Category Archives: Dune

Pupdate

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Black Lab Clifford, Yellow Lab Dune and Black Lab Zodiac

a Dune sandwich – Clifford, Dune and Zodiac

It has been a few weeks since I actually got a pupdate post written. Zodiac and Dune are doing good. It looks like Zodiac probably won’t be returning to Guide Dogs for the Blind on the next puppy truck in May. There are 25 dogs older than him and the truck only holds 19 dogs. I’m glad to get a few more weeks with him.

We were a three dog household for the last three days. My sister’s career change, Clifford was here. The three of them had so much fun together. Clifford looks very like Zodiac so it takes careful observation to know who it who.

The other great news this week was an email from Yakira and Diane. It sounds like they are doing great. Here is some of what Diane had to say:

My orange tree is in full bloom complimented by the newly opened scents of my roses freezias and lilacs.   From many other gardens the sent of jasmine contributes to the spring ambiance.

Today Yakira and I took an absolutely delightful 5 mile walk.  This has been a bit of a struggle for Yakira but she is finally demonstrated a willingness to walk decent distances at an excellent rate of speed. Honestly I would call our walk today a 10.  Before to long I can see that we will be enjoying a routine walk of 9 to 10 miles.

I have recently taught Yakira to drink from a safe water bottle.  Our walks are long enough and the weather will be warm enough that she needed the compliment to her food rewards of, of course, a portion of her daily food ration, as well as teriyaki beef jerky from Costco.  My retired Guide, Bettyjo, enjoyed the jerky as a reward and so I anticipated that Yakira would also find this an excellent motivation when developing new behaviors.  I am looking forward to also incorporating apple slices into her food rewards.

I absolutely love giving Yakira water from the cute little 8 oz water bottles.  She is so cute that everyone who passes by while she is drinking uuus and ahhs about her.

Yakira and Bettyjo get along famously and the cats have come to accept her as a member of the family too.  It is really nice to see all of them getting along so well when we are not working.

I have to say that Yakira is the best shopper I have had.  We walked along the arcade here yesterday for the first time.  She did a really amazing job in stopping at each open door to determine whether or not the store was the one I was looking for.

Yeah for news from one of our puppies! Yakira sure has an awesome life with Diane.

Pupdate

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Zodiac & Dune

Dune and Zodiac are both so cute. Well maybe Zodiac is more on the handsome side these days. He is a year old now and no longer looks like a puppy. They really enjoy each other’s company. It is amazing how many times the two of them will be laying down near each other and Dune looks like an exact copy of Zodiac, except she is smaller and yellow (of course).

We found out at puppy class this week that Zodiac is scheduled to go back to Guide Dogs for the Blind on the next puppy truck. That truck is expected to come on May 18th. I’ve had it in my head that he would be returning sometime in June but it isn’t looking that way. I figured out how to put a count down widget here on my blog so I can count down to his departure. I was so proud of him on Sunday. I got up to teach a lesson at church and left him by my chair. I forgot about him because I was so focused on teaching. But he was very good, even with a little toddler distraction right by him.

Dune has had some challenges this past week or so. Our snow all melted and she didn’t like not having snow to pee on. She had 4 accidents in one day! It had been about 3 weeks or more since she had a single accident let alone 4 in one day. She is doing better now but we are having to pay a lot more attention to her relieving. Since she was very young she would let us know when she needed an extra potty break by sitting by the door. Dune isn’t doing that much any more.

Dune is making some progress on her kennel stress. While she still isn’t quiet while we are gone she isn’t stressing out so much about it. Before she would get so stressed that not only her jaw was wet with drool, but the whole front, down to her legs would be soaked. Now even her jaw is dry. She also got the last of her puppy shots this week, so now she can go on walks and to parks and places like that.

We also got an email for Banta and Mark this week. It is always so exciting when I see that I’ve received an email from one of our puppies. Here is some of what Mark had to say:

Banta is doing very well.  For the most part she is working perfectly.  She has her stubborn moments.  We finally had a big snow a week ago.  Banta likes about 6 inches of snow.  We got about 10 inches and she seemed annoyed that all of her favorite places to play had too much snow.  Eventually she got in there and played like a crazy little girl.  She is so much fun, I love her to death.

