Phase 4

Yay! He's moving along! Way to go, Placer!

Half way through... You can do it, Place!

"P" goldens are slowly trickling into training... Primrose- who went back before Place is in phase 7, Pilgrim-who went back with Place is in phase 6 (I'm pretty sure he's in a different string, he's been in different phases since phase 1), Pryor- is in 3, and Pacer is in 0. I know at least Patriot and Peanut were CCed in puppyraising, but not sure about the others.
We met Palm at Fun Day, but didn't stay in contact... We shall see if we see the rest show up on the reports....

Phase 3

I usually check the phase report at 6:30 a.m. on Thursdays, but that's only because I would be distracted at work wondering where he is.

This morning there was a little "3" next to his name. Yay! He doing some preliminary testing this week! Good luck, Buddy! I know you can do it!

Bark for $1

The other day I was at the craft store check out line (I have an addiction to the craft store... maybe because it's right across the street from my office.) and as I was getting my wallet out King stood up so I told him to "sit". The cashier looked at me and very seriously asked "Oh, is he not ready to start learning how to count money yet?"

What?? I looked at her very confused and said politely "I'm not sure what you mean?"

She replied "I heard since blind people can't count their money, they teach the dogs to do it and they bark for how much money they have."

Not Kidding.

Not even a little bit.

I tried hard not to laugh as I responded "Nope. Each blind person has their own system to knowing what denomination of bills they have- usually they fold it differently or ask someone who is with them."

Then I slid my credit card.

Will you train my service dog?

Warning: This is a "soapbox" post. 

My least favorite thing about raising Guide Dog Puppies- which really isn't all that bad- is the fact that EVERYONE thinks we are experts on dog training and specifically, how to train a service dog.  I don't mind giving people advice on dog training. That doesn't bother me at all... it's usually the ones that ask the "service dog" questions.

All the time, I get:

"My Aunt just bought a beagle puppy and wants to make it her service dog. How do I do that?"

"Do you know how I get one of those coats for my dog? He's really good and he would be really good for my son."

"I'm going to go adopt a dog and make it a service dog for my niece. She is autistic... I think? But really likes dogs."

My favorite:

Random person: "Guide Dogs for the Blind Puppy in Training... Oh I train Guide Dogs!" 
Me:  "That's cool. What school do you raise for?"
RP: "Just for myself. I have 3 kids with multiple disabilities so I train the dogs for them. We should get together and do some training."
(To her credit I have met one of her several "guide dogs"- aka service dogs in training (...that are 3-years-old... and she has had since they were puppies... when does the "training" stop?)- and he seems like a good dog from what I have seen.)

Great.

Here is my confession:

I'm not service dog school. 

I have been raising GDB puppies for 13 years now and have been in leadership and taught puppy classes for a good portion of that. I feel like I am a good raiser, meaning I can teach a puppy to sit and come. I can teach a puppy not to jump on people or pull on leash. I can even teach a puppy to not pick food up off the floor...

 But,

 I don't teach my puppy to retrieve things off the floor, I don't teach my puppy to open doors, and I don't teach my puppies how to pull wheelchairs. (All which have been requested of me.) I'm sure I could teach that... but I don't and it should be left to someone who does.

Don't think I'm uncaring. I usually will ask "Well, what exactly do you want the dog to do?"

If it's more of a therapy-type job I will refer them to find a good dog trainer in the area, get a CGC, and tell them that Therapy animals aren't considered a service dog so they are more of the "stay home most of the time" with a few special privileges.


 If they haven't gotten a dog yet, I will have them check out CCI's website to see if they qualify for something under them.

Usually people say, "I don't know. Come with me everywhere."

Awesome.

That's when I say... "You should probably figure that out before you start doing anything..."

Phase 2 and the morning before...

I love being able to check the phase report right when I get up. Points to GDB for thinking of moving it online!

Yay for Phase 2 this week! Hopefully he's enjoying his time and working hard. :)

On the homefront, King is not having a good day... This morning he woke up to no breakfast. This dogs LIFE is food! I think he just about died when we had to feed the black dog, and he was in the back bedroom. "Why does he not get breakfast?" You ask? Well... The other day King got his neuter note. Poor guy won't know what hit him... All he knows is he's not getting breakfast.

