Allie's Antics

Results Are In

2012-02-11T00:35:00.001-06:00

Today I went to the training center at GDTX to find out whether or not Allie was moving into Advanced Training (A/T) yet. The answer is . . . YES!!!!!!!! :-D There were 8 pups in assessment these last two weeks: Allie, Alice, Atlas, Alamo, Mitch, Molly, Melissa, & Maggie. The “M’s” are not littermates, but are 4 puppies who came into the program at about the same time & they are all close in age. They are younger than the A-litter. Allie, Alice, Mitch, & Molly are all going into A/T at this time. The others will be reassessed in a few months & will likely be in A/T at a later date. There are many factors that play into whether or not pups move into A/T and one of them is whether or not they already have a possible client match for the dogs. This factor played a pretty good role in the decisions for the current group of assessment pups, I think. Apparently, there is already a client that will likely be a good match for Allie. Yippee!!!

According to Larry & Hillary, the GDMI’s all loved Allie. She was a little under the weather during assessments, but still did wonderfully on all her walks and in the various situations in which she was placed. I got to bring her home for the weekend so we’ll get to enjoy her for a few days before she moves on to the final phase of her training. I’m so proud of her! It’s a little hard to believe that just over a year ago I brought home a little puppy and today she’s almost grown and just a few months away from being a full-fledged guide dog. It will be exciting to watch her progress and see what happens in the future!

I was thinking the other day about how much she’s learned in the last year. She knows a lot of commands as well as phrases and even sentences. Here is some of the words or phrases in her vocabulary:

Sit, Stay, Come, Down (or Lie Down), Up-Sit, Wait, Fetch, Up-Up (the command for getting in the car…originally “get in the bus” but changed along the way), Bed, Kong, Bone, Toy, Find Your Kong (or toy, or bone….she can differentiate between them), Leave It, Go Busy (the command for relieving herself), No, Off, Settle, Hungry, Eat (or “Are you hungry?”/”Do you want to eat?”), This Way (when we make left or right turns), Let’s Go, & Go Free.

I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of right now. :) She will learn much more in the coming months.

What happens now? Well, we’re waiting on the next litter of puppies to be born! Poppy is due to have the “B-litter” sometime around the end of this month or beginning of next. Ava, Allie’s sister, was bred a few weeks ago, so we’re hoping that she will be having the “C-litter” a few weeks after Poppy’s pups are whelped. We’ll have puppies out our ears at Guide Dogs of Texas later this spring!! Meanwhile, it turns out I will not be puppy-less like I had originally thought. Yea!! :-D How, you say? Well, since Atlas is being reserved for a client match, he will remain in the puppy program. So Larry asked me today if I would like to have him for awhile and work on some areas that he doesn’t have as much opportunity in his current situation. Of course I said, “yes!” I fell in love with him during the puppy swap & it will be fun to have him again for awhile. Sooooo, maybe “Allie’s Antics” will have a few Atlas updates again. ;-) Until then, I’ll leave you with a photo taken after Larry & Hillary told me the good news today. They are fabulous supervisors and I couldn’t have had the success in training Allie that I did without their help, support, & encouragement! THANKS, LARRY & HIL!!

Assessments Begin

2012-01-27T21:00:00.000-06:00


{Puppy Hand-off Day}

{Allie - in the green collar - still loves a
good rough-house session.}

One year, one month, three weeks, & two days ago I brought home my very first guide dog puppy. She was an 8 ½ week old, 15-pound butterball full of energy and exuberance for life. She was the rabble-rouser in the group of 7 puppies that day of Puppy Hand-off. She was the one who started all the tussles in the little pen they were in. She was the one who barked at the others. She was named Allie, one of the names that I had submitted in the contest that Guide Dogs of Texas held in order to name the eight puppies in the first-ever, Guide Dogs of Texas-bred litter. Today Allie is no longer a butterball, but a trim 65 pound dog. At almost 16 months old, she is nearly full-grown but still has some puppy in her and is still full of energy and exuberance for life. Effervescent, Larry calls her. :) If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, then you’ve read some of Allie’s antics, activities, and adventures. I think the last almost-14 months have been as much of an adventure for me as they have for Allie. I know I’ve learned a lot!

Today we’ve come full circle. I took Allie back to the training center for assessment. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we find out if I’ve taught her what she needs to know to be accepted into the Advanced Training (A/T) program. Over the next two weeks Allie & her littermates – Atlas, Alamo, & Alice – will be evaluated to see if they’re ready to move on into A/T.

{Summer 2011}

{I love my girl!}

I don’t know exactly what all goes into the evaluation. I do know they’ll be looking at how well Allie responds to all the various commands I’ve taught her over the last year, how well she walks in a straight line, how she behaves in various situations, and so forth. At the end of the two-week period, I’ll return to the training center to learn the results. If Allie is ready, she will begin the last phase of her education. She’ll work with Certified Guide Dog Mobility Instructors (GDMI’s) who will teach her how to be a guide dog. If she isn’t ready to move on, she will come back to me for a few more months. If that happens, we’ll spend that time polishing her skills and firming up the foundation we’ve laid over the past year, the foundation on which the rest of her training will be built.

Does she know all the commands well? Yes. I know for a fact that she does. Has she learned the necessary skills for a guide dog puppy? I’m confident that she has. Does she adjust well to various environments and situations? Without a doubt. Is she a perfect puppy? Of course not, but neither am I a perfect person. She has her faults; but they are not flaws and they are a part of making Allie who she is. Is she ready to move on? That decision is not up to me; but I believe she is. Do I want her to go? YES. Absolutely, positively, yes. That has been the goal from the very beginning . . . to raise a well-trained, well-adjusted, well-rounded puppy and prepare her to be a guide dog. Will I miss her? Of course!! I love her! However, as I’ve told countless people over the last year (and last few weeks, in particular!), I knew going into this that she is not my puppy. I could not keep her, but I have had the privilege and honor of playing a small part in preparing a dog that will – hopefully – change someone’s life. I’ve made mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned from the mistakes. I’ve made memories, I’ve made new friends, and I am no longer a rookie puppy raiser.

{I found Allie like this one day last winter.}

{A few minutes later she was like this, still asleep!}

Okay, enough of this sentimental mush! Now I wait for two weeks. In the meantime, I have a baby shower to host, a visit from cousins, aunt, & uncle, and a puppy-training refresher class, not to mention all the activities of normal life. I also have about 10 little puppy jackets to make for the new litters arriving in a month or so! Who knows what other adventures might pop up along the way?

