Just some random stuff cuz I am bored out of my mind

I don't really have anything to say but I found out that Spankys sister Savvy was career changed. Not sure why but that makes two Career Changed so far. Salvador and Shakespeare are leaving for training at the end of the month. Not sure about Strawberry and Scooby but I hope they all do well.

And just in case you wanted to know I got my puppy assignment today. :P I am uber excited, I am getting a Male Yellow Lab whose name starts with an "F" I did ask for a Male Yellow because it is the only flavor of Lab I have not raised yet so I figured, what the heck. :) I am a little nervous though because I can't think of any good F names. Except Fizgig (from Dark Crystal) I like that name. He was born August 31, 2008 (so he will be a day shy of eight weeks when I get him) to Saga and Tiburon. (Pictures below) This is Sagas second litter and Tiburon has been used by GDB quite a bit. I can't wait in just under two weeks I will be holding my little boy. Now that I have an assignment it just seems more real. I can't wait. So guess away!!


Saga Born 6/19/05 to Baker/Lynelle
Tiburon born 1/17/02 to Tex/Ricotta
SO EXCITED!!

First Week as a Pet

Spankys first week as a pet went pretty well. He is still getting used to (and not liking) having to stay home when I leave. He was throwing a fit the first three days (I could hear him barking when I was outside and getting in my car) but now he whines until I am up the stairs and then he stops. It kinda breaks my heart but he is getting better so that is good I guess. It is so weird running errands without a dog though. And I can't even count the number of times people have asked me where my dog is. It is hard to explain 50 jillion times a day especially because it is hard for most people to understand. lol I have taken him to a few friends houses, the pet store, Home Depot, and the park a bunch so he is getting out and he really loves going with me. His neighborhood walks are much more relaxed now too because he has a bit more freedom to sniff and do what he wants and he is enjoying that. I have also been teaching him some tricks and he is having fun with those. But all in all pet life is good for the Spankster!

Here is Spanky wearing his non-GDB collar. I just wrote his name in Sharpie on one of Prudys old collars (she only wore it for a week because I found this super cute floral one that I thought would look good on her and my mom was giving me a hard time for not getting her girlie collars) So it is Spankys now and I think it looks good on him. His name is on one side and his tattoo number is on the other. I tried to do some fancy embroidery on it to make his name but it failed miserably so I just wrote it. :)

He is getting more comfy on my bed though. So much that he gets up there and moves my blankets and messes up my freshly made bed. Silly pup and he is a bed hog but it is really nice to have a dog on the bed again.

Here are videos of his tricks. (I really wish I could figure out how to turn them so one you will have to tilt your head to watch, sorry) The first one is from the other day. I realized that if I growled at Spanky when he has a toy in his mouth he would growl back. It was so funny I got a little clip of it. We did that for about twenty minutes. The next is "paw" and "other paw" and then then third on is "paw" and "other paw" but it was while he was learning and he hesitated for a minute and then he got so excited when he understood what I wanted it was so cute. and the last one is "where's your toy" He will go grab a toy. We have not learned specific toys yet but we started with just getting one of his choice and then do specifics later. I figure it would be fun to send him off to his new home knowing some fun tricks. Also I am trying to keep him stimulated since we don't go on outing anymore he will go crazy if he doesn't get to do something. We are also working on Spin he hasn't quite grasped that one so we are still working on it. Also I am trying Play dead and Roll over. Not quite there on those two either. Hopefully I can get some video of those for next week. :)

Oh, and no puppy news yet. I am dying for news! Hopefully in the next couple of days. . . Please!!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Picture and Video Post

Here are some pictures and videos that I got of my boy today.

Spanky takes a break on my bed.
Spanky and me playing toss the ball.
More Toss the ball. He has some amazing jumping skills.

Two videos of me and Spanky playing a game.

So why do I post these pictures and videos of me breaking several of GDB puppy raising rules. Well, it is because I got this today:

DOG: 46N7 - Spanky M\LAB\Black - PRP\REL DOB:6/30/2007
LOCATION: Constituent
RELEASED DATE: 10/8/2008
PLACEMENT:
SUMMARY: Spanky has a history of alarm barking and hackling at unusual objects or people in the distance. He had a severe reaction to a man working on a car with the hood up and noisy tools. He backed away with no recovery. Tug toys and food rewards for calm behavior have been used with limited to no success. While the behavior, at times, seems to resolve, it returns suddenly and is unpredictable. In known situations with his primary raiser, Spanky is a calm and relaxed-looking dog. He is affectionate and friendly in these settings. He is interactive with people and dogs and plays nicely with dogs.
RELEASE REASON(S): 21301 - BEH: Fearful Behavior Environment Generalized

