30 for 30-Day 5 (Farewell Picassa)

Here are my pictures from my goodbye to Picassa.

Me and Picassa in front of the truck.

Christina and Picassa getting ready to board. Christina was also raised in my club and is Picassas half sister.

Picassa pretty much ran onto the truck and into a kennel. I said a quick goodbye told her that I was proud of her and to do good things and that was that. She is in California now getting acquainted with the GDB campus and starting her health exams.

And now I am down to two dogs which is nice, but very different and quiet. It always feels like something is missing.

30 for 30-Day 3 (Recall Day)

So, I am headed out the door to go to a group project meeting for one of my classes and for fear that I won't get back until after today is over I wanted to make a quick post. (Pictures and stuff will be added later but I want to make sure I get my post of the day up)

I dropped off Picassa this afternoon and she practically raced onto the truck. Guess she was ready to get out of here and get on with her training. I don't think raisers get many updates when their dogs do breeder evals so I think the next bit of news I'll get on her is whether she is a breeder or gets put into training but that could be months away. It's hard knowing that I will most likely not hear about her for a long while.

I am slowly adjusting to having only two dogs around and so far it's been really weird. I keep looking in the back of my car and panicking because one of the yellow ones is missing. She is a sweet girl and I will miss her happy little face dearly. Good luck Cos!!

30 for 30-Day 2 (Photo Shoot)

Today was Picassas last full day as a guide dog puppy in training. I felt like it was a tad anti climactic. Usually I've taken my puppies hiking or something for their last day but Picassa didn't get that since I worked all morning and then had class all afternoon and then got home about eight minutes ago. . .too bad. I did get to do one last photo shoot with her today. It was such a nice day with a blue sky so I took some time between work and school to do that. Pictures are below but you'll have to endure a few words from me first.

I am so proud of how far Picassa has come in the last six months. She has made leaps and bounds and has turned into a wonderful little dog who I am proud to have raised. There are so many things that I am going to miss about this girl but I'll just list a few for all of you.

1. I will miss her super short and puffy tail that I have nicknamed stubbs.

2. I am going to miss how excited she gets around meal time. She spins in circles and races to her bed (She has to "go to bed" before she gets fed, so it is automatic now)

3. I'll miss how gentle she is when she is giving kisses.

4. I'll miss how she seems to think she is a kangaroo. (It drove me crazy for the longest time but I finally came to terms that it's just a Picassanism. :) So this is what I see at work most of the day.)

5. I'll miss her phenomenal house manners. I've never had a puppy who was so good in the house.

6. I'll miss her bright pink eraser nose.

7. I'll miss how incredibly sweet she is and how she is always happiest when she is touching someone.

8. I'll miss her ability to make the most out of any situation.

9. I'll miss her yodeling. When she gets excited she makes the strangest noises and I love it. It usually sounds like a mix between a wookie and a seal. It's weird.

Picassa is a fun little pup and I am excited to see what career choice she chooses. :) She will be headed to the California campus for breeder evals and if she isn't chosen to be a breeder (I know that four of her five siblings are currently doing breeder evals right now so we shall see) then she will go into harness training. She is an international consideration pup too so that is also a possibility. Good luck Cos!!!

Okay, without further ado here are the pics from my photo shoot with Picassa.

AND

OUTTAKES!

What's a photo shoot without outtakes? LOL

Well, I'm off to do Picassa final bath, nail trim, ear cleaning and tooth brushing. :(

Goodbye Paris, Hello. . . ?

Well, Paris is on the truck now. It is so hard to say goodbye and I already miss her so much. The puppy truck drivers like her a lot and told me that Paris would be spending the night in the hotel room with them. That made me so happy! They also told me that Paris should be arriving at the Oregon Campus around 1pm on Tuesday. Anyway,

When I got there the truck had just pulled up so me and my friend Gabby and also, Amanda and her mom from my club helped walk all the dogs. One of the dogs I walked was Peppermint who is Paris' sister. It was fun to walk her, she is a lot like Paris but has more of Peanuts looks. She is really long and slender. I am glad that I got to meet her.

[Me sitting on the grass with Paris and Peppermint.]
[Me and Paris in front of the truck]
[Me giving Paris a big hug in front of the truck.]

After all the dogs were walked they brought off the two transfer puppies for our club. We got a six month old Male Yellow Lab named Kyle and then my new puppy who is also a yellow lab. Here is my girl coming off the truck. She is a ball of energy, hopefully it's from being on the truck for a day and she'll calm down after a bit.

[Me kneeling on the ground with the new pup jumping all over me.]

[Me and the new girl in front of the truck.]

[Paris (puppy #8) Me, and New pup (puppy #9) sitting in front of the truck.]

Me and Amanda standing in front of the truck holding our new pups.]

[Me laying in the grass with Paris and the new pup laying next to me.]

