Winter Blast and Pup Progress

These are the days that test my spirit every year for some reason. It is freezing (literally), humid, and intermittently snowing today after a sunny and hot day yesterday. I saw this hillside, with frost-covered pine trees and yellow aspen, on my bike ride today. I was dressed in "full on" winter gear. I'm still shivering.

We are in that odd shoulder season, partway between autumn and winter - and that can be a super cold season here in the mountains.

Prior to my bike ride, I played with my puppy on the trails. She's an amazing girl, with a heart of gold.

I'm not sure who is changing more, her or me. I see someone different when I look at her now than 5 weeks ago when she arrived. I notice how strongly she looks me in the eye.

Shyla is gaining confidence in every aspect of her life.

I think that a big part of it is the bond that we're building. All the playing, hiking, and training has brought us together quickly.

I giggle when I see her galloping with such puppy happiness in our forest.

She's still working on being comfortable in the bustle of town and overcoming the scariness of meeting new people. But, she's made miles and miles of progress. Deep in her soul, she wants to meet people, even if it's so scary that she belly crawls to them (and the belly crawl is gradually disappearing as she is learning that people are very nice). I've worked intensively with our awesome trainer over the past month, and I now feel confident about how to introduce Shyla to most new situations.

Oh - and a huge note - Shyla almost totally house-trained. I cannot remember her last accident even though we're giving her the freedom to wander the house whenever we're home.

Based on how far she's come in just 5 weeks, I'm pretty confident that she's going to learn to handle almost anything with time and lots of carefully orchestrated exposure to the world. The one big thing that she still shies away from is children. Children seem to puzzle and scare her. We will be working on that in the future. I have two nephews who want to meet her so that's a big one for us.

And - more good news - our boy R is feeling better with each day. He's been asymptomatic for a week now. He's regaining his energy for running and for playing with his sister. He's not yet regaining weight but that'll happen with time if he keeps improving. Tomorrow, we'll check his progress with a blood test.

The huge lesson that I've learned is: If your dog usually loves a certain kind of food but suddenly doesn't want to eat it or even just hesitates to eat it, STOP. Take the food away (don't try to entice him to eat it like we did). Try some other kind of food but do not go back to that original bag of food unless your vet finds some ironclad other reason for the lack of appetite. It's better to be safe than sorry.

On a final note, even though I'm building an incredible bond with Shyla, I still miss K every single day. And, she's not the only one who I've lost to cancer. I lost two dogs before her. I lost my mom and grandmother to breast cancer at a young age. So, when I ran across this cycling jersey on the web, I was sorely tempted by it. I try not to use profanity because my mother always said it was a sign of a poor vocabulary (an argument that I thought was ridiculous as a kid)... but this seems like a case where it could be excused. What do you think?