More Puppy Pictures

We've had Bella for over 3 weeks now, and she's doing great. We started her in obedience training yesterday (using the Click system, which really seems to work), and she is picking up commands quickly. It seems we have a smart dog on our hands, so we'll have to keep her busy and challenged!

Here are some more pictures of our pretty Bella. She loves to "herd" her balls and get two of them in her mouth at the same time. She'll play with them for hours by herself, batting the balls around with her paws. It's super cute. This pink rubber mesh ball is perfect, because she can wrap it around her jaw and get another ball on top.

It also works as a great chew toy.

Here's Russ bonding with his girl.

And here's a video of her playing fetch in our apartment.

Flyers vs. Capitals

Rachel and I went to our first NHL hockey game this week, with our friends Pieter and Carolina. The Flyers were up against the Washington Capitals, whose best player is the evil Russian, Ovechkin. It was clear that he is evil because he is really good, he had by far the best 1-on-1 skills and had mutiple shots, 1 goal, and 1 assist. I think he may work for the soviet KGB.

Having only been to womens college hockey before, I was blown away by how fast and good the players were. It really makes me think that hockey is probably the most physically and technically challenging of sports, what with the hitting, passing, and ice. Additionally, we lucked into getting tickets in the "all you can eat section". Pieter and I proceeded to have a small contest as to who could consume the most hot dogs, nachos, ice cream, and popcorn. He won. Afterwards, we decided that they should introduce a section right near the "all you can eat" called the "all you should eat" section, to cut down on the stomache aches. All was made good, however, once we got into true hockey spirit with some Labats Blue and Mohlson Canadian.

We had to rush home on the train to our puppy, which was breaking our hearts by being alone in her kennel. She expressed regret that she was unable to compete in the "all you can eat" contest.

The Fresh Princess of Bel Air

Well, we finally took the plunge...and adopted a puppy! Her official "show dog" name is The Fresh Princess of Bel Air, because, just like Will Smith, she's originally from West Philly. But we're calling her Bella. True to her nickname, she's a beautiful little dog. She's about 4 months old, a German shephard/border collie mix (we think), and very sweet. It could just be a coincidence, but we think we've trained her to sit already. (Seriously, she's sat on command like 5 times!) We adopted her from a local non-profit shelter, the Morris Animal Rescue, who have been great. She was picked up as a stray about a week ago.

Here she is about to jump on the couch:

And her she is being a crazy puppy. This is what we saw running at us for most of the afternoon!

By the end of the night, she was completely tuckered out.

I'm sure we will experience a revival in blog postings with our new abudance of cute puppy pictures. Watch for many new Bella pics to come!