Play with me!

Stella is a typical puppy who loves to play.  These past few weeks there has been a noticable change in the playing level between her and Riley.  Previously Riley has been willing to tug with her (and self handicaps to keep the game fun for her) but they haven't really played hard.  That was mainly about them having two different play styles.  Riley is a body slamming play hard style typical of a lab and Stella is more about zoom, zoom chasing play.  Now they seem to have worked out a happy medium and do lots of mouth sparring, with some wrestling and lots more zooming around.  Their body language is wonderful with lots of play bows, pauses, look-aways etc.  When they are outside they play bow,  Stella zooms,  Riley chases and eventually blocks her, she freezes and sometimes a mini wrestle and then they start back to the beginning.  My yard is looking a little worse for wear but it is fabulous to see them having fun.

Last night was again another learning lesson for Stella.  When she came inside from a pee she proceeded to pounce on Riley while he was soundly sleeping.  He reacted by grabbing her muzzle. It was an appropriate response but she was scared and surpised. Not a mark on her but she avoided him for the rest of the evening and has been very subdued in her approaches to him today.  He has been super tolerant of her grabbing his jowls and bugging him endlessly but I did figure that eventually he might teach her this lesson.  She will work through it and they will be fine but perhaps this will teach her to let sleeping dogs lie and to respect his boundaries a bit more.

Stella also cracks me up by her antics trying to get Fred to play with her.  Fred (cat) has gotten pretty comfortable with having her around so now hangs out with us quite a bit more.  She play bows to him and does lots of other doggie play language but it obvious by the look of disdain on Fred's face that he isn't interested.

We have had some gorgeous sunny cold weather this past week and have enjoyed some wonderful walks.  Here are a few pics from yesterday.  Stella looks so serious in her pictures which is odd to me because that doesn't really reflect her personality.