Category Archives: Guide Dogs for the Blind

Carl Bloch and Front Runner

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It was a busy day today. Kasha and I meet two of my good friends from our days of living in Provo and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. Kasha enjoyed flirting with the other people at the exhibit. I would be looking at a painting and suddenly realize that she had caught someones eye. She is such a cute puppy and her Golden Retriever side sure loves to meet everyone she sees. The exhibit has several huge alter pieces on loan to BYU from the churches in Denmark where they have hung for more than 100 years. They are amazing to see in person. He has such an amazing way of capturing the inner depth and feeling of people. The exhibit is free and well worth the time to see it. Follow the link below for more information.

Carl Bloch Exhibit

Tonight for puppy class we went on Front Runner to Roy and back. I was so excited to get there and see my Casey girl. I missed her. Kasha is a cute little energizer bunny but she isn’t Casey. We saw her as we arrived at the trained and swapped puppies back. I had to give her some extra loves, I was so happy to see her. We had puppies from the Utah County club and the High School group as well as our regular puppies. (The two newest puppies from our club, Phoenix and Langley didn’t come). All the puppies seemed to do really well and they all settled down and had a nice snooze. On the way back Casey curled up way under the seat and really went to sleep. It was my first ride on Front Runner too. The train is very nice and some of the seats have a table between them so Bill was able to get some work done on his lap top while we traveled. It is good to have Casey home.

Photo by Bruce

I found out tonight at puppy class that Clifford has been career changed because of cataracts. Oh such sad news! He will be coming back to his raisers home over the weekend. It makes me a bit paranoid about cataracts because the Porter who was raised in our club was career changed for the same reason this past summer.

Kasha in Primary

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Kasha got to go to Primary with us today. We were substituting in the three-year old class today and I thought that Kasha might have a bit of a challenge with all the little kid energy. But we woke up to about 9″ of snow this morning and she had a grand time on the walk home from choir practice and helping us shovel the driveway and side walk. I think she was on the tired side by the time we got to church and she actually fell asleep in a class with five little three-year-old boys. I think as she matures she is going to be a great puppy. I meant to get some photos of her in the snow to share with her raiser but somehow it just never got done.

Casey/Kasha Puppy Swap

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Kasha at the Library

Casey is past due for a puppy swap so we made arrangements to trade her with Kasha for the weekend. Kasha is 3/4 lab and 1/4 golden retriever. She is about 4 and 1/2 months old and a very cute little puppy with a dark golden or reddish coat. She mostly looks like a lab but if you know goldens you can see it in her face and in her personality. Kasha is much higher energy puppy than Casey so that will take a bit of getting use to. Between the high energy and the six weeks younger in age it is quite an adjustment from our calm Casey to bouncy Kasha. It helps me to appreciate what a good girl our Casey is growing up to be.

Package from Apex

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We got an huge box of citrus from Florida today. Sue had sent an email saying that something was on its way from Apex. I was amazed when it showed up. The box is full of tangerines, oranges and grapefruit. Boy are we going to enjoy eating these. They all taste really good. The tangerines are so much bigger than we get in the stores here and the grapefruit are amazingly sweet. Thank you Apex! (and Sue).

Casey started on the Tylan Powder today. She wasn’t sure she liked how it tasted but she did eat her food anyway. She is on 1/4 teaspoon twice a day for at least a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to no more middle of the night poop runs!

Downtown Library

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We met in the downtown Salt Lake Library for puppy class tonight. Our club has two new cute little lab boys. Phoenix is a chubby little yellow lab, who is very mellow. Langley is a little black lab boy who as you can see from the photo is very relaxed, Casey has been struggling with another bout of diarrhea for the last couple of days and working on the go to bed command was too much for her system. She pooped in the room were we were meeting and then again on the stone floor as he was taking her outside to relieve. Lindsey said it is time to put her on Tylan Powder to prevent further bouts of diarrhea so we will be heading to the vet later this week.

Langley

Phoenix

Kongs and Wish Bones

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Today was a pretty normal Saturday. We are still getting use to only having one puppy in training around. We miss Banta and her huge spirit that can fill up a house with her energy. Casey is adjusting well to being the only dog in the house. She is ready to be on her own. Banta did a great job of mentoring her. We went to the library today and to SuperCuts for much needed haircuts. I decided that it was time to make things much shorter. I’m tired of having hair get in my face. Casey did very well. Later in the day I decided to stick two of her Kongs on the end of her nylabone wish bone. She had fun chewing on the end that didn’t have a Kong on it.

Christmas Tree Permit

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My family has the tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree each year. The hardest part of doing this is getting up early, early in the morning on the first Friday or Saturday in November to get a tree permit. The forest service sells 1,000 permit each day and they go on sale at 8:00 a.m. but you have to get to Soldier Hollow early if you want to be sure you are going to get a permit. I don’t know how early people get there but we usually get there around 7:00 a.m. and we are far from the first. They hand out arm bands so then we can wait in the car for a while and stay warm. At 8:00 a.m. the line starts to move slowly then finally our turn comes and we pay $10 for our precious permit. Casey had fun in line socializing with a little toddler.

Recall Day

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At noon today we put Banta on the puppy truck for San Rafael, California. There were eight puppies getting on the truck today. (I think that was the right number) It was a very different experience than with Apex because with him we dropped off early in the morning and there were no other raisers dropping of their pups off that morning. All of us where gathered there at the truck and no one wanted to be the first to put their pup on so I figured we might as well go first since Banta is early in the alphabet. She went right into the kennel on the bottom left side of the truck in the very back. She handled it all like a pro and got in the kennel just fine.
It is so quiet around here without Banta’s huge spirit. I’m amazed at how much calmer Casey is too. I had a cub scout pack leaders meeting her tonight and Casey did just great. Usually I have to confine her in the kitchen. She has grown up a lot in the last month, but that isn’t all of it. Casey gained a lot of confidence from Banta’s mentorship but she is ready to be on her own now.
We are going to miss her so much but I’m excited to see where her career path takes her. It will probably be a month or two before we hear anything on Banta unless they find a major problem early in her medical exams. So now starts the waiting period. She will arrive in California on Thursday afternoon.

Banta, Clifford & Juaquin our club’s November recall pups
Bill with Banta and the puppy truck
Banta on the puppy truck
 

Poop Update

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Casey and loose poop have been a fairly common thing. After Monday’s early morning poop trouble she deposited a load of loose poop in the middle of the living room in the afternoon. I’d just taken her out about a half an hour before. Then at about 2 a.m. Tuesday morning she got up in the night and poop in her own private little port-a-potty (the kennel) again. Finally Tuesday afternoon, she her poop started firming up. Casey woke me up at 5:45 a.m. this morning to take her out but her poop was very well formed. And today she has been back to a more normal pooping schedule. Something that she picked up off the ground must have messed up her system. We have spent the last month trying to get her on a food that agrees with her system and we finally seemed to be there when this loose poop episode struck I was worried that we were back to square zero. But yahoo! that isn’t the case. As our club leader use to say “it all comes back to poop.”

Freedom Day

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Banta has been on “house arrest” for the past 4 weeks because she has been in season. Today was she was finally cleared to return to normal socializing activities. After baths for both the girls we headed off for some fun. Casey spent the morning at work with Bill, while Banta and I ran some errands and took a walk along the Jordan River. We got a good coating of snow last night but most of it was melted by the time we got to the trail. It was so nice to get to have her out and about. The only bad thing is that we only have one week of “normal” life until she gets on the truck to return to Guide Dogs for the Blind.