Bits and bobs

A week in the life of a fittening dog:

Nala’s Gotcha Day was last weekend, so, among other indulgences, we went on two really lovely hikes with her.

Adventure dog, adventuring!

During one of her creek swimming ventures, Nala found an extremely excellent stick at the water’s edge. She even retrieved it! Well, mostly.

Nala seemed to really enjoy solving the puzzle of how to haul this big, heavy stick out of the water and up the steep bank.

This may not seem like a very big deal to some of you, but Nala spent a long time being too hypervigilant whenever we were outside to play with me at all. Even now, she’s not usually interested in playing with objects when we’re out in the world. So to see her interested in an object, playful about it, solving a puzzle to get it, and then proudly showing it to us made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

The birthday girl even consented to pose for a picture with me, sort of.

I love this dog so much.

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For your viewing pleasure, here’s a picture of the kinds of nerdy calculations I’ve been doing.

During Nala’s by-monthly measuring this week to make sure her weight loss is still on track, I noticed that while she hadn’t gained anything back, she hadn’t really lost anything since the last time I measure, either. I thought back, double checked how much I’ve been feeding, ran the numbers on some calories, and, sure enough, I’ve been overfeeding her a bit. In my defense, none of my cutlery is equal to the task of cutting through a turkey neck! So I’m back to diligently weighing and measuring everything that goes in Nala’s mouth to make sure that we’re not exceeding our caloric and food amount goals. I’ve also adjusted my guess for Nala’s ideal weight–I think it’s probably about 65 lbs, given that she’s about 70 right now and still needs to lose a few.

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We’re also still playing in the hose. A really cool development lately–Nala can hold a sit or a downstay while I hose off my own (itchy! dang grass) legs, or water a plant. She beams at me, thrilled, as she waits, knowing that as soon as I’m done I’ll release her to chase the spray again.

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 One of Nala’s Gotcha Day presents included a cheap, standard nylon dog frisbee. Cheap, because Nala’s interest in fetching is usually unsustained at best. But a frisbee nonetheless: since Nala is much more excited about fetching toys when she can shove them into my hands and tug with me upon returning them, I was optimistic that she might learn to like it.

To my surprise, Nala took to the frisbee immediately. Something about the way it floats in the air entices her.

I’m ready! Throw it!

YOU THREW IT!

I GOT IT!

Clearly, Nala is still refining her catching skills!

I’m really excited to see how this new interest develops, especially once the weather cools down enough to play for more than a couple of throws. Still, the fact that she’ll fetch it at all in this heat is really exciting.

(Pictured here, my lovely partner playing with the frisbee because I never actually learned to throw anything well. And yes, everything in central TX is dead right now. I actually like heat, but it’s even too hot for me right now.)

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