She's a big girl now.

P.S. Yes, I’ve cried, more than once; and I may cry some more. However, I did not cry when I dropped her off!! Hooray for me! :)

Lions, & Tigers, & Bears! Oh, MY!

2012-01-23T22:46:00.000-06:00

Allie, Atlas, & Alice visit the San Antonio Zoo!

Today Allie & I met Larry & Hillary at the zoo. They brought Atlas & Alice. We thought it would be fun to make a trip to the zoo and a good experience for the dogs. It was both. :) We spent about an hour walking through the zoo. The dogs saw bears, fish, birds, monkeys, and other animals I don't remember. We didn't actually see all the animals. We would've been there much more than an hour! Larry, Hillary, & I traded off dogs throughout the visit so that we all handled each dog at some point during the visit. It's interesting to see the different personalities and working styles of these littermates. I decided that the zoo would be an excellent place to take a puppy-in-training on a regular basis, so I'm thinking I need a zoo membership with my next puppy. :)

Later, I took Allie to her first movie. It was a little over two hours long, and we were there a little early. So she was in there over two hours. She did very well! She stood up a few times, but each time I put her back into her tucked position and she would settle back to sleep. After the movie was over, a lady down the row from us said, "Oh my goodness! I never even knew she was there!" :) That's the goal. Yippee!! So my girl had two new experiences today. :)

Nothing Much :)

2012-01-16T22:58:00.000-06:00

Things have been rather uneventful since the puppy swap ended & Allie came home. She came back just before Christmas. Unlike last year, when she was just a couple months old, she didn’t try to pull any ornaments off the tree this year. We have also noticed a few other changes lately that indicate our girl is growing up.

For one thing, her “counter-surfing” occurs less often. Also, we used to keep most bedroom and bathroom doors shut because she tended to get into things (including wastebaskets). We no longer have to shut doors because she doesn’t really bother any of that stuff anymore. Frequently, when I notice she’s disappeared from the room, I’ll find her curled up asleep in her crate. I think I’m going to have to tell Larry he was right. :) He told me over and over, “Just hang in there. She’ll grow out of it.” Some things haven’t changed, though, like how much she loves to run and play. :-D One of her favorite things to do is try to entice Wyatt to play with her. He has no interest in playing with her, but when she harasses him enough, he will chase her some just to run her off. He’s a very smart dog, but he hasn’t figured out – I don’t think – that he’s playing right into her paws. She loves for him to chase her. :-D

Earlier this month, right at the 15-month birthday mark, I took Allie to the vet for her annual vaccinations. She was also observed for any possible joint issues (hips and elbows). When she was spayed last year they took X-rays to make sure everything was well and there was no indication of dysplasia. All was good then, so this was just a follow-up. The vet didn’t feel any need for more X-rays, so that was good!

Last week we had our last training walk before assessments begin at the end of the month. We went with Hillary to a shopping center that’s really like an outdoor mall. There are lots of fountains there, steps to practice, and plenty of people to serve as distractions. Allie did great! She wasn’t distracted by anybody except Hillary! She kept looking back as we walked, I guess making sure that Hillary was still with us. Funny girl. :-D We passed a child with a balloon as well as a child who was squealing about seeing a dog. Neither phased her. We went into Bath & Body Works because Hillary wanted to see how Allie reacted to the smells. She couldn’t have cared less. (We’ve been in B & BW plenty of times from the time she was little. ;) ) We also took a tour through the food court. Their floors were very clean (I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for food distraction opportunities!) and Allie wasn’t distracted at all. Just before we left, though, we passed a table with small children. There was a waffle fry on the floor, easily within Allie’s reach had she chosen to lunge for it. She didn’t!! YEA!!! She did see it, but all she did was glance at it then move on. She got a treat as a reward for that. Anyway, all in all, she did very well and Hillary was quite pleased.

We’ve had Autumn again for a few days while Larry went on vacation. She went home today. As usual, we’ve all enjoyed her visit. :) Many times I’ve found Allie curled up on Autumn’s pallet, which is next to Allie’s crate, and Autumn curled up in Allie’s crate.
I thought I’d include a cute picture of Allie & Atlas together on the day we swapped back. I think it's funny how they both have their right upper lip caught in their teeth. Silly puppies. Hillary brought Allie to the bookstore since I was working that day. At first she didn’t even notice me. All she cared about was that Atlas was there to play with. After I poked her a few times and said her name several times she suddenly realized I was there and got excited to see me, though. :) Atlas actually went to a puppy-sitter over Christmas weekend so he just stayed with me till the sitter came to get him. I had the two of them in our tiny bookstore for about 45 minutes or so. At first they were a little rowdy, but they settled down when I fussed at them. :)

Up next: an A-Litter trip to the zoo before assessments begin. :) Well, that’s the plan, anyway. We’ll see if it happens. ;)

A Month Has Flown

2011-12-20T23:50:00.000-06:00

It’s time to swap puppies back. Can it really have been a month already?? The time has really flown. Tomorrow (or maybe “today” –Wednesday- by the time I get this posted!) Larry will bring Allie back and take Atlas. It’s really been a fun month & I’ve enjoyed getting to work with Atlas and getting to know him better. He is such a sweet dog and very adaptable to different environments. My whole family fell in love with him. Of course, I miss Allie and I’m looking forward to getting her back; but I think I will miss Atlas, too, when he’s gone. Too bad I can’t raise two puppies at the same time!! Just kidding!! That would be impossible.

We had a training walk with Hillary today. We went to a grocery store. Atlas did well, not sniffing everything (or trying to) as much as he usually does. Hillary said over all he did a great job! YEA!!

Since the last post, I’ve taken Atlas to a restaurant where he did quite well. It was not at all crowded, unfortunately. In fact, my family & I were the only people eating for most of our meal. However, Atlas still tucked nicely under my chair and stayed the entire time. Sunday my mom & I hosted a bridal shower for a cousin. We had about 30 people here, including a few children. Even though Atlas spent most of the shower in his crate, I kept him out for the beginning. I wanted him to be around a large group of people in a small area. He did really well and greeted everyone quite calmly and properly. I did have to keep putting him in the “sit” position for greeting – he pops up like a jack-in-the-box – but other than that he was great!

