Jessica at 8 wks 4 days

[written 5-31-16]

[As of today Jessica is eight weeks and four days old]

Yesterday Ben finally had enough of Jessica and began growling at her when she went after him.  Duffy was more demonstrative and ran at her snarling:  In each case Jessica would back up; although when Duffy chased her, she got under the hall tree.  But Jessica is learning.  After being out back for a while this morning, all three dogs were thirsty by the time we got upstairs.  Duffy went to the water first.  Jessica moved up along side him and stuck her head in the water.  Duffy emitted a soft "grrrr."  Jessica backed up several feet, sat down, and waited until Duffy was done.  Ben wasn't about to get involved in that and waited until they were both done.

I had her in my lap last night and she was going after my fingers as usual.  I rolled her on her back and began rubbing her stomach.  She liked that a lot, but she wasn't done chewing on my fingers which she could not reach without interfering with the belly-rub; so she chewed the air, back and forth, chew, chew, chew, pawing the air at the same time with all four paws.  This went on for several minutes.  Eventually her need to chew something overcame the joy of the belly-rub so she rolled over and I set her down and she grabbed up a toy bear.

Later she wanted back in my lap so I immediately immediately began rubbing her belly.  I remembered that my son had recommended singing to her so I decided to give that a try.  Sure enough, she watched me with fascination and with no thought of my fingers.  By the time I was into my third song she had fallen asleep.

When I'm in my lounge chair, she likes to get underneath the part that comes out as a leg rest.  She's done that so often I lean forward to see if she's there before bringing the leg rest back against the chair, but earlier today I had Duffy in my lap and I put my feet along side the leg rest to look down for Jessica and must have stepped on her because she squealed.   I scooped her up, kissed her on the head several times, told her I was sorry four or five times, and she turned then and licked my cheek.

Lawrence