All in all it has been a good week on the puppy raising front.

Pupdate – Scavenger Hunt

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Dune

For puppy class this week we met at the Valley Fair Mall. I thought it would be the usual socializing but our leader divided us into two team for a scavenger hunt. The two little puppies, Dune & Eagle, stayed in the center of the mall while the rest of the pups went off to find the things on the list and take photos of our puppies with the items we found. It was lots of fun. The mall was rather quiet and so the clerks were always happy to help us and the pups went lots of places all over the mall. Here are some of the photos.

Dune in Akyra’s lap

King & Zodiac in the arcade

plastic fork in the food court with King & Zodiac

a bouquet of flowers with Zodiac and King

Zodiac, King and a stuffed bear

King and Zodiac by luggage with wheels

Our Scavenger Hunt Team – Bill, McKale, Raelyn, King & Zodiac

Pupdate

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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.

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

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Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug (video of Dune sharing her opinion of the x-pen)

As if you haven’t heard enough about my puppies this week. But it is Friday, my traditional day to give update on my puppies. Forefront this week has been Dune’s arrival. We have had our trying moments since Wednesday but each day gets better. She finally pooped outside last night for the first time. And she learned to go down more than one step today and then surged ahead and took the flight of stairs all the way to the bottom. She is starting to really catch on to relieving outside. Tonight she went to the door but I didn’t clue in what she was telling me until she had a pee accident right there. Hopefully last night’s two-hour scream-fest will be the last. I think we have a tactic that helps her settle down and go back to sleep after she goes outside to relieve in the middle of the night. Tonight will be the test.

Zodiac went to work with Bill again today. Dune had her first “outing” she went to my sister’s house and got to meet her Career Change black lab Clifford. They got along very well. When Zodiac got home from work tonight they were both very happy to see each other and they played together for a few minutes. I’m very proud of the good big brother Zodiac is being.

The phase report came out yesterday as usual but Yakira was still in phase 7. The good part is that the rest of her string was in phase 7 too. So it can’t be that Yakira is having a challenge with the training. Maybe her trainer got sick or something like that. I’ll be very surprised if she isn’t in phase 8 next week.

Dune is here!

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Dune in her x-pen

Our sweet little Dune girl arrived today via Delta airlines. It has been an eventful day full of joy and excitement. She finally fell asleep in her x-pen a little while ago. Dune is confident and knows her mind, she is sweet and seems so tiny. I forget how little they are when they come. I love her color she is on the dark side for a yellow lab but not so far that she is red. She is more of a dark honey color. I think she is the perfect color for her name.

It was fun to experience having a puppy come by plane. The photos below shows much of what it was like. I’m so tired that I’m not going to post much more today. These first few days are hard on the puppy and on the raiser too. We want to much to help them understand what we want them to do, especially when it comes to relieving. But so much has changed so fast in their young lives and they have no clue what you are asking them to do. Dune has a cute temperament to match her face and I’m certain that she will be a joy to raise, though it will surely be challenging at times.

Delta employees bring the crate with Dune and Eagle

Dune ready to get out of the crate

Dune taking a second thought about getting out of the crate. Eagle is in the back of the crate. He is sure he doesn’t want to come out.

Dune in my arms looking extra cute

And her name is . . .

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The door bell rang a few minutes ago and it was UPS with a box from GDB. Inside was the puppy packet and her name is Dune!!! I love it. She will be our little sand Dune. Her flight leaves in about an hour. I can’t wait to meet her.

This is so different from getting a puppy from the puppy truck. But it is fun too. I’ll post pictures as soon as I can get both of us under control when we get home from the airport.

D Names

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Yellow Question Mark

I’m sorry to be posting off topic again. But with a new puppy coming I just can’t seem to stay focused on anything else. So I’m going to embrace it, instead of fighting it and getting nothing done anyway.

