Crate, crabs, Barbie.

Elka is a reluctant crate-er. Ruby loved her crate. Maxi after a bit was fine with the crate. Both of our previous dogs were night-time crate trained until they were out of their puppy-hood and more trustworthy. Elka never liked the crate and as is classic for a pandemic dog, is left alone very very infrequently and therefore, the need for the crate is very infrequent and so she’s not very used to it. (Ruby, we left in a crate for entire work days (unbelievable to me now!) as we both worked out of the house. She seemed totally fine with it.) We were unable to night crate train Elka (she would cry all night. poor thing.) – she prefers to sleep in bed with us, but will sleep peacefully and happily on a dog bed next to our bed. But we worked up her crate tolerance to where she now is OK with about 2-3 hours in a crate. She doesn’t even seem too bothered by it and will even walk to the crate before I issue the command if she knows it’s a situation where she’s going to go into her crate. Her crate is extra large and made of plastic, but we need to train her to get into a smaller wire crate for a future adventure. She was having none of it yesterday. Jeremy put a large piece of chicken at the back of the crate and she tried every tactic to get the chicken except actually getting into the crate, licking it from the other side, trying to “dig” it out, looking at us pitifully. I finally got her to go in halfway by getting into the crate myself and holding some peanut butter.

I had a crab feast with Sofie and Mike yesterday. Sofie wanted Maryland crabs and had never had them before. I had to teach them how to open crabs and eat the flesh and smash the legs with a wooden mallet.

Edda, accompanied by Eliana, went to opening weekend of the Barbie movie! There was a big celebration – lots of people dressed as Barbie. A few Barbie/Ken couples. Edda got all dolled up in her pink!