Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Our growing girl!

Our puppy, Cali that is. We rescued Cali in Mid-June at 4 months old and about 20 pounds. Now, she is over 7 months old and a little over 40 pounds!

Cali is a Dutch Shepherd which most people have never heard of. The best explanation I can give is that they are similar to a German Shepherd in temperament and intelligence. However, they don't look the same. Another similarity is that they are both used as police dogs.

Here is a picture of a typical Dutch Shepherd from Wikipedia...





Let us know if you see the similarities. Since we got her from a rescue and don't know EXACTLY where she came from, there is no guarantee that is what she is. But I think she looks exactly like the dog in this picture!

We've definitely got a smart puppy on our hands! She is in puppy training and is doing a great job! We lucked out and actually have a private training, although we paid for group training. The other dogs never showed up! Her trainer and his dog absolutely LOVE Cali. She is a typical puppy that likes to jump and play. However, she jumps way more than she should. In fact, she can jump as high as Steve's chest/shoulders. Some things she is learning include: walking nicely on a lease (no pulling), stopping and sitting when we stop walking, sitting, laying down, getting in her kennel on command, rolling over, and a game called touch. The touch game is fun for her and us. We put our hand out at any height and she will come touch her nose to our hand. Steve will stick his arm out straight at shoulder height and she'll jump and touch her nose to his hand! Its so fun to watch! Another great thing she just recently picked up is to sit and lay down by hand signals ONLY! No verbal commands whatsoever.

I wanted to share a few pictures of her from last week. The first one is her and Steve's morning ritual. He lets her out before work and they sit in their chairs to relax a little.




She's so good at picture taking! She just sits up straight and doesn't even look at the camera!


Here is a picture of her on top of her kennel. Our trainer's dog has a bed on her kennel, so Steve thought it would be fun to teach Cali to get on top of her own kennel. Only problem now is that at class she'll get on the other dog's kennel too! Oops!


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