I know lately my blog and a lot of my conversations seem to be “all Katie, all the time”, but when you share your life with an animal that is as sweet, beautiful and smart as Katie you just can’t help yourself. Plus she is playing a critical role in helping me to keep my sanity during this increasingly long wait for Natalie. Also, since Natalie will be an only child Katie and Newfie #2 (to be introduced at an unknown time in the future) are going to have to act as her siblings. It should be an interesting childhood for Natalie. I can just see Natalie now riding in a little red wagon being pulled by Katie or Newf2. We will all have a blast together. But I digress from the main story...The latest act of Katie’s brilliance occurred yesterday when she and I were hanging out in Natalie’s room. All of the sudden Katie let out a huge bark in the direction of one of the walls. Then she stood at attention staring intently at something. I looked around to try to figure out what caused her to bark (she only barks about once every other day, so there is usually a good reason for it). The only thing I could see that was unusual was the red dog pictured above that I had placed on the shelf that morning. I thought surely she didn’t possibly notice that new dog I put on a shelf about six feet off the floor, but I didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary. I took the red dog off the shelf and showed it to Katie. She took a step backwards and barked at it. So, sure enough, it was the red dog that she noticed as being different. Has she memorized every decoration and object in this house? I am just astounded by her observational skills. I showed Katie the dog and told her to “Check It”. This is a command we learned in puppy school that Katie came to understand as “even though I’m scared of this thing mama says check it, so that means it’s not going to hurt me”. After she gave it a good sniff she decided it would make a good toy, and I had to tell her that it was my toy. Sorry Charlie, go play with one of the thirty toys that are yours :-) Maybe it was a scheme she was plotting all along to get a new toy. If so, she didn’t outsmart me THIS time, but who knows what the future holds.
