Isn't she cute?

isn't she cute!?  Isn't she an angel? That sweet little face?

And see how big she is getting? She's huge!

She's also reached that 'difficult' age, you know all teenager-y. We are calling her Kai The Destroyer.

This is just a small portion of everything she got into and chewed up the other day. Exhausted after a long day of evil-deed-doing she finally fell asleep.  The Big Man and I just stood over her and shook our heads. We've been dreading this phase but its here.

Our solution to this phase (and she's really on par for her development) is to be relentless in our discipline and to work all the wiggles out of her. Last week it was so hot we all spent a lot of time inside during the day - which was a mistake. She had too much energy and nothing to do with it. So we've implemented a new schedule to run all the naughtiness out of her system either by taking her for long swims in the pond or playing fetch with the big dogs a couple times a day.

We also bought a big bag of chews and some more toys for her.  She's one of those "smart" dogs that needs a lot of problems to solve - so we are doing things like giving her a mostly empty peanut butter jar to clean out. She had to figure out how to use her paws to hold it to get the peanut butter. This kept her busy for a while.

Dog#1 was in this phase for about 3 days. Lucky, who came to us in the middle of his naughty phase, required more discipline - and a lot of running. The funniest thing those two nerdnicks did in their naughty phase was one cold day. I was trying to soften some butter to make cookies and left it on the counter. When I came back into the kitchen each of the big dogs had a stick of butter hanging out of their mouth like a big ol' cigar. The "what? this wasnt for us?" look was priceless but they came to understand that we don't "counter surf" and we stay on our Place in the kitchen.

We believe that a tired dog is a good dog. So we bought a lot of tennis balls (the dog kind) and are spending a lot of time running around. Kai doesn't understand the concept of fetch, but she likes that everyone runs. Unfortunately for Titan, Kai likes to imagine he is a big polar bear and its her job to bring him down. He's patient with her - to a point. Then she's just The World's Most Annoying Little Sister and he puts her in her place.

We figure Kai will be in her rambunctious phase for a couple months. It might seem like a long, long time for one of us. Probably me. Unfortunately for her she doesn't know her momma is just as stubborn as she is!

Happy Thursday everyone! Are you getting your wiggles out?