First Puppy Class

This week was Snickers first puppy class. He did really well and was such a good boy. Here are some other pictures from the week first though.

I just couldn't be happier with how nice Paris is to Snickers. Here he is putting his foot on her face and she is laying there like a good girl not reacting at all, she is a pro co-raiser!
Snickers ready to take Paris whole nose in his mouth. Again she just takes it and lets him do whatever he wants, sometimes I wish she would put him in his place though. :)
Snickers new favorite tug toy is Paris tail. She will roll onto her back and let him tug and tug. This is where I really wish she would fight back just a little.

Evil Snickers. He is laying on his back and his teeth are all showing.

Snickers smashed face into the kennel door.

Puppy class started with breakfast at my leaders house (something my club does toward the end of each summer) We were all eating and chatting when another raiser mentioned that a vet tech school was doing free exams, nail trims, baths, and ear cleanings for dogs that morning. After we all ate we moved our class to that event. It was so much fun and a great opportunity for the dogs to be handles by a lot of strangers and still behave themselves. During Paris' exam the vet tech was checking her eyes (the reason she was cc'd) and was getting really concerned. She told me she didn't think that her eyes were responding to the light and movement and she had her teacher come over and test her eyes as well. He did this test where he moved his hand toward her from different angles to see if she would flinch. She didn't most of the time and the tech said that she thought something was wrong with her eyes. That's when I told her that Paris is visually impaired. She was SO relieved that I knew already and she didn't have to give me that news. But I congratulated her on noticing something since Paris had been to several vets before (including for 2 eye surgeries) who never caught that she didn't see very well. It made me laugh. Paris was of course perfect and now she is squeaky clean. Here she is during her bath. The big dogs got hosed down and the little dogs got into a little wash tub.

Paris getting soaked with the hose.

And lathered up with Shampoo. She looks rather pathetic and confused.

Snickers was a good sport. He has so many people cooing at him and petting him and he was such a good boy. He even got to meet a goat and completely ignored it. His exam went well and he is nice and healthy. Whew! :) Here he is in the little tub during his bath. He was such a good boy and all the techs thought he was such a nice puppy.

Getting rinsed off.

After all that each dog got a little bandanna. Snickers got a yellow one and it looked pretty good on him. He was pretty exhausted on the way home and slept on the floor of the car the whole way home. It was quite an intense little outing for the little man.

Just because it's so cute here is Snickers sitting outside on the pavement doing his head tilt. His eyes are so droopy in this picture.

Well, that was our weekend. The boy is doing so well, he is a little trooper. He is starting to understand Sit, Wait, and Okay. He is a smart little guy! He is going on his first puppy trade tomorrow until Thursday since Wednesday is my first day of school and I won't be home much Wed or Thurs while I am getting everything figured out. Then he has his first evaluation with my CFR on Thursday. I hope he is good for the puppy sitter. :) I sure am going to miss having my squirrely little guy around.

Meeting the Siblings/First Outing. . .

Snickers is still doing really well. He is catching onto "come," "wait," "okay," and "sit." He loves his toys and is pretty good at entertaining himself but also loves to sit in my lap. I love how cuddly he is and how he always prefers to be touching me. He is an awesome puppy! He still sleeps through the night and never wakes me up. I think this is the easiest I've ever had it with a puppy. Seeing how he is my puppy Fullerton's nephew I am really happy he did not take on the trait of screaming bloody murder whenever in the kennel, I was definitely worried about that. ;) Well, without further ado here are sixty jillion more pictures of Snickers.


Snickers asleep on the kitchen floor doing "frog legs."
Snickers adorable face and big feet.

A close up of Snickers nose. I was trying to get a cute one of him in the grass but every time I took a picture he hopped up and stuck his nose in the camera.

Snickers sleeping on his back in the kennel with his upper body twisted over.

Me holding Snickers.

Snickers went on his first (kinda) outing. My dad is the principal at a brand new middle school so we went to help him decorate his office. Since the building was definitely dog free I decided to bring Snickers along. He was held the whole time and seemed to enjoy it. I sat in a chair and told my dad if things looked good in certain places and if they were straight and stuff. I like my job. ;) Snickers did too, anything that means he can sit in my lap and lick my face is fine by him. Here he is in my lap giving me a sweet lick on the chin.

Another cute close-up of Snickers' face.

When it was time to go we went outside to get a picture by the sign. The new school is called Vista Heights Middle School, my dad is very proud of his new school.

Here Snickers is sitting in front of the sign. I love that you can see my shadow hunched over trying to get him to stay, he did really well though, I was impressed.