One thing we’ve learned is that Atlas is a tough chewer. We thought Allie was tough but she is small potatoes compared to her brother. :-D I have two toys – one here at home and one at work – that are made with a product called Chew Guard. It’s something that they line a stuffed toy with that helps keep dogs from being able to chew them open and pull the stuffing out (one of Allie & Champ’s favorite pastimes). While both Allie & Champ go for the seam in a toy in order to open it up and “gut” it, Atlas is indiscriminate in his chewing. While he did not manage to open these two toys up, he did manage to rip parts off that are apparently not lined with Chew Guard! The evidence is presented below:

The triceratops (one with the Chew Guard) actually had all three horns before Atlas came. As soon as I saw he had ripped off a horn, I took the toy away. I’ll need to repair it before Allie gets it back or she’ll be gutting it post haste.

The chicken (the other Chew Guard toy) had a comb, wattle, and beak before Atlas got hold of it. Again, repair will be needed before Allie gets it back. :)

The stretchy weenie dog (not a Chew Guard toy) has been around for a few years. Prior to Atlas’ visit, it still had its head and all four feet. Now it is headless and missing one of the back feet. It did have a hole in its nose before the puppy swap, so Atlas had a head start with this one. :-D I didn’t take this one away from him. The other two are kind of pricey toys, so I wanted to preserve them if possible.

Today I caught a few snapshots of Atlas playing in the yard. He’d found a large chunk of wood that he just ran around and around, and around with in his mouth. Then, he boldly decided to play tug of war with Wyatt and a flying ring with which Wyatt was playing. Wyatt did not care for Atlas’ idea. I’m sure he was thinking, “I don’t even play with your annoying sister. I’m certainly not going to play with you!!” Atlas missed that message somehow. Finally, Wyatt got the ring away from him and just walked away. It was pretty funny to watch.

Again, I’m looking forward to getting Allie back, but the puppy swap experience has been a great one! I love Atlas and hope I get to be around him more in the future. He’s a sweetheart!!

A Visit With Santa

2011-12-15T00:36:00.000-06:00

Wednesday morning Atlas & I attended a press conference for a check presentation to Guide Dogs of Texas from the Petco Foundation. Every year Petco raises money for guide dog schools across the nation. This year, during Guide Dog Awareness Month in September, was no exception. They presented a check for over $194,000 to Guide Dogs of Texas!!! THANK YOU, PETCO!!!! That is a fabulous gift, and it is SO appreciated. To put that into a little perspective, however, that is enough to train approximately 5 dogs at Guide Dogs of Texas. There are currently 14 or 15 people on the waiting list to get a guide dog. Of course, there are many more Texans who could use a guide dog! The need is great & we really appreciate the financial gift from the Petco Foundation!

After the check presentation, I decided to head to Bass Pro Shops. The main reason was to give Atlas the experience there. Besides all the people, there are so many taxidermied animals there to see. There is also a huge aquarium, but we weren't able to see it because there was a large group of children gathered in that area performing Christmas songs. As for the animal mounts, Atlas did very well. He was very interested in some, but completely ignored others. It didn't take a whole lot of work to get him to ignore the ones in which he was interested. The other reason I wanted to take him to Bass Pro was to get his picture with Santa. :) Don't you think it's cute? I plan to take Allie when we swap puppies back. :) Santa said he loves to take pictures with guide dog pups. He said, "These dogs are lifesavers!" I couldn't agree more. :)

Atlas

2011-12-07T23:12:00.001-06:00

Atlas curls up after a long Thanksgiving Day

It’s been two weeks since Atlas came. After a couple days, he loosened up and acted like he’d been here all his life. :) He is sooooooo different from Allie in personality and working style, yet sometimes he is quite like her in other ways. As much as I love Allie, the timing of the swap is a blessing. Thanksgiving weekend, we had a minor flood in our home due to a plumbing issue. Needless to say, everything around here is a mess with carpet ripped up, subfloor exposed, furniture crammed all over the place, items from closets and bedrooms boxed up and stacked here and there. If Allie were here, we’d have to be constantly alert to what she was doing and where she was because she’d likely be getting into everything. Atlas doesn’t care one whit about it and we don’t have to worry about him getting into anything at all. WHEW!

That’s one huge difference between Atlas & Allie. Where she is energetic and constantly on the move (Larry calls her “effervescent”), Atlas is so laid back he’s almost a couch potato. Almost. He has his moments. I call them “Allie moments” because he just goes nuts running around with a toy in his mouth. :-D He also has times where he will lie down for a few seconds with a toy, then get up and carry it somewhere else to lie down; or he will leave that toy and go get another one. It’s like he can’t decide which toy he wants, or where he wants to be with it.

When working with Atlas, there are also differences between Allie & him. Allie likes to sniff some, but Atlas likes to sniff a lot. I don’t let him, though. Where I sometimes have to call Allie back to “heel” because she wants to go fast, I have to sometimes coax Atlas up because he’s slooooow. :-D Actually, he does really well most of the time, but he is still frequently in a position of having his head near my knee rather than his hip near my knee so I have to get him up where he should be.

One of my favorite commands that Atlas knows is “closer”. I hope the guys teach Allie that while they have her! When he sits, if he’s sitting a little “wide” (out to the side rather than near my leg), I can say “closer” and he will wiggle his bottom into position. He ends up right by my leg with he whole body pretty much in contact with my leg. It’s fabulous. :) I can pat my leg and tell Allie “over here” and she will get in the right position, but she never gets that close.

Some of the new experiences that Atlas has had are:

Going to church (and also a funeral)
Going to stores to actually shop, rather than just cruise the aisles
Eating (Well, I ate . . . he laid under the chair!) at the food court in the mall
Going to the Riverwalk at night, on a Saturday, when there are lots of people


Is that an animal around her legs??

Speaking of the Riverwalk . . . I think it was probably a great experience for Atlas because there were so many people. There were also several dogs. He did very well, even with the massive crowd. One funny moment came when a girl walked past wearing boots similar to these on the right:
Honestly, the lady really looked like she had animals wrapped around her legs. Apparently, Atlas thought so, too because he whipped his head to the left and kept looking backward as we were walking forward. He was staring at her legs. I had to use a treat to get his attention back where it belonged. :) There were quite a few people that had their dogs out on the Riverwalk that evening. They were all a minor distraction to Atlas, but not bad.

