Last weekend, Zara had a reunion with her littermates Lily and Benny as well as her mother, Caiya! Lily and Zara have had playdates before, but it had been a few months since we’d seen her because of Zara’s various illnesses and the fact that Lily broke her toe and was in a cast for four weeks. Brooke and Phil, Lily’s owners, invited us to their place and invited our breeders Jane and Mike to bring Benny as well (he was blue collar boy from their litter). Caiya, their mother, also came along! It was quite fun to watch four vizslas run around for several hours. One thing that surprised us was how small Caiya was in comparison to her babies. She is a petite female and weighs only 40 lbs but I remember her being a lot bigger when we last saw her. Then again, Zara was only 12 lbs. in comparison. Caiya is only an inch or so taller than Zara now. I think Zara will end up being bigger than her because she is already 40 lbs. and only 6.5 months.
Lily and Zara spent a lot of time playing together and Benny joined them as well. Caiya, however, was more interested in hunting things in the yard and looking for food. She is such a happy girl, though – I don’t think her tail stopped wagging the whole time!
In the videos, Zara has the red collar, Lily has a brown leather collar, Benny’s is blue and Caiya’s is pinkish-orange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGXP6ugUA04&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Azty6Kbnk8&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxfIvr0al4Y&feature=youtu.be
Before her playdate on Sunday afternoon, I took Zara to watch the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in DC. My sister was running the race. This will be one of many races that Zara attends since both of her parents are runners! She’s going to help us get faster once we can start running with her in a couple of months.
Overall, she was a pretty good spectator at the race, although she was fascinated by all the smells and people. I had her on the Ruffwear running leash that hooks around my waist which is easier when standing in a crowd. Several people came up to us to admire her and she was all too happy to give them kisses.
Zara congratulates Allison for finishing the race. (Photo by Chris Lacey)
Hanging out in the finish area (Photo by Chris Lacey)
Two weekends ago (I’m delayed in posting this), Chris and I attended an Indian wedding for our friends in nearby Potomac, Maryland. It was a weekend-long affair, so we left Zara in the care of Jax and his parents for the weekend. This was Zara’s first time away from us but I wasn’t very worried because she loves Jax and Erin and Dave are very capable dog parents. I did miss her, though, especially because Chris would say “Where’s the puppy?” every couple hours the whole weekend. I’m not going to lie, though, it was nice to have a weekend away and be able to sleep in without a puppy hogging the covers.
Jax and Zara played hard all weekend it sounds like they had a good time together. As a bonus, Erin and Dave retrained Zara to sleep through the night in her crate! Over the past month or two, Zara would go into her crate around 10:30pm when we went to sleep. She’s really good about it most nights – all we have to say is “bedtime” and she hops off our bed and goes straight into the crate. However, she would wake up around 4am and whine to get in our bed. I’d get up and let her in. Lately, though, it was getting progressively earlier and earlier…3am, 1am, etc. It wasn’t a huge deal but since she’s getting bigger, she’s taking up more space in the bed and when she lays on top of the covers, someone usually ends up with hardly any covers (usually Chris, since I tend to steal covers in the middle of the night ;)
Anyway, Erin and Dave made Zara sleep in her crate the whole night and didn’t let her out even when she whined. As a result, she’s been sleeping in her crate all night for the past two weeks!
Chris and I before the wedding ceremony. (Photo by Rajiv Weeraratne)
