Peeper! aka "Poor Penny"

I can't believe it's been 5 years already?! When the heck did all that time pass??

Why haven't I posted about her birthday before?! Oops! I guess, technically I missed it this time too, her birthday was actually yesterday, the 14th of April, but close enough!

Penny - 5 years old

There is a running joke in my family about "Poor Penny" because she doesn't do sports, and I must not love her. For the record, she doesn't do agility because she has bad depth perception and will crash bars at 6" which is really scary when you're tiny.

She's very different from the boys. WAY more independent. Barky too. REALLY does not care what I think. I did "everything right" with her. Puppy kindergarten, basic obedience classes, puppy agility. Lots of socialization outings. Still not a lot of desire to please. Very much a "love the one you're with" attitude.

Training isn't made any easier by the fact that she's tiny. Can't get in a lot of food reps before you're done since the dog is full.

Or dropped crumbs/cookies on the floor in those group classes. I think she's still received MORE reinforcement off the floors in all those classes than she has from me. Hard to block the dog from getting the wrong reinforcement without kicking the tiny Chi puppy in the head so she's VERY WELL patterned to vacuum the floor of errant cookies that dog!

Tiny baby Penny

Despite everything, she's a sweet little dog. So friendly. Love, love, loves the people. Maybe lacking a little in the impulse control department, but at 5 lbs it's a pretty manageable problem.

Happy Birthday Teensy-tiny!

We went down to the lake for her birthday on the weekend. They haven't brought the water up yet, so the dogs were zooming around on the beach like crazy.