My Baby Best...est!

I've just had a shower (above) and I am a stylish dog (below)

:) After all the bragging on my blog about Poppy yesterday, I went home to more delightful behaviour, so I decided to brag some more today :)

Poppy and I went for a pretty long walk last evening and on the way we met someone who was clearly uncomfortable with dogs. It was dark and he was standing stiff in the shadows by the park, so that we would pass him by and he could carry on. Poppy however did not like his body language at all and I guess for dogs it's like screaming out "I hate you, get out of my face!". So there she stood, poised to half-run away, half-attack growling menacingly and barking uncomfortably at the man. It was fun for me to watch because I had never seen that side of my sweet gentle Poppy before!

The best part of the evening though was when we reached the end of our street. Chris, a neighbor in our community who is passionate about dogs and has helped us with tips and advice regarding puppies from the day we got Poppy, was walking with us. Sandra and Phillip, our neighbors at the end of our little street have a stray cat they feed and protect. She's a really pretty, ginger cat and is not really very socialized. She was purring at us from her perch. Chris miaowed a little and she bounded up to him happily. She was obviously wanting to come rub herself against me but was unsure of Poppy who by the way was straining on her leash to pounce on the cat for a play. (Poppy thinks cats are other puppies....)

So I made Poppy go "down" on her belly and tried to teach her to crawl towards the cat gently and slowly so as to not scare the cat away. By then some car turned in our cove and everyone's focus was broken, and the cat ran towards the headlights and was soon out of sight. So Chris and I start to say goodbye and as we were talking, we turned around and what do we see but the cat was back and Poppy was on her belly, calmly trying to crawl towards the cat!!!!!!!!!

I was so impressed with my intelligent baby who learnt what to do with barely few minutes of training (if that). Chris' mouth was open in amazement at how quickly Poppy had learnt to approach this cat.

Oh and this morning, we had let Poppy loose in the park to play with Ruthie and Sasha... and all three drifted towards some accumulated puddles and kitty poop. So we started yelling at the dogs to come back and they were busy sniffing for crap, literally. So I yelled to Poppy to come "heel" and SHE ACTUALLY CAME IMMEDIATELY TO MY SIDE!!!!!!!! I was so impressed that she followed a command that we had barely been training on, in such a distracting environment.

Now why would I NOT be a proud mommy?