I can see we’re going to have some problems with bones. Yesterday I brought out two big rawhide bones for them to chew on. As usual, even though there are two of them, they both nitpick over one. But this time when Zoe had it and Zeeke tried taking it back she threw a little bitchy fit - the kind Zeeke throws at me. He didn’t get too overly concerned by it, just grabbed her by the neck and held her to the ground (during which her growling grew louder and more insistent, then stopped), then walked off.

This morning, on the bed as I was waking up, same thing - Zoe had the bone for the moment, and Zeeke was laying there giving me his “don’t touch me” look (with nose covered in rawhide, how charming!), and he started getting grumpy with Zoe kicking him in the face. (I would, too.) But when he got grumpy, she took it as some kind of attempt to get the bone, and threw another snarling, snapping fit. He got perturbed this time, grabbed her head, was semi-snarling back.

I will have to watch them more closely around bones, it appears.

Zoe does extremely well with the hourly going-outside routine. I walk to the door and pick up her leash, she walks over to me and stands still while I hook it to her collar. When I release her she goes up to the door and waits. I open the door and we go out.

Note here that Zeeke is trained to sit and wait until we release him to go outside - Zoe is not, because we had problems with Zeeke thinking her release was his, even if it was a different word. It was too risky, we didn’t want Zeeke to get out. So Zoe gets to go out, Zeeke has to sit and wait. Not fair, but we’ll work on that later. If told not to go, however, Zoe won’t run out the door like Zeeke does. Even when Den’s taking Zeeke out, she stands back from the door and whines, then runs to the window to watch.

In any case, when we’re outside she will more or less potty on command, but sometimes she’s slower about it than othertimes, especially in this snow. I feel bad for the girl, because the snow’s as deep as her butt. I might need to create a flat area for her to go or something. But she does seem to manage. Once she’s done I say “inside” and comes to me and the door. It’s not really dependable yet - sometimes I need to give a light tug on the leash to remind her that I meant now, not when she’s done sniffing, but she’s doing a very good job. Several times she’s actually just stopped dead and launched herself at me, I was so proud of her. She thinks going inside is a fun thing because she always gets a pat and praise before we go in, and inside she gets to play with Zeeke!

The other day when we were going to the vet’s she slipped out of her collar. Unfortunately at that time Den was taking Zeeke out to potty in the back woods, so that’s where she headed. While she listens pretty well now, if Zeeke’s outside the distraction is way too much. Basically she ran circles around Den and Zeeke in the back yard. Den was all anxious and wanted me to try to catch her, but I just told him to go inside - with Zeeke. Sure enough, soon as he did, Zoe goes zooming right inside after him. Obviously we’ll have to work on obedience training with Zeeke around, but that’s far too advanced for her right now. If you rate distractions on a scale, Zeeke outside is about as high as it can go.

I’ve been practicing “down” with her. She still needs the hand signal. I think she’s not paying enough attention to my words, and too much to my hands. “Down” is also very counter-intuitive for her, because her instinct is to jump up at me to get the cookie or whatever it is. We’re working on it, but I may need to take a different approach with her - possibly no cookies, and with my hands guiding her down instead of pointing.

Another funny thing I wanted to mention: she knows that she is not allowed to jump on me, no matter how excited she is. Sometimes she’s allowed to put her front paws up on my chair to say hi to me, but no pawing, no jumping. So when I grab their food dishes and walk down the hall, or any other really really exciting thing, she hops all the way down the hall, bouncing straight up in the air - but never actually touching me. It’s quite funny. We do need to work on the not jumping on Zeeke, though. Den always has problems getting his collars and leash on because Zoe climbs all over Zeeke, thoroughly annoying him.

We do “syncronized crating.” I say, “Crate!” and both of them run into the bedroom and loop into their own crates in sync. It’s pretty awesome. It makes me feel good that they listen so well.

When I crate both of them Zoe settles down quietly. I’m very pleased with her. Zeeke unfortunately is whining and howling, but I think that’s because of the snow - weird sounds all around like branches breaking and snowplows driving by… there was even a truck with a plow helping Den out with our driveway. Zeeke sure wasn’t happy about that. But, strangely, Zoe is silent.

Well, it appears that Zoe has a bladder infection. I took her in to the vet’s on saturday morning, but they forgot to ask me to bring in a urine sample to test. And unfortunately, she refused to go pee while there, even outdoors. So they couldn’t test to see if she did in fact. But they gave me antibiotics anyways, which I’m glad for because she’s still at it. It’s worse now I think. Every 5-10 minutes she’s crying at me, needing to go out. I feel sorry for her… and me, because it’s driving me crazy.

Official weight at the vet’s, as of Dec 31 (7 months old): 24.4 lbs.

They looked through her records and it appears she didn’t finish one of her booster shots - I believe it was the Lepto. So when I take her back in in 2 weeks to get the UTI checked (to make sure it’s gone), she’ll also get her Lepto booster and get her Lyme disease vaccination (which she had never gotten before). Lyme disease is unfortunately a big risk in this area, so it’s not optional.