One more

Sorry for the millions of brags on Placer lately... Basically, I'm pretty sure no one else wants to hear about it and this way you can skip it if you want. So here is your fair warning... more brags on the Goldog. 

We had his final eval today. We had it with Sandi- who is not our regular CFR but because our CFR is out on medical leave, she is filling in. I think she is great. Very personable and you can tell she knows her stuff when it comes to dogs. She met us at the local mall and did the normal Q&A. 

Does your puppy do well in the crate?

How is his relieving habits?

Is your puppy on food protocol?

Not too bad. 

Then came "The Walk". I don't usually like this part because I get all nervous. I know... after 12 years  of raising- AND being a leader for most of those years- I still get nervous. I know that must transfer to my dog so I try really hard to just relax and do what we normally do.  I like to think that it works. I think I was even more nervous this time because I didn't know Sandi and I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Anyway, it was time and she had me take off his headcollar (weird) and she walked him to the corner of the food court and did a few handling things. We got to watch and he did excellent! That's my boy! There was even another Service Dog in the food court and he did great. She then walked him out of the food court and out of sight... 

I felt like a mom waiting for her kid to get out of the ACT/SAT. 

About 15-20 minutes later she came back... with a very happy Placer. She said he did great! He was a litte nervous when she first had him, but once she walked for a minute, did was fine. He walked by some traffic outside and was great and did a lap around the mall. Good Boy! 

She said he's super nice and especially for a 12 month old Golden Retriever, did really well. We are super proud of him and can't wait to see how he does in training! We will be so sad to see him go... my co-raiser started tearing up a little when she started thinking about him leaving- which is bad news for me! I still try not to think about the sad parts of Placer leaving. I know he will do great and make us proud whatever he decides to do!

The "K" puppies are...

We got our letter the other day that had the official names of the "K" litter. There was a name change with the other male, of which we were exited because they used one of our names.

Without further ado... Introducing... The Phoenix and Mamie "K" litter:

King

Kipper*

Katyjo*

Kelty*

Kilda

Kyla*


*The names we submitted.

Kipper and Kyla are in California, Katyjo is in Washington, and we heard Kelty was donated to a school in Canada... so we're just missing Kilda.

Phoenix's next litter with "Aqua" is getting ready to go out soon. 8 pups. 6 male blacks, 1 male yellow, 1 female yellow... Remember how I always say I'm going to ask for a Male Black Lab? I'm not doing so great on that am I? One day we will have the same color hair floating around the house... one day.

Growing up...

Placer reminds me all the time of how much he's grown up. This last weekend King went to my co-raisers house while Placer got to stay here until Sunday night. Because puppy was being taken care of- Placer got to do some fun things this weekend- First, after my last post I started thinking about how I think Placer really COULD stay home alone longer than 30 minutes... With Phoenix we tried doing it once-- and it didn't work out so well (Good bye to a song book from my church mission, several magazines, and a basket that held them all.) so with Placer I've been a little nervous. With this in mind I nervously left Placer free in the house this morning while we went to church for a few hours this morning. I made sure all the doors were shut and toys were out and left. About half way through the service I realized I forgot to take the garbage out. I had some strawberry tops and banana peels in the garbage and was pretty sure they wouldn't be there when I got home...

This is what we found:

The happy guy hanging out in the hallway with a bone.

A happy Goldog and the garbage safely... still needing to go out- Fruit intact. What a good boy...


His other adventure was a trip to Salt Lake. Our puppy club rode the train, ate lunch downtown, then went to a show at the planetarium. Placer proved that he's going to show the trainers at GDB his best!

Under the seat on the train.

My brother with Placer on "Mars".

...and Aden and Placer on the "Moon".

I just can help being so proud of this guy and how well he is doing...

The last year...

I forgot to post about Placer's birthday... with all the craziness happening the last week... the Goldog decided to turn ONE on September 7th!

Placer got to go swimming in a pool about 3 weeks ago. He LOVED it... as long as he could touch the bottom.

We don't have him this week... but he did get lots of love for his birthday. We heard that he will most likely be leaving for formal training November 11th on the truck. Having King around has made that a little more real. We will be so sad to see him leave, but he's a really great dog and we think he will do great in training. Whoever gets him will definitely have to be a special person.

King is a pretty nice puppy (He reminds me quite a bit of Phoenix) but he definitely has brought back memories of how far Placer really has come. Placer has always been a pretty nice puppy- easy to have around, willing to please, and fairly confident... but he has had his "quirks". Here is a little look back at where he was... and maybe some brags on where he is now:

Placer was one of the hardest of my pups to get to sleep in the crate... now he LOVES his crate and we can say "Kennel" from almost anywhere in the house and he will run to his crate and wait for us to shut the door. Before he would cry and cry... now we will hear a loud "sigh" from him every so often- but for the most part he crashes.

