Gracie Turns One

It's hard to believe that Gracie, my mini-GoldenDoodle, will turn a year old this week.  It seems just a short while ago that Oakley, my ten year old Golden Retriever, and I welcomed this five pound puppy to our household.  And what a winter it was for Grace to become acclimated to life in the north woods!  She was tiny in comparison to her big sister, but her coloring favored the Golden Retriever side of her heritage.

By spring, Gracie was taking on the coloring of her father, an 11 pound miniature poodle.

She was still small enough to squeeze into some of her favorite den locations, as she does here under an ottoman in our living room.

And now at a year old, Gracie's full grown at 30 pounds and loves to play fetch in the back yard.

Most of the time, she's good about retrieving her toys and bringing them back to me for more tosses.

Except for her golden ears and a faint stripe of tan down her back, Gracie's become mostly white.

She can be a bit of a tease by holding her toy and daring me to chase her.

Her  favorite toy is this ball full of holes which she can easily grip from all sides.  She has three of them in different sizes and colors.

  At times, she prefers to just romp around the yard without any toys or retrieving.

But Gracie can get herself into trouble too.  She and Oakley love to dig and eat the mossy areas found all over my backyard that's heavily shaded and wooded.

"Yum," she says.  "That dirt is so chewy and good."  Happy Birthday, Gracie.