They had the nerve to want me to work around here this morning - craziness!

I can just picture Ted launching to catch a frisbee and landing in a tree, knocked silly. Thankfully, Roxy has not resorted to demolishing the door frames. Or not yet.

Yes, I was allowed into the house last night. She was standing on the bottom step (of the formerly "safe zone") wagging her tail waiting for me to come inside. Zero barking or growling at me. Some barking at other random things, well within acceptable conduct.

Damage thus far: two robins, full grown; and one shoe, a new one.

So much for simply moving shoes around during the night, which continues, and yes I should have put them away. And in keeping with Murphy's Law, the shoe in question was one of a pair work shoes I bought about a month ago and not the $2 flipflops. That'll teach me.

I don't know what to think about the robins, two bodies in three days - it's undoubtedly Roxy, not Wallee. I have noticed the robins can be on the brazen/stupid side so I guess it gets chalked up to Darwinism. Can you bell a dog to protect the birds?

Took her for a short walk last night. The neighbor she tried to eat Saturday was out with her husband and they came over to chat. Roxy was very friendly, not so much as a growl. A lot to be said for neutral turf and being on a leash. Roxy that is, not the neighbors.

The gravel that covers the central compound turned out to be a little bit of a problem. Roxy is not all that great on a leash and was consistently ahead of me. She kept hearing the gravel crunching behind her and freaking out. I was back there, that was okay, but who was making all that noise? Are they invisible? 

And she does, in fact, know what a ball is for. It was a combination of her needing to relax a little more and me figuring out the "proper" way to play. I was also shocked that she dropped the ball when asked. Isa never, ever dropped the ball, not willingly. That tug of war became part of our game. So I almost didn't know what to do with myself, missed the tug back of the ball. The yard is too small for more than a short toss, but that was fine with Miss Thang. She seems to enjoy the skidding around, knocking the ball sideways and bouncing after it. I threw it down the hill once with her in hot pursuit, then she came trotting back up without it. That was evidently incorrect. Then we lost both balls under the deck, utterly disappeared. Obviously time to get lattice up on the underside of the deck.

She will now come up the stairs. She stops before a paw touches the second floor, whines, and charges downstairs. Ten seconds later the entire process is repeated. It appears that Wallee has specified, in no uncertain terms, exactly which canine circle of hell the upstairs consists of. This apparently did penetrate and get stored in the puppy brain. But she will come up and go down about 16 times in ten minutes. The stairs are old and creaky, and she is not light of foot.

For that matter she doesn't hold still, ever. Constant movement - it's exhausting to watch. Unless she is being petted, which must be continued until my arm falls off or it's dinner time. A momentary hiatus is allowed for food preparation - so long as it's her dinner. There are some manners involving the kitchen and/or mom's dinner that need to be addressed.

Isa loved her green beans so I tried giving Roxy some with her dinner last night. Big no on that one. She looked at me like I was trying to poison her, picked around them for a while, knocked the bowl over so she could pick around the beans more easily. I feel like I'm the one learning all the lessons here.

Now, have I kept you waiting long enough?

On Isa's bed for exactly 20 seconds:

and the face of a happy dog:

So we are doing very well, Roxy and I. Wallee and Roxy still have a ways to go. And the neighborhood birds need to be on the look out!

Well, here's more for you Sally. I just added a post to Eurydice's thread and for the first time added Roxy's name with Isa's. Hit the "submit" button and Isa's banner came up. And I burst into tears.

It's all so very complicated, isn't it?