It’s been pretty crazy here the last couple weeks, so I don’t have too many photos of Atlas. I’ll share a couple from a photo session I did with my cousin’s baby. We thought Atlas would make a nice prop. :-) These were both taken on Thanksgiving day.

"I wonder what this big puppy feels like?"

Atlas makes a great prop, don't you think? I think he looks like a statue.

Puppy Swap!

2011-11-22T22:25:00.001-06:00

I have just a small update on Allie’s activities before I get to the bigger news. :) Last week we were asked to act as hostesses for one of the bimonthly Mission Tours offered at Guide Dogs of Texas. Simply put, we stood near the door and welcomed visitors to the training center as they arrived for the tour. These tours are free and a great opportunity to learn more about the mission and passion of Guide Dogs of Texas. If you’ve never been on one, I highly recommend it. They happen the first Thursday of the month in the evening and the third Tuesday of the month in the morning. For more info, and to RSVP for a tour, contact Guide Dogs of Texas.

The week before last we had a training walk with Hillary. We headed to a local mall and did some work on an open staircase. Allie needs practice on stairs because she has a tendency to leap over the last couple steps, whether we’re going up or down. It’s as if she knows the end is near and just wants to hurry on to wherever we’re going. We specifically worked on an open staircase because one of her siblings recently encountered an open staircase for the first time and did not like it at all. It seems it was a little scary to be able to see through the risers. Allie didn’t seem to have any problem with it. I think we’ve done some open stairways already, though. While at the mall we also ate supper in the food court. Allie did great at getting tucked under the chair. She couldn’t actually curl up because the chair wasn’t large enough, but she did get as much of herself under the chair as she could. :)

I had to snap the following picture of her in her crate last week to show that, while she’s growing up, some things haven’t changed. :) The picture of her when she was little was taken just three days after I brought her home. She was 9 weeks old. In the recent picture she is, of course, a little over a year. :) The duck from the younger picture is long since destroyed. The gray toy in the older picture is a dinosaur that she’s had for nearly five months and it’s still complete. It’s a pretty sturdy toy. :)


"I love my dinosaur."

Even as a baby, Allie liked to sleep on her toys.

Today is the day for puppy swapping. :) The four puppies-in-training from the A-Litter are swapping places! Allie and Alamo have gone to spend a month with the guys in the PAWSitive Approach Program at Dominguez State Jail while Alice will be spending the next month with John (Alamo’s raiser) and Atlas will be staying with me. It will be an interesting experience and one to which I look forward. Atlas is very different from Allie in both personality and working style. He’s also quite a big bigger than she is so that will take a little getting used to. So, for the next month, this blog will be “Atlas’ Adventures” rather than Allie’s Antics. ;-)

It didn’t take Atlas long to find Allie’s Kong bone toy. He was enjoying it so much I decided to add a couple treats to it for him. It kept him busy for several minutes getting them out and then just chewing on it afterward. I’ve already taken him out to meet the horses and chickens. He was a little apprehensive about the horses, but quickly decided they were just something to ignore. He’s a little skittish about new sounds and objects, but I think that may be more the fact that he’s in a completely different and new surrounding. I’m excited about getting to know this big, sometime goofy, loveable puppy! :-D Enjoy a few pictures. I promise more will come over the next month!

"Man, I'm sure glad Allie has this Kong bone!"

"I'm not so sure about these critters, but the fence is a good thing."

Isn't that just the most loveable face?!

Allie Meets Royalty…Sort of

2011-11-14T23:41:00.001-06:00

The first weekend in November Allie & I traveled with my dad to Corpus Christi for the annual Texas Beekeepers Association convention. This was a 3 1/2 day event that consisted of lots and lots and lots of “down time” for Allie. I had meetings to attend (most of them at least an hour long, usually more), there were lectures to hear, and just a lot of time for Allie to be still and quiet, in general. Did I mention she had lots of down time?? Well, I made sure she got breaks, of course. We also took walks every day along the sea wall to burn off some of her energy. Every evening, once we were back in our hotel room, we played fetch. One evening we played for an entire hour because she just wasn’t ready to quit! It’s a good thing our room was at the end of the hall. I wondered if people below us or in the room next to us could hear her racing around the room. :)


I love the beach!

All in all, my girl did quite well that weekend. There were lots of people to greet and she handled it well most of the time. She also did very well in the meetings. I did have either a bone or a Kong for her during the longer meetings. One day we had time to head to the beach for some play time. I couldn’t let her off leash, of course, but we tied a long length of rope to her leash so she had several feet to roam. The only bad thing was there were tons of dead fish due to a recent red tide. So I got to say “Leave it!” and “Drop it!” a lot. She spent a great deal of her beach time with her nose in the sand, as is evidenced by the photo here. Normally, I don’t let her smell everything on the ground. That’s not an acceptable guide dog behavior. However, since she was “off duty” at this time, I let her smell more than usual. :)

As luck would have it, we had plenty of opportunity to practice steps that weekend. There were steps in and out of the hotel, steps from the sea wall down to the marina, steps to the upper story of the Whataburger, steps in the parking garage, steps, steps, & more steps! It was GREAT!! :D There were also sea gulls everywhere so she could work on her bird distraction. She did very well!

Speaking of the marina, on Saturday they had a market days. So Allie & I tooled around the market area not once, but twice. It was a great opportunity to work on her dog distraction because it seemed like everybody brought their dog. We saw Labs, a Scottie, a Pug, Great Danes, Boston Bull Terriers, Yorkshire Terriers, a German Shepherd, and even a “Heinz 57” or two. There were probably more that I don’t remember. Of course, there were smells everywhere, but most notably on the ground. Oh, my stars! I think I was going bonkers working to keep her nose in the air and not on the ground. There was a Kettle Corn booth so there was popcorn all over the place. The most exciting part of the market days (for me, anyway!) was a family that we visited with. I had on my Guide Dogs of Texas Puppy Raiser T-shirt. A lady came up to me to ask who I was with. When I told her it was GDTX, she said she donates to us! I thanked her and told her we really appreciate it. So we visited a few minutes and I told her about the A-Litter. They have a teenage daughter who is blind. Her name, coincidentally, is Allie! They hope that one day their daughter will be able to have a guide dog. Who knows? Maybe one of my future puppies will be hers!