So Spanky is officially a career changed dog. I found out this morning while I was at work so on the way home me and Spanky stopped at the pet store and I bought him a ball. One of those Kong Bounzer Balls and he loves it! I also had my first puppyless puppy class in a long time today but it went well. I had a lot of fun there! And I turned in Spankys puppy coat so no more socialization outings for him. He will be staying here until November 1st when the puppy truck comes through, his first raiser is not taking him back so he will go to the Oregon Campus to be placed by GDB. I really hope that what happened with Glennie doesn't happen with him and that his adopters keep in touch. I don't want to loose track of him. So for the next three weeks he is going to play the role of spoiled rotten pet. I am going to try and teach him some fun tricks and we will be playing fetch a lot. (I can tell he has been itching to play since he got here and he is a natural) He absolutely loves it and didn't want to stop. Today is the happiest I have seen him since he got here. I think that pet life agrees with him and he will be so much happier without the stresses of being a working dog. I am glad we got to go out with a bang after his FANTASTIC outing at the mall a few days ago. I am still sad, but it is what is best for him. :)

So, I guess now I am just waiting on puppy news. I was kinda hoping to get some info today but alas, looks like I will be waiting another week. So maybe next Thursday. . . *sigh*

Spanky and the Fire/Helicopter

Well, I will start this post with pictures! I have been wanting to take some cute pictures of Spanky before he leaves. He is such a handsome dog that getting cute pictures was not very difficult. :) Anyway, I cleared my camera card and charged the battery in preparation for Spankys big photo shoot. Here are my favorites from our shoot a few days ago.

Spanky in my neighbors corn field. The guy is a huge farmer and yes, I did ask him and he said he would be "honored" if I took pictures. He is an interesting guy. :)

Spanky in my yard. I like this one, but I wish his neck flab wasn't sticking out so much over his jacket.
This is classic Spanks. It makes him look so puppyish too.
Just so handsome! I love his droopy jowls and you can really see them in this pic.
And Action shot this was his official "I am done with pictures" picture. Hooray!!
And now for Spankys amazing accidental outing. It started with my friend calling me and telling me that she had major cabin fever and had to get out of the house. I am always up for a sporadic outing so I went over. We decided to cruise the mall so off we went. When we got there both of us noticed a HUGE fire over in the parking lot, so nosey people that we are we decided to check it out. There was a mass of firetrucks there along with booths and helicopters and cranes it was crazy. So we parked and got out to get a closer look. The signs everywhere said that it was National Fire Safety Week. I had no idea so we walked around to the booths, checked out some firetrucks. Here is me and Spank by a fire truck (He even met some firefighters in uniform but unfortunately didn't get pics. :(
Then we walked around and saw a Helicopter so we went and checked it out (no pics of that either because I took video, you can see it at the end of the post) and talked to the pilot for a while. Then they said that they were taking off so me and my friend decided to watch. We were literally no more than 20 feet away while it was taking off it was amazing and windy. I had my friend film it so I could take off if Spanky got freaked out but he did wonderful and didn't even move until the helicopter started lifting off the ground and then he just sat up and watched. I was so proud of him especially with some of the issues he has been having he was perfect and I was so happy with him.

After that they said they were going to do one more burn so we ran over to watch. The "burn" is what we saw in the first place but missed the rest while we were parking and didn't know what was going on. It was so cool, they lit this tree looking thing on fire with propane and the firefighters had to put it out. It was amazing to watch. Here are a few pictures of Spanky and the fire. We could totally feel the heat. It was awesome.
Again Spanky was PERFECT. Didn't flinch at all he hardly noticed that there was a fire except it lit rather quickly and when the heat reached us suddenly he looked over at it and then nothing. I can't even explain how happy I was with him.

Here are the vids. They are kinda long but you can see me and Spanky at the end of the helicopter one. :) It is just too cool not to share.

In the fire one my friend asks what the beeping is and I said it is something on their belts. Later we went and asked one of them what they are and they said it is a location device. If they are still for 30 seconds then it starts chirping and if they are still for 1 minute then it is a constant chirp so that another Firefighter can locate them if they get lost in a building. I thought that was so interesting.

I have to admit that Spanky totally impressed me. Had I known all that was going on there I probably would not have brought him. But I totally underestimated him. He has given me hope that maybe he might be able to make it to training. He was stellar with all the distractions like popcorn all over the ground, little kids running all over the place, peoples pet dogs walking around and barking up a storm, mobs of people coming up to pet him, a helicopter taking off, and a huge fire and he didn't bat an eye. Words cannot describe how proud I am of him. Even if he does get career changed now I am happy with this amazing leap that we have made with the issues he has been having.

After all of that we went inside the mall and walked around for a while before heading home. My boy slept really well that night. He totally deserved it and got tons of praise, pats, hugs, and all of the above. Can I just say I LOVE this boy!

I'm so excited. . . and I just can't hide it

I just got news about Sherman!! Literally about 10 seconds ago I opened my inbox and saw an e-mail from D4D. My heart skipped a beat as i moved my mouse over the message and clicked. The message told me that Sherman is in "finishing school" which means that he is placed with a foster diabetic to learn to alert on a human. And apparently my little man has alerted several times already. So it could be very soon that Sherman is placed with his very own person. I am one proud momma.

I also have a post of Spankys amazing day yesterday complete with pictures. I am so proud of him for handling everything so calmly because it was quite crazy. It will take me a while to post so look for that tomorrow. But I couldn't wait to share my Sherman news!