I'm happy to report that Gimme is doing so much better with crating and even allows me to be a few feet away in the house. In fact I can leave the room to get something and return without her fussing. When she does fuss, its short lived and relatively low intensity. 
She has developed a somewhat alarming tendency to boss at her Auntie Meaggi and Uncle Michael and I'm working on getting them to ignore her, we call it "lead by example." Mostly this happens when she has something special in her crate and they ware watching her, so she bark, bark, barks at them. Which I interpret as "Nanner nanner, I've got ---- and you don't." I suspect her bossy forward nature will get her in trouble from time to time.
She keeps me on my hands and knees with my butt in the air a good part of the time. She is the funniest puppy I ever remember having. She loves to rip snort around in the house, skidding around the corners and throwing in a tumbling act here and there. Then she stops and looks back at me to make sure I was appropriately amused. So, in addition to all her other wonderful qualities - she has a sense of humor.
Gimme stopped traffic on Monday with her beauty and joy d'vive... People were stopping and pointing at how cute she was walking along with me. One family actually pulled their car over and got out to come and meet the cutest puppy on the planet... And this has happened twice more since then. She is really a darling and everyone says so -- even without me prompting.
Part of what makes her so darn cute is that she walks so nice on a leash. Because I take her to work and go out and walk her every 90 minutes or so, she is getting a lot of time on leash and is pretty good. It only took her one day to learn not to walk between my legs. Wish I could get a picture, she just trots along beside me with her head up so proud of herself - that's the thing that seems to stop traffic. It's DAMN cute.
Took Michael to Rally class Monday night and naturally had to take Gimme in the building first (and again afterward). Everyone thinks she is too cute for words. And they were all going on and on about her conformation and her natural tuck sits. No one had ever seen a puppy that did a tuck sit naturally. She wasn't sure what to make of all the barking dogs as we got out of the car (its at a boarding kennel). Then when we got in the building, she wasn't too sure about the strange dogs. One Weim they had there is a real sweetie with puppies and even got on her belly and crawled to try to entice her to come close. Gimme just did a couple play feints from a distance. When we went back in after class, she paid no attention to all the barking kennel dogs. She thinks Chip is wonderful cuz he has so much cheese to share. And Karin was great cuz she had these BBQd hot dog bits to share. Even when she's not perfectly enamored with something the first time around, she is always much better the second time. She has the best bounce back I've ever seen, which I attribute to all the early life experiences Tana planned for these pups. They just think new stuff is a normal daily occurrence.
Gimme likes attention, but really doesn't want to be handed to people. She'll put up with it for about a minute, then wants to come back to me, though will stay if I'm right there with a hand on her. She stayed in Laurie's lap for quite a while that way. That may change when she is more confident that I'll never abandon her, then she may be more comfortable staying with others. Of course, when she is larger, she won't really be handed off, per se.
She got her first and second elevator rides and didn't seem bothered at all by the sensation. The only thing that seemed to concern her was stepping over the crack to get on the elevator, but she did and got a reward for it.
And I just have to mention that she stopped traffic - yet again. I was walking back to the car enjoying watching her go after the fall leaves in the grass and a lady pulled over to say what a shame it was that I didn't really enjoy being with my beautiful puppy. Hah! I then held her up so she could pet her through the open car window and she went on and on about how beautiful she is. Clearly an astute grasp of the obvious.
Also on Tuesday Gimme and Meaggi had their first interactions. Overall it went well. There were two little snarks and both times, they had just gotten around a corner from me. The first time I think Gimme was probably being too persistent in her attentions and I suspect Meaggi was establishing boundaries. The second time they were in the kitchen and I'm betting Meaggi had found (or thought she had found) a tiny morsel of something and Gimme stuck her nose in where it didn't belong. There wasn't even any slobber on her and she didn't seem to be unduly upset, calming within moments of it being over. Later on we went outside together and I noticed Gimme showed Meaggi more respect, being close to her but giving her space at the same time. I'll continue to put them together with supervision from time to time and am sure they'll get along; fortunately Meaggi is measured and appropriate in her responses.
Yesterday I finally found something that she definitely does NOT like -- big truck noises. It was unfortunate timing that just as we went outside to get in the car, the dump truck came to take away our trash. Between the backup horn (loud "booooo booooo booooo"), the rumbling and hissing brakes, Gimme was not happy. We walked around to the far side of the house to give her some space, but it wasn't her usual bounce back. Then at my store today, the back where I have to park is about a 100 yards from the freeway and during the day there is a lot of big truck traffic. She was aware of that and showing she didn't like it. So we walked all the way up front for our potty walk and took our time coming back and she was much less concerned with them then. Since I'll be taking her with me on long work days, she will get other exposures to those trucks from a distance, so that should help. I think the sounds are weird enough, but also you can feel them rumbling through the ground and that likely adds to the effect.
Gimme got her first grapes the other day. It was waaaay beyond funny. She wasn't sure what to do with it and took it in the living room, batted it around the floor and pounced on it. Bit it a few times and then finally concluded it was dead enough to eat. She did the same thing with the second one. Now she just bites through the juggler right away and then eats them. Am missing the stalk and kill routine.
Now, I ask you... is there anything more wonderful than living with a fresh new puppy? Not!
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