Category Archives: My Life

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.

Aunt Lisa Visits

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Today Banta turned 15 months old. It is also her last day of confinement from being in season. One of her favorite people came for a visit today, her “Aunt Lisa.” Lisa gave both the girls lots of love and kisses and they really enjoyed it. Banta especially loved playing tug. Tug has been one of the mainstays on helping Banta cope with her confinement of 28 days. Banta is an expert at tug. She uses all of her 56 lbs. to maximum effectiveness. Banta has a head whip that can dislocate you shoulder if you aren’t paying attention. Lisa likes to say that Banta would have no trouble taking care of her young in the wild if she needed to.

What a Night

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We had one of those crazy nights that come to puppy raisers every so often. I should have seen at least part of it coming. Casey pooped at about 10 p.m. and then pooped again right before bed. It is unusually for her to poop so close together but I didn’t clue in. Well we all got to bed with the girls sleeping in their usual places at the bottom of our bed. Then about 1 a.m. I heard one of them walking around in the empty kennel. I got up to check what was going on and found Casey wondering around the room and two piles of loose poop in the kennel. I was upset that she didn’t wake me up to take her out but also so glad that she picked the easiest place in the room to clean up. I took her outside to relieve while Bill started on cleaning up the kennel.

After everything was cleaned up I put two and two together and realized that Casey was having a problem. So I grabbed the quilt off the couch and settled down to sleep on the floor by Banta and Casey. About 3 a.m. Casey got up and I woke up to take her out but I wasn’t fast enough. She went straight into the kennel and deposited another load of loose poop! Bill didn’t wake up this time so I was on my own doing the clean-up.

About a half hour later Banta decided to add her part to the fun. But instead of poop she went for the other end of things. When I heard the retching I grabbed the closest thing to keep it off the carpet, my quilt. I yelled for Bill to grab a garbage can but he didn’t make it in time. Banta’s face had the funnest expression on it between the two deposits she made on the quilt. Her stomach was empty of food so it was just a some liquid. When I was sure that she was done. I took the quilt, rinsed it off in the shower downstairs and threw it in the washing machine.

The girls both slept the rest of the night with no more incidents but needless to say I didn’t sleep too well. Waking at the slightest move by either one of them. All in all consider there were three piles of loose poop and two puddles of throw-up the clean-up was about as easy at it comes. Thank goodness I got to sleep in this morning.