Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ellie – 05/14/09

Ellie has been here six weeks as of today. She’s finally starting to “bulk up” in my eyes. Until now, it’s just been baby steps, like “oh, she does have a butt”, and “hey, I found her neck”. When taking these pictures today I finally noticed her belly starting to round out. She no longer has that tucked up look under her stomach. Next stop – fat rolls!

Her ribs are almost invisible now. They look more visible in the pictures because when she was still very thin she shed out between her ribs, but still has the grey winter hair over each rib bone. So her hair has brown and white lines where her ribs are, making them more visible.

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Her topline is starting to develop now and her backbone is no longer higher than her back muscles. Her hips are fleshing out and are no longer prominently sticking out, and her butt has more of a square shape than an upside down triangle.

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She’ll start some light groundwork training next week, which will help build and tone her muscles. Her feed regimen hasn’t changed since my last update. The one thing that continues to improve is her personality! She’s become quite the little charmer and looks to me for attention whenever she’s in the yard. She’ll walk up and put her head on my shoulder and pull me in close in an effort to get me to scratch her withers -- which, of course, I always do. :)