And now we have two dogs

Instead of a dog and a puppy, I mean. Rosie is now 28 pounds. She is not quite five months old, so she is still very much a puppy, but just look at her! She looks like a dog now--a skinny, sleek dog. There is nothing round about her anymore.

I was out of town on Tuesday, so Doug took her to obedience class, where they were practicing "drop it." She is so treat-obsessed that she learns immediately. Drop that? If I drop that I get a treat? OK, I'll drop it.  Sometimes she'd drop whatever it was she was supposed to drop before she even got the command.

It also means that if you don't have a treat, good luck. I will have to carry liver bits around in my pockets for the rest of my life.

Next week is her final class--a graduate! Our first! And then on Saturday we start leash training, and not a moment too soon. She has discovered rabbits (she is, after all, part harrier, a dog bred to hunt hares) and squirrels, and she pulls so hard, pushing with her back legs, trying to get up a head of steam, only my poor abused hand wrapped in the leather leash keeping her from bolting off.  Treats don't work very well in that circumstance, so I am curious how the training will go.

Riley will take the training, too, even though he is pretty good on the leash by now, being 10 years old and all. But what the heck--maybe we can pick up some tricks to keep him from lunging at bicycles and rollerbladers. He doesn't lunge all the time anymore, but he still does whenever the spirit moves him.

Meanwhile, summer is trundling right along. We took the dogs to the coffee shop Saturday morning and got caught in the rain going home, and took them again this morning and got sunburned. This weekend I planted a clematis, we replaced an azalea that had died, we mowed the lawn, we deadheaded the geraniums, we grilled burgers, we entertained friends, we threw the tennis ball 1,000 times for Rosie, we sat outside and read, we sat on the back porch and read, we sat on the front porch and read.

It is almost midsummer. I have vowed to unfriend on Facebook the first person who, that day, notes as a status update that the days are now getting shorter. But I do wonder: Why doesn't winter trundle along at the same brisk pace as summer?