Guide Dog Girls...turning into Guide Dog Boys...

So our last two guide dog puppies have been...BOYS..a very strange change in our household!! Doug (or dougie dog) is such a great puppy-aside from his ongoing diarrhea..He is sweet, calm, perfect on outings and great to live with..Doug is currently on campus for a medical eval, but he should be coming home next week..

A few weeks ago we got MYL "Zuni"--he is a Tiburon/Alanis puppy which was very exciting since our CC, Claudine, is an Alanis pup...Mr Z man is a little wild man..He is full of spunk and loves to play with all of the dogs in our house..Zuni is a gorgeous 'Tiburon" red and will no doubt be a beautiful, stocky, boy. (Moxie & Zuni)

CC Claudine and pet dogs Sidney & Moxie aren't too sure what to think of Zuni yet, but he is being co-raised by club member, Ali, so he can be an only dog at her house:-)

One of our old pups, Marina, is going in for recall this week..Marina is an extremely sweet and soft girl who loves her raisers (all 5 of us!) and has many people that will miss her..

~ MARINA~

Oh and Tandy is in Phase 5!!

Doug Dog!

A typical night at our house..

Doug is 10 months old now and such a good boy! I really haven't posted anything lately because he is just so easy and good that there hasn't been much to say!!

He is at a puppysitter this week while I watch 4 month old Spreckles (Tiburon/Raffle) and Bethany has our old starter pup Dinah! Both are really nice, fairly soft girls..

We are getting a MYL starter puppy in June-he will probably stay for 6-8 weeks and then be transferred to another raiser in our club..I am getting anxious to find out litter details!

Here are some recent photos of the Dougie Dog!

Update..

There hasn't been much new in the guide dog world for us, so I have not been staying on top of our blog! We always have a million things going on with dogs, but not really the guide dogs!!

Doug is off on a 3 week puppysit as Bethany just got her new pet puppy, Moxie, an 8 week old yellow lab who is the sister to my dog, Sidney! I have also been fostering three-5 week old lab mix puppies so we have had our hands full of puppies!!

Moxie!!

Doug is a wonderful puppy-we are enjoying him very much and hope he will continue to progress until he returns for recall. Thursday I will be getting Marina for a 9 day puppy-sit! I am very excited to see her & see how she is doing!!

Some of our friends picked up Hominy, FYL, yesterday-she is a Meredith puppy-Meredith is Claudi's half sister (a Simon puppy) so we are excited to meet her as we love all of our Simon related pups!

This is our last remaining foster boy...such a cutie!! :-)

It's been a while..

We haven't been very good at updates lately!! It seems like a lot has been going on though! Let's see..We found out that Simon has been bred 3 times recently..Yay for more Simon puppies!!..

We received "Dax" a MYL in our club at the beginning of January-he is a Bruna/Atrus puppy..Bruna was raised in our former club in Salem & Atrus is the 1/2 brother to our Emmy, so we were very excited to meet Dax, and boy is he cuuute!!

Sadly, Bethany's 11 year old golden retreiver, Fizz, passed away last week so our house feels a little empty with 1 less dog..Strangely enough, we have been planning to get a new puppy from my pet dogs parents and she was born the same day Fizz left us..So, in 6 weeks little fox red female yellow lab will be joining our pack..

(one of the dark ones is ours!)

Today we transferred little miss Marina to her new raiser, Kristy, in Salem..Marina is an amazing puppy who really needs some 1-on-1 attention and Kristy is really looking forward to spoiling our girl..We are really happy she will only be 45 minutes away and we will still be able to see her..

Little Dougie dog is doing really well. He is growing fast and is such a nice dog. He fits in well in our house & is a calm, sweet, big, boy that we love!

Ogden's Graduation and an Update (by Bethany)

Ok, so along time in coming but Ogden's graduation was fantastic. He remembered us immediately, no pause at all and was in my roommate's lap saying hi to her and trying to get to me. What was interesting was that we had him his first two months and then I had seen him once at a year and he actually got a little more excited to see my roommate and I than he did his finishing raisers. I am guessing maybe because they were more familiar and he had not seen us in awhile? He also sniffed my pants all over and got excited, remembering his doggie roommates I'm sure.

He was a little goofy at times but as soon as his harness came in he was very serious. His new partner is named Michelle and she loved him and said he was the best dog in the class. It makes me feel so good to hear her say that! He was the biggest dog in class, taking after his dad, Simon, but was super easy to control which was really nice.

I loved getting to walk him out onto stage and to see him so happy to see all of his people. Michelle was sweet and wonderful and I know they will do fantastic together.

As for the rest of the pack at home.... Doug is doing great but as soon as we tried to get him off his bland food his diarrhea returned full force. So there is a new course of action on that. Other than that he is doing well, loving going out in public, loving people, and having an adorable wiggle. His head is huge, he is quite a cutey, and I am sure he will get comments on that for a long time to come. He had a photo shoot a few days ago so here are some pics. It's so odd how different their coloring shows up inside versus outside. His ears are kind of silly looking as you can see in a couple of the pictures:)

Marina is off to her co-raiser today. She is a college student and will take her for all of her Christmas Break. We are not sure what is in her future because she has lots of small things to work on that may require more one-on-one from a raiser. However, she has enjoyed going on small outings this past week (she was on "house arrest" for a couple months to help work on her confidence) and is getting better and better at her house behaviors.

Oh and we had Tandy last week for two nights and she was SO excited to be home again!

That's it for now.

Bethany

5 Days to Graduation (by Bethany)

It is getting so close! Ogden will be going to live with a woman in Indiana. We are working on his picture book and can't wait to see him again!

Meanwhile, our boy Doug is getting huge and Marina is adjusting to our household. Tandy has been going to middle school (she is a math student) for a few weeks now and is doing great.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!! Here is a picture of Doug. He has had some diarrhea issue so he has been hanging in the ex-pen some:(

News from Emmy Girl..

We got a phone call from Emmy last night!! Well, from Tim, Emmy's person! It is always very exciting to hear from them & know that she is so loved. They recently had their 2 year visit from Guide Dogs and it went well-they will have been together 2 years in December. I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday though..

It sounds like Emmy encounters alot of random dogs where they live and has gotten pretty protective of Tim, which I have a hard time visualizing, but I just want them to be safe! She is still working well and Tim sounded good.

Tim mentioned to Bethany that he plans to keep his promise and return Emmy to us when she can no longer guide..While this is what I have been waiting for every single day since she was recalled 2.5 years ago, if the day comes I will be heartbroken for Tim & Emmy to be apart..We will just hope for that time to be many years from now..

I miss my little monkey,but it makes me feel better to know how much Tim loves her..Take care of our girl if you are reading Tim!!

Kim