April 2010
I think Nick is a bit biased on his comments, but she certainly has gone beyond our expectations. As a pup she acts very mature, quiet and as you said she will try to please. Most people that meet her for the first time do assume she is much older because she isn’t running circles around us. The one thing I find so amusing is that she can turn on the puppy craziness and run around with endless energy and that’s when I remember that Rainie is still very young. The other puppy trait is that she is unsure of herself, lacks confidence in new environments, such as when she and I went to see my nephew play soccer when she was about 4 months old. She was on a leash and we started to walk on the field towards where the parents were standing. She realized as we were walking that there were lots of people on the field and more people 
running on the field. She became frightened and sat down on the ground and wouldn’t move until I picked her up. Needless to say, by the time we were leaving the field she wanted to catch that white ball on the field and the number of people around her didn’t matter.
She has become a wonderful companion for Nick. He takes her fishing with him (Vedder River) and has told me that she has become a good swimmer, always trying to keep up with him. She gets quite annoyed when he goes into the water and she can’t follow him. Of course, she loves to find sticks and the river is a great place to do so.
Over the months, Nick has tried to get Rainie to fetch a winged object as Barry mentioned to him. Get her started on retrieving with something small and then work up to something larger. Well Rainie wouldn’t play the game for months, wouldn’t retrieve, wouldn’t fetch. In the last two weeks Nick and Rainie have been working on fetching and without much encouragement she sits and waits for the bumper to be thrown and then fetches and returns to Nick with it. Up until now, she hasn’t shown us any desire to do this.
Well Lori, I hope this gives you some insight into our Rainie girl and how she has become part of the family. She is a great size (about 33 pounds) and loves to cuddle.
Murdena Rainie is 5 months old