I finally got to brush all of Tara!!

I found that she tolerates a rake much better than even the softest brush, so I have been getting her little by little with that while she's playing with a toy or eating. And just now I brushed all of her while kind of restraining her as she was mouthing with ORion who was on the couch and she was on the floor. Yeah! The greatest reward is apparently playing with Orion. I guess that makes brushing worth it. : ) She actually wasn't even playing with him at some points and I was still brushing her and she didnt care. Right now she' licking Orion's lips which is an "appeasement" behavior, I think that's what it's called. Very nice. I also forget to mention how much fun we had at Paws in the Park on Sunday! Tara probably met more than 100 dogs and 100 people too. It was so much fun and she was just great. Even in that environment she still maintained lots of attention on me and was offering me sits and downs all over the place in hopes of a reward. What a smart girl. Last night we explored Inman Square in Cambridge and she was great! Inman Sq. is quieter than Central or Harvard, and night is calmer than day, so I figured we'd start that way. She met homeless people and drunk people -- woo-hoo! a couple of specific types of people that are included on our socialization checklist! --- and lots of other people too. Everyone of course called her a baby Lassie. I think she's finally getting to the point size-wise that people are hopefully going to stop asking if she's a damn sheltie or a miniature collie! LOL. If I have to say she's a "full" collie or that's she's a "Lassie" collie one more time, I'm going to wring their neck. LOL. There's no such thing as a damn miniature collie! I think she's gained some weight and some height this week for sure. Maybe I'll weigh her again next week. I feel like she's gotta be pushing 20 lbs for sure -- of course i thought she had to be at least 15 lbs last wk and she was only 14! Everyone that meets her acts like she's going to be huge. I hope she's going to stay in the 50-60 lb range. My last collie was 85 lbs and I don't really want a repeat of that again -- not that I think she'd even get that big, but I guess I'm just sick of people telling me how big of a puppy she is! I don't think she's that huge! :) So I'm sure we'll go back to Cambridge hopefully this week coming -- we've got to hit Harvard Square during the day soon, I think she'll be fine. She also got to walk around in her first pet store today, before I have taken her in , but I've always carried her. I'm feeling more confident that she's less at risk for parvo or distemper or something now that she's 3 months. She's so cute. Anyway, I do have pics to post, so I really will try to do that today. Also, I really don't want to have to tape her ears. They are still tipped, not a huge amount, but enough I think. I really, really hope they stay that way! Pretty soon she'll get to meet a real baby too, (actually she saw a few the other day at paws in strollers and everything) because my best friend just had her baby on Sunday, so Tara will get to grow up with her daughter Emerson, since she'll probably be an important aspect of our lives, being my best friend's daughter and all. I think it will be nice for both of them. Tara does really well with my mom's kids (except for when they are running, I have to keep reiterating how to deal with that situation to them.), she was actually participating in the old "pick a card" trick with my sister Sunida yesterday. Yes she caught on quickly and got really good at picking a card from the hand in front of her. Anway, she's up now and probably needs to go out -- we should go for our evening walk seeing how it's quarter to eight! I'll be back later (hopefully to post some pics!).