D is for Dinah

Well, we got talked into doing another starter puppy... Guide Dogs had some older puppies (around 11 weeks) that really needed raisers. We are hoping someone in the club will finish her.

A puppy raising friend of ours, Kristy, who we owe big time, is taking her from today to Saturday for us while we have friends visiting. So no pics in this post:(

The biggest news of all may be that she is the very first BLACK puppy I have raised out of 17 (and the 10 Kim has raised or helped raise)

Just for fun here are the puppies I have raised by letter. Maybe someday I will have the whole alphabet!

A- Autumn, Autumn II
B-
C- Claudine
D- Dinah:)
E- Emmy
F- Fargo
G-
H-
I-
J- Jared
K-
L-
M- Macy
N- Natara
O- Oneida, Ogden
P-
Q- Quebec
R-
S- Shayla, Simon
T- Twix, Tove, Tandy
U-
V-
W-
X-
Y-
Z-

Supposedly Dinah is very calm and cuddly and chubby. That makes waiting until Saturday tough. Oh, and she is a Bosworth/Gail puppy. Which means she is a half sister to our very much missed Quebec. She is also from an in home raised litter.

Bethany

***update*** Kim has a photo..

Tandy Update:-), from Bethany

So we have not updated on Tandy in awhile! She is doing well, is just over 5 months now and because we are starting a new club in the Portland area (I was leading a club in Salem for 7 years) she has been puppysat a lot.


Unfortunately her one trick to try on puppysitters is getting on their furniture. She NEVER does this at home (although she does stare at the couch longingly when the pet dogs are on it) but has tried it at three puppysitters houses.


She is also teething a lot (we found 6 teeth in two weeks) and probably because of this thinks chewing on her blanket is a fun idea. She is quickly learning this is NOT a good idea:)


Tandy has been fantastic in public lately. Today we went to Coastal and I had her walk beside a cart for the first time. She was calm and confident, everything you want in a guide dog! She also went to a four hour college class with a puppysitter recently and did great.


She is also on pills to help with frequent urinating and they seem to be making a big difference.

Here is a not so recent picture of her...

And just for fun here is often puppysat, Marina (Claudi's niece). She has a major underbite that Guide Dogs is monitoring and here are the pictures we sent to them to show to a specialist. Pretty huh? It actually makes her look really adorable, until you open her mouth that is!

Visiting Simon!!!

So after 3 years we finally got to go see Simon again! We were headed down to a NASCAR race in Sonoma and planned into our trip a visit to see the boy. Unfortunately his breeder keepers were going out of town so the best way to visit was a trip to campus where Simon and his breeder "sisters", Vonnie and Belinda (retired), were going to stay while their parents went on a wedding anniversary trip.

Here are some interesting pics from campus... I would assume the first is for overhead clearance training and the second is the virtually silent electric cars that the dogs have to be able to do traffic work around. Emmy's partner, Tim, was telling us that Emmy (who was trained before GDB had these cars on campus) saved him from a car like this when he repeatedly told her forward and she refused. He then took a step forward and she pulled him back as the car came by!

It was nice to go to campus but we were sad to not get to see Simon in his home. It was great visiting with his family though especially his breeder keeper "dad" who showed us some of his tricks and told us all about how much Simon loves going to work every day at a machine shop with him. Simon obviously adores him and the feeling seems mutual!

Funny story about Simon... when I first contacted his breeder keepers after he was placed with them they asked me how I taught him to bring in the newspaper? They said he did it every morning for them like he had been trained!!! Obviously he had not been taught that but he (and daughter Claudi) love to carry things around when excited. I guess Simon now not only brings in the paper but also brings his "mom" her slippers every morning. What a good boy...

The sad part of our visit was that Simon has really aged. It is odd that some dogs age well and others do not. Simon got darker, slightly heavier, and his face is turning white. He is only 5 but looks older than that. Oh the joys of middle age:)

The SIMON we remember.

And SIMON now.

I promise it only looks like I'm choking him.

He is over 90 lbs. now. He was 78 lbs. at recall.

Here he is waiting for a command.

He was so happy to have the head collar off.

After seeing Simon and helping check him into the kennel we took a short tour. We stopped to see the puppies and were specifically looking for Vonnie(X Kentucky) puppies (since she lives with Simon). Most of the litter was in a pen of their own because they had been sick. Below is Rayanne (sp?).

The breeder keeper family says Vonnie LOVES the JollyBall so this puppy is really taking after her.

Simon definitely recognized us but also seemed slightly confused, maybe because he was coming on to campus and knew his family was leaving. We were very, very happy to get to see him again and my sister, Kimberly, who raised him with me for the first 3 months before moving to CA, was happy to get to see him all grown up as she never got to see him after moving.

Bethany