came. She so enjoyed waiting there to see the kids come by. Yakira got lots of “oh how cute” comments from the kids. It was a fun evening.
telling family tales 