After that I went up to Mitch and Julimae's house to pick up my girls. They were only supposed to watch Paris for a few days so I could get the new puppy settled in before having both dogs in the house but my leader went out of town so they ended up with both my girls. :) Since I was picking up Paris I decided to kidnap Picassa too so I could spend the night with her before she went back to my leader. I've missed Picassa a lot and so I took advantage of the opportunity. I loved having all three pups under one roof and we had a fun night/day together. (Picassa leaves again in an hour for 14 more days. :( It wasn't nearly as chaotic as I had anticipated and everything went rather smoothly. I think it works out with one high maintenance dog, one low maintenance dog and one REALLY low maintenance dog. (I'll let you guess which is which) All the dogs got along really well and the girls are really nice and gentle with Snickers. Paris likes to bring him toys while he is on tie down and she will lay down and just let him crawl all over her. It's so sweet!

Here are the three puppies lined up and eating breakfast together this morning.

Picassa and Snickers my two puppies in training laying in the grass together. (Also my new blog header)

All three of my puppies laying in the grass together. (These took a while to accomplish)

A close up of Snickers face in the grass. I really like this picture.

Me with Paris sitting on my right and Picassa sitting on my left and Snickers in my lap.

Here are some bloopers from my photo shoot. :)

ATTACK!! Snickers leaped on Picassa and she was a good girl and didn't react at all.

Picassa decided she was done, she started getting up and stuck her tongue out at me. Rude! LOL

Snickers walking on Paris while she sleeps. She didn't wake up at all while he was all over her.
Paris was really good playing tug with Snickers. She would just stand and hold the toy while he tugged and would let him win every once in a while.

Here is a video of Snickers playing with his bowl. He has an abundance of dog toys but his bowl is his favorite toy.

Here is a video of Paris playing tug with Snickers.

Here Paris lets Snickers win the game of tug and lets him celebrate before going to get it again.

Never in a Million Years

I never in a million years thought I would be raising this puppy, but when I heard they were doing a puppy lottery for who would raise him I eagerly entered my name. Several weeks later I got the call that my name had been drawn and he would be mine for the next year. I couldn't be happier with him, he is a wonderful puppy! He is pretty mellow and sleeps a lot, but every once in a while will do some really uncoordinated puppy scoots that I find hilarious. He slept from 11pm until 5am the first night without a single peep (besides some pretty loud snoring). I really appreciate his ability to hold it and sleep all night. The second night he unfortunately, found his lungs but the barking only lasted about ten minutes before he settled down and slept from 11pm until 4:30am. I took him out and he went #1 and #2 and then went back to sleep until 8:45am. Then last night he slept from 12am until 8:30am. I think this is the most sleep I've gotten with a puppy, I love it!

On Friday we went over to my grandmas house so she could meet him, he also met my aunt, uncle and 6 of my cousins. He did really well with all of the attention and being passed around. On Saturday I took him to meet one of my friends and she is completely in love with him. (Not surprising though, how could you not love him?) Here are some pictures of our first couple days together.

Snickers' favorite activity. . . sleeping. He looks stinkin' cute while he does it too.
Snickers sleeping on his back next to his puppy keys.
Snickers also loves leaves. Here he is standing in the grass with a leaf in his mouth. Silly puppy!

A close up of Snickers' face with red and green leafed trees behind him.

He is a mommas boy and always likes to be close. Here he is pushing his way over to me in the car. He is standing with his little body squished between the seat and center console so he is closer to me.

He finally laid down in the car. He always sits or stands so I was pretty proud of him. He looks so tiny on the floorboard of my car.

Here he is on one of our walks. After each meal he goes out potty and then I take him on a short walk up two houses and back. He seems to enjoy these walks as he has a big grin on his face.

Here he is laying on his dog bed with both feet up on his gough-nut and licking the center hole.

He really likes to sleep in the small space between the kennel and dog bed. I love that his nose is all squished in this picture.

I love that he is generally quiet in his kennel, and doesn't seem to mind being in there.

He loves to play tug and will tug for a bit and then roll over onto his back so you can tug him around.

Playing tug on his back.

Snickers sticking his tongue out at me.

It took him about a millisecond to figure out the dogs water bottle, he is now obsessed and will do these little spins anytime I touch it.

Here are a couple videos. The first is him playing tug, I love his little head shake. The second is his little labby loops, it is just 10 times funnier when little puppies do it.

