Wordy Wednesday

Carrie says, "Happy Leap Day!"

I finally got Carrie a new puppy coat sleeve! Somebody stole my old one along with her small puppy coat

 (Yes, apparently some high school kids are capable of stealing from a charity- took it right out of my purse while I was taking her potty!).

A close up of her new sleeve

This one is a little different than my old one. My other one was embroidered while this one is silkscreened and has velcro. I'm hoping this sleeve won't get as dirty...

A Fun Day!

A few days ago, my mom held a dog training class. She is studying for her dog training license and gave a free class to anyone who wanted to attend to give her more experience.





I went along to work Carrie around these dogs. It was a great experience for her as there was one dog that was extremely vocal.

Overall, she did well considering the level of distraction. There was a huge dog park just accross the way from where that was completely filled with dogs. We were also right in between a skate park, a playground and a trick bike track.

After I had worked Carrie around the other dogs I took her to the playground. They had this really neat rock-type-thing that had steps. This gave us a great opportunity to work with Carrie on heights.

Carrie at the top of the rock! (It was probably about 6ft high)



A picture of Carrie looking down at me

She did reasonably well up there. She was a little shaky the first time she tried the steps. They were nearly verticle and not in a straight line so they were a little tough to maneuver for her.  We did them a few more times until she was comfortable.

After that, I gave her a chance to watch some bikers and skate boarders.

A picture of the bike park

Carrie watching the kids doing tricks with their bikes

She was interested in the bikes and boards but was able to walk away without having to constantly look back. 

I am sure I looked like a complete creeper sitting there taking pictures of the park and my dog watching them haha.

Introductions: Teddy

Teddy is a 6 year old Pomeranian

His Favorite trick is "wave"

He has what we call "Little Dog Syndrom" and likes to assert his superiority over the other dogs by hogging everything:

(Yes, he actually did carry this around)

He has imaginary friends that he likes to growl at but we still love him :)

He takes his job as co-raiser VERY seriously. He bosses the puppies around and if he thinks they are doing something wrong he will try to stop them.

Phase Report

Noe is still in phase 8
Harlene is in phase 7
Weston is in phase 4
Jamaica  in phase 5!
Hanalei's Littermates:
Halette is in phase 8. I really hope she finds her perfect person soon!
Other Peoples' Dogs:
If you have a dog that you would like me to post the phase report for please comment on this post with the puppy's name.

Wordless Wednesday: Heat Hog

Carrie hogging the heater on a cold day

Carrie hogging the fireplace too

Introductions: Duke

I recently realized that I haven't introduced people on blogger to the rest of my (animal) family! So from now on, every Monday, I will introduce you to one of the fabulous animals that lives here and helps me raise these crazy puppies.

I am going to start with Duke:

Duke is a 10 year old red labrador. 

His favorite trick is "Bang":

He likes to go camping:

A few years ago he grew a rather large wart (We tell him that it adds to his character (; )

He does NOT think of himself as a co-raiser.

He is a very gentle dog and prefers to stay out of reach from the baby dogs. 

He knows that his job is to be the king of the couch

Hanalei is Coming!

I just got a text from Hanalei's new owner asking if we could puppysit her the weekend of March 17th!

I am so super excited! 

It is also Carrie's birthday weekend so I thought we could make a party out of it! haha

Hanalei with her friends! (I cropped them out of the pic for their privacy)

11 Things at 11 Months!

This month, for Carrie's monthly post, I decided to write 11 things that I love about her!

Naughty puppy climbed over the seat to say hi

1. Carrie is a Cuddle Bug! She loves to snuggle and if you sit on the ground she will come try to sit on your lap.

2. Carrie is a little Shadow. She follows me from room to room and likes to keep an eye on me. I can't even take a shower in this house without the dog following me into the bathroom!

3. I love love love her "Smart Bump". I guess one of her more "goldeny" traits is her silly bump on top of her head. It is pretty enormous and looks quite rediculous at times but it deffinately suits her. I swear it changes with her water intake! The more she drinks, the bigger it gets!

4. Another trait she inherited from her golden retriever genes is her feathery tail. She looks like a lab until you see her tail-which has just recently sprouted feathers that swish back and forth with each wag!

5. Carrie is smart! She picks up on things incredibly fast and is especially good at things that involve food.

6. Which brings me to the next thing I love about her: She is Food Motivated! Carrie will do just about anything for the magic word  ("Nice") that means food is coming. This is one of the things she inherited from the Labrador: She LOVES food. It has really come in handy when it comes to getting her over the car problems she had in the beginning.

7. Carrie is trusting. Being a softer-type dog, there are occasionally times when she gets a little uncomfortable. When this happens, it has been amazing to see her look up at me, see that I'm not scared, and choose to trust me and continue on without any fear.

8. She is a Goof Ball! Carrie is my silly, silly girl. She likes to clown off during her free time at home. She does 360 spins when the food bowl comes out and she will prance when she is happy.

9. Carrie has the prettiest smile ever! When she is really happy, she will give the biggest smile you have ever seen and it ends up looking a little goofy because of her crooked teeth!

10. I love her Size. She is the biggest female I have raised so far at about 60lbs. I have always had a soft spot for the super big boy dogs and I love that- while not huge- I don't have to bend over to pet her like I did with my last two girlies.

11. Carrie is the first altered puppy and also the first cross I have raised. She was altered at 6 months because of her funny teeth and I am excited to send her back and not have to wait through the agony of breeder evals.  And having a cross has been a ton of fun! She is different than the labs I have raised in so many ways and I feel like I am learning so much through her.

