Hopeful on her First Birthday
April 30, 2021

Hopeful no longer does any HEARTing during her morning playtimes.  Her prey drive came in strongly and she is too busy retrieving to take time to HEART (Hold, Elevate and Roll with Toy).  She still HEARTs a lot in the house, though.

She has two playtimes each morning.  During the first one she is alone and spends the entire fifteen-minute period enthusiastically retrieving her favorite toy, a Kong-on-a-Rope.  She still insists on carrying it by the end of the rope so that she can swing the Kong. (See the 26-week photos for her Kong antics, link below).

Her mother, GloryToo, has her playtime about an hour later, so Hopeful has plenty of time to rest up. During this playtime she retrieves a ball like her mother does.  She can’t swing it very well, so she throws her head back and forth to “kill” it as she carries it.  It’s fun to watch. 

I find genetics extremely fascinating.  For example, both Hopeful’s parents avoid water like the plague.  I frequently laugh at Cantor as he drops his ball into the sheep pool in order to take a drink, and it floats to the center.  He refuses to get into the pool to get it but circles and circles and circles, hoping it will float within reach, before finally turning a pleading face to me, asking me to come get it.  GloryToo seldom even drinks from the pool, preferring to wait until we head to the house where she can drink from one of the five-gallon buckets in the scattered in the various yards.

As for Hopeful, you can’t keep her out of the pool.  She loves to splash in it – and really loves to drop her toy in it and have to dive to retrieve it.  I have to fill the pool every few days just because of her.  Several others of my dogs jump into the pool to cool off, but none thrash around in it enough to throw much water out.

to Hopeful at 26 weeks
to Hopeful’s page
to the SS litter page