Category Archives: My Life

Casey’s Graduation

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Carrie and Casey outside Boccelli’s

Today Casey officially became a guide dog for her new partner Carrie. Guide Dogs for the Blind has an official graduation where the puppy raisers symbolically hands off the puppy they raised to their new handler. Before the ceremony we have an hour or so where we get to meet our puppy’s handler and see our pup that we haven’t seen since they got on the truck to return to GDB for formal harness training.

We arrived at GDB Boring, Oregon campus at 11:45 a.m. The rest of the puppy raisers where already there. Then the group went over to the dorm building. There we were taken to different areas around the building to wait for our puppy and their partner to be brought to us. Bill went off to find a bathroom and missed Casey and Carrie when they first come out. I saw them coming down the long hallway. It was so much fun to see her again. She didn’t seem much changed and was so happy to see me. She was just getting settled down when Bill came up and she practically jumped into his arms. We spent the next hour or so chatting and cuddling and petting Casey. Casey did the typical thing of rotating around between the three of us while keeping track of her training, Amy.

Me and Casey

We gave Carrie, Casey’s “Go to Bed Blanket” that I made her while she was a puppy and a couple of basic nylabones for Casey’s birthday which was last week. He handler gave us a delicious box of chocolates from Victoria. Carrie just finished her 2nd year of law school. She is thinking of becoming a law professor but hasn’t decided for sure. She lives in a small apartment in Victoria, BC with her husband and a cat. Casey is her first guide and she said there are 20 other GDB graduates on Vancouver Island. Her and Casey and a very good match, of course. Guide Dogs for the Blind is amazing at that.

Casey and Bill

We went out to eat after graduation to an Italian place in Gresham called Boccelli’s. It was a nice place to relax and get to know Carrie better. Casey and Carrie had an early trip to the airport in the morning so we took them back to campus after dinner. It was so much fun to see Casey again. She was her normal wiggly waggly self we she saw us and we enjoyed giving her lots of loves while we got to know Carrie. I’m sure that the two of them will quickly develop into an incredible team.

Casey by Carrie’s feet at dinner

50 for 50 #23 – See the Ocean

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Rockaway Beach, Oregon

While we were in Oregon we drove another hour and a half so that I could see the ocean to celebrate by 50th year. It was a rainy day so we missed much of the beautiful view of the Oregon coast but it was surprisingly not too cold. When we got to Rockaway Beach I bundled up in a heavy sweat shirt plus rain gear. I didn’t want to get cold. I wanted to enjoy myself.

Me and Parker on Rockaway Beach

There were only a few other people on the beach. I like it that way. As we wandered along getting closer to the water’s edge we were rather surprised when the next wave came in closer than the earlier waves. We scrambled to keep of the of way but I didn’t make it. I felt that shock of cold water on my feet but then I decided to just enjoy it. I got soaked half way up my calves before we left the beach.

My feet in the Pacific Ocean

We just enjoyed ourselves strolling along on the sand and in the water. I picked up a rock, some broken shells and a couple of crab shells. Before we left the rain stopped and that made it easier to see what was going on around us. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And I think Bill and Parker did too. I’d love to go back sometime in the future.

Parker on Rockaway Beach

Do you have a favorite beach? I’m not sure if I have a favorite but if I had to pick one I think it would be La Jolla near San Diego, California. What do you like to do when you go to the beach? I love to wade and look for interesting rocks, shells etc.

50 for 50 #22 – Wood Badge

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First Wood Badge training at Gilwell Park

First Wood Badge training at Gilwell Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From start to finish Wood Badge was an amazing experience. There was lots of great information. The staff worked really hard to make it interesting and to help us understand. There is no way to explain what Wood Badge is all about. It has to be experienced to understand. The short version is Wood Badge is a leadership course taught in the context of the scouting organization. The principles are the same as many corporate leadership trainings but with the energy of the boy scouts instead of the often boring style of the business world. If you ever take Wood Badge you won’t regret it.

I want to put together something to celebrate this experience. They had a photographer there and I think that we will have access to all the photos he took. I’m pretty sure I want to do a book with all or most of the photos and maybe a video with mostly photos from my patrol, the owls. I also have lots of little trinkets they call totems that I want to save in some organized and meaningful way.

Have any of you ever been to Wood Badge?

Lots of Puppy News

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Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks with everything going on, especially Wood Badge. That finished up yesterday, so now I’m trying to get caught up on the rest of my life. In the meantime lots of fun stuff has happened on the puppy front.

Apex and Sue are off to the Northeast for a family matter this week and Apex turned 4 years old on Thursday. I want to send him a present but it hasn’t happened yet.

I shared news about Banta last week.