I stalled for as long as I could but, decided it was time to say goodbye to the Paris. Lot of tears and hugs and "good lucks" later she was lifted into one of the top crates.

[Paris laying nicely in the kennel.]

[Paris behind bars with the kennel door shut.]

It is always so hard to leave the pups behind. But Paris is awesome and I look forward to watching her cruise through the phases on the report. GOOD LUCK PARIS!!

We left the truck and had to go straight to my sisters house for our traditional mothers day dinner. So the new girl came too. (although we stayed in the yard because my bro-in-law is allergic. I think the new pup is the first of my dogs to go to my sisters house. ;) Lucky dog. She is so funny in the car because she likes sitting in the middle and resting her head on the drivers and passengers arms. I thought it was so sweet. Every once in a while she would look up at me and lick away some tears. She sure is a sweet thing.

[The pupper with her head between the seats.]

[The new pup greeting a couple of my sisters. She gets really excited and mouthy greeting people so that is something we will have to work on.] Okay, I am sure you guys are dying to know my new pups stats. ;) Well, her parents are Kentucky and Tilda and she was born July 25, 2009 (A day after my birthday). Which makes her 9 1/2 months old. She is a really short and stalky dog with a triangular face. She is a really light base color with a darker strip down the middle of her back. She has a really thick and short tail, and a very pink nose. Her eyes are humongous and her feet are tiny. She probably weighs between 35-40 pounds (I am going to get her weighed tomorrow.) Her hair is really long and fluffy, I love it. The truck drivers told me that she was being transferred because she needed a more experienced raiser and I can see why because she can be quite a handful. I know everything is new so I will give her a few days to settle in before I really start cracking the whip. :) Oh, and her name is:

PICASSA!!!

I'm not totally in love with the name but it's growing on me.

And back to my post,

She also got to meet my nephew Cannon (who is the cutest kid in the world by the way.) He called her Paris and I corrected him and told him that her name was Picassa and he said, "Costco!!" I tried to correct him but finally gave up. Guess she already has a fun nickname as he called her that the rest of the day. ;)

[Cannon was shading Picassa with an umbrella and she gave him a kiss on the nose.]

[Picassa laying in the backyard]

Then it was finally time to go home. Picassa is settling in quite nicely, I am so happy that she is good at entertaining herself. She is pretty funny to watch too because she loves picking up her toys and then hopping all over and flinging them around and chasing them. She has decided that her favorite place to lay is between my closet and the kennel where there is about a foot of space, it's weird, and she won't touch the dog beds. But, I am excited for the next months with her, she seems to have great potential.

[Picassa chewing on a sterile bone. It's a huge bone and she has half of it shoved in her mouth.]

This is my attempt at getting a video of her flinging her toys. It's not very good because she stopped doing it, I will try to get a better one later.

Thanks to everyone for your good luck wishes for Paris, it's nice to know she has such a solid fan base cheering her on at college. :D

Paris' Last Day

Today was Paris' last day with me. It was a pretty typical day nothing too exciting happened but here is what we did. :)

First was Paris' last puppy class. We met at a mall and it was a fun pretty relaxed meeting. At the beginning I passed out my cupcakes and everyone loved them. Then my leader asked me to show off everything that Paris does well. It was awkward but Paris did great. I showed her walking around all the dogs without getting distracted and on a loose leash, then I showed her awesome body slam "down" (she doesn't do it with quite as much pizazz anymore but it's still pretty funny.) Then we did a stay for a couple minutes and then food distraction (I dropped kibbles right in front of her and she didn't try to get them. What a good girl!) The rest of the class we played 'My Dog can do That' and worked on dog distractions.

[Paris getting lots of praise for walking around the dogs on a loose leash.]
[Paris doing her crazy, quick down. I love the way she looks at me, she is so focused.]
[Paris ignoring all the kibbles I am dropping. I was very proud of her.]

After puppy class we went through the car wash. This is one of Paris' favorite things she loves watching the brushes scrub the car, I thought it would be fun for her last day.

[Paris sitting in my car, you can see the scrubbers in the background.]

After that we went back home and had a nice romp in the backyard with her friends Moose and Boone. She had a great time and I took the opportunity to take a few cute pictures of the Paris.

[Paris trotting toward me with her tongue out.]

[Paris laying in the green grass with a big smile on her face and her tongue sticking out. If you look close you can see one of the black spots on her tongue]

[Me sitting on my trampoline with Paris laying next to me. We both have big smiles.]

[Me giving Paris a kiss on the head.

We ran a bunch of errands too to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Petsmart, and a bunch of other places and she was as perfect as always. She is definitely ready for the next step. (I guess the real question is: Am I? I'm thinking. . . no) At least I got a few weeks to stop freaking out about the phase report, now I get to start freaking out again. :)

Good luck Paris! I am confident that you will do great. I have been honored to be one of your puppy raisers! You are one of a kind, perfect, fun, energetic, silly, hard-working, very loving, and I will miss you so much. You have taught me a lot because you can be quite stubborn but I love that about you and I will never forget what I've learned from you. You have all the skills to get you started and now the rest is up to you. I am so anxious to see what path you decide. (Although I'd love to see you in harness ;) Listen to your trainers and don't party too hard. Be a good girl and just know how extremely proud I am of you!

