Zodiac

Zodiac Eval:

On Monday Zodiac had an official evaluation by our CFR (Community Field Representative) at Trolley Square. Last Saturday we had an optional outing at Trolley Square to give our pups a chance to experience the environment ahead of time. Zodiac had trouble on Saturday with layovers and animal distractions at the Best Friends Animal Society. I was feeling a bit stressed about his eval. We worked on his lay-over and he got some better. He was so good at church on Sunday. I was sitting next to a mother with a crawling baby. This little girl dropped food and chucked toys and Zodiac handled it all perfectly. That helped me be more relaxed about Monday.

He wasn’t perfect on Monday. Her refused to do the layover. Now we have a new food protocol for helping him with that. We had the last eval slot of the night so Best Friends was closed, so he did perfectly there. She commented on his strong neck when she took him for a while and some kids decided to create a big distraction at the wrong moment. For that she suggested more time on the flat collar and less on the head collar. Overall I think he did ok. His next eval will probably be just before he returns to Guide Dogs for harness training.

Dune in her new puppy in training jacket

Dune’s Jacket & Three Months Old:

At the end of the eval for Zodiac, Dune got her jacket. It was a fitting day to earn her jacket since she turned three months old on Monday too. She has been getting bored at home and wanting to have new adventures. With her jacket she is legal to go out and start socializing. On Tuesday Dune got to go to the Library and a short trip into our local grocery store. She was so excited and wanted to meet every person she saw. On Wednesday we had a women’s meeting at church and so I took her. She settled down pretty good. The food protocol is great for this. She gets a kibble every few minutes for sitting and then laying quietly on the floor. She got lots of oohs and awes because she is so cute. On Thursday Zodiac went to work with Bill so the two of us had a quiet day at home. She wanted to go with them so bad. Dune laid on the landing by the door for about an hour after they left. This morning Dune got her first chance to go to work with Bill. I picked her up before noon. She is too young to handle a whole day at work. She did pretty good, once she accepted that the tie down wasn’t coming off.

Both pups are doing good and they both have things to work on. But they bring lots of smiles and laughter to our lives.