We just got Maggie groomed this past Tuesday, so she's all set for the holidays. She looks so much like a puppy after she's been cut. It's really nice this week too, because she doesn't usually smell very great after coming home from day care, so we have the better part of a week before she'll pick that odor up again.

This picture of her cuddling Mr. Stinky is from today. She's started showing more interest in him lately and often curls up with him or uses him as a pillow.

Mags enjoyed her first Thanksgiving at Grandma Lela's. She seems to like it there because she doesn't have a "spot" and moves around more (relatively speaking, for Maggie). Our little non-food motivated girl though is starting to come out of her shell. At one point we were all in the kitchen with Maggie still in the family room. Kat took a peek out there and Maggie was up at the coffee table sniffing the dip. Another minute, and Maggie would have had her first taste of pumpkin dip and ginger snap cookies.

We took a few shots of Maggie eating. We still put her food near her for meal times, just a few steps away from her bed. She's also started doing this thing where she stands on her bed and licks her bowl clean after we move them back by her bed. And she licks her chops constantly after eating. Not that either of these are unusual, just everything she does amuses us...

It's been a couple of weeks, which is an eternity in Maggie-world.

First, the bed. She LOVES the new bed. She laid on it right away, but it took a couple of days for her to really figure it out and get comfy. She now zonks out on that bed like you wouldn't believe. We thought she was adorable while sleeping on her old pad. That was nothing compared to her on the new bed. Even on the bed every time we think that's as cute as it can get, she finds another pose to entertain us.

She's figured out that she can rest her head up on the bolster around the sides and back. When she's not doing that she likes hanging her head completely off of the front. Other times she just sprawls out and takes up the entire bed. I'm sure she never dreamed of having it so good.

We'd gotten her used to coming over to the couch and sitting by us. On her pad she always gave us "the look" that we interpreted as her wanting to come over here, but waiting to be called... so we'd call and she'd run over here; often before we even got more than one syllable out of our mouths.

With the bed, that's changed. Suddenly laying on the area rug by the couch is slumming it. If we call her like 10 times and really insist she'll come over here, while making sure we know that she doesn't really want to be here. And she can't get back to her bed fast enough when we tell her to go.

Maggie continues to go to doggie daycare or "school" as we call it. In general she's going twice a week now. It's ridiculous how much she loves school and has changed - at least while there. They have a web cam so I can occasionally check in on her. The first few weeks, I generally would only see the back of Maggie's head, sitting in the corner in front of the web cam. Now, she's prancing around, sniffing all the dogs, her tail way up high and wagging. She's so happy.

The people working there are awesome, totally love Maggie and have noticed a huge change in her as well. They say she plays with the dogs outside now (I can't see that on the web cam). One of the days that she goes, her pal George is there. George is very nice to Maggie and I think showed her the ropes. Often when I check-in on the web cam George is lying down next to Mags. On one occasion I'd see George go play with some other dogs, check back in and sniff Mags, go play some more and then come lay down next to her.

One of the best parts for us is that Maggie now will get excited when she sees us. When we go to pick her up, she can see us in the window and will start running around and jumping up on the gate. That's right - Maggie, jumping. We about died the first time we saw it. She even jumped over some other dogs to make sure everyone knew it was her turn to leave and that her mom and dad were there to pick her up.

She's a total spaz when we walk out of there and take her for a quick walk before getting in the car. Suddenly she's Speed Racer and can't walk fast enough. She also appears drunk as she can't walk anywhere close to a straight line. We walk her now before getting in the car because, to our knowledge, she has yet to "get busy" while at school. At first we didn't do this, but we got a few blocks away and Maggie started whining. Yep - whining. That's the one and only time she's ever done that. So we immediately pulled over, she went, and now that's part of the standard operating procedure.

I think the other change around here is that we're bringing Maggie in on the leash now from her walks. Normally we'd take her off leash in the yard, she'd run up on the deck, and then we'd tell her to "go to her spot". The problem with that was that Maggie was a genius about going to her spot very quickly when it was first thing in the morning (breakfast was about to be served) or her after-work walk (dinner was about to be served). The other times (leaving for work and the last walk of the night before bed) Maggie would act like she had no clue what her spot was and frankly often looked like she didn't know who we were or wasn't convinced that this was her house (seriously, at bedtime she'd always sniff the door frame and look all around like it was her first time here).

So, we've started keeping her on the leash and walking her in the house. That's easier said than done, but after about a week and a half of that, it seems to be paying dividends. Last night was the first night that she walked in at bedtime on the leash willingly. Previous nights I had to eventually pull her in, but we think (hope) she's getting it.

Speaking of nighttime walks, it's about time for hers tonight - although from the looks of it she's dreaming (her little paws are going) in her bed.

Sleep tight . . .

Maggie's first weeks with us included the purchase of lots of items . . . some of which were never used, briefly used, or rarely used. Count a big, fluffy bed among the items that were briefly used.

When we first adopted Maggie she never moved unless we picked her up and carried her . . . except the seventh night she was with us. That day I had purchased a big, comfy, fluffy pillow bed for Maggie. When it was time for bed we laid her on her new bed and documented the moment with a photo - - you can see from the picture that she looks thrilled ;-) At 1 a.m. the dog that never moved got up and walked across the room to lay down in front of her crate.

That story isn't a big deal for a normal dog, but Maggie was (and in some ways still is) a shell of a dog. It took amazing courage for her to get up and walk across the room - - and was proof to us that she really, really didn't like that bed.

I returned that bed the next day, but her response to it left us in a pickle. We knew we needed to make Maggie comfortable, but how? We decided to start with a simple pad and work our way up (thus, the famous brown crate mats layered with her towels in every photo to date). In the beginning Maggie seemed to really love the crate pads, but over time they lost their allure - - she has become a dog used to living the good life and we could tell she was ready for something more.

Thanks to a doggie catalog that arrived in our mailbox, Steve found a couch / bed that looked perfect for Maggie. Our purchase arrived today and it's now the newest piece of "furniture" in our family room. We put a brown towel on it (that's the Maggie universal sign for "lay here") and she jumped right on. She's still adjusting, but we think she's happy with her new couch - - we just want her to be happy!!