Congratulationgraduation!

June graduated this Spring with a double major in Psychology and Russian. Which kind of sounds like she went to school to become a Cold War spy. I tease her about this.

What she is really interested in is Behavior. The Russian was something she just did for fun, I guess. Everyone's idea of fun is different.

This girl has been working hard at school and abroad for several years and even lived in Russia for a full year last year. It was a wonderful experience but I think it was also a little hard to take when the sun was only visible for 45 minutes a day.

She has also been Teachers Assistant all this year for a class on Behavior Modification, where the students pick something they would like to change about themselves and then proceed to make a plan and execute it. She had a lot of fun watching and helping students use themselves as a tool for learning a complex subject. She is a wonderful teacher and we are very proud of her!

She has big plans for the near future but she will be home and flexible for the next 9 months.

So what do you get a girl like this for a graduation present?
A puppy of course!

Our new Grandpup Max, 4 pounds 2 ounces at 7 weeks.

One tool she has for dealing with stress and homesickness has been daily fixes of "Cute Overload", "I Can Has Cheezburger" and the Oregon Humane Society adoption web page. She has been planning and dreaming of a puppy for 3 years now. We decided that the opportunity to get a puppy and have the summer to train it was perfect timing for her and she agreed.

She looked for a couple weeks at the Oregon Humane society for just the right guy. She had been thinking about it for so long that she knew Max was the right one the minute she held him. He will be around 20 pounds when he is grown, but he looks like a Micro Rottweiler. He was 7 weeks old when she adopted him and weighed 4 pounds. She already has him trained to sit quietly in his kennel, "beg" by putting his head down, which she will turn into a non-begging behavior, and he is very nearly house trained, all at 9 weeks! Sorry, I have to brag a little...

I volunteered to "babysit" Max last weekend and I had a lot of fun watching Max experience the Homestead for the first time.

He is wearing a harness and a leash in this video because he was harder to keep ahold of than a live fish. I had to have something on him for his own safety. There are a lot of dangerous things on a farm. He is a real go-getter and I think she is going to have her hands full, but I know she is up to the task since she is the best dog trainer I have ever seen in my lifetime of showing and training dogs.