Our Little Angel

Minga is being a total angel today! She didn't whine at all in the morning. This is her first day to be able to run free like a dog since her injury so you think she would be going crazy with excitement. But, she's not. I took her for a walk this morning and she behaved better than ever before! She didn't try to walk ahead of me and she didn't really react to other people or dogs when we passed them (that is, she didn't do her usual jumping up and down, panting and tugging at the leash to run after them). She kept her head high and didn't sniff along the ground like usual. Dogs behind fences were barking like crazy and she just kept walking. Oh, she made me so proud!

The only time she didn't keep walking was when we passed someone's Halloween display. There was a carved pumpkin with a hat and straw for hair, a scarecrow and a skeleton that looked like it was coming out of the ground. She was so scared of that display! I got her to calm down though and she gradually and cautiously walked over to it to sniff it. Then we moved on and the next time we passed it she just kept on walking. Way to go, Minga!

I think this is her Guam Day present to me. What is Guam day, you ask? It's a day Craig made up. It is the day before your birthday because it is your birthday in Guam then due to the international date line. So, you can celebrate for 2 days instead of just one! We love birthdays.

We have many nicknames for Minga. It's cute when our friends, parents and even the guys who are building our fence use one of her nicknames. Some of them are: Ming, Mingy, Mingert, Mingamos, Minga Bergman, Ming-Pong Ming-Pong, Mingtropolis, Minga Mae, Mingaroo, Mingarooski, Puppins and Slobberdonovich.

Minga is about 65 lbs now. Her black coat has always been shiny and gorgeous (our friends Mark & Beth recommended in the beginning that we feed her the healthy Nutro Natural Choice dog food and we have). We discovered that she loves ice cubes and the vet says they are okay for her teeth. What a cheap treat! She now runs to the kitchen whenever she hears me rummaging around in the ice bin.













I think her front legs look funny when she lays like this:



Minga is so tall when she stands on her hind legs now! She still jumps up on people (that's like her one bad habit, or puppy sin, as Craig calls it). That is a hard habit to break because she just gets so excited to see anyone and everyone that she jumps up to greet them (this is really bad when she's muddy!). The guy who repaired our washer said we should stick our knee out quickly when she jumps up and that will hit her chest and knock her back on her butt and eventually she won't jump up on anyone because she will get the point. It worked for him and his big dogs. The problem with that is that Minga no longer jumps up on me because I catch her before she does and tell her to "Stay down" and she does. (If strangers only knew in time to tell her to stay down they wouldn't be jumped on either.) So, that leaves Craig and everyone else to give her the knee. It's hard to get everyone else to do that though ("Hey Mailman, just stick your knee out and knock her down with it!") so who knows how we will break her of this bad habit.



The other day I felt like I was using "The Force" on Minga. She was out on the office balcony and I was sitting at my desk. She decided that she wanted to come back inside so she started jumping up on the sliding glass door and barking. I said, "No" and stared at her. She stopped for a minute but then continued. So, I stuck my arm out and pointed at her and gave her a mean look but didn't say anything. She immediately sat down and then quickly layed down and just looked at me. She stayed like that for awhile. Some time later she jumped up so I did the same thing and she responded in the same way. Even later that day I was able to just look at her with my arm outstretched and she obeyed. But, once I thought about how it was like I was using "The Force" I lost my powers because I kept laughing every time I tried it thereafter. I cracked up so hard and Minga just stood there staring at me. She could tell I wasn't serious anymore. It was fun though and I had a few good laughs.

Speaking of a few good laughs, I had a few when I looked at the many pictures we have of Minga where one eye is green like a zombie or robot something. It's always the right eye, so I think something's going on there and we should maybe fear for our lives because "it" will one day take over her and then us.



What a dirty zombie dog!





Oh, and another thing about Minga that makes me laugh...sometimes she will be whining about something (like wanting to come into the bathroom with me but she can't because I shut the door). She will whine for a bit outside the door and I will tell her, "No". Then she'll lie down and as she does so she lets out a really funny whiney sigh. It is such a funny sound and it makes me laugh every time!