Phase 1

Yay! Placer finally moved up! It feels like he's been gone for forever...and should be in phase 8 by now...

...but probably not. He really has only been gone a month-ish and its been over the Holidays so I guess GDB has an excuse. I'm just not patient!

Every Thursday I get on the reports as soon as I can and search for his name... Every time I miss it and have a mini-freak out that he's not on there... Then everytime, I look carefully back through the "P"s and find his name "Placer M GLD 1". Then all is right with the world again... Here's to another week of Place working hard at guide dog school.

Warm

King does not like the cold. Poor guy came to the wrong state... Apparently he's a California boy all the way. (With a name like King, how could he not be!)

Yesterday he came to work with me and I almost had to pick him up because of the amount of ice melt and snow on the ground. He pushed through and made it to the nice warm comfort of my office. Good thing or her might not have been able to enjoy this heater vent when he got home...

She was jealous...

Puppysit

This is Beacon.

He's 9 months old and a pretty big boy.

He's adorable and super nice.

He will be joining our new club.

We've had him for the past few days, and he is a great puppy. At first Judith was not sure of him, but he has definitely grown on her and he understands the rules for each other...

Phase 0

It's a bad idea to get on Pinterest when you're missing your golden puppy...

Goldens are all over the place there.

I miss my boy...

Good news is, he showed up on the Phase Report!
Phase 0. It's not much, but it's something! He's doing his initial health stuff and getting lots of cuddles.

Good Luck fluffy guy!

In other news, cute King-a-roo got to come to work this week for the first time. He did well! I totally forgot we had a University Student Affairs Luncheon so he get to attend that. he did great and slept all the way through it.

Good boy!

He's such a sweet guy. So easy going and relaxed. Judith is finally starting to get used to him for the most part. She's such a patient girl but definitely enjoys her weeks off.

In the next month or so we will be starting a new adventure. We will be leaving our current club and getting to start up a new club in the Salt Lake Area. It will be a fun experience and I'm really nervous. I haven't lead a club without a co-leader... ever. I've always had a co-leader to help out. I'm sure I will learn quite a bit. If anyone has any advice or tips throw them my way. I could sure use them!

Only child

While we heard that Mr. Placer made it to Oregon safely, Judith may or may not have liked being an only child the last 3 days.

She's gotten to play her favorite games of Hide-and-go-seek and indoor fetch, (She doesn't like doing it outside for very long.), she gets carrots daily and doesn't have to worry about another dog trying to eat her crumbs, and she has shamelessly been up on the bed and the couch several times- all this without a tag-a-long trying to steal attention.

This morning she got a bath, which she was not fond of, but loved the rub down with the towel after.

Ahh... It's so nice having life back to normal.

Little does Judith know- King will be back on Sunday... Enjoy it while it lasts, little girl. It won't be long.

Placer's Last Days

For your viewing pleasure... I present to you Placer's last days as a puppy-in-training:

 

Brother's final outing together to the Live Nativity put on by the local Baptist Church. It was snowing and both dogs looked like they walked around in a freezer by the time we were done, but they did great!

Last day at work... who doesn't deserve a little cuddle in the corner on his last day?

He might have been a little sleepy...

We miss him already, but we know he will do well and can't wait to watch his progress!

Good Luck, Placer-bear!

Senior Pictures sneak peak

 Erica (Marnie's stepdaughter that has kind of taken Marnie's place with Placer) and I headed out today for Placer's final pictures with us as a Puppy in Training. The big gold dog is headed up to Oregon sometime next week for his formal training. We know he will do well at whatever they ask him to do, and will make us proud.  Here are a few of the pictures we took today... more to come.

I'm sure going to miss this boy by my side...

Thankful

For this:

Recovering

Whew! Glad things are getting better around here... Poor Placer had a weekend that we would all rather not repeat.

