Zodiac was on the phase 0 report this week! Yeah! I know it may seem silly to be so excited to see his name but it seems like a little text message from our boy saying, “I’m here and doing fine.” The harness training at Guide Dogs for the Blind is broken into 8 phases plus they have what they call phase zero for when they dogs first get to campus, get physicals, adjust etc.

Here is the second spread in Zodiac’s puppyhood book.

“One day when he was young the back door wasn’t latched and Zodiac had a digging adventure out in the back yard. It took me a while to figure out how he got such a dirty nose in his “just earned my puppy coat” pictures.One of the zaniest things that Zodiac loves to do is dig in his empty dog dish. I usually take it to mean that he would like some ice cubes. Zodiac loves ice cubes! He will grab an ice-cube or two and dash into the living room to munch down on them or chase them around the kitchen.”

from Zodiac’s puppyhood book

No news on Zodiac this week. He hasn’t made it to the phase report yet but I didn’t see any of the pups that were on the truck with him either. He should show up next week, unless the holiday weekend disrupts things. But in many ways no news is good news at this point. A phone call would be a really bad thing. It could only mean that he was career changed.

At this point I would expect that he is getting adjusted to the routines on Guide Dogs for the Blind’s campus. They usually have a kennel mate and Zodiac will have a canine welfare technician to make sure he is healthy and happy. The will also be doing medical exams and he will have walks and playtime.

Above is the first spread in Zodiac’s puppyhood book. I’ll post one spread each week along with an update on how he is doing in training. Here is the text for that page:

Most puppy raisers think their dog is the cutest, but of course they are wrong, Zodiac is really the cutest puppy ever! He was a very solidly built. At 13 months he was 65 lbs. even though he isn’t a very tall dog. I expect he will put on a few more pounds as his muscles continue to develop. Zodiac has matured into a very handsome nicely put together dog.