What an Awesome Puppy

Well, another whirlwind week has come and gone (maybe two). I got to go to Florida for work, so for the first three days this week, Mariko was home practicing being in her kennel. Last week was incredibly busy; but she was with me practicing her skills.

One of these skills is that she thinks, if she has something in her mouth, it's okay to pet her, even thought she's working. This is something we are working on, but she makes me laugh with this thought process.

When she realizes that she is not going to get her way, back under my desk she goes:

 

Last week was packed with meetings again, so Thursday evening when we are at work until about 8 p.m., we decided to sneak away and grab a sandwich and enjoy an hour of down time:

Oh my gosh, this puppy does love her cradle and massage. 

The end of a very busy week, we both had an opportunity to sit and visit with a fellow co-worker. I'm not sure if Mariko understood that it was about time to go home, or that it wasn't a formal business meeting, but she took the opportunity to enjoy a foot pillow after a very LONG week:

 

We are back to work and Mariko is on her best behavior again.

Our Katie Has Moved to Connecticut

Well, the day we have been talking about for four years happened. Katie moved to Connecticut to attend Sacred Heart University in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program. There were a lot of tears at our house, along with a lot of hustle and bustle to get her out the door. Mariko seemed to roll with everything that was happening (and kept growing in the process).

Sporting her new paracord collar.

Being an excellent puppy at Kneaders for lunch

Showing Katie how much she has grown in the last two weeks

Such a beautiful, well-behaved dog

Being a princess for the night

This is what Mariko looks like after two hours of obedience training

She is doing very well. Every place we go people continue to comment about what a great dog she is, a lot of people will say, I have a dog that is ___ months old and there is no way it would behave like this. I would say for an almost nine month old puppy, that you are a VERY awesome dog Mariko!

Roller Coaster Week

Well, it has been a roller coaster week at our house. Katie left for graduate school in Connecticut yesterday, so we have been having a lot of tears and soaking up as much of the puppy as we can.

Katie not wanting to let go of Mariko

Because Katie was leaving, I've taken some more time off work (yes, I do work, usually). So Mariko has been enjoying a lot of relax time.

Practicing under (I think playing with Bailey as well, ha ha )

Not working is exhausting

She misses Katie :-(

Being good

We are back to work today and she's doing VERY well. I had to go into a room and update about 24 computers. I put her in a down(stay) at the front of the room while I walked around and made sure they were all current and up-to-date with software, and there she stayed.

Mariko, you are always an awesome puppy.

Such a Water Dog

I think the pictures truly say everything :-)

Hmmm what's going on here?

I wonder if there's room for me?

Well, if I can't have a bath, I'll watch the neighbor kids play.

We had a great weekend!

First Big Sam's Club Shopping Trip

We took Mariko to Sam's Club on Saturday (I NEVER go to crazy Sam's Club on Saturday). We decided since we needed to go for Katie's going away party anyway, that we should go ahead and see how Mariko handled the insanity. The end result: she did better than we did.

Siting and waiting like a good girl.

Blendtec salesman decided we could have a blender if he could have Mariko.

Quietly taking it all in.

She did very well and surprisingly no one asked if they could "pet my dog." It was a great experience.

What Is She Thinking

Not sure of Mariko's new thought process, but since we returned from a couple weeks of vacation, Mariko has decided to sleep under my desk in the corner that contains all the "spaghetti" wiring. I even washed her little bed and put it in a "non-cluttered" space under my desk, but for some reason, this is the new "sweet" spot.

Maybe I should try and find some hooks that I can attach to the desk and get everything out of the way for her? What a goof!