Friday we took him into the vet for his diarrhea. They said he was slightly dehydrated, but nothing too out of the ordinary as far as diarrhea goes. They sent in a fecal test and gave us some anti diarrhea meds to try in the meantime... We arrive home, give him his meds and I fall asleep. 72 hours with no more than 45 min sleep does that to you. 2 1/2 hrs later I wake up and my husband says he noticed that Placers head is looking fat. I call Mr Place over and sure enough, allergic reaction. Awesome.
Fortunately, the vet wasn't quite closed yet so I call them up to let them know we are on our way back in. He gets a shot in hopes that his face will return to normal. That evening he decides that he really didn't want his dinner of rice and cottage cheese in his stomach and throws it up. Thank goodness for tile floors!
That night he slept better in regards to not having to go out, but poor guy had the itchies. He was shaking his head and scratching and chewing on his paws. The next day was the same. We tried to keep benadryl in him, but it didn't work as well as we hoped... Good news is, he slept a little more though. Over the next few days he has slowly gotten better... Yesterday we got the fecal results back and he somehow got a parasite. Awesome.

So, new meds, new treatment and we are ready to put this past weekend behind us. Placer is ready to get his groove back... Seriously. He's tired of being stuck at home. Now to figure out how to get rid of the "sick dog smell" even after 3 baths... 

The Sick One

Sometimes its hard to remember that I have dogs- not kids... Especially after being up every 30 min for 2 nights in a row. I think I've cleaned up more diarrhea to last the rest of the time Placer is here... And King for that matter.

Off to the vet...

Staying... for now

Well... after all that... He's not leaving after all.

Word on the street is that there were several dogs unexpectedly dropped from Breeder Eval so they can only take a few dogs back, and because Placer is the youngest one that is eligible, he's not leaving. They are thinking he might fly back sometime in the December or January.

I have mixed emotions about this.

I adore Placer (as I'm sure you know) and I really don't want to see him go. He is great to take out, easy to have around, and fun to play with. We really do love having him around. He's really just at that point we don't even think twice about taking him somewhere.

On the other side, he's ready. I worry about him getting bored and trying to pick up bad habits. I know that sounds silly to say that of a golden retriever, because they tend to be less mature, but he really is ready. I think partially because we expected him to leave, so we worked really hard to get him ready.

But, now that King is old enough, we do get to start alternating weeks with him too. This makes it so much easier to work with them individually...  So I think Placer will get to work on those little things more effectively- like relieving on hard surfaces or learning how to stop shedding... oh wait.

Here's to another few more weeks/months with the Placer-Bear... and being down to 2 dogs. :)

...makes the heart grow fonder...

I've been gone from home for about a week for work/vacation. Judith got to stay home and my sister came to stay with her, while Placer and King went to the co-raisers.

Although it's been nice to have this week without 3 dogs, I realized something...

I miss them! I saw a Dalmatian in New Orleans a few days ago, and I really just wanted to hug it, just for the love of a dog...I miss it. 

I miss Judith's wagging tail when I get home. (and I do mean WAGGING)

I miss a cute puppy King sleeping on my feet.

And yes, I miss Placer's unawareness at how big his tail is while he's looking for love... (needless to say, we can't keep things on our coffee table, at tail level.)

I started crying the other day because I thought about Placer leaving... among other things that I have yet post on. What made it harder, was the fact that I didn't have his fluffy fur to cry into. I'm sure going to miss that big guy. We got the unofficial list on Monday for November 11th.

I don't think I'm ready for this.

But he is, and I'm sure he will do great!

Puppy ears

I love this guy's ears!

They are big, floppy, and soft.

I hope they stay like this for forever like Vinnie...

3 dogs + 1 X-pen

I'm not going to lie.

3 dogs is hard.

It's not as bad as I thought it would be- but I don't think I'll ever do it again for longer than a few days.

The X-pen is our friend... our best friend. Although, it is not King's friend. He does not like it. He likes to tell us that it is not his friend. Placer likes to push it around trying to get "his" toys out of it- it doesn't work in case you were wondering.

It makes me laugh when I talk to them and they look at me like I'm making perfect sense to them and they are listening.

"Placer, please stop pushing the X-pen in on your brother." "King, you don't need to jump up the side of the X-Pen."

They prove pretty quickly after I finish talking that they really weren't listening to a word I said.

No worries...We have a whole week to teach them how to interact appropriately again before Placer goes back to our co-raisers... and King will start going to our co-raiser's every other weekend this week. (We will be co-raising with Marnie's 14-year-old daughter, McKale for King. We weren't going to because Marnie just had a baby- but 2 days after I got King, they called and asked if they could co-raise again. Yes, please!)

Life goes on and they WILL learn- or at least I will. :)