A day at the lake

If I did the math right, Arie is now 11 weeks old. I weighed her the other day and she was around 30 lbs. Can't be sure of the accuracy of the scale, but it is close. Amazing how fast they grow. People think she is older than she really is. Today we took her to the lake for the first time. It was hot out so it was nice to give her a cool down in the water.

At first she was more interested in the drift wood and the bits of charred wood from people having camp fires than she was of the water.

Then Arie ventured in without me even having to coax her.

But, Arie had more fun playing on the beach than she did in the water.

In these above two pictures she is only taking a break. Big puppies get wore out fast.


Then back into the water for a little excitement. Again, the second time in I did not coax her at all. After this she wandered up and down the beach, on leash of course, to chew on every piece of drift wood she could find.

After doing that for awhile I tried to coax her back into the water so she could get more thoroughly wet. After the first two times in she really had no more interest of going in the water again. Enough was enough Arie seemed to indicate.

In the next series of pictures I am trying to get her to come back out. Then look at what she does.

The next thing I knew, she took a flying leap, not to go in the water but, for me to catch her! Arie was trying to jump onto me!

Well I stood up and she landed in the water anyway.

That was about all she wanted to do with the water after that.

Arie had much more fun on the beach. Here you can see she is a natural born digger! She would dig holes and get her self all excited. For good reason the Kangal Dog people have told about how important it is to make secure enclosures. Digging is something Kangals do very well they say and here is the proof! I knew it was coming that she would learn to use her feet and here she is already!

Ariella is a very smart puppy. And she is already showing signs of independence. Even a week or so ago. One day when her and I were tending the main flock of sheep she decided she wanted to go back to her two lambs. I watched to see how far she would go and sure enough she was going back. Once I was convinced that's what she was indeed doing a ran to catch up with her and brought her back to the main flock.

And tonight she showed me another trick. She knows how to open a gate with her nose. She did it once last week but, I wasn't certain. Tonight I saw her do it for sure. While I am doing chores and hauling buckets back and forth to the truck, rather than have her come for every trip I leave her in an enclosure and when I'm done she then gets to come with. She likes to follow me so a little thing like a gate is not going to stop her it seems. Now, this gate stays shut by itself and the only latch is a piece of wire but, it opens inward and she has to actually use her nose to get it to open. Smart little cookie she is!