Only 14 1/2 hours left with Paris. . .

New Puppies!!

Me and Paris went up to the puppy truck today to see all of the new puppies come off. They are all so cute and making me miss puppies, it's been a long time. We got two new puppies in our club today (and two more coming on Sunday one of which is mine. ;) FYI: Yes, I do know about my new puppy but I am going to be horrible and make y'all wait until I get him/her. Evil I know, only two more days though. :)

The first new puppy to our club is a female yellow lab named Breeze. I love the name! Her parents are Piedmont and Geraldine. She is a really light almost white color with such a wrinkly little face.

[One of Breezes raisers give her a hug at the puppy truck.]
The other is Jacinda. . . still can't quite get my tongue wrapped around that name but at least she is cute. Her parents are Simon and Elsa. She is a little black lab.
The rest are just random pictures from the truck.

[Me, Paris, Becky, Sarah, and Rafferty in front of the truck. This is a fun picture because it is Sarah's 3rd, 4th, and 5th puppies all in one place.]

[Paris says hello to little Jacinda.]
[Paris, Becky, and Rafferty laying in some grass.]
[Jacinda asleep in the car. Her head is kinda wedged so all her skin is pulled over her face giving her wrinkles galore.]
Tomorrow is Paris' last puppy class and so I made cupcakes to take for everyone. (I love how the first thing my family asked when they saw me making cupcakes was "Are they dog cupcakes or human cupcakes." ha ha ha, shows how I never cook!) I have really shown my club my nerdy side this year so, why not go out with a bang? LOL Anyway, I love how the cupcakes turned out, they are so awesome. I spelled out "Good Luck Paris" on the cupcakes, each cupcake has one letter on it and then there are four cupcakes with big paw prints on them. I am kinda ridiculously proud of them. YAY ME!
Only 2 days left with the Paris. . .

Thing's I am going to miss post

Paris is leaving in 3 days, so I decided to do a things I'm going to miss post. These are some (but definitely not all) of the things I am going to miss about Paris.

1. I am going to miss the way she thinks it is her responsibility to bring me every stuffed animal in the house. She knows she is not supposed to have them so she will pick them up and bring them to me. It's a good thing she doesn't try to rip them apart.

[Paris holding a large stuffed bear by the arm in her mouth.]
2. I am going to miss her fanny. . . okay that sounds weird, I am going to miss the coloring on her fanny. It starts dark by her tail and then goes white and then is back to dark going down her back legs. I am also going to miss her tail because it gets darker and darker until the very tip which is a red color. 3. I am going to miss waking up to Paris laying her head on the edge of my bed. I must make some kind of noise when I wake up because she is always right there at my bed when I opened my eyes. She has startled me more than a few times doing this.

[Paris with her head on the edge of my bed.] 4. I am going to miss all the weird ways she sits in the car. She likes to lean against the back seat with her feet really spread apart. 5. I am going to miss the way she sits on her tail. Anytime she sits she tucks her tail underneath her. All my other pups have had their tail stepped on by someone at some point with me but not Paris, she is too smart. 6. I am going to miss the #7 design on the top of her head. I think it's funny and have had a few people comment on it in public. The top of her head is pretty light but she has darker fur that forms a 7. I outlined it in the picture because you can't see it very well. 7. I am going to miss her enthusiasm about everything. She is always happy and willing to do anything and gets so proud of herself after a job well done. This particular video is of her going to bed. In the video she runs from the hallway around a corner and into my bedroom to her bed.

8. I am going to miss the black spots all over her tongue, they have been hard to get a picture of because they are on the back of her tongue, but she has three spot, 2 small and one large.9. I am going to miss her kisses. If you ask for a kiss she will lift her head and let you kiss her on the nose. It's so sweet and something she has done since I got her. I love it! The frowny face I do in the beginning of the video is because the time I asked her before she turned her head away from me. . .

10. I am going to miss her really strange yawn. Whenever she yawns instead of her tongue coming out straight hers goes in a 90 degree angle to the left. It makes me laugh.

11. I am going to miss how confident she is. She is by far the most confident puppy I have ever raised, not a single thing phases her. In this video I am vacuuming while she lays on the floor about six inches away from the vacuum. (We were running outside before I vacuumed so that is why she is panting.)

12. I am going to miss her uber floppy ears, they are always flying everywhere and twisting in weird contortions. I am also going to miss how the inside of her ears are speckled.

13. I am going to miss how Paris wags her tail. It's a very low wag not the typical up high wag that most dogs do. And it's pretty constant, she is about the happiest dog I have ever met!

I sure will miss her, but Paris will do great!