In the 11 months that I’ve had Allie, there have been multiple times where we’ve had “access issues”. That is to say, a manager or employee of some type of business (it’s mostly been stores) tells me that I can’t bring a dog in. I think it’s only happened once in a restaurant. The issue has always been resolved (some instances requiring more time to explain than others) without incident. While visiting Corpus we spent time in a few restaurants, needless to say. None of them – not one – tried to tell us we couldn’t be there. However, there was one that purposely seated us entirely away from any other patrons. Before seating us, the hostess asked if we’d like to be seated away from other people. I said, “No, anywhere is fine. We don’t need to be away from others.” She proceeded to lead us to a booth in an area where no one else was sitting and said, not unkindly, “Well, I’ll just seat you here in case any other customers . . .” She left her sentence hanging but the meaning was clear. Had I not been so stunned, I would have specifically requested to be seated near an occupied table. Anyway, we ate our supper and Allie was a perfect lady tucked under the table the entire time.

I mention this story, not to be negative or criticize the restaurant, but to try to help eliminate ignorance regarding service dogs. Had I been a blind patron with a guide dog, an epileptic with a seizure alert dog, a diabetic with a blood glucose alert dog, a wounded warrior suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with a PTSD dog, or any other person with any kind of service dog, this treatment from the restaurant hostess would have been unacceptable. I realize that many of my readers are already aware of this fact, many because they are involved in some way with service dogs. However, for those of you that don’t know, it is against the law – at least in Texas – to deny access or otherwise discriminate against someone with a service dog. Now that you know, you can pass the word! :) Okay, back to the convention . . .


I wonder how long we have to be here??

The last night of the convention there is a banquet where beekeepers are honored with awards and the Texas Honey Queen and Princess are crowned. These young ladies represent the beekeeping industry in Texas by spending the year traveling the state and promoting the industry. They serve as spokespersons for Texas beekeepers. After the banquet there is an auction to raise funds to support the girls in their travels. For most of the banquet, Allie was next to my chair. Then, once the auction got underway, she decided to hide under the table for awhile. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of her.

Notice her Kong toy on the table. :)

Finally, I had to get a photo of Allie with all the queens and princesses. The girls in this photo include the 2012 Texas Honey Queen, a 2011 local Honey Princess from the Dallas area, 2012 Texas Honey Princess, 2011 Texas Honey Queen, and 2011 American Honey Princess.

I'm surrounded by royalty!!

Ducks & Steps

2011-11-03T01:14:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, Allie & I met Larry in downtown San Antonio for our training walk. After he heard about our trip to the River Walk in September where Allie was totally distracted by the ducks, he figured that’s where our next walk should be. :) All in all, Allie did quite well. Larry mentioned that she responded better to me this time than the last time he’d been with us on a walk. I didn’t really notice a difference, but I guess that’s because I’m with her all the time. As for the ducks, well, we got to go back and forth past ducks multiple times. :-D He reminded me to use a treat in order to keep Allie’s attention on me rather than the ducks. Amazing how a little food is a big incentive. ;-D

At one point on our walk, after Larry had walked Allie for awhile, he gave her back to me as we approached some steps. He told me to tell her “step” and make sure she stepped up to the first step and waited for my signal to continue on. With a puzzled look on my face I said, “How do I teach her to do that?” That was the moment we figured out I hadn’t been teaching Allie an important part of her training. He said, “Have we never encountered steps on a walk before?” I said surely we had, but I didn’t remember. Anyway, due to previous miscommunication I didn’t know that I was supposed to be teaching her to step up on the first step with her front paws & wait for me to say, “Let’s go!” or sit at the landing above steps and wait for me to signal going down. Soooo, now I know and that’s easily corrected. We’ve practiced with steps at church since then and Allie is picking it up quickly. I think we will return to the River Walk for another walk there sometime soon. There are lots and lots of steps to practice on there, not to mention ducks!!! ;-D

On another note, later this month, those of us with A-Litter puppies will be swapping pups for a few weeks. This serves to a) give the pups an opportunity to work with a different trainer, b) helps them adjust to different home environments, and c) gives us trainers an opportunity to work with a different puppy. Initially, I was supposed to get Alice in the swap. Instead, I’m going to get Atlas. Alice is apparently not a whole lot different than Allie in personality and working style. Atlas, on the other hand, is very different. So, it makes more sense for me to get him rather than Alice. It should be an interesting experience . . .

Fundraising Fun

2011-11-02T00:15:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, October 12th, Allie and I attended the 2nd Annual “Best Dogs in Sight” Fundraising Luncheon. This year I was a “table captain”, which simply means that I invited people to the luncheon as my guests at my table. The luncheon is a great opportunity for people to hear first-hand how Guide Dogs of Texas helps provide mobility and independence to visually impaired Texans. There are slide shows and testimonials from GDTX clients. As great as it is to read the clients’ stories, there’s nothing like hearing them tell their stories in person. I’ve worked with GDTX for about 2 years now and I still continue to be amazed at what these incredible dogs can do and how they change people’s lives.
There were several dogs in attendance, including Atlas and Maggie. Allie was beside herself with excitement when she saw her brother. Holy mackerel, she was hard to control. She did settle down eventually, thankfully. At one point, Sarah (Guide Dog Mobility Instructor) gave me the “we need puppies with energy like Allie” pep talk. Larry gives me that talk periodically, too. While that pep talk helps me feel better about her – shall we say – enthusiasm for life, there’s a tiny voice inside my head that asks, “I wonder how many puppies have flunked as guide dogs because they never learned to control their excitement?” The correct term is actually “released from the program” which means one of two things. Either the dog is what we call career-changed, where they end up in some other type of service (such as search-and-rescue, seizure alert, diabetic alert, etc.), or they are re-homed, adopted by one of the many loving families on a long waiting list. However, for this first-time puppy raiser, the result is the same . . . I don’t want my puppy to flunk out! Ha ha ha!
During the luncheon, we viewed a beautiful slide show put together by Jennifer Denton. Jennifer donated her services as a photographer to take photos for the 2012 Guide Dogs of Texas calendar. Many of these photos appear in the slide show. If you’d like to watch the show, you may do so here. If you’d like to purchase one of the gorgeous calendars, you can find them here on the GDTX website.

Puppy Party!

