Monthly Archives: February 2013

My Joy Jar

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P1040284

In the last two weeks I have found happiness in the following things:

  • fresh fluffy snow
  • seeing Yakira
  • Dune sleeping with her “belly to the sky”
  • sunshine
  • licorice
  • the taste of chocolate
  • Dune’s groans while she is sleeping
  • good weather for our drive to Oregon
  • eating sweet juicy oranges
  • watching the video of Pauletta’s reunion with her raiser
  • sunshine
  • Dune happily eating our of a Kong stuffed with dog food
  • Dune in Bill’s lap
  • fresh snow
  • hanging out with Yakira and Diane
  • singing
  • sun on fresh snow
  • email from Yakira and Diane
  • Yakira’s “wiggle-wiggle”
  • sleeping in my own bed
  • meeting Diane
  • seeing Mount Hood
  • Jeremy’s help shoveling snow
  • taking a nap
  • snuggle with Dune and Zodiac
  • petting soft kitty paws
  • being at Yakiras graduation
  • having a warm home to live in
  • the belt I made working
  • Zodiac and Dune sitting at the top of the stairs
  • looking at photos of Yakira & Diane from graduation

I’ve finally added photos to the post about Yakira’s graduation. Sorry for being so lax the last while on getting my posts done. Monday will be a new week and I’ll will be back on track! Thanks to all of my loyal followers.

Dune and the Dog Door

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Dune

We have a dog door from our entry into our garage. It was put in there many years ago when we had a pet dog. Shadow was a tall dog and so we installed it pretty high in the door. When we started raising puppies, our leader told us to make sure the puppies didn’t use the dog door. At first we were very watchful to see if they would figure out how to use it. Our cat uses it regularly to get in and out of the house. I’m sure they all would have learned with just a little instruction. But none of them did, until Dune, puppy #7.

You see, Dune likes to push on things. Plus she is very inquisitive. A couple of days ago, I stepped out into the garage and while I was out there, she pushed on the dog door a bit so it flapped. Last night when Zodiac and Dune hear the sound of the garage door opening, the signal that Bill was coming home from work, they both ran down the stair to wait for him to come in. I love to see this nightly ritual so I was watching from the top of the stairs.

Dune got tired of waiting so she went up to the door and pushed. It just happened to be on the dog door. Her little head went out and the next thing I know her back feet are off the ground and she is half in and half out of the dog door, high centered. I’m too far away to do anything but watch. It only takes another moment for Dune to get her control of her body and her tail end disappears through the dog door. I was talking on the cell phone with Bill so I alert him to the problem. He was right on top of it. When he heard the sound of the dog door flapping, he turned around and caught our little girl. Thank goodness Bill is right there ready to plop her back inside the house.

Our cat uses the dog door but it looks like we are going to have to lock it so that no one can go out the dog door but the cat can still get in. In his old age, our cat likes us to open the door for him to go out anyway, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Hopefully with a few weeks of the door being locked to exits Dune will stop pushing on it.

Pupdate – Yakira

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Diane & Yakira – getting their official portrait on graduation day

We got an email from Diane and Yakira this week. Their flights home went pretty good. Yakira needed a little reassurance during take off. But that’s not bad for her first time flying. Here is some of what she said.

Both Yakira and my other animals are getting along well.  (Actually she and the cats have a mutual agreement to ignore each other but it’s not necessarily a bad plan.)

We have been taking two trips into the community daily to expose her to all the new sights and guide work issues.  She is a remarkably quick learner and we will shortly be enjoying ourselves more than adapting.

Besides the two cats (Sleepy and Aurora), Diane has her retired guide, Bettyjo (also a black lab but much larger than Yakira). It is so much fun to get a quick update from Yakira!

Graduation Day – Yakira

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Yakira at Diane’s feet

We left Friday morning for Yakira’s graduation, after dropping Dune off at my friend’s for puppy sitting. The roads were great but the trip was long. I’m always ready to be there after about an hour or two of driving. It really is a pretty drive but 12 hours is a long time in the car. Zodiac is an excellent traveler and was very patient and willing to get back in the car even when we could tell he was tired of it. We finally got to Gresham and settled into our hotel for the night.

