Christmas!!

The blanket was my friend's idea...
When she's laying on her back and her ears flop back her teeth show and she looks like a little demon. I got the perfect picture of her!!
A friend of mine with Shadow...
Again... =]
Laying on her bed.
Under the fake tree in the bonus room
Cute puppy!

So basically I'm extremely proud of myself for remembering to post lately. Here are some more pictures.
By the front door with the mini tree.
Shadow loves watching Abbott the rabbit.
Cute! And I'm SO excited that adorable crease on her nose is there to stay!!! =]
Laying in the sunshine. She looks really comfy.
The ever fascinating Christmas tree. She'll bump the ornaments with her nose. When we first got it she tried to eat the sticks and everything lying around, and she's gotten the stuffed Veggietales Larry ornament at least 5 times. She LOVES that thing - not good. Shadow is getting used to the tree, but we're still watching her carefully. :)

In front of the tree. Yay!

Random

Just a couple random shots of her...
=]

Visitor!

We puppy-sat another future guide dog a couple weeks ago and I kinda didn't put any pictures up. Oops. So here they are!

The two of them. After they tired themselves out playing outside, they did pretty well. They followed each other around and did everything together.
Doing everything at the same time, looking cute.
Acting like clones again...
...And again...
And finally resting!

And here are some more recent pictures:

My friend and I were outside taking pictures of the beautiful autumn trees. Here we're standing on the trailer at the side of the house.
We came in and were still in a picture taking mood, so Shadow became our victim! =]

...She put up with us pretty well.

YAY! I got more pictures!!

YAY! I forgot I hadn't uploaded these (sorry, half of them are blurry), so I will now. And immediately after reading Aunt Heidi's comment on my last post, I took a couple more. =D
Shadow enjoys her bone with her rope toy nearby. Awwww! (if you don't think that's cute, just realize that almost anything non-destructive a puppy does is absolutely adorable, so just get over it.)
I called her name. Look at those huge brown puppy-dog eyes! Just kills you, doesn't it? Well, if it doesn't, it WILL if you're getting ice out and trying to avoid giving some to her whenever she begs, too.
I can't decide! What should I do?
The puppy is almost asleep, in her favoritest place to be - the bed. When the bed was by the laundry room door to be washed, she laid down on it for ages. And when it went in the wash, she sat by the laundry room door with those killer eyes, whining. Poor thing. Here she's in the school room, where we tend to move the bed during the day from her crate.
P.S. - this is where the stuff I took about 5 minutes ago starts.
...Closer up, as she gradually becomes aware that I am WAKING HER UP some. It's okay, people, she really wasn't all the way asleep. And I had to get more pictures for my aunt. (Yes, you gave me the idea, and I am definitely going to take advantage of it.) O=-)

Does the sleepyhead want some ice? I took a short video too. Boredom+annoyance-with-lighting+sleepy dog, not good for good pictures+camera+aunt wanting pictures = video. You're very welcome. I didn't mind at all, actually, but I'm probably boring you guys to tears.

Notice that nice sit. The obedience. The focus. All out the window 70% of the time when there's no ice.

EDIT: ACK! I just watched that video and remembered how I HATE the sound of my own voice. I sound stupid. =)
A very tired puppy. You can tell she's only partially awake, because I just told her I'd give her ICE and she's still laying down, not dashing over to the fridge. She's much more awake, though, as the news begins to sink in, and you'll notice that her eyes are fully open.A bad picture of Shadow enjoying her eyes. She's sooo pretty!!

...And now she is fast asleep on her beloved bed once more.

=)
:]
=]
:)

TARDY!!!

Ok so it's been almost exactly two months since my last post and I apologize!!!
Mom's calling Shadow "Cutestuff" a lot less now and has been transitioning into "Pretty Girl." She's still cute, but a lot bigger. She's doing very well and now has a very large vocabulary including Shadow, come, sit, stay, down under (the table), outside, inside, eat, leave it, out (...OF YOUR MOUTH!), ice, treat, busy, forward, stop, down, off, no bite, quiet, and maybe "right about". We're also still working on "down under", too. Here are my very late pictures...
AWWWWWWWW!!! So what if it's really blurry; I caught the perfect moment! She's sooo adorable! This was while she was upstairs after Chemistry class. She stays up there while Mom teaches.

