Hi, Barb,
I’m not sure where to begin in giving you an update about Hana. She is such a joy. Can you believe that she will be 2 1/2 years old in December?
When Dee Dee and I first met the litter that Hana was in, there was one little puppy that went from person to person to person, and Dee Dee remarked that “that one is going to need a planner.” We swear that that little puppy had to have been Hana.
I take Hana to one or another dog park almost every day, and she works whatever crowd is there thoroughly. She races like a cheetah towards a person, pirouettes at the last moment, and lands gently with her butt on their feet, looking up at them adorably with her beautiful brown eyes. The humans inevitably giggle and laugh and coo, petting her, until she decides to race off to the next person, as if to say “it’s been great, but I gotta go.”
Hana rarely jumps up on anything. She will put her front feet up but then wait for me to heft her rump up. I still have to lift her into the car, up onto my bed, etc. She can and has jumped up in all of those places when the spirit has moved her, but those occasions have been rare and far between.
Hana is one happy and confident dog. She races like the wind and is fun to watch interacting with other dogs, even great big ones. Her agility is amazing (I plan to enroll her in an agility class at some point). She sometimes taunts the big dogs at the dog park and then either outraces them or does incredibly fancy footwork to keep out of their reach when they run after her. At first I wanted to protect her, but then I realized that she actually enjoyed teasing the other dogs, engaging them in play, and ultimately outrunning them or engaging in enough fancy footwork to confuse them.
While Hana thinks nothing about working the crowd and cuddling up to strangers, the moment I start petting some other dog, she comes racing to me and insinuates herself between the other dog and me. I think she is a bit guarding (jealous?) about “her Dad,” but I’m not complaining. She is one total sweetheart.
Here is a picture of her from a few months ago.
-John