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Freyja had a good third week with us. She had a vaccination last weekend and already weighed 16 pounds, so she is growing by leaps and bounds. She is definitely taller than she used to be, and can’t fit under the sofa anymore, though she is still running behind it.

Freyja’s fear period is pretty well behind her now: Though it still takes some coaxing to get her going on a walk, she does great after a block or two, and absolutely adores meeting new people (she is much more cautious with meeting new dogs). She’s visited both Bush Park and Willamette University now, and did just great on both occasions. This dog is still incredibly people-oriented. When we’re out and she sees someone in the distance, she sits down and watches until they go out of sight. If they walk right by us, she flings herself in their path by way of introduction—all wagging tail, wiggling body, licking tongue, happy whine—in an ecstacy of greeting. She hasn’t learned yet that not everyone wants to love her up, and is incredibly disappointed when we keep her from bounding over to someone who doesn’t seem interested in saying hello.

Freyja is still all mouth, and we’re working hard on the chewing issue, mostly meaning we have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn’t chew on something she shouldn’t. We distract her with toys, but her attention span is only a minute or two, and then she’s off to eat something else, anything else, up to and including the fireplace bricks (don’t ask me, I don’t get it either). So that’s a work in progress. As you can see from the pictures, she also likes chewing on us. Poor Jeremy’s hands are covered with scratches because he’s her favorite, and we have to be careful what clothes we wear when we’re playing with her, because she likes catching us by grabbing our knees, and that leads to a lot of ripped fabric. Maybe she’s actually sharpening those little fangs on the fireplace!

Puppy-ferret relations continue. There have been no major incidents, though Ajax is not shy about grabbing Freyja’s paw or nose if she crowds in on his personal space. Jaxie’s main strategy, however, is to play “Snapping Turtle” in the mathom, as in the photo above; or, as Freyja calls that game, “Whack-a-Mole.”

Freyja continues to score well on the new toy front. We got her several more toys of different sorts last weekend, and are rotating through them so she doesn’t get bored. Ajax is also fond of many of her toys, so we’re constantly recovering dog toys from behind the sofa. I think her favorite new toy, though, is just a fresh ice cube. We offered her one after a walk on a warm day, and she absolutely loves crunching on them and pushing them all around the room.

It rained harder yesterday than it has since before we brought Freyja home. The pup has gotten more used to the rain, puddles, and to a lesser extent, the cold at night, but she had never seen Jeremy using an umbrella before. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get her to approach him with the umbrella open, and she bravely posed for a picture or two before retreating back to the safety of the porch. She’s definitely entered her fear period, but is still acting more confident than we thought she might at this age.

Freyja is 8 weeks old now, so she’s in her fear period and is no longer a fan of going on walks. Our yard, however, is a great source of fun, in more ways than one.

Sometimes we’re tempted to think we brought home a billygoat instead of a dog. The moment we take her outside to go potty, she starts eating moss, grass, twigs, leaves, and other yard debris, so we’re constantly pulling something out of her mouth. She’ll make gardeners of us yet. Below, she’s chewing on a piece of blackberry bramble, thorns and all, and doesn’t seem to mind a bit. Me? I got thorns imbedded in my fingers as soon as I tried to take it away from her.

Eventually, we’re hoping she’ll realize it’s more fun to play with us and her toys outside than it is to eat the yard. Right now, picking her up is about the only way to distract her. But we’ll keep at it (we won’t be able to pick her up much longer, after all!)

Freyja wasn’t particularly interested in toys for the first day or two after we brought her home, but as soon as she found her confidence, it was all play all the time (until naptime, at least). So here are some pics of her playing with some of her toys.

This mini-tennis ball is actually one we got for the ferrets. They were not particularly interested in it, but Freyja has loved it ever since she found it in the stash. It’s a bit small, so we’re watching her closely to make sure she doesn’t swallow it, but I think she’ll be safe to play with it for another week or two at least, and she is certainly making the most of it.

The towel is one we keep draped over the “ferret fort,” a carpet-covered cat tower that we got for the fuzzies to climb inside and dig at. They love having the towel there because it makes the interior more cave-like, and the dangling ends make for some fun play. Freyja can’t fit inside the fort, but she loves the towel.

The one toy we haven’t gotten a good shot of yet, oddly, is her favorite: a rope toy with fraying knotted ends and an attached pig’s ear. Puppy fun on so many levels.

After we had a few successful interactions between Niki and Freyja, we decided to introduce her to Ajax. Now, Jaxie has shown that he is not a friend to cats, and since he also antagonizes Pandora, we were a little more cautious when it came to him. We first did it when Freyja was a little sleepy, hoping that lower energy would give her less of the appearance of a threat to Ajax. That backfired a bit; she came over to sniff him, and he promptly bit her right between the eyes. No damage, just a bit of a scare for the pup.

