One of Yakira’s most endearing traits is her wiggle. When she wags her tail her whole body gets into it. Every time Yakira meets someone she knows and loves she will wiggle from the tip of her nose all they way down to the tip of her tail. How can you not love a dog that show such joy at seeing you again. Yakira is just such a sweetie!
Yakira was a super cute puppy and she grew in to a beautiful dog. She got lots and lots of comments everywhere she went.
She had evaluations by two different CFRs (community field representative) from GDB and both commented on her looks and took photos to send to the breeding department to watch for her to come in for breeder evaluation. One of them said “she is well put together.”
But a breeder for Guide Dogs for the Blind must have more than just good looks. Yakira’s EKG wasn’t quite perfect and so she wasn’t picked as a breeder after all. But she is still as beautiful as they come.
cover illustration by Kimberli Johnson
We are so close to being ready to print a proof copy of our Mary Taylor story book. In a perfect world we will be doing that the end of the week. Since the world isn’t usually perfect it might be a few days later than that. Kim got me two more illustrations done. The one above will do double duty as the cover and one of the middle illustration. On the cover I cropped the image in to show just Mary.
The illustration below will be the first one in the book and then we will crop it down as tight as we can for the last image in the book. I’ve got at least one more edit on the text to do. And if a friend who teaches writing classes has time there will be another one before the we print the proof. The plan is to present the proof copy to my mom on her 90th birthday at the end of the month. I know she is going to love it even if no one else does.
first and last illustration by Kimberli Johnson
Related articles
A couple of weeks after we added Zodiac (puppy in training #6), Yakira went into season. Yakira was such a great mentor to Zodiac and I think that part of that was because the hormones made it instinctual for her to adopt Zodiac as her own puppy.
Zodiac learned so many things so quickly because of Yakira’s care. When Zodiac learned to do open stairs for the first time, Yakira was right there, helping him navigate the stairs safely by protectively curling her body around his as the descended the stairs. She did that kind of thing over and over.
Yakira came to us young. She got on the puppy truck the day she turned 8 weeks old. That is the youngest that GDB sends out puppies. But she was ready to take on life even though she was so small. Yakira learned to do the stairs very fast. Even going down, the hardest direction for a young puppy. She kept that trend going by returning to GDB young and graduating as a guide dog young.
Yakira has the perfect working partner for her. Diane and Yakira are a good team. They are both outgoing and friendly. They are both gentle in their interactions with others but there is a strength about them that will help them overcome any obstacles that life has thrown at them or will put in their path in the future. I am convinced Yakira will be well-loved and cared for by Diane for the rest of her life.
Yakira has what puppy raisers call “frog legs”. She is the first of our puppies to have the kind of hips that can do the splits out to the side or go straight back when she is laying on her stomach. She also does a pretty good “down dog” and “up dog” just like in the yoga poses so named.
Yakira loves to have fun. She will run around like a wild girl plus she can also hold her own when it comes to romping with the bigger dogs, which is most other labs since she just isn’t very big.
But a game she was always very fond of was tug. When you pulled out a tug toy or a rope or ring she was ready to go. Yakira isn’t super strong or super good at tug but she was always happy to have some fun and interact with the person playing with her.
Playing tug always got her vocals going too. She has the cutest little play growl around.
I came across this book while doing research for a book I’m working on about my dad’s years in the Navy. That’s My Daddy by L. Douglas Keeney is full of great images and just a little text. The preview only shows the first 15 pages, which makes me sad. I wish I could see more of the book. Guess that is more reason to by it. Here is what the author said about his book:
A visual feast for those who love modern military aviation — and a tribute to the airmen and aviators of the United States Air Force, Navy and Marines.
Originally intended as a best-of-military-flight-photography book for my friends, this book instead became a portrait of American heros, a portrait that answers the timeless question — “what does daddy do?” — with the timeless squeal of delight — “that’s my daddy!”
For the author of Secret Messages (Simon & Schuster) This is Guadalcanal (Wm.Morrow), The Doomsday Scenario (Zenith Press) and No Easy Days (Doubleday).
Thank you Douglas Keeney for this inspiring project!
L. Douglas Keeney Books on Amazon
When I set Yakira down after she got off the puppy truck the first thing she did was go after my pant legs and try to bite them. She would also turn and try to bite your hand if she didn’t want to go into the kennel. Thank goodness she got over that in about a month.
telling family tales 