Monday, March 17, 2008

Minnie

We got Minnie from a shelter when she was just a few weeks old. We got her sister, Daisy, first, then a week later, the lady at the shelter contacted us and asked us to take Minnie too. It was a 2 hour trip to get the dogs, but well worth it. They're chihuahua/terrier mixes. Daisy takes after her dad (white chihuahua) and Minnie takes after her mom (terrier mix). When they were really small, they stayed indoors in a crate and we took them out often. We couldn't leave them unsupervised, even in the kennel outside, because they were small enough to squeeze through the chain link fence. After they grew a little, we would put them in the kennel when we were gone and in the crate indoors overnight (time inbetween, we spent with them).
One day, we were getting ready to leave and put them in the kennel and Stephen thought it would be funny to make them pretend to climb out, so he grabs them and moves their paws as if they're climbing. Just a few incidents of this and Minnie was doing it on her own. At the time, the kennel was 6 ft high, so we didn't worry about it too much, but as she grew and got stronger, she climbed higher.
This is the result. Minnie has now been doing this for about 2 years (the dogs are 3 years old) She climbs the 4 ft yard fence to come out and "guard" our front porch or to interact with people (us or my parents who live next door). When she feels threatened or gets hungry, she climbs back into the backyard. We have seen a huge dog go after her and her speed and ability to get into that yard quick is shocking. She has caused one dog that I know of to smash head-first into the fence because she got up it before the dog could stop running. LOL
Anyway, I love this video. I took it recently. Daisy is the one jumping. Daisy will try to grab Minnie's hind legs and pull her back into the yard. Sometimes she succeeds, most times, she doesn't! LOL
For this particular shot, we actually had to coax her out with a treat, thus you'll see the 2 younger kids (or rather, body parts of them! LOL).


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