Phase Report

Puppies raised in our group:
Noe is still in phase 8
Harlene is in phase 7!
Weston is in phase 3
Jamaica  in phase 4
Hanalei's Littermates:
Halette has been put back in phase 8. I really hope she finds her perfect person soon!
Other Peoples' Dogs:
If you have a dog that you would like me to post the phase report for please comment on this post with the puppy's name.

Changing Dog Food

This morning, I got an email from Guide Dogs reminding me that it is almost time to switch Carrie to adult food.

A screen capture of the email they sent to me. If you would like to read it you can click on it to make it bigger

Guide Dogs approves two adult dog foods: ProPlan All Life Stages and ProPlan Large Breed Shredded Blend. The other day I went to our local feed store and found a slightly ripped bag of the ProPlan Shredded Blend for half-off!

In a few weeks, I will begin gradually switching Carrie from her puppy food to her adult food.

Adult food (Left), Puppy food (Right)

To me, switching their food is one of those reminders that she is getting bigger and will be leaving me soon.

I'm going to keep being thankful for every moment I have with her. She is such a special girl!

Phase Report

Puppies raised in our group:
Noe is still in phase 8
Harlene is in phase 6
Weston is in phase 2
Jamaica  in phase 3
Hanalei's Littermates:
Halette is graduating on the 18th!
Other Peoples' Dogs:
Luigi graduated last weekend!
If you have a dog that you would like me to post the phase report for please comment on this post with the puppy's name.

Puppy Trading

Today I dropped Carrie off with another raiser for a puppy swap.  Guide Dogs encourages puppy trading or sitting at least once a month and, I will admit, I am not very good at giving my dog up for more than a day. 

Bev

While she has had multiple puppy trades for a few hours, this is only her 3rd time being gone for more than 2 days.

It has only been a couple hours and I already miss her terribly!

When I dropped Carrie off, I picked Bev up as a trade.  Bev's raiser wants me to take Bev to school with me.

She is a good girl. A little timid, but I am sure she will do fine at school.

I hope Miss Carrie is behaving herself!



Carrie



Carrie the Model

A while ago, I brought up that a woman was coming to our house to take pictures of the animals for free. :)

Today she sent us the photos that she got and, I must say, if Carrie does not make it as a guide she could pursue a modeling career. Every picture she got of her is gorgeous!

Carrie's serious face

Showing off her smile :D

Dainty girl pose

Showing off her stance

She got some pictures of our other dogs as well and, if I remember, I will post them later.

Her website is pawsawhilephotograpy.com. If anyone is located near Sacramento CA she can come photograph your pets too ;)

i-got-a-dog.com

A few weeks ago, my mom decided that she wanted to start a website about dogs. I started helping her and we are having a lot of fun!

Obviously we are not professionals but I would say we are pretty darn good for never having done anything like this before ;)

So if you get a chance, check it out! There is a page under "choosing a dog" for service dogs and a place to introduce us to your doggies :)

There is a link on the on the side of my blog----->

Feel free to leave feedback on this post!

Volleyball!

This week, in the PE class that I TA for, the students started volleyball. 

 I was able to get my teacher's permission to take some pictures!

Carrie has done really well in this class so far. In the beginning, it was completely chaotic. There are 36 high school freshmen- each of them with a volleyball. Yikes!

On the first day, they practiced setting the ball to eachother. There were volleyballs flying every which way and people screaming and laughing.

Carrie was very attentive the whole time but never fell apart and went nuts. There were a few times when I had to leave her tied to the bleachers while I ran and helped other students with flat volleyballs.

I was extremely impressed with her when I left her tied. She just sat there patiently waiting for me to come back, cocking her head at me every so often.

I am really happy I chose to take this class! I am not very good at working on ball distraction with my dogs. With my first two, I was in PE myself and they always came with me to class. So I didn't have to worry about it with them. They were used to being tied up wherever I was, watching the various sports that we played.

With Hanalei, I didn't need to worry about it because she never showed much interest but Carrie deffinately has and I have not really had the chance to work with her until now.

I am pretty sure that I won't have to worry about the balls being an issue for her though. She has handled this week beautifully and we have 2 more weeks to really cement it into her brain!

I wonder what game they will be playing next...?

Bath Time!

Yesterday Carrie got a bath!

And, being the loving "mother" that I am, I decided to make her into a Stegosaurus

And take pictures :)

Her beautiful stegosaurus back/mohawk

I think her favorite part was the drying off bit

After her bath, her coat got super curly!

Now she is all clean and ready to go to our Guide Dog Meeting

Phase Report

Puppies raised in our group:
Noe is still in phase 8
Harlene is in phase 5!
Weston is in phase 1
Jamaica  in phase 2
Hanalei's Littermates:
Halette is still in 8
Other Peoples' Dogs:
Luigi graduates this weekend!
If you have a dog that you would like me to post the phase report for please comment on this post with the puppy's name.

Wordy Wednesday: The Best Big Brother Ever!

My first puppy, Fairfield, was a bit of a Wild Child! He had a ton of energy and had a bad habit of putting everything in his mouth. I adored him though and it was amazing to me how, right when we were getting ready to send him in for training, he settled down.  Around this same time, I picked up my next puppy, Tisha.

Fairfield was soo good with his new little sister and would let her jump on him and pull him around.

He took his job as big brother seriously and liked to spoil Tisha by bringing her toys and sharing his bed.

I think having her around is one of the things that helped him mature enough to become a guide dog.