Category Archives: Guide Dogs for the Blind

7 Months Old

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Casey turned 7 months old today! The time goes so fast it is hard to believe that we have had her for almost 5 months already. She is a good girl and so much fun to have around. She loves to run wild around the house after walks. She is great at night sleeping loose in our bedroom and rather patient in the morning waiting for breakfast. She is making progress on jumping into the car. She loves to have her belly rubbed and sometimes she is just a silly little girl. She is still a little “hoover” thinking she needs to check the floor around the house for the tiniest little crumb. Casey is our little cow girl because of they mooing noises she often makes.

 This photo was taken by Lisa Thompson.

Club Christmas Dinner

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Langley, Radison, Kasha, Joe, Cobb, Joshua & Casey (photo from Bruce)

Our puppy club got together for dinner at Archibald’s at Gardner Village. Bill got stuck at work and we were an hour late so we actually missed all the dinner part and got there just in time for the puppy pictures. We lined all seven puppies in our club against a wall and tried to get them to all sit still at the same time. It was pretty funny but eventually we got most of them sitting at the same time. Lisa brought us disks with the puppy pictures she took last week. She always does such a great job. I think I’ll have to have an enlargement printed of each of our puppies as an official portrait.

Puppy Photo Shoot

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Lisa set up a photo shoot for any of the puppies in the club that wanted to have their pictures taken at the Murray Library tonight. She did this last year and the photos of Banta turned out so good that there was no way I was going to miss this. I made Casey a little Christmas ruffle to go around her neck and took some ribbons too. Lisa and Karen also had reindeer antlers too. It was fun seeing how each of the puppies react to the props and having their photo taken with the full set of lights and back drops. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

 

Regional Christmas Party

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Today was the big regional puppies in training Christmas party at the Center for the Blind. There were more than 30 dogs there, including some career change dogs. It was fun to see Clifford again. We enjoyed a pot-luck meal and then they divided us up into 3 groups to play games. One of them was dog tick-tack-toe. In this version the pup has to stay in a sit or a down. If he gets up then the spot opens up for the other team to take the square. Bruce got this great shot of pup tick-tack-toe.

Puppy Tick-Tack-Toe

He also took some cute photos of Phoenix who has transferred out of our club. His raiser’s work wasn’t cooperating with him being there and she felt bad about him being alone so much.

Phoenix

After the games we had the gift exchange. It was fun to see the variety of dog related gifts and which ones everyone wanted. Poor Joe kept getting his gifts stolen. It was a fun evening. It is amazing that you can have so many dogs in one room and they all get along so well.

Pulled for Breeding

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We got an email today saying that Banta has been pulled for final breeder evaluations. Of the eight dogs that went back for breeder evaluations only two are still being considered for breeding, Banta and another yellow lab female named Nordica. It will probably take another 4 to 6 weeks for Banta to confirmed as a breeder. The next news will probably be a call from the breeding department.

Trip to "Our House"

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Our local cub scout pack makes a trip every year to a local nursing home called “Our House” to decorate their Christmas tree and sing a few carols with them. The boys did a great job working together to get the tree done and then we gathered for some singing. One of the boys even played the piano for the residents. That is a first since I have been in cub scouts. Casey did a good job and didn’t even scare anyone. The year I took Apex one of the ladies was deathly afraid of dogs so we had to keep a very low profile.

Casey “helping” to decorate the tree

Bringing Home the Tree

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My family has a tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree. For the last several years we have gone out the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We had more snow than we have had for several years so the going was a bit tough. Casey totally loved it but it was too deep for Langley to handle for very long. He played with my nephews and their cousins and had a grand time. After cutting down our trees we have a “tail-gate” party with hot baked potatoes with all the fixings including chili, hot chocolate, hot cider and lots of other treats. The pups got a bit cold so they snuggled in the car while we snacked. I forgot to take my camera with me up the mountain so the photos are very slim, but we all had a grand time kicking off the Christmas season.

Thanksgiving

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We gathered at my sister’s today for Thanksgiving dinner. It felt like we were packing up the kitchen sink as we were getting ready to live. With two dogs to take along and one of them very young we needed a bunch of stuff for them plus the food we were bringing for the feast. Casey and Langley enjoyed themselves and were both very good puppies. They spent the time while we were eating in their crates but got to play tug and hang out after the meal was over. Langley was pretty funny when he tried to walk on the wood floor in the kitchen. He did the slip and slide, especially when he got to the end of the leash and tried to keep going. His little feet just went round and round. It was like watching a cartoon character running in place.

Little Langley

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Langley & Casey sharing a nylabone ring

We are puppy sitting a cute little puppy for the Thanksgiving holiday. Langley (black lab male) arrived this afternoon. He was originally going to come tomorrow but his raiser wanted to get out of town before the storm hit so she dropped him off this afternoon. I think he is about 13 weeks old. He came on the last puppy truck a couple of weeks ago. He is really a good boy. He is doing great on his house breaking but has some trouble with barking. Sometimes he has the cutest way of grumble barking when he doesn’t like how things are going. I’m sure that he will grow out of this. He was sick with diarrhea last week so he is still on antibiotics. I put the pills in his food but he proceeded to eat around them. I had to resort to shoving them down his throat which he didn’t like at all.

Casey & Langley sharing the dog bed

 
Casey and Langley are so cute together. It brings back so many memories of when Casey was this age and Banta was the mentor dog. Casey learned well from Banta and she is doing so good with him. Though she has been a bit of a momma’s girl. She is usually quite independent but she has been following me around.