The biggest news is that Casey is in class and will be graduating on June 2nd. We have been waiting since January for this news so it is extra sweet. Casey will be living with her handler in Victoria, British Columbia. This is extra neat because in about a year we are going on a cruise to Alaska with Apex and Sue and we will be with in a couple of hours of Victoria. So we will have to figure out a way to visit Casey either before or after the cruise. Casey also had a birthday this last week. On Wednesday she turned 2 years old. I’m so happy that she was partnered by her birthday.

I got a call from our club leader recently about Waffle. There was some concern about her from her last eval with our CFR (Community Field Representative) and she wanted Waffle to go to someone else for a few days to see how she is doing. So we got to pick up Waffle on Wednesday and take her to Wood Badge with us. Then Claraliz’s family and a big gathering today so she will be here until tomorrow. It was fun to take her to church today. Lots of the kids remember Waffle and enjoyed saying hi to her. When she was younger she hated when someone tried to pet the top of her head. She has grown-up and was very tolerant of all the head pats she got today. Waffle also turned 15 months old today. She will to return to Guide Dogs for the Blind on June 10th.

On the evaluation side of Waffle’s visit, she is doing good. She lacks some confidence but she handled the intensity and newness of Wood Badge very well. We didn’t see any reason she should be career changed at this point.

Next on our puppy list is Yakira. She went to Wood Badge with us the week of my birthday and she did really great. It is a noisy and busy environment with not much of a chance for the pups to really let loose. Well on Saturday afternoon an hour or two before we finished for the week Yakira went into season. So she is now on “house arrest” until 16th. This meant that Yakira couldn’t come back up to Wood Badge with us and we had to find a puppy sitter for her. There are only a few households in the club that are cleared to have an in season pup. One was going out-of-town and another is just a new puppy raiser. The last one was already puppy sitting another puppy, Pierre, so we made arrangements to swap Yakira and Pierre around. Pierre is intact so we were careful while dropping off and picking up Yakira. I made all these arrangements before I new that we were going to take Waffle with us to Wood Badge so we ended up with two dogs at Wood Badge, Waffle and Pierre.

Finally we get to Zodiac. He is really doing great. He has caught on to the relieving thing and Yakira has been a great mentor to him and teaching him how to behave. But our club leader said he was too young to go to Wood Badge. And after we got up there last week I was glad that he wasn’t there. It would have been really hard for a puppy that young. Zodiac was a one puppy sitter last week. A new raiser who is getter her first puppy on June 7th. Then for this week’s Wood Badge he went to another raiser who is also getter her first pup on the next puppy truck. When we made arrangements originally they were for Zodiac to be there until the end of Wood Badge Saturday but then we realized that it would be best for Waffle to stay with us for a couple more days. Three puppies in training is too much for one household so it worked out for Zodiac to extend his stay until Monday. We plan to pick him up late morning and get some photos of our “W”, “Y” and “Z” pups all together. It isn’t often that a raiser can have three of their pups together at one time.

Because we have Casey’s graduation this next weekend both Yakira and Zodiac will be going to puppy sitters again. Yakira will be returning to the same place as this past week but I don’t know where Zodiac will be. I’m guessing that our club leader has a spot picked out for him. Yakira’s timing on being in season was not helpful for our club leader. She was planning on Yakira being puppy sat by many of the new raisers in our club. It looks like Zodiac is getting that privilege instead. What an eventful last week or so in the puppy side of our life.

50 for 50 #21 – My Birthday

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This week was my real 50th birthday! It was a wild and crazy week too. On Tuesday, I went to lunch with my mom and sister to Kneaders. I love their Key Lime Tart, not to sweet and light and refreshing.

Thursday through Saturday we were in Park City for Wood Badge training with the Boy Scouts of America. They sang a happy birthday to me twice and my troop (the Owls) got cup cakes from the quartermaster. I got to (or maybe had to) wear a pink stuffed birthday cake hat for the second rendering of happy birthday. The first time most of the group thought of me as Suzy. Let me try to explain. One of the traditions at Wood Badge is to circulate a Susan B. Anthony dollar among the participants by slipping it into someones pocket. Then when the Senior Patrol Leader starts singing “Where is Suzy” everyone looks in their pocket. Knowing that today was my birthday they planted the coin my pocket. I felt it go in but didn’t know what it was until they started talking about the “where is Suzy” thing. Then it all made sense and I wasn’t at all surprised to find it in my pocket. Who ever has the coin in their pocket gets to go up to the front and sing a song. They let me off the hook a bit by everyone singing happy birthday to me. It turns out that you can also lead the group in a song or you troop can join you in singing a song.

I don’t have photos from Wood Badge yet. But they have two people taking lots of photos and I’ll have access to them after the course is over. So I’ll add some photos of my birthday experience then. It was the most unusual birthday and birthday week I’ve ever had. But if you ever get the  chance to take Wood Badge you really should take advantage of the opportunity.

