Puppy Class today

Once or twice a year my puppy club does a meeting at Discovery Academy. It is a school for troubled teens and I always love going there. The students really respond to the puppies and they always enjoy our visits. At the beginning we had a blind man from Salt Lake come down with his guide dog, Mariah, and he spoke to the students about blindness and using a guide dog. It was so fun. After he spoke we let the students pet and play with our puppies. Here are a bunch of pics from the meeting.

Me and my roommate are puppy sitting for Becky (Sarah's school puppy) and she got to reunite with her sister Breeze in our club. Here they are trying to play with each other.
[Breeze enjoying some pets from a student. I love how her eyes are closed.]
[Becky getting some pets while laying down in the grass.]

[Kyle laying in the grass with a student laying next to him.]

[Big handsome man Spike standing next to his raiser while she speaks with the students.]

[Picassa playing tug with a student. She loved playing tug with everyone and the kids loved playing with her too.]

[Picassa playing tug with a student sitting in the grass.]

[Christina plays tug with a student.]

[Sugar sitting nicely while her raiser talks to a group of students.]

[Spike getting pets from a student.]

The dogs were really hot after a while and they school let us use their hose to water our dogs. Meade was a pro! Here he is slurping water from the hose.

[Kyles cute little face.]

[I hosed down Picassa so here she is all wet and feeling much cooler. Poor dog thinks she is a black lab, hot weather is not okay with her.]

[Kyle enjoying pets from a student.]

[Breeze and Becky playing. Breeze is under Becky who looks like she is standing on her head.]

[Becky biting Breezes leg while Breeze gets ready to retaliate. I love how different they are. Breeze is more stalky and Becky is slim and tall. Breeze is also really white while Becky is more carmel colored.]

[Picassa kept biting Meade's tongue while he panted. Yep, my dog is really weird. After I got a picture I made her stop.]

After puppy class me, Gabby, and Karen took the puppies out for lunch. They were all sacked out after such an intense puppy class. Here is Picassa passed out under the table.

[Becky behaved beautifully for such a young pup. Here she is sitting in the restaurant. The waitress loved her!]

Then we went home and everyone got a nap. When we woke up we let Picassa and Becky play a bit. They were really funny and Picassa was so gentle with the puppy.

[Becky grabbed a big bone and ran around with it for a while.]

[Becky took a running leap and smashed into Picassa's side, it was hilarious, she is a spunky little pup and can sure keep up with the big dogs.]

[Becky also enjoyed running under Picassa.]

[Becky running toward the camera with the big bone in her mouth.]

[Becky on her back with Picassa standing over her.]

[Picassa on her back with Becky standing over her.]

It's been a good day! Becky has been a joy and it'll be sad to see her go tomorrow. :D

More Hiking

Gabby, and Karen and I went hiking up Big Cottonwood Canyon today with three awesome guide dog puppies. It was so much fun and a great way to tire out the dogs. It was also a great place to take pictures, so here they are. *smile*

[Picassa sitting in front of a mini-waterfall.]
[Mara, who we are puppy sitting, sitting in front of the same mini-waterfall with her head tilted to the right.[
[Me and Picassa sitting on a rock in front of a rushing river. Picassa refused to look at the camera so she is looking off the the left.]

[Picassa sitting on a rock in front of the river.]

This is my favorite of the day.

[Picassa laying across a flat rock with her front feet hanging off the edge. She just looks so sweet.]

Me and Gabby ran up some rocks to get a picture of us tucked into some rocks. I was impressed with how well Picassa ran up the rocks.

[Gabby, Mara, Me, and Picassa sitting in a big crack in a rock.]

[Picassa rests her head on a tree because she is sick of getting her picture taken.]

[A picture of Picassa from below she is looking to the right and has a gnarly tree behind her.]

[Picassa in a tree with three trunks coming out of the ground looking at the camera.]

[The three dogs making an oreo. Clifford, Picassa, and Mara sitting on a rock. . . looking quite pathetic!]

[The three dogs sitting in front of a tree looking a little less pathetic.]

[I love this shot of Clifford, he is on a bridge with the water behind him. He has the best blocky head and is so handsome.]

[Picassa sitting on a rock in the brush. I love how green it is around her.]

I am looking forward to much more hiking this summer. I love it!

Catch Up Post #2-UofU

Last week we headed up to UofU (my new school) to get some stuff done. We walked to the TRAX station (the light rail), where we met up with our friends Karen and Clifford and rode the train to the school. Picassa did great! Here are some pictures from our little trip.

[Picassa sitting and waiting to cross the street. It's about a 20 minute walk to the train station and it's a really busy street. I was very proud of Picassa.]

During the walk we crossed over the very busy freeway. Picassa got a little nervous but she still did alright and kept her pace consistent.

[A profile of Picassa with a chain link fence behind her, you can see all the cars driving on the freeway below.][Picassa laying on the ground at my feet looking up at me while we wait for the train.] [A close up of Picassa laying down with the train behind her, she is looking up and to the right.]