2011-10-22T00:30:00.000-05:00

Since Allie’s litter – the A-Litter – is the very first litter bred by Guide Dogs of Texas, we decided to celebrate their first birthday. What initially started out as a small party with mainly puppy raisers and a few of Allie’s “#1 fans” turned into a bash with about 40 people! I have always thought people who threw birthday parties for dogs were kind of crazy . . . now I’m one of them. :-D We held the party on the 8th. Their actual birthdays are the 5th and 6th (Alamo, born first, was born on the 5th. Allie, born last, was born on the 6th.). Rain was forecast, but it held off until Saturday night. We only had a little misty shower during the party. I don’t think our back yard has ever seen that many people at once, and certainly not that many dogs!! There were 10 dogs in attendance, 11 when our Collie, Champ, joined the fun.

All four puppies-in-training were here: Alamo, Alice, Atlas, and Allie. Austin, who was selected for a stud, also made it. Rene, the Breeding Program Manager for GDTX, brought Poppy (“mama”) as well as his St. Bernard puppy Big Girl. Oh, my goodness, she was so adorable!! Besides the “big kids”, we all got to meet three of the newest puppies-in-training: Melissa, a Chocolate Lab; Mitch, a Black Lab; and Maggie, a Golden Retriever.

There were cupcakes with the names of mom, dad, and the whole litter, as well as a cake with their names and a collage picture of the puppies when they were tiny for the people to eat. There were no sweets for the pups, but they did all get to take home a giant, bone-shaped cookie treat, a bully stick, and a box of Milk Bone Minis. They are the newest product from Milk Bone and they are the perfect size for training treats! I love them!!! In addition, we let guests know that if they’d like to bring goodies for the GDTX Puppy Program, they would be more than appreciated. So, Larry left with several boxes of treats as well as some chew toys to take back to the training center.

Besides being a party celebrating the A-litter, it was also a training day for the puppies. While there were no "official" lessons, the pups all got to practice their "down-stay" command. They also had practice being around a large group of people of all ages, including small children, dealing with the distraction of food on their level, and socializing with each other as well as new dogs. Shhhh!!!! Don't tell the pups, though! They thought is was all great fun and no work! Hee hee hee.

My thanks to my friends Katie and Tawnya for most of the pictures in this post. Instead of trying to choose a few select photos to post, or posting WAY too many pictures, I've embedded a slide show of the photos. If your computer loads photos slowly, you can also view the online album here.Lastly, I'm linking up with the fifth Assistance Dog Blog Carnival with this post. The theme is "Achievement", so I thought celebrating the A-litter's 1st year would be a good one. :)

It Was A Matter of Time . . .

2011-10-15T00:44:00.000-05:00

Well, I figured it would happen sooner or later. We bought one of those “pop-up” pools this year. The sides are made of thick rubber and it has an inflatable ring around the top. It’s been up for about two months. Exactly one week ago, Allie finally figured out how to get in. Unfortunately, once she is in, she can’t get out without help. She jumps up over the side to get in, pushing herself over with her back feet. However, the sides are sloped outward. So, when she’s in, she can’t just climb back out over the side. I have to call her to the ladder and help her out. She quickly learned to climb the ladder from inside the pool. Now, if I could just teach her to go down the ladder outside the pool. It’s a pretty steep incline, though, so I don’t know if she can do it. I’m thinking maybe I can rig up her own “steps” to get out. Here are a couple pictures I was able to quickly snap. One shows her about to try getting out over the side.

Happy Birthday!

2011-10-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

As the last one born in the GDTX A-Litter, today is Allie's birthday! :) Yesterday was Alamo's birthday. He was the first one born. I don't know the order of the others. I thought you might enjoy a little collage of Allie pictures. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POOCH! :)

The Riverwalk

2011-10-01T20:17:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to San Antonio to meet a friend who was in town for a conference. Of course, I took Allie along with me. :) We went down to the Riverwalk to eat supper and just stroll a little ways. This was the first time Allie had been down to the Riverwalk. All GDTX puppies go there sooner or later. :D I think this will not be the last time Allie goes, for sure.

There are plenty of distractions anyway, but since it was Friday night there were lots and lots of distractions! OH! the smells!! OH the DUCKS!!! The ducks were a major issue for her. There are quite a few of them swimming in the river and even occasionally waddling along the walk. She wanted so badly to go after those ducks. Then, once as we were walking along, there was a pigeon in the pathway that I didn't notice. It was already dark and there were lots of people. I didn't notice it, but Allie sure did! All of a sudden she lunged to the left. She definitely got a stern "Leave it!!" for that one. There were also a lot of people, people of all shapes, sizes, and ages; people were everywhere!

In the restaurant Allie settled down under my seat fairly quickly. She usually gets up a few times before she finally gets settled, but I think the walking to get to the restaurant helped burn off some energy. :) Many people eat outside at the restaurants along the river, but we opted to eat inside. The outdoor area was kind of crowded. It all worked out very nicely.

Over all, Allie did fairly well for her first visit to the Riverwalk; but I could see it would be beneficial to visit more often. On a side note, I was a little surprised that no one really tried to pet her as we walked past. That was a nice change. I don't like to have to ask people not to pet her. I even heard a couple people say as we walked past, "Do touch! That's a working dog." Considering how many hundreds of people we passed, it was just a little odd that no one tried to pet her. Ah, nice! ;) Sorry I don't have any pictures of Allie's first visit to the Riverwalk. I didn't have my camera with me. :-\

15 Minutes of Fame

2011-09-27T17:41:00.000-05:00

Allie meets Adam Michaels of Magic 105.3 FM in San Antonio

Today Allie & I went, along with Guide Dogs of Texas President Larry Tuttle, to a local radio station for an interview. We spent about thirty minutes with Adam Michaels of Magic 105.3 FM. The actual interview will not air until Saturday and Sunday, beginning around 6 a.m. I don't know details at this point. It will air on several Cox Radio stations in San Antonio, not just 105.3. The interview was part of our effort to promote Guide Dogs of Texas during September for Guide Dog Awareness month. Allie did very well. She whined a little periodically, but never actually barked which is good! :D Larry did most of the talking, but I got to talk a little about volunteers and various aspects of the guide dog program. I also got a plug in for Allie's blog. :) If you're in the San Antonio listening area, maybe you will get to hear it. We are pictured above with Adam Michaels on the left and Larry Tuttle on the right.