Looking quite guilty after dropping her leash. I told her to "leave it." Her leash isn't a chew toy, but I'm not sure she knows that yet. We switched her over to her big girl leash, by the way, as you can tell. AND (oooh this is SOOOOOOOOO exciting!!) guess what? She gets in the car ALL ON HER LONESOME!!!!! The SUV! It's amazing. Oh yeah, and she needs the big girl coat, too. Her puppy coat looks funny on her now and it's too big. We'll be getting the new one Saturday.
She's growing up!! So sad! So big at 5 months old!!!
What's that? The best idea since who knows when! My aunt gave me this little plaster thingie for my birthday to capture her paw print in!!! I thought it was the bestest idea ever, but Shadow didn't. She squirmed and hated the feeling of it between her toes. Got it all over her feet AND nose the first time. This is the plaster while it's still setting a little. It's in liquid form in the picture above.
Evidence of the struggles...Yep. And you can tell she slid coming back towards the kitchen.
The end result. It's not too deep, because the plaster had started to harden by this time. And further evidence of Shadow's stressful experience are the pieces of fur in the plaster. =)
She was easily consoled with an ice cube.

ICE

Shadow loves ice. As in, LOVES. She knows the word and does know stay, but doesn't always do it so well. Today I took her out to busy, she little busied almost immediately, and I asked her if she wanted ice. She got excited, wagging her tail, and jogged with me to the door. She sat beautifully, but, as she often does, started getting up before I had entered. I asked her if she wanted ice and she sat and stayed immediately, big eyes glued on me. Once inside and without the leash, she made a contented beeline to the fridge and I got her the promised ice.
Doesn't sound very interesting probably, but to me it's great. =D

Sorry I haven't posted lately...update.

Sorry I haven't posted lately! I don't have any pics, but I'll do a quick update. Shadow is bigger and her nose is getting longer, and she's really cute (obviously...puppies usually are). She's really smart, and I don't even think it's just me! The vet said so too (yay!).
Shadow goes and sits by the door sometimes when she needs out, but she'll also sit there to take us outside to play if she doesn't think she's getting enough attention. Apparently she doesn't like our reactions when she "goes" inside the house, and wanted to stay inside or something, because the other day Shadow was playing with me and managed to little busy on the carpet LAYING DOWN. Not on her side, but still!!! Geez. Raised her tail up just enough. *sigh*.
She sits, comes, leaves it (unless she really doesn't want to and it's inconvenient), and is starting to crate, stay, and down. We're working most on no bite and off. YAYZERZ! She's great. And she knows the sound of the ice maker tray sliding out a little. I'll grab a piece of ice for myself and she'll come running...and I usually end up giving her one, too. =D
Plus, I think that adorable crease on her nose is gonna stay. YESSSSS!!! Anyway, I gotta go...more later!

Weekend at the beach...

We took Shadow with us this past weekend to the beach to visit family. She had a blast with the busy kids and sand. She LOVED the sand!! On the way down, Dad was paying in a restaurant and Shadow had just finished eating outside from a plastic container we bring along for travel. A lady stopped and dropped a few dollars in, saying something about how she loved these types of charities. She was really sweet, but Mom explained that she could go to the website to donate. She wasn't gathering money!With cousins (above & below)

Me in their sotally awesome swingy thing

My brother Ryan, me, Shadow, and a cousin (from left to right, obviously... =] )

And did I mention that Shadow LOVED the sand??? She was totally plastered before we left that day! She never digs holes, but she thoroughly enjoyed digging this one - if not just for the pleasure of seeing and feeling the sand go flying!


She would lay down like this when she was tired of digging, and then get bored without the sand moving. She'd move or kick or somehow make the sand move, then get all excited and start digging again. She was hilarious!

I love this one!
And that pretty much concludes the episode of At the Beach with Shadow. =)

Play-date with Mollie

Today we took Shadow over to our grandparents' house, where our cousins were visiting with the newfoundland puppy they got yesterday. She's 8 weeks old, has blue eyes, and basically looks like an adorable little rolly-polly fluff ball. My grandparents have a Goldendoodle (golden/poodle cross) too, and she's a year and a half...huge as ever.As soon as Shadow saw the big huge Goldendoodle fluff, she wanted to play. Shadow wasn't daunted at all by her "opponent's" size, and Granddad called it a submarine attack when Shadow dashing under and puppy-nipped from there, jumping in and out. She went nuts and ran from one dof to the other to play.


All tired out! They were so cute!!