Picassa was a very good passenger, at one of the stops a police dog (bomb/drug sniffing dog) boarded and did it's job and Picassa totally ignored it. There were three police officers that came on and one stopped to chat with me and Karen about our puppies for a minute too.

[Picassa collapsed in the train, she was a very good passenger.][ We had to transfer trains and while we were waiting Clifford stretched way out so his back legs are flat behind him.] [Picassa and Clifford laying next to each other and looking up at me while waiting for the train.] I didn't get any pictures on campus because I was a little busy, but Picassa was on her best behavior and I was really proud of her. She will be a great student and I'll enjoy taking her to my classes this summer.

Another Busy Weekend

Me and Paris had another very busy and fun filled weekend. The weather on Friday was fantastic so I really wanted to get out of the house and go do something. Me and Paris headed over to our friends house and we went on a walk through the park. It was fun. Here are some pictures from our walk.

[A close up of Paris' face in front of our enormous snow capped mountains.]
[Paris sitting in front of a really gnarly and weird looking pine tree.]
[Paris sitting under an enormous pine tree, the limbs drooped down to the ground and she is in front of a big branch.]

After our walk we wanted to do something else, so we all drove down to the Monte L. Bean museum. It's a museum that is full of stuffed wild animals. I love going there, it's fascinating. Here are some pictures from that.

[Paris was super interested in this stuffed lion. It's mouth is open and it looks like Paris is going to stick her head in it's mouth. It made me laugh, she is such a goof.]

[I picked Paris up so she could see a Tiger in a display case, the tiger is baring it's teeth and looks quite menacing, I have the same look on my face (yep, I am admittedly a nerd) and Paris looks absolutely bored, or maybe just embarrassed by her momma.]

[Paris sitting in front of a big "dog family" display. It cracked me up that the display had a lot of pictures of wolves and other wild dogs and then the bottom right has a picture of a golden retriever. ]

[Paris sitting in front of an alligator. She is looking away from the alligator and has her eyes closed and it looks like the alligator is biting her ear. :D]

[Paris is sitting in front of a big brown bear. It looks so soft and cuddly.]

[This display scared me because you walk around a corner and all of a sudden there is a big 10 foot tall Kodiak bear standing in front of you. :) Here is a picture of me with Paris up on my shoulder so we could fit the bear in the picture, you can see the bears to arms up in the air with big claws out and it's face is very scary with it's mouth open, again Paris just looks embarrassed that I picked her up again.]

Paris was great at the museum and besides the lion wasn't really interested in any of the other displays. I love this girl!

Then on Saturday me and Paris went up to Salt Lake with a couple friends to have some fun. We rode on Frontrunner which I have never been on before, it's was cool. It's like a train and is very quiet so it would be good intro to public transit for our pups (of course me and Paris ride the bus to school nearly daily so she is used to it.) We rode up a couple of stops and then went back.

[Paris laying nicely under the seat on the train.]

[My friends puppy Clifford sitting on the train. He is a little black lab with a beautiful blocky head and a "broken ear" It's not really broken but it folds funny so it just sticks out a bit.]

After Frontrunner we hopped on trax to go to the Gateway Mall. By then it was raining and snowing pretty hard so she was a wet puppy, as you can see on her face.]

We walked down to the food court to get lunch and we all got very wet. Just look at her jacket the top half is a very dark green from all the water and her poor face and body was very rain specked. She was a sport and did great in the nasty weather.]

After lunch we headed over the the planetarium. We walked around for a while before going to a 3D movie about fish. It was way cool. Anyway, the planetarium is really cool.

[Here is Paris on the moon. They had a little moon display and I had Paris sit on it with a picture of an astronaut behind her.]

[Here is Clifford and Paris on Mars. Lots of red and black rocks all around.]

[A close up of Paris on mars, she was sticking her nose into the camera so her head looks huge and the rest of her body looks really little.]

[Paris sitting in front of a display with a space suit in it.]

[Paris in the 3D movie with the enormous grey 3D glasses on. I felt like a fly when I was wearing them, they engulfed my whole face.]

After the movie we walked through the gift shop for a while, there is some really cool stuff in there.

[Paris with one of those dinosaur things where you pull a trigger and the mouth opens and closes. She was afraid of it at first so I let her sniff it a bit and then she was fine.]

[Little Clifford with a slinky springing in front of him, he was very good and enjoyed watching it but didn't try to catch it.]

[Paris with the slinky in front of her face. She wasn't distracted at all.]

[Paris with a silly little hat on. It's a white whale jumping out of water. She wasn't so amused, but the humans all laughed.]

[Top view of the silly hat, it looks like water and you can see the tail of the whale sticking out the back and the front of the whale with it's mouth open jumping out of the water.]

Then it was time to go. Everyone had a great time. Needless to say the girl was so tired. She had a long day and was such a trooper. I am so proud of her!!

[Now I don't normally let her sit on the seat of the car but she was so stinkin' adorable I didn't want to wake her to get on the floor. Here is Paris curled up in a little ball on the seat of the car her ear and paw are hanging over the edge of the seat.]