Millie

Millie has been a good addition to our family.  she mostly sleeps when in the house and then has some varied behaviors when outside.  As I go about the work of the day of feeding the horse and doing barn chores she will go "on guard" and find a place to monitor what I'm doing while she is a pyranese or perhaps a german shepherd dog.  She finds jobs to do when she can.  For a very long time she had the daily job of carrying my plastic quart mug that I use to carry the horse's daily rations to him.  On the way back to the barn she would take the mug by the handle and head off to the barn to put it away for me.  Well.  As away as she wanted to anyhow.  But I'd reward her for her "work" and then we could go on our walk.  This is a short 15-20 minute loop through the woods on most day.  There are several brooks, streams and beaver ponds back there in the conservation land.  She becomes a labrador retriever as soon as we're on the walk.  Off she goes and chases rabbits, squirrels and basically anything else that moves.  We've had a few chases after deer and a few times when she strayed a bit farther than we liked.  And she ends up either back at our house or over at our neighbor's house to visit her and her dog, Fenway.  Millie is a very social dog...

Millie out on our daily walks through the conservation land next to our property

Strut Your Mutt fundraiser.  She loves this event!

We have been to this fundraiser with her now for the 2nd time.  Our boy raises money for the event to support the shelter where we got Millie.  This walk is on Mother's Beach in Kennebunk Maine.  We also returned this year to the shelter for their "Road Trip Home" reunion.  The ladies who fostered these puppies down in Georgia were there this year and I'm sure they enjoyed seeing Millie.  I enjoyed meeting them and thanking them in person for their generosity.  I also really enjoyed seeing one of the other puppies from the litter.  There were 6 of the 9 from that litter adopted on the same day and we saw all 6 when we adopted her.  They all looked so different.  So it was neat to see this puppy all grown up too.

See her brother from the same litter back at the AWS reunion.

Someone outgrew her bed....

We think she's all done growing now.  I think she's a good size.  Maybe around 70 lbs at this point.  We haven't checked for some time now.  But I think that's about right.

So this is where the legs go, right?  She loves to mimic.

She is an incredible mimic which has made training some of her tricks a little easier.  She will hold up a paw for "high 5" from across a room and if I hold out my other hand she will change the paw.  It's her desire to mimic that does that for us.  So naturally she needed to put her feet on the coffee table if we do.  

Check out the seagulls!  I love the ocean.

She travels really well, including camping with us.  I was so happy that she didn't turn into a very vocal dog at the campsite.  The only noise that I remember was when I stayed behind to "watch the animals" while my husband and son went off on their bikes to the pool to swim.  I maybe drowsed off in the reclining chair I sat down in.  I woke up to low growling by my side.  It was Millie.  I guess when I'm asleep she again goes on "guard duty" and noticed people walking by the campsite.  All the other times that people walked by she just wagged her tail.  But when I was asleep it was a different story for her.  We really got a gem of a mutt I think.

This foot makes an amazing head rest...thanks!

My father loves her too.  She knows it and cuddles right up to him when he's visiting.  I loved this head rest on his foot thing she was doing.  Too silly.

This is her favorite sleeping position.  Yes.  Really.  She sleeps "disassembled" like this every day.

She sleeps on her back a LOT.  And she will just stay there on her back and snore away.  I think it's because she gets hot.  We have radiant floor heat and due to this we've allowed her up on the futon to get in a cooler location.  Her fur is pretty thick.  Silly to see her all upside down and sleeping.  

A daily occurrence around here.  The walk. 

I guess it's been a good change for my health to go out walking with her every day.  Although there are days when I'd like to be in the truck and headed to work a bit earlier than later and my plans are altered by her wandering...most of the time it's just the best part of my day to be out walking and taking in the world.  I wouldn't be doing that unless it were for the benefit of the dog.  A good thing for me for sure.

I'm NOT a deer.  Nor am I chasing a deer.  Just a mutt sporting bells and orange.