Placer didn't quite get any of his commands very quickly... Now he's a pro. It took him a while- but now that he knows them- he's on top of it!

Placer used to run and hide when we pulled out his head collar- and by association- his puppy coat... now he runs to the door every time I grab my keys. He willingly will "help" put on his puppy coat and head collar  by putting his head/nose through it and doesn't try to itch or rub it off. He loves to go out and if I don't take him, he's not too happy. His favorite place is going to work...+

Placer was a garbage mouth and a counter surfer as a "teenager" (8-10 months)... now he's allowed to stay loose in the house while we leave him home for short trips. I haven't ventured to leave him longer, but I'm sure he would be fine. It's mostly me that is paranoid... he's always a perfect gentleman and is usually asleep when we get home- or at the door waiting for us with Judith.

Placer had some instances of relieving on walks when he was younger... and now he's reliable on long walks and will relieve on command. (I will admit- I'm terrible at keeping my puppies relieving on cement/asphalt so that is something we will be working on before he leaves because it's been a few months since we've done that.)

 Placer has grown up so much over the last year and we can't wait to see how he does. I love watching these puppies start as silly, energetic puppies... then turn into sweet, focused companions.

Here's to another year of growing...

9-week-old, King

Roll out the Red Carpet....

...Mr. KING has arrived.

 

He looks just like his daddy...Check this link out. They look like twins!

 

He's super sweet and does pretty well during the day... Yesterday I pulled weeds in the backyard and he just hung out with me. He even fell asleep in the gravel.

 

Night time, however, is another story. He's not so fond of the crate and thinks that crying for long periods of time opens a magic portal that will get him out... hasn't worked yet, but he's still trying. He probably has the smallest bladder of any of my pups which makes us VERY glad our house is tile and wood floors for the most part.

He is super sweet though and we sure love him already. Placer met him yesterday and will be coming back to stay with us this afternoon until Tuesday- then we'll be back to our normal trade offs on Sundays next week. He has some of Phoenix's characteristics and it's fun to notice them... it's hard not to compare. One of my favorite things- that I thought was REALLY weird about Phee- is that when he doesn't know what to do, he will just sit. If he's bored- he sits, if he's tired- he sits, if he's excited- he sits. Phoenix's breeder keepers said they noticed that about Phoenix- and now apparently his little boy is just like him.

Hopefully he starts to sleep at night soon- I don't know how much sleep deprivation I can do...

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the day!

Baby crate is clean.

X-Pen is clean and dragged... to the back door (it will be inside tonight when I get home).

Baby puppy toys are out, but in the secret hiding spot so Placer and Judith don't get to them. (the puppy crate)

Buying more puppy food tonight.

Yay for baby "K" puppy coming.

Crossing our fingers that it's cool enough for "K" to fly in at 7:15- if not it won't be until 9:30.




Okay, I'm kind of ridiculous...

Yes, that's right, 3 dogs at our house

It's finally hitting me that maybe I'm a little crazy.

I keep telling myself that 3 dogs really isn't that bad- especially because I'll still be co-raising Placer so really it will only be every other week- And assuming he goes back the beginning of November- that's really only 5-ish weeks with 3 dogs.

It doesn't seem that long- but at the same time- I'm still a little nervous.

I think a lot of the nerves are because I don't like to have "doggie" stuff out in our living space and with one more dog- it's going to be a necessity. (It's probably a psychological thing. I don't want people to avoid coming to our house because it smells like dog, dog hair is everywhere, or dogs are just underfoot all the time. Any Psychologists out there want to analyze that?;) ) I don't mind the toys, and Placer/Judith do have a wandering dog bed- sometimes it's  hidden in the laundry room with the rest of the dog stuff but, sometimes it's in the Living room and sometimes it's in our bedroom, sometimes it's in our piano room, and it even went camping with us this weekend, but for the most part, everything is in the laundry room. I think I will have to accept the fact that to stay sane- at least for the first few weeks- I will have to drag the X-pen in the kitchen and have a baby crate in our bedroom. Sigh...
  
Anyone have any other suggestions? Especially to help limit the jealousy- although I'm pretty sure Placer gets jealous when I even look at another dog.

I think it will be great. It will be nice to have a pup that will be ready to go out when Place leaves... and we got pictures of them this weekend. They sure are cute! The males are about Phoenix's color, but the girls are a darker red. I'll post them sometime next week... Is anyone's club getting a "K" pup soon?