Tag: Nala

The wife picked Nala up at the kennel while I was off doing my volunteer thing at the aquarium this morning. Apparently Nala had a good time at the kennel and seems to have barked herself hoarse. All that comes out now is a raspy bark. Very unusual because at home, Nala’s not really a barker. Even at the dog park she hardly ever barks. About the only time she will bark at home is when she spots a squirrel, bird or some other dog roaming through the back yard. We’ve been trying to keep her quiet so she can rest her vocal cords and recover. It’s kind of tough because she still wants to bark at whatever she happens to see in the back yard.
Hopefully she recovers her bark soon. She’s sounding kind of pathetic right now.

Lately Nala’s taken on the role of Fierce House Guardian, faithfully alerting us to all kinds of potential intruders – squirrels, birds, the occasional neighbourhood dog that’s escaped from its’ house and wanders through our yard. That kind of thing. She doe sthe job very effectively, and stands guard at the back door looking out for the little menaces.
First it starts with a huffing noise, which might turn into growling if she thinks she sees something. If she actually sees something (usually a squirrel), then she lets out a surprisingly deep bark or two.
A couple of times the last few weeks some of the neighbours’ dogs have become escape artists, and for some reason they always end up wandering through our back yard. Once Nala spots them, she lets out a bunch of growls and barks, but when they come close she’s all about playing and can’t wait to get out there to join them.
Then there are the stray dogs who come out of the woods every now and then. She definitely doesn’t like those intruder dogs, so they always get the fierce ‘Go away’ growls and barks.
So now we can rest safely at night knowing that Nala will keep us safe from the squirrels and birds. People on the other hand, she’d probably open the door for if she could.

Nala turns 1 year old today! Yay! Since we’re not at home, she can’t celebrate with her other dog buddies at the park today, but we’ll probably take her out tomorrow so she can have a good romp. In the meantime, it’s been lots of fetch and running around at the in-laws place today, which I think she likes just as much.

Going for walks can be a trip now that it’s getting warmer. Being a black dog, staying out in the sun can be a bit of a problem heat wise. But she’s figured out that the darker shady areas are nice and cool to walk in. So when we’re out for walks, she makes beelines for the nearest shady area and slows down her walking. When she’s back out in the sun, her pace picks up towards the next shady spot she can see. It goes back and forth like this until the walk is done. Once we get within sight of our apartment building, the pace really picks up and if she’s got the energy left, sometimes we’ll break out into a run. And then back upstairs into a cool air-conditioned apartment and a big long slurpy drippy drink of water.

This little puppy of ours is sprouting like a weed. She’ll be 4 months in a less than 2 weeks, and at her last vet visit she weighed in at 33 pounds. Nala gets a kick out of visiting the vet. Heck, with all those people wanting to pet her, I wouldn’t mind either if I was a dog. More booster shots and her rabies vaccine yesterday and she didn’t even notice the needles. The bordetella vaccine she got intranasally made her stop and pause for a bit though.

She’s definitely a lot taller now. Training her is getting to be a bit of a challenge. She seems to be getting to that age where she wants to try to rearrange the pecking order and challenge our rank above her. She’s been testing us a lot more, so lately we’ve had to be a lot more stern when giving her commands. I’ll be glad when we can get her into some obedience classes and get a little bit of professional help and advice with training.