Mina’s Plog

We used to keep Mina in a restricted area in the hallway whenever we went out but she has recently graduated such that when we leave, the entire house is her territory. She hasn’t experienced many accidents since we’ve let her loose. She seems to love the newfound freedom. Now, whenever we leave the home, she’ll sit on the stairwell (which is located next to the door) with this look on her face, as if to say, "Will you take me with you??"

When Mina was enrolled in puppy kindergarten, we were trained on how to train Mina. Basically, how to use keywords and sometimes hand gestures to signal your dog to behave a certain way. For example, we trained Mina to do "carwash". When we say "Mina, carwash!", she’ll respond by doing a figure-8 around your legs. And of course, we’ve also trained her to do the classics: "sit", and "down". MIna doesn’t know how to roll yet — too much energy to stay down that long.

It’s one thing to train your dog to respond to words that you intentionally pick for a given action. But it’s somewhat amusing that she’ll also pick up on keywords that we use subconsciously to respond to certain events. I noticed that Mina knows when she’s being taken for a walk. One of us will open up the closet door and take her harness out. As soon as this happens, she’ll get instantly energetic, run over to you, sit at your feet and position herself to be harnessed up. Then once harnessed, she’ll sit in front of the door waiting for you to put your shoes on. That’s very intuitive of her. It’s gotten to a point where, as soon as one opens the closet door, she’ll pop her head up from wherever she is lounging to see if the harness comes visible. If not, she’ll just plop back down to her rested state. But recently, i’ve noticed that she’ll somehow know i’m ready to take her for a walk even before i get to the closet door and before she sees her harness come out. Why? How does she KNOW?? I realize i’ve gotten into a habit of saying "Let’s go!" before we head out. Now, if i say, "Mina, Let’s GO!" She’ll run over to the closet door and sit there to get her harness put on. I suppose that now that she’s gotten into the habit of responding to "Let’s go" as meaning "Time for a walk", I should be consistent in my use of the words.

Last night Mina was ringing the doorbell to indicate to me that she was ready for Potty Time. I was in the middle of cooking (always in the middle of cooking) so i waited a couple of minutes to finish up. Mina sat patiently waiting for me to finish. Then, once i was ready, I subconsciously said, "Ok Mina, let’s go". Oops. Instead of running to th balcony where her potty breaks happen, she ran instead to the closet expecting to be harnessed up. As i saw her running the wrong way, i had to change my choice of words- "Ok Mina, Potty Time!" which sent her running back to the balcony door.

What a smart dog!

What do you think… certainly i think there is some resemblance…

Her owners have been neglectful of her blog but Mina’s still alive — very healthy and energetic still. She has grown up a bit and now she finds herself able to jump on the bed once in a while — usually after a bath. Whenever we approach her, she rolls over and if you scratch her underside she’ll get herself into this position. What a dog!

In Whistler, BC this weekend. We found out that all of the hotels in Whistler are pet friendly so decided to bring her along. First day, we put her in the doggy day care, everyone loves her there and she played along with the other dogs. The facility is great, a big room with rugs, couches that dogs can jump on to play or rest and lots of toys. They even take the dogs out for walks. CDN$ 25 for 5 hours.

Next day we walked her around the village. She is tired by the end of the day. Tired dog is a good dog!

Don’t know where she learned to sleep like this

Ate my Bluetooth headphone. Now destroys battery.

I brought Mina to work on Saturday. She is super friendly and became acquainted with a coworker very quickly. He ran around the entire office with her ducking into cubicles and around corners – Mina followed obediently. When she came back to my cube, she was panting and pooped out. I think that is the only reason why she was so still for this photo.