Mount Hood

On Saturday, we woke up to blue skies. I was so excited. I’ve been to Oregon for 3 other graduations and never had a glimpse of Mount Hood. But this time it was perfectly clear. We drove around the area a bit before graduations trying to get a photo. We got to Guide Dogs for the Blind’s Boring, Oregon campus a little early so we could take Zodiac on the “Oregon Trail” that goes through the natural vegetation on the back edge of campus, before he had to go in a kennel in the kennel kitchen. You can’t have a puppy in training with you while you are presenting the dog you raised during graduation. He loved the walk but wasn’t so happy about going into the kennel.

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video of seeing Yakira for the first time since October

Finally the time came for us to see Yakira and meet her new partner. It was kind of funny because Yakira was a little slow in figuring out who we were. But once she realized she was a happy girl. Bill was holding her leash and she started doing some crazy labby loops and got away from him and looped off to say hi to one of the other pups in class. Yakira looked great and very happy. Her handler, Diane, is a great match and we enjoyed getting to know her. She still has her retired guide, Betty Jo so Yakira has a buddy to hang out with at home. It was so nice to just hang out with Yakira and her partner and get lots of puppy loves. I was hoping that Yakira would move somewhere warm and her new home is in southern California so that is perfect for her.

Yakira giving Bill a kiss

We got a chance to meet Yakira’s sister Yumi’s raisers at graduation. She said that Yakira is just like Yumi except she is black instead of yellow. I also got to meet another of the graduates who I know from a guide dog user/puppy raiser email group I’m on. Her partner, Tyra is Yakira’s half-sister.

Yakira looking up at Diane

After graduation I got Zodiac from the kennel kitchen and we took him and Yakira out to the paddock behind the dorms and let them romp for a few minutes to get reacquainted and then went out to eat afterwards with Diane and Yakira. GDB has made another great match for our girl. She is going to love her new home in southern California and her new life as a guide dog. Yakira was not Diane’s original match on dog day. But it soon became clear that this first dog just wasn’t going to be a good match for Diane’s career. She recently got her masters and will be working with disable college students to make sure they have the accommodation they need for their disability. This first dog will make someone a wonderful partner but she just didn’t settle quickly enough after interruptions for Diane’s job situation. The trainers brought Diane two new dogs to try and she choose Yakira.

Yakira & Zodiac under the table at dinner

The hardest part was decided it was time to take Yakira and Diane back to the dorms. There is this moment after you drop them off when the puppy you raised realizes that you aren’t staying. You can see them processing it in their minds. It isn’t that they don’t want to go with their handler. They are happy to do that. I think they would like it if we could be around too. Even more than the formal graduation ceremony, that is the moment, for me, when they truly move on to their new life. It was a great day but very exhausting.

On Sunday morning we went back to campus to pick up a career change dog named Pauletta. Pauletta has arthritis in her lower back and so her puppy raisers are adopting her. She was recalled a few weeks ago for breeder evals but the arthritis changes everything. They were trying to figure out how to get her to Denver. She wasn’t cleared for air travel after her spay but it was fine for her to travel by car. So we brought her home with us and they got up super early Monday morning to pick her up and then headed right back home. It was fun to watch that reunion. Pauletta will be certified as a Therapy Dog and do great things with her life even though she won’t be a guide dog. GDB is so full of wonderful people. It was nice to be able to do something to help Pauletta get home to her family faster. Below is the video I shot of Pauletta seeing one of her puppy raisers for the first time since she went back to Guide Dogs for the Blind. You can hear Zodiac barking in the background, unhappy not to be part of the reunion.

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Pauletta watching out our front door

Road Trip

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Yakira and Zodiac – photo by Lisa Thomposn

We are off to see Yakira and her partner this weekend. Graduations are so much fun and this one promises to be a great one. Zodiac is going with us and Dune is gets to go to my friend Lisa’s to be puppy sat. I hope she doesn’t get too noisy in her kennel. We will be bringing a career changed dog named Pauletta back with us. She is going back to her raisers who live in Colorado. The will be driving to Utah on Monday to pick her up. She has arthritis in her lower back so she can’t become a guide dog. I’ll catch up on my posts when we get back. I hope everyone has a good weekend.