Next, we got the boy out when Freyja was ready to play. That went much better, because Ajax was too busy running from hiding place to hiding place to even think about grabbing the pup.

Freyja and Jaxie have now had several playdates, and they maintain a tentative detente. Freyja is more than happy to jump on Ajax and smush him with her paws, and he in turn keeps trying to grab her paws and nose whenever she holds still long enough. But at least she isn’t intimidated by him now, and we’re holding onto the belief that he will quit trying to bully her by the time she grows up to be 15 times his size.

Freyja has also been introduced to Pandora now. We first got Panda out when Freyja was conked out at the end of the night, since Pandora is a bit of a jumpy girl in her old age, and we didn’t want an active pup scaring the living daylights out of her. Panda very bravely sniffed all the way around the sleeping dog, and when she started feeling comfortable enough to climb up on her haunches for an even closer look, Freyja moved, and Panda decided to call it a night.

The next time Panda asked to come out, Freyja was wide awake, however, so we got Niki out also, as a distraction. Pandora actually did very well, and was incredibly patient with the puppy jumping on her and trying to get her to play. We’ll have to watch Freyja to make sure she doesn’t get overly excited with Panda, but it was another relatively successful encounter, so our hopes are high that they’ll all be playing together nicely before long.

We’ve been eager to find out how Freyja’s interactions with the ferrets would go. The fuzzies have met dogs before, so we anticipated a good response on their part, but we were unsure of how rough the puppy might want to play with them.

We started off introducing Freyja to Nikita, who is pretty easy-going and playful, and just let them sniff each other. That went pretty well, so the next day, we decided to let Niki out to run around for a bit.

Freyja, as might be imagined, was fascinated. She followed Niki everywhere, approaching slowly at first, then playfully pouncing. Niki is so small and quick that she easily outpaced the puppy and ran from one hiding spot to the next, but didn’t seem too frightened or otherwise put off; and Freyja, for her part, was clearly just playing, using only her paws and not her mouth.

Niki was especially interested in the puppy’s water bowl, and returned to it several times to take drinks. Before I got the camera out, the two of them actually drank at the same time, which seems a bit like a promise for peaceful cohabitation. Of course, right afterwards, they were off racing around the room again.

Well, it’s been an exciting few days, and Freyja’s doing great. We’ve gone on a dozen walks, played with toys, walked all around the front yard waiting for her to piddle, and cleaned up the carpet when we didn’t notice the tell-tale signs quick enough. Freyja really missed her littermates when we first brought her home, and whined constantly, but she seems to feel much more at home with us now, and little by little, the whine-levels are decreasing.

She’s smart as a whip, so we think she’ll be really easily trainable, as long as we are good about training ourselves to be consistent and act like pack leaders. She learned how to go up the porch stairs the first day, and we’ve been working on going down the stairs ever since. She’s gotten to the point where she can go down the stairs and tries to take a flying leap off the second to last one, which doesn’t work so well for a clumsy little pup.

We’re also working on leash training. She is doing great with being on the leash—doesn’t seem to mind it at all. Walking without crisscrossing back and forth and getting underfoot is the main project right now, but it seems to help if one of us walks in front of her, because she is very eager to follow us around. We noticed that quality in her at the breeder’s house also. She’s a very people-oriented pup, so she wants to be right with us all the time, and she automatically stops and sits by our feet when we stop moving. She also seems to be especially attentive to Jeremy.

Freyja is also making great improvements in her sleep patterns. We’ve had her for two nights now, and are having her sleep on a dog bed next to us in the bedroom, tethered to the night stand so she can’t wander off. The first night she had about 4 whining fits, one of which was because she needed to go outside. We actually thought this was pretty impressive, as we had imagined it being much worse. Last night, however, she slept through the night from 11:30 to 5:15 almost without a peep, after which she woke us up to go out. That’s a pretty steep learning curve!

Meet the newest member of the Sparks family: 7-week old Freyja Vom Holtzberg, a purebred German Shepherd Dog with a red sable coat. We picked her up this morning from Holtzberg K9 near Eugene. Many more pics to follow in the coming days…

…are too good not to share. An example of this is the lamb kefthedes I made for dinner last week, which came out to be the best meatballs I’ve ever eaten, bar none.

The photo doesn’t do them justice: They were perfect fresh from the skillet (crisp outside and succulently moist inside), tasted just as good at room temperature, and held up admirably in the form of reheated leftovers, warmed in a 350F oven for 15-20 minutes. I served them with a mound of sauteed spinach and the Greek roasted potatoes here (which also reheated nicely in the oven).

Since my recipe was an adaptation of several different meatball recipes, I’ve written it out for you. We’ll definitely be making them again soon.