At the encouragement of my hubby, I'm back doing the blogging thing. I let a whole summer and much of the fall pass by without updating my blog about our puppy progress, and the 1 year anniversary of my sweet Hobby's passing.
Summer was pretty great. I really got to bond with Chief. He has grown into a very handsome, sleek dog. His sweet personality has also emerged. I think over these past months, Chief has come to accept and understand that J and I are his "pack". He listens and obeys better with each passing week, so now both parents are more settled. While he's still only a year and a half, he tries to test us with little tantrums of barking and stubburn refusal to obey the simplest commands. But, we follow the "Dog Whisperer" way of being calm and assertive with him, and eventually it works. I can see how people get frustrated and deal with their pets out of anger, but you just can't get angry. It's best to step away and calm down for a minute if puppy is acting up, which I admit I've done on more than a few occasions. What can I say? He's a head-strong dog, and he's very manipulative. But, that's also the breed. Malinois are working, smart dogs and we know we can never let up on his training. I'm loading a few recent pics of the boy for any of my friends and family who want to see our handsome guy.
As you can see by these two pictures, I like J's big fluffy green chair. Chief usually comes to love on me when he really wants to me to go out and play ball. So, if he doesn't get his way with some gentle loving, he'll sit his big furry britches in my lap. It's not as comfortable as it looks. The picture on the right shows just how big he has gotten (and him trying to take a toy I had put out of his reach). He's all muscle; lean and ripped. We have to feed him around 5-6 cups of food/day. With all the activity he gets, he can lose weight very easily. I guess you could say much of our at-home time is invested in this furry critter. But we are a Pack now. We love and rely on each other, and I'm not just talking about how Chief relies on me or J. J and I rely just as much on each other. If one of the Pack is having a bad day, it's almost a sure bet that one of the other members can help in some way. On a weary day when I can't imagine having to come home and exercise or play with puppy because I'm just so tired, all it takes is a shy, bashful glance from his chocolate-brown puppy eyes to warm me up. A little tap of the tail to let me know he's happy I'm home (albeit just to let him out of the crate and play ball)... Still, he's helped me recover from the loss of my most loved cat, Hobbes. I'm not 100% over it, but I can rejoice in knowing my Pack has my back.
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