September Happenings

2011-09-25T23:57:00.003-05:00

Ahhh, I love water!

Labor Day weekend we went to a family reunion. There was a pool and it didn’t take Allie long to find it! She jumped in from one side then didn’t know quite how to get out. I called her to the steps and showed her where they were. After that, she was in and out, in and out. She had great fun. :) My cousins have two blue Australian Cattle Dogs (aka Blue Heelers) and Allie tried to play with them, but they weren’t really interested. The older female wanted nothing to do with a whipper-snapper puppy. The younger male was more tolerant and willing to hang around Allie, but still didn’t actually want to play. I think she still enjoyed herself. :D

"So, Baron, how do you think we can get that ball??

The next week Allie & I went to an outdoor movie at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. I was invited by a friend to go see To Catch A Thief. I am a Cary Grant fan, so I couldn’t pass it up. :) It was a free event and gave Allie another opportunity to be around a crowd of people. She did very well and we had a great time.

Last Thursday we went for a training walk with Hillary. This time we went to a Petco. Allie did fairly well, even with the distraction of two dogs in the store. The main thing we need to work on is her straight-line walking. That’s really more me than it is her, though. She tends to walk near the shelf of an aisle instead of down the middle and Hillary says all the puppies have that tendency because they use it as their guide for straight lines. My job is to coax her to walk more in the middle of the aisle. That way, when there are obstacles, she will have the choice of going left or right to guide around the obstacle. So we will work on walking down the middle of the aisle. :) We still struggle with her greeting behavior and jumping on the counters (she stands on her hind legs and puts her front paws and nose on the counter). Larry says those will improve with time, that they’re mainly a maturity issue. She is still on track to make advanced training in January. YEA! That’s kind of bittersweet. I definitely want her to get into advanced training, but I know I’ll miss her. Four months is not that far away! Then I will see if I get a “B-Litter” puppy or a “C-Litter” puppy. :D

Tuesday we are headed back to San Antonio, this time for a radio interview. As you may have seen in an earlier post, we were going to be on TV, but those plans changed. As Guide Dog Awareness month winds down, GDTX had a chance for another interview, this time with a volunteer instead of a client. So Larry T. asked me if I would come and do the interview with him. I would much rather be on radio than TV since people can’t see me there. :D However, the down side is, they won’t get to see Allie! Oh, well, we will still be promoting Guide Dogs of Texas and need for volunteers.

As a little side note, if you live in the San Antonio area, I would encourage you to attend the 2nd Annual “Best Dogs in Sight” Fundraiser Luncheon. The luncheon is free to attend and a great opportunity to hear stories of what a difference a guide dog makes in the life of a visually impaired Texan. All the information can be found at the top of the right column here on the blog page. Also, be sure to attend one of the Mission Tours at GDTX if you can. The next one will be October 6th at 5:30 p.m. You can call Guide Dogs of Texas for more information at 210-366-4081.

The Beach!

2011-09-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh! A relaxing day at the beach!

On August 8th we headed to the beach for the day. :) I love the beach. As when we went to the river, I walked Allie along the beach with her jacket on first. Wanting to get in the water was not as much of a challenge as ignoring the seagulls. Once she stopped pulling toward the water, and as soon as she turned her attention from the seagulls for a moment, I took her jacket off. The gulls were just WAY too fun for her. After our adventure at the river (Read about that here.), I decided to cut a long length of rope for a super-long “leash”. It was about 25 or 30 feet long, I guess, and we put snaps on either end of it. That way, Allie could have some freedom to run and play, but still be on leash. She had a blast. My mom said she looked like she’d been jumping waves all her life! :) She would go out into the surf and stand facing the Gulf. As the waves would come in sometimes she would jump them and take off running (well, as well as a dog can run in water!). Other times she would just stand, planting her feet, and let the waves crash into her. It was funny to watch her run, swim, and jump in the ocean.

Seagulls were in abundance, of course!

The seagulls were a whole other story, though. While chasing birds is a natural thing for puppies, and especially retrievers, it’s not acceptable behavior for guide dogs. So squelching the “prey drive” is something that’s part of training a guide dog puppy. Actually, the puppies are tested for prey drive before they’re even admitted into the program. So none of the puppies with GDTX show a strong prey drive when they’re starting out. Of course, sometimes it may strengthen later down the line. Allie doesn’t really have too much prey drive, I don’t think; but those birds were a new experience for her and oh, so fascinating!

During her breaks (or, rather, my breaks!) we tied Allie to the pickup. She made her own cozy little spot by digging a fairly large hole under the truck in the soft sand. She must have thought she was in Heaven to be able to dig so easily! Interestingly enough, when she was tied to the truck, she had no interest whatsoever in the seagulls. Even when a Weimereiner walked by with his people, she didn’t show much interest. My parents said a simple “Leave it.” was all it took. (I was out in the water at the time.) While Allie liked digging in the sand, her favorite part, by far, was the water. I’ll leave you with more pictures of her in the water, another under the pickup, and one of my favorites of her resting on the sand. I cropped it to just her face. :)

Check out the sand all over her nose. :)


This is my favorite shot. :)

Subliminal Messages?

2011-09-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

Is this a subliminal message?

What you see here is the buckle from Allie's jacket. A few nights ago she was in the living room with Dad as he watched TV (and, supposedly, keeping an eye on Allie, as well!). She had carried her jacket in to the living room from the adjacent kitchen (Yes, I know, I should have put it away when we came in from work earlier.). Then she proceeded to drop it on the floor and lie down next to his chair with a toy in front of her. All of a sudden, after a few minutes, Dad realizes it's not the toy that she's chewing on but her jacket! :-\ This is what he greets me with when I come in. So, I wonder, which of the following do you think Allie was thinking?

a) "I love my jacket so much! When my girl puts it on, it means we're going to work! It's one of my favorite things, just like my bones."

b) "I hate this thing. It does nothing for my figure. Maybe if I destroy it, I won't have to wear it."

c) "Heh heh, she forgot to put my jacket away. Wonder how much I can chew before I get caught?"

My gut instinct says she was probably thinking something along the lines of the third option. Fortunately, since I have the jacket supplies anyway, I had a spare buckle to replace the chewed one. To answer your unasked question, yes, I make special effort now to put her jacket away when it's not in use. :-D

Work, Work, & More . . . Well, Work!

