This is Pippi. If you watched the videos below then you have seen her. We adopted her from a shelter about 4 months ago. She has adjusted quite nicely and really is such a good little dog.
I love her. She is my little piece of innocence.
I love to watch her personality unfold. She is Full of playful wonder and so wide-eyed, yet has the 'tude (attitude) that comes spilling out when necessary.
In the beginning, she had a little separation anxiety, but has pretty much risen above that...pretty much ;). We recently started unleashed training at the dog park, though I'd hardly call it training, because she did wonderful the first time off the leash. We worried she would run away, but she keeps close to mommy making sure I don't go anywhere. A contributing factor is most likely since she was a shelter dog and found abandoned.
When we take her to the park leashed, she went from cute, bouncy ball of fur, to a vicious, snappy dog -- barking at any dog that passed her. Secretly mommy smiles at her dominant spunkiness ;) but we soon realized it was her insecurity and perhaps jealousy? She too wanted to be free and able to run around the park thinking, "Why mommy and daddy? Why must you have me on this string". I think part of the reason she barked the way she did was also out of protectiveness. At the park I use a manual wheelchair and hold the leash in front of me as if Pippi was walking...me...?
But, now we let her run freely and I love nothing better than to watch her run. She is a master socialite and HAS to say "hi" to EVERY person she passes. She really loves people, ESPECIALLY children, and now that she doesn't need a leash at the park, she looooves dogs and even moreso the dogs that will race with her.
She is curious and unabashful. At the park she will run up to any herd of dogs and try to recruit them to run with her. She thinks she is tough, but when she has taken on too much -- she finds mom and hides beneath her wheelchair.
She is a RUNNER!! She loves it and she is so darn fast! I don't know, maybe it is me being one of those braggy moms, but she can outrun most of those dogs.
I love watching her run, because she is never happier when she is running against the wind. She has a bouncy saunter about her and we have named some of her moves like, 'Pippi Pounce' and 'Pippi Prowl'.
She will be running along at the park, see a potential challenger, get down low to the ground, do the army crawl and then leap up to surprise her prey (other dogs) as she bolts towards them only to abruptly stop to give them a lick or a sniff.
It is simply endearing, I must say -- mostly because of the innocence and the way she thinks she invisible to her "prey". Reminds me of a child. I've been drawing little cartoons of Pippi's moves and perhaps I will finish them one day and post them here.
Oh, and in case you were wondering -- she did not eat the bun. She actually has pretty good control. If I put food out in front of her and tell her "no", she will not touch it. She just looks at it out of the corner of her eye as if she is saying, "I'm not looking, I'm not looking". She falters every once in awhile and tries, but don't we all :D?
I've been a little MIA here lately, but I think my next set of posts will be expositional. Things like: My diagnosis journey, The first HIBM patient I ever met, What is an orphan disease, How did I meet ARM and How did I get involved with them?