Samson is now about five and a half months old.  At the vets, when he was precisely 5 months, he weighed 54lbs!!!  Today I weighed him and he was about sixty.  It is very hard to carry him anymore :).  I can still just barely manage it!

Flea/Tick season is in full swing, and it seems to be worse this year, probably because of all the torrential rain we've gotten lately.  I have found none on him yet, hopefully the K9 Advantix is working as advertised.  I did find one crawling on me however today, while I was sitting in the truck with him.  I am not sure where I picked it up as I have not been near any wooded areas for quite awhile.  Certainly not that morning, at any rate.  I am still checking him vigorously.

He recently started sleeping in his cage again, I think that has to do with the fact that it is the coldest part of my room :).  We are going to move my room down to the basement next month where it is much cooler and much more appropriate for a dog.  When my room gets too hot we have a baby gate set up to section off the laundry room and he sleeps there.

Today in under fifteen minutes I taught him what "shake left" and "shake right" means.  He doesn't get them 100% yet, but he does understand there is a difference, and he knows exactly what to do if I tell him that he got it wrong.  I have never had any problems teaching this dog to do tricks, he picks things up and understands them so quickly!  I think the reason he did not get shake left/shake right as fast this time is because there isn't a clear, distinct hand signal for each.  He is used to watching my hand for commands, not listening to my voice.  I could tell he had figured out that is precisely what he needed to do, though, sometimes I would stick my hand out, say "Shake Left!" and he would hesitate, shifting his weight back and forth, and I could see his brain churning, trying to figure out which paw to lift up.  This is a very different behavior from normal, as usually his right paw goes up immediately after he sits down, whether we have our hand out for a shake or not!  He loves doing shake!

Tomorrow I think I will head into the vet's to get a year's supply of heartworm pill, and four or five months worth of K9 Advantix.  Pricey, pricey, especially since he needs a new collar and probably another couple bags of dog food.  He is on a brand called "Taste of the Wild."  It is grain free and very meat-heavy.  More calcium than is appropriate with a growing large breed pup, but his bones are so much larger proportionate to his body size (compared to other similar breeds) that I worry more about too little calcium than too much.  He is growing at a very even rate anyhow, so it seems to be doing good for him.