The Dog Days of Summer - Jenny

Hi! I'm Jenny and I blog over at the Chronicles of We. I am so excited to be here on Sara's blog today while she's loving on her new baby girl! Sara's blog was one of the first I started following and I blame credit her with my photography bug! I am a SAHM to a very active two year old girl named Callie. My blog is a little bit of everything! I blog a lot about my daughter and our little family, my adventures in running and weight loss, mom topics and the process of building our dream house on a lake!

I'm thrilled to be talking about something near and dear to my heart - raising a kid with animals! We have three fur babies two cats and the highlight of my post today, Winston, our dog. Winston is a Weimaraner who is full of energy even though he is almost five years old! If you met him you would think he was a puppy still! He is a big boy at 85lbs but has no idea how strong he is. Winston is the wimpiest big dog you'll ever meet - our cats boss him around including stealing his food! He has no alpha tendencies at all - he just wants to play and play. He's not much of a guard dog but if you heard his bark you would run the other way not knowing behind the bark was a happy dog wagging his tail thinking you are there to play with him!

While it hasn't always been perfect nor easy to have animals and a young child (oh the barking and nap mishaps in the early days!) these days I wouldn't have it any other way! Callie loves our animals and always wants to play with them. Well except when they try to take her food! I think Winston is her favorite but he's not always sure about her. He's a sweet dog but gets himself in trouble a lot either because of his food obsession or because he's a hyper spazz! There has been a lot of learning for him on how to play with a little person but we are finally starting to get into a groove!

She loves to mimic his play! I catch her regularly sitting when I tell him to sit and she LOVES to roll over with him! Callie also loves to "walk" Winston and will put his leash on and walk him around the house for at least 15 minutes at a time! It's a great winter or raining day activity!

Callie being her bossy self regularly gives Winston commands these days. She tells him to sit, to leave her food alone, to get down,  drop the ball, to stop (that never works haha!), and she calls him to "come here." The best part?! He's even started to listening to her a little bit. I give it a year or two and he'll listen better to her than to me. My favorite command is when she tells him to "calm down" (hand gestures and all) like she is in this photo below!

I can't help but love this photo. I can just hear Callie squealing with joy that Winston is playing with the ball she just brought him! At the same time I can see Winston being like thank you for standing three feet away from me crazy girl!

Winston can't help but play when she brings him his favorite toy - a ball!

We got this large ball about a year ago so they could play ball together without having to worry about Winston accidentally biting Callie's hand. It's still small enough he can get it in his mouth but big enough there's room for little hands. It's our favorite toy to let them play together with!

I am sure I complain about raising a kid and a dog together with the best of them. However I wouldn't have it any other way. Callie learns so much from having pets around and the joy they bring when the play together is just too precious for words!

Thanks again Sara for letting me share about my crazy dog today!