If you are not familiar with how Guide Dogs for the Blind names their puppies, each litter is assigned a letter and all the puppies in that litter’s names start with that letter. We have been told that our puppy is from a litter assigned the letter D. Also they can only use names that are not in use by another puppy in training for Guide Dogs for the Blind, or one of their current breeder dogs or a working guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind. At any time they have about 3,000 dogs that have unique names. One of the traditions when waiting for a new puppy is to try to guess what name your puppy will have.

So I’ve compiled “D” name suggestions from friends and other puppy raisers and guide dog users I know, for our little yellow pup who is coming on Wednesday. I have a small prize for whoever guesses the right name. To enter, make new suggestions or vote for some of those already suggested. I’ll add new suggestions to the list as I get them.

  1. Dafina
  2. Dana
  3. Danna
  4. Dagny
  5. Dahlia
  6. Dainty
  7. Daisy
  8. Dakota
  9. Dala
  10. Dalmar
  11. Dame
  12. Damia
  13. Dancer
  14. Dandy
  15. Dangle
  16. Dani
  17. Danielle
  18. Danita
  19. Daphne
  20. Darcy
  21. D’Arcy
  22. Darling
  23. Darlington
  24. Darlin
  25. Daria
  26. Darma
  27. Dash
  28. Dasha
  29. Davine
  30. Dawn
  31. Dazzle
  32. Deanda
  33. DeAnn
  34. Deanna
  35. Dear
  36. Deb
  37. Debbie
  38. DebbieLynne
  39. Deborah
  40. Deer
  41. Dehli
  42. Deidre
  43. Deirdre
  44. Deja
  45. Delaney
  46. Delaudid
  47. Delay
  48. Delce
  49. Delicate
  50. Delight
  51. Delilah
  52. Dell
  53. Delphie
  54. Delphine
  55. Delirious
  56. Delta
  57. Deltona
  58. Delve
  59. Demur
  60. Denice
  61. Deschutes
  62. Descript
  63. Desma
  64. Deshi
  65. Destin
  66. Destiny
  67. Detour
  68. Deuce
  69. Devotion
  70. Diamond
  71. Dianna
  72. Diane
  73. Dianne
  74. Diantha
  75. Diedricha
  76. Didgi
  77. Dido
  78. Dill
  79. Dime (Dee-may)
  80. Dina
  81. Dindin
  82. Ding
  83. Ding-a-ling
  84. Dingbat
  85. Dingo
  86. Dink
  87. Dinka
  88. Diogi
  89. Dione
  90. Director
  91. Disa
  92. Discover
  93. Disguise
  94. Diva
  95. Divine
  96. Dixie
  97. Doaa
  98. Doe
  99. Doggon
  100. Dojo
  101. Dolce
  102. Dolly
  103. Dolores
  104. Dolphin
  105. Dominga
  106. Dominica
  107. Domino
  108. Dong
  109. Donna
  110. Dorcas
  111. Donut
  112. Dori
  113. Dorito
  114. Doro
  115. Dorothy
  116. Dorthy
  117. Dream
  118. Dreama
  119. Drew
  120. Duan
  121. Duana
  122. Dulce
  123. Dulche
  124. Dulcina
  125. Dunia
  126. Dusk
  127. Dynamic

Puppy #7

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Today I got confirmation that puppy #7 is coming this next week on Wednesday. We are getting a yellow lab female whose name starts with the letter “D”. She was born on November 11th and her parents are Bosworth and Cava. Yesterday I kept watching for an email from our club leader but it didn’t come. Then today when my husband was opening up the mail he started laughing. Our club leader sent a pick balloon in the mail with the news of our new little girl. I can’t wait to see her.

She is coming in with another puppy for our club on a Delta flight. That will be a whole new experience instead of the puppy truck. Guide Dogs for the Blind doesn’t send puppy trucks to Utah in the winter, so flying them in is the only option. They usually only fly in puppies when the puppy raiser raised a puppies parent. But GDB has more puppies to place now than raisers in the warmer areas can handle so they are willing to send the by plane.

I’ll post about her arrival as soon as I can get myself together while dealing with a 9 week old puppy.