Kaya(k) update: wonder dog or not?

We have finished two weeks with Kaya(k) and we know a few things we didn't know before:

When she's not going 100 miles per hour, she can do a passable impression of a pancake.

She has a strong aversion to dog doors. The first night she was at our house, I got her to come in twice through this door (I had to hold the flap open, but at least she would go through the hole). Since then - nothing.

She has learned to use the flaps as a doorbell, bumping them with her nose over and over again until we finally open the door and let her in (or out). We've tried treats, squeaky toys, promises of uncountable bones, but she will just stand there looking like this. Once in a while she will stick a leg through, only to quickly pull it back. She knows how it's  supposed to work, but she really does not trust that flappy door.

This morning was a 10K DSE race on the Embarcadero. (Riley and Darci are "helping" direct runners. Riley helped one runner so much he smacked him with the flag. [Not really - he was just holding it out and a runner ran into it. It's a lot more fun though to picture Riley trying to spur on some runner that was slowing down.])

Diane wanted to do the race, so I bravely offered to drive her and Kaya(k) up there, drop her off, park, and meet her at the finish line while Kaya(k) and I got in a nice walk. But the drive through the city did not go as planned, took way longer than was expected, and resulted in Kaya(k) giving back her breakfast on the floor of the van.

I think she likes driving in that city as much as I do.

But things were made all better by a belly rub from Darci.

After the race, we gave Ultra Woof and her dog Spammy a ride back to her car, which provided a test of Kaya(k)'s ability to tolerate another dog in tight quarters. Mostly, it went fine, although there were some tense moments when Spammy started showing off his mad surfing skills. (It's a long story.)

After dropping off UW and Spammy, we headed home, and Kaya(k) did her best impersonation of a GPS system. ("Ruh Roh" was her most helpful comment as I navigated tight traffic past Candlestick Park and masses of rabid 49er fans.)

Riley and Kaya(k) really like playing tug-o-war. Kaya(k) was actually pulling Riley across the room.

The one loser so far has been Jesse's cat, Shadow. The cat is amazingly skittish under the best of circumstances - toss in a hyper, overgrown puppy and that cat rarely makes an appearance anymore. Kaya(k) is very curious about the cat, but has not been hostile. The cat has hissed a few times, but hasn't actually tried to kill the dog. There is hope, but it might take a year or two.

So, is Kaya(k) a wonder dog? Hardly. Is she Idiot Dog Kaya(k)? Possibly. Mostly though, she's just Puppy Dog Kaya(k) on a crusade to squeeze as much goody as she can out of every day.

And she's a really good squeezer.

That's it - move along...

PS: Click here to see more pictures from the DSE thing this morning. Click here to see pictures from a dog walk we went on last weekend.