Cobalt: Rubber Velcro Monkey Dog

Cobalt is a rubber dog: when she's in her pen and one of us walks into the room (even though she's being supervised by the other) she starts bouncing. A lot. And high. L was already thinking of putting her in agility training (those steeplechase things like the Superdogs do), and she's certainly got the springiness for it.

Cobalt is a velcro dog. Her puppy claws were nice and sharp, and when she latches onto you it can be very hard to detach her. We had her at the vet yesterday (everything was good!) and the vet trimmer her nails, but that hasn't reduced her velcrosity that much.

Cobalt is also a monkey dog. When we left for work yesterday, she hadn't used the yard, so we left her in her pen, which has a 2' high fence. When I got home at lunch, she was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, all patient and happy. I thought at first she'd managed to jump out, but after I took up her food dishes after feeding her and turned to put them back in the cupboard, I turned back to find her with her elbows over the top of the fence and her feet on the middle cross-bar. She jumps up into the corner of the pen and latches on, making good use of her rubber and velcro properties, and apparently yesterday she managed to combine them all to get out.

The good news is that the only damage to anything that she did was the total destruction of one kitty fluff ball toy. Everything else was fine, and there were no accidents. So she's a very well behaved rubber velcro monkey dog.

Unfortunately, she still doesn't like using the yard. She's learned how to climb the back porch stairs, and within minutes of putting her down out back, she's up the stairs and standing at the door, looking in expectantly. Usually with Mouse the Cat inside, looking out, very curious.

(Mouse isn't the only curious one: two nights ago when I had her out at 4:00 am a large, round raccoon climbed up onto the top of one of our fence-posts and perched there, watching us, until we went in.)

Our first puppy preschool class is tomorrow after work. I hope they can give us some advice on yard training!