Have any of you been to Wood Badge?

Banta and the Furry Scurry

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Mark and Banta

Banta and Mark participated in the Furry Scurry Fund Raising walk recently. His retired guide Prestwick was also there. They had lots of fun and as usual Banta was a little superstar. She didn’t do much guide work on the walk because there were over 7000 dogs there. She was really good and got a lot of attention. A local news crew interview them at the end of the walk but their interview didn’t make it on the news. They news crew said they hadn’t seen any other guide dogs at the Furry Scurry but they did see a companion dog. Banta had struggled with a sore shoulder but it is doing just fine now. I love it when we get photos from our graduated pups. Banta looks so happy and healthy.

Walking at the Furry Scurry

50 for 50 #20 – Lavender Turtleneck

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my fifth grade school picture

This is my favorite school photo when I was growing up. I thought it would be fun to have another lavender turtleneck similar to the one in this photo. This week I was at Kohl’s looking for something to spend a $10 gift card on. I wanted a small watering can for my grow-light but they don’t have stuff like that so I ended up looking through the clearance rack in women’s clothing. I felt like I hit the jack-pot when I found some basic long-sleeved shirts for $2 at 90% off. One of the tops was a dark lavender turtleneck so that made everything perfect. So I ended up with three $2 tops and one $4 top that just perfectly spent the $10 card I had. Yeah for some great shopping!

me at almost 50

Z’s First Week

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Zodiac

What a difference a week can make! Zodiac has made so much progress in the past week. The first few days were really rough, especially on the relieving.  But the first few days Zodiac peed and poop more in the house than he did outside. One thing he catch on to really fast was peeing in the kennel. He only did that once.Zodiac is now fairly reliable at relieving when you take him outside. He only has a problem when he doesn’t get taken out often enough or gets more freedom than he is ready for.

Zodiac in an x-pen

I like to use x-pens with puppies. They are bigger than kennel so pups are more likely to have accidents in them and we have carpet downstairs so we have a piece of plexiglass that we put under the x-pen to help with clean-up. I hate to haul kennels up and down the stairs so we use x-pens downstairs where I spend most of my time during the day. I like the x-pens too because it restricts their activity but given them a bit of freedom. I know they can’t get into anything and I can step out of the room for a minute and not worry. When they are older we use the x-pens restrict their access to a room or area of the house. I took Zodiac out before I started this post and he relieved perfectly. Now I want to give him some freedom but not too much so I’ve blocked off the area around my desk. He enjoys have more space and I know where he is. With each puppy we have found more ways to use the x-pens. I’d really like to find a couple more panels.

Actually relieving covers most the challenges were are having with Zodiac. Which is really good. He does struggle with whining and barking but as long as you don’t reward it that stuff takes care of its self. The first few days its was whining. Then when that didn’t get him what he wanted he tried barking. He started to bark saying, “hurry up with my food, I’m starving”. Each day it gets better so no real worries there.

Zodiac and Yakira playing in the backyard

We are really pleased with Zodiac. I think that Yakira has been a good mentor and he is learning the rules quickly. He seems to have a good middle of the road temperament and his stubborn side has not been a problem. We are looking forward to raising him and seeing how he grows up. At this early stage it looks like he will be a great dog.

Girl Scouts

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Yakira and the Girl Scouts

On Thursday, Yakira and I went to talk with a Girl Scout group about service dogs. Yakira was a good girls, as usual and she had a fun time playing tug with the girls. We talked about the kinds of service dogs and the breeds of dogs that are most often used for service dogs. The girls asked a few questions but their leaders had lots more questions. I think some of the girls were a little shy. One of the girls took a photo of her and Yakira while Yakira was giving her a kisses. It was a good experience and we will probably get more opportunities like it in the future.

Raising Skyler Video

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I love the power that images and music have together. One of the things I want to learn how to do is videos. The closest thing I’ve done was in college. I took a class on what was then called multimedia. We put together slides with music using multiple slide projectors and special equipment that kept the slides and music synchronized. It was awesome. Today we use computers and software to do a similar thing. So when I saw this effective video a few days ago I knew I wanted to feature it here on my blog.

This video brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it. I’m sure that part of the impact on me is because I relate to it as a puppy raiser. When it comes to sharing stories emotion is a big part of the impact. Stephanie did a great job combining the photos and the music to tell Skyler’s story. Here is Stephanie’s advice on how she put together this video;

I used Photostory to create this.  You import the photos into Photostory and then customize motion, choose the slide speed, add music and you are done.  I think the key to something like this is the music and the speed in which the slides switch making sure it fits with the music. And of course, good pictures 🙂

Stephanie makes this sound so doable. Now I’ve got to download Photostory and learn how to use this software. I can’t wait. Have you every done a video? What software do you do and what advice do you have for a beginner?