I haven’t been very good at updating the blog lately. Chalk it up to the loss of my mom and then a very busy schedule with work. But Zen has been steadily growing into the big girl she will eventually become. In a couple of weeks she’ll be 8 months old. We haven’t weighed her in awhile but my guess is that it is somewhere between 55-60 pounds. At the shoulder she stands 24 inches. Height standard for girl dogs is 23.5-27 inches so she is right on target. She’s skinny as she should be at this age, and very leggy.. but I definitely see more substance of bone starting to develop which is kind of neat. Maybe people will stop asking me if she’s a Great Dane mix now…

She graduated her second puppy class a couple of weeks ago but came down with kennel cough the same week so we weren’t actually able to go to graduation. Since then, we’ve been slacking in terms of her training and the Swissy willfulness has definitely raised it’s head because of it. She doesn’t always listen very well, and sometimes is downright rude in how she defies us. (I’ll do a more in depth post about her training later.) But mostly, she’s just a sweet cuddle bunny who is quite happy to sleep most of the day as long as she’s near you.

We’ve been hiking in our back woods alot. I made this little video this week just to show how big she’s getting.

Mainly we are getting ready for Christmas. We decided to put the tree in the back room this year… just so Zen isn’t tempted to eat the ornaments. So far she’s doing ok with it. Santa is even bringing her a present for her stocking. She’s getting a BIG GIRL collar…

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I’ve been really bad at updating this blog lately but I have GREAT excuses. I’ll spare you the whining however…

Zen is 6.5 months old and lanky as a newborn colt. She’s probably a little too thin, as people who should know better can’t tell she’s a Swissy. We took her to a drafting trial today to let her sniff carts and see dogs being hooked up to them. Apparently all the Berner folks were trying to guess her breed. (the guess today was swissy and great Dane.)

She’s finishing up her second puppy class this week. Obedience-wise… She’s doing pretty well. She listens 60% of the time. She can get a little too pully, and she’s reDiscovered how to jump up on people. But overall, she’s a really good girl. Everyone remarks how sweet she is and what a good temperament she has. I would say… Score one for Brian and I for making sure we didn’t wreak her somehow.

At 5 months, zen weighs 48.6 pounds. I need to measure her height but she’s leggy, long backed, and slightly ribby. Overall, she’s doing great! Adolescence has hit and her hearing has gotten selective. She doesn’t always do what we say… and sometimes she gets fearful about new things. But we have been keeping her active and really working on her dog shyness. She made a break thru last weekend and actually started playing with other dogs at her puppy social.

And people? She LOVES everybody.

Zen is 4.5 months which I think is the equivalent of 18 weeks? She finally had a growth spurt and is getting into that famous swissy “leggy” stage.

We did a few “firsts.” Like, go to the beach.

And playing a LOT at the field near our house. But Zen isn’t too interested in running around for more than 10 minutes. She’s more interested in rolling and lounging in the grass.

We’ve been meeting a lot of nice dogs on this field which has been GREAT to build up Zen’s confidence. The puppy socials haven’t been doing too much for her and she tends to just slink around the edges and watch all the action. But when there is only one or two dogs.. she is really interested in socializing. She still acts very submissive with them and the best results are with calm dogs that just want to lay around with her. Here was a nice lab mix who put up with her.

Here a few photos of us just messing around the house. This first one cracks me up because I have no idea what Gavin was trying to do but he was hell bent to crawl under Zen and pretend her body was a bridge. Zen is still mouthy, especially with the kids.. but they’ve gotten pretty good at telling her “off.”

Some more around the house:

Here’s a pic of her standing. She’s really got that great adolescent frame on her now.

And these last two just show how photogenic my girl is. Someday, i’ll get a picture of her smiling. That pose seems to be illusive, but she’s got the intense “look-into-my-eyes-thing” down.

Today was the last day for Zen’s first puppy kindergarden class. I can’t believe it over so quickly! It was kind of sad for me because I really have been enjoying it. We’ve seen such a difference in her since the first day of class when she sulked around the room, too afraid to jump in and play. Now she jumps right in. She’s a submissive player; she spends most of her time on her back.. but she seems to love it.

She also learned how to run thru tunnels today. Some of the dogs were a little spooked by the things… but Zen had no problem with them.

Here’s a video of the very first one she went through:

Overall, it was a great class today. And at the end we had a little graduation ceremony. Zen LOVES our trainer so she was really excited to be getting attention from Janelle. So much so, that she kept giving her paw and then trying to give both paws.

Next class is not until October. But her quarantine lift is over next wednesday so in the meantime we’ll be working with her on our own.
Congratulations Zen! Well done!