Finally Some Chocolate I like

Those who know me well know my hatred for chocolate. People often tell me I am very strange because I don't like it, but I have a good reason. . .my first guide dog Prudy got into 3 of my sisters Halloween candy and ate it all, they decided it wasn't important enough to tell me. Needless to say that was a VERY messy night involving my room being plastered in a not so pleasant substance. To this day the smell of chocolate makes me very nauseous. I can still eat the occasional brownie if it's moist and Peanut M&M's are my favorite but other than that there really isn't much in the chocolate category that I can eat on a regular basis. Why am I telling you this? Well, I am sure by now you've figured it out. ;) Today I received some chocolate that I will never get sick of!!

The Puppy Truck Story

This morning I woke up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning because I couldn't force myself sleep any longer and figured I'd just get ready. After I got ready I still had several hours to kill before I could actually leave. I sat on my bed and twiddled my thumbs for a while, tried to read a book but got to antsy, and then played on my computer for a while. Finally it was time to go. I picked up a couple other raisers and headed off. We met a few more raisers at Subway and got some lunch and then staked out at the hotel that the puppy truck stops at. We ate and chatted for a long time (we were super early so we sat there for about an hour and a half) while more and more raisers started showing up. Then the puppy truck started pulling in. Everyone quickly ran over and gathered around the door anxiously waiting for all the adorable puppies to come off.

Here is a side view of the puppy truck. It has a picture of six little puppies on the side.

There were nine puppies that came off the truck and of course mine was last so I got more and more anxious as I watched each adorable puppy come off the truck. My club got three new puppies today. The first of the three to come off went to the most awesome lady ever. She is a first time raiser and her enthusiasm is so contagious. She was so excited to get her puppy! I love the huge smile on her face in this pictures as Female Yellow Lab Antigua (An-tea-gwa) was handed to her. Antigua is a Forte/Dale puppy so she is my Fullertons niece. I am so excited to have her in the group! Little Antigua is in good hands with her new raiser.
The 2nd puppy for our group came off next. He is his raisers 2nd puppy and is an adorable Male Black lab named Clyde. I love his name and his sweet face. His raiser is going to have so much fun with him.

Finally after watching 8 other puppies come off the truck my name was called. I stepped forward to meet my little fuzzball and was handed Male Chocolate Lab. . . SNICKERS!! He is just over eight weeks old and is a Forte/Arizona puppy. Which means he is also Fullertons nephew. That made me super happy! He is the cutest little puppy ever and I am already so in love with him. He is a rather special puppy as he and one sister are the only chocolate labs in GDB's program right now. GDB hasn't had any chocolate puppies in about 16 years. I am honored for the opportunity to raise this unique little guy!

Here he is coming off the truck and being handed to me. It looks like I am about to take a bite out of my chocolaty morsel but I was just saying "Hi" to him. ;)

Me with a huge grin on my face holding Snickers.

The three new puppies in our group. It was fun because our club got one of each color lab today. Me with Snickers, Antigua and her raiser and Clyde with his raiser.

Me giving Snickers a kiss on the cheek.

He has the most amazing eyes ever! They are a bright green and contrast so well with his brown fur. He also has the stinkin' cutest face ever. I love his liver colored nose too.

I didn't get to hold him much at the truck, which was okay. Everyone wanted a chance to hold the little chocolate boy so he got passed around quite a bit. He has quite a fan club forming already. :) He did get a chance to meet Paris and already loves her. Paris was really nice and gentle with him, she is going to teach him a lot over the next year.

Paris and Snickers giving each other a good sniff.

Amanda with Kyle let me borrow Kyle's jacket to show what Snickers has to grow into. I love this picture of me holding Snickers in front of the truck with Snickers wearing Kyle's jacket. He looks so tiny in it.

Snickers sitting in the grass wearing the huge jacket. It had slid all the way down his back because he wasn't big enough for it.

Snickers got to sit in laps on the way home until I had dropped everyone off then the last little bit of the drive was just me and Snickers. He quickly made himself comfy by laying down on my seat and resting his head on my bag. Silly puppy! Unfortunately, I had to move him onto the floor but he was okay with that too.

He didn't lay down, he sat on the floorboards with his head rested on the seat and then he fell asleep that way. It was adorable.

Snickers sitting in the grass at his new home.

Of course I had to give him a bath to make him fresh after his long puppy truck journey.

He was so good during his bath and didn't seem to mind it at all. And now he smells good and is so clean.

I am absolutely in love with this super mellow little guy. He will happily collapse wherever I place him and is so content chewing on his tiny little bone. Right now he is curled up in a tiny ball sleeping, although he looks a little silly on the massive puffy green dog bed. I am so excited to see what adventures Snickers and I have over the next 14-ish months. He is a stellar puppy!

There was a tie in my name game and so I decided to draw names for the winner. Congrats to Emily & The Labradors who guessed his sex, color and name. Send me an e-mail and let me know what prize you want. ;)