Tara is doing well. She is bringing up the rear of the litter and weighing in at 30 pounds. As I type, she is playing with her newspaper chew toy right next to Kiko, so as to tantalize him and try to get him to play with her. Too cute! Here are a few things Tara is into this week (besides poop eating, which of course continues to top the list):

1. Tara has this very adorable little grunt that she does. She’s not big on licking your face, but sometimes when she “noses” us or is in a really good mood she does this very cute little grunt. Kind of like a baby pot belly pig, it’s just really fun to hear!

2. Tara gets the hiccups. a lot. I’ve never known a dog to hiccup before, but Tara gets the hiccups several times each week. I don’t think she is eating too fast or anything like that (we use the ‘eat better’ bowl and also her treat ball for meals). She just gets the hiccups fairly often.

3. She lost at least two baby teeth last week. I happened to see one hanging sideways by a thread in her mouth one night, and the next morning two were gone. I did not find them, but I can see the new teeth starting to come through the surface.

4. Tara discovered the upstairs and the basement this week. The upstairs is exciting because my cat, Lilith, lives up there most of the time. Although Lilith is not very friendly to dogs, Tara is still intrigued. And the basement is even more exciting because the kitty litter boxes are down there . . . and of course, cat poop! She knows she’s not supposed to go up or downstairs so she’s been taking ninja lessons to effectively tip toe on the stairs without anybody noticing. We’ve creatively blocked both entranceways to upstairs and basement now, and so sometimes she sits at the gate and stares longingly up or down the stairs and whines to let me know that I have blocked one of her favorite pasttimes.

5. When Tara wants to get off of the couch, lounger, or chair, instead of walking or jumping off she lays down and slides her body off of the chair in a snake-like fashion. It is hysterical. We don’t know why she does this, but I think maybe sometimes she is trying to decide whether she really wants to leave or not and then takes her sweet time deciding while she slowly rolls off the place she’s sitting.