The Matriarch Complex

Roughly around August 10-12

Ok, I think this is the last for tonight. I'll try to get some pictures up soon to go with this one but for now here's the body of the post.

Prada got to go on the beach!!!! We camped at South Beach, just south of Newport, Oregon, for a couple of days before I flew down to Alabama for the fall semester. Monday morning my sister and i took Prada down onto the sands for a quick walk before breakfast. I found it nearly impossible to keep her nose out of the dune shrubs and sand on the beach so I took her off harness to make it less stressful.  I’m comfortable enough on beaches (wide open spaces) that I don’t really need her to guide me.

When we got onto the harder sand right down onto the tideline Prada got really perky really quickly. As soon as she felt the water moving under the sand she attacked it with her paws, sending sand flying everywhere. We immediately retreated to our campsite in search of food…and the camera! When we returned to the beach Karen took lots of pictures of Prada as we played in the waves and on the dunes. I did my best to make sure Prada didn't get totally soaked, only up to her belly.

The water and the hard sand made her really frisky and playful and we had a blast running on the sand and playing in the waves together. The only downside to all this hyperness is that, as the Pacific Ocean is quite frigid, her claws dug into my nearly-numb legs quite painfully when she pounced at me.
 
She really didn't like it when I handed the leash off to Mom so I could go play farther out into the waves with Dad, and was quite exuberant when I returned to her. On the Mom subject...

We realized that Prada would be attached to Mom whether she acknowledged and played with her or no so Mom finally got to pet and adore Prada. Prada didn't seem to increase her devotion to Mom, even seemed to draw a little closer to me now that the forbidden was no longer off-limits. Another student from my class at TSE said his dog was doing the same thing, almost, and we agreed it was probably natural behavior of dogs paired with people still living with their parents and that we didn't need to worry overmuch about it. Especially since we were both headed off to college within a few weeks anyway. So Mom no longer has to ignore Prada and they are both quite happy.
I suspect this has to do with Prada and my friend’s dog being trained by a woman.  It’s a matriarch complex:  they gravitate toward strong females.  Yes, I’m still “Mommy” to Prada, I’m still in charge, but she recognizes strong female authority like my favorite professor at UAH, my boss at NASA, and my mom.