Happy 5th Birthday, Elka! And many more!

Our Elka V is now 5! I don't know how that happened. It seems like it can't be all that long ago she was an itty bitty puppy, peeing on the floor and chewing on the kitchen wall and falling asleep on our laps in a warm bundle of puppy brownies. Well okay, I guess she still does the lap bit.

Wordless Wednesday June 19 2013

Letting Elka just be a dog

There are times I think about all of the expectations that we have for Elka, and the expectations that dogs carry while trying to live in our society, and it's kind of overwhelming, really. I know that for me, sometimes  it's hard enough to remember all the social rules; dogs are really very smart, to do as well as they do.

There are times, though, I just have to let her be a dog. At the park especially, as I talked about in my recent sniffing post. Sniffing is important to dogs; their olfactory sense is just so strong as to be incomprehensible to me. You know what else is kind of a dog thing? Getting dirty.

Elka and her puddle, round 2 (now with more splashing!)

A slightly longer video this time, and one that's certainly more representative of how Elka typically plays in her puddle!

She runs towards me at the end there because there's a pavilion right next to the puddle, with public restrooms, and a jogger had just emerged from one of them.

Elka and her puddle (our first YouTube video!)

I got a super-short video of Elka playing in her puddle at the park. You can also view it on our YouTube channel (which only has the one video so far): Elka and her puddle

Really, I thought that she would be more into it. Normally, she's a bit more prancey and splashy. Maybe she got camera shy?