2011-09-07T21:39:00.001-05:00

Let’s see . . . what adventures has Allie had about which you have not yet heard? Hmmmm . . . Well, for starters, I realized I totally forgot to tell about our July “training walk”. It happened while Larry was on vacation. Hillary decided that, rather than a walk, we would go to a buffet to see how the pups (and the raisers!) handle it. I say “pupS” because Alamo and John went along, too.

We were going to go to a pizza buffet, but that didn’t work out. Instead, we went to a restaurant that didn’t actually have a buffet, but it was a similar set-up. Neither Allie nor Alamo paid any attention at all to the food as we walked past. Allie did lunge for a piece of broccoli on the floor, though. (Don’t worry…I kept her from getting it. :) ) Once we got to our table, I got Allie tucked under my chair. That was not an easy task as the chairs were not large and didn’t have much room under them. She was actually sort of half-way under, half-way out; but it worked out okay. Alamo wasn’t able to get under John’s chair so he was just next to it. Ladies at the table right next to him kept dropping food so John had to keep correcting Alamo. He decided after the meal that the ladies must have been conspiring against him! Ha ha ha! No one was near enough to Allie to worry about that so she just slept through the whole lunch. Believe me, she would’ve been just as active as Alamo if someone had been dropping food anywhere within six feet of her nose!

Fast-forward to August. On the 4th my dad and I went to an all day seminar. Of course, Allie went along, too. I’m pretty sure she was not impressed! Other than the breaks when we went outside for a little walk and potty break, she had to be still and quiet most of the day. The up side is we got to share with a few people about GDTX! She was really good, especially for having to basically be still and quiet all day. If Allie could talk, I think she might say something like this about that day:

I went to something called a seminar one day recently. We rode in the truck for over an hour before we got to where we were going. There were lots of other trucks there and lots of people, but no other dogs. OH_MY_GOSH…it was THE most boring thing EVER!!!!! All I got to do was lie down and sleep almost all day. Every so often (let me tell you, it was not often enough for my taste!) I got to get up and go outside to stretch my legs. Oh, I got to “go busy”, too, of course. Then we’d go back inside where I had to lie down under the chairs again and just be quiet. BOR-ING!!! I can’t understand why my girl and her dad thought it was a good idea to go somewhere and sit in the dark listening to a bunch of guys talking while they showed pictures (mostly cows, cows, and MORE cows) on the wall. The best part of the day (well, other than when we actually got home and I could run FREEEEEEE!!!!!) was lunch. OH! the wonderful smells of meat and beans! If only I could’ve had a taste. *Sigh* My nose was just the perfect height to reach the plate on the table, but my girl made me lie down under the table instead. Can you imagine?!? I love getting to go everywhere with my girl, but sometimes this Guide Dog Puppy thing STINKS! I mean, really, couldn’t I have at least sat at the table and enjoyed the smells wafting my way? Oh, well. . .

The next day we had an appointment with the vet for Allie’s 10 month check-up. Everything checked out just fine, as expected. She’s healthy and growing well. She also got a Bordetella (Kennel Cough) booster. Allie weighed in at approximately 54.7 pounds. I say “approximately” because she’s a wiggle worm on the scale. Telling her to “stay” just does not seem to work when she’s standing on a scale. So you just have to get her as still as possible and take the number that seems to be the most stable! :D

On August 6th, we went to a San Antonio Silver Stars game to help out with the Guide Dogs of Texas booth. The Silver Stars are the WNBA team in San Antonio. We were there to bring awareness to Guide Dogs of Texas and pass out information. Of course, Allie attracted lots of attention to the booth. She got quite a bit of practice in greeting people, which (as you know from past posts) is a good thing. We passed out lots of invitations to the Mission Tours that we have at GDTX twice a month. There were also people who were interested in volunteering and wanted more information on that area. We got some donations in our “donation dogs”, as well. Others in the booth were our president, Larry T. and his wife Meg, and Sarah J. Sarah was a puppy raiser a few years ago before she went off to college. Now she’s out of college and wanting to get involved again. Yea, Sarah! It was a fun night. :)

Change of Plans

2011-09-07T21:34:00.001-05:00

Oops! Allie isn't going to be on TV after all. I'm sorry if any of you got all excited about seeing her. :) It turns out the television station really, really wanted a GDTX client and their working guide. So, instead of Allie, if you watch tomorrow morning you will see Steve and his guide, Willow. Willow is a beautiful black Lab. Steve is actually a board member of Guide Dogs of Texas. Enjoy!

Allie’s On TV!

2011-09-07T14:32:00.000-05:00

September is National Guide Dog Awareness Month and Guide Dogs of Texas has a wonderful opportunity for some TV time! If you’re in the San Antonio viewing area, be watching KABB-TV (Fox 29) this Thursday morning, September 8, around 8:00 a.m. The actual time they tell us is 8:10, but I would watch early just to be on the safe side. ;) Anyway, Guide Dogs of Texas will be represented on the morning news show promoting Guide Dog Awareness Month and hoping to garner a few new volunteers. They called me today to ask if I’d bring Allie and help them promote our volunteer opportunities. I’ll have to get up really early to get there by 7:30, but it will be exciting. I’m hoping Allie behaves well, but I’ll be sure to have some special treats to keep her occupied, just in case! :)

Puppy Raiser Top Ten

2011-08-13T09:47:00.000-05:00

Allie is ten months old this month so I thought I’d have a little fun and post a “top ten” list I’ve discovered over the last eight months. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section! :)

You might be a puppy raiser if:

you’d be rich if you had a nickel for every, “LOOK!! There’s a dog in the store!!” that you’ve heard.
you have random poo bags stuffed in cars and tote bags “just in case” you forget to bring them along with you.
you find demolished treats in the dryer because you forgot to empty your pockets before doing laundry.
you probably say, “Leave it!” or “Drop it!” in your sleep.
you’re pretty good at doing things with one hand because the other is occupied with a leash.
you feel like something is missing if you ever go out without your puppy (OR you’ve forgotten what it’s like to go anywhere without a puppy!).
you think the leash is an extension of your arm.
you have no problem making a fool of yourself as you sound like an animated Disney character encouraging your puppy on training walks.
you have a sort of “diaper bag” for your puppy – treats, food (if away from home at meal time), water bowl, toys, poo bags, etc.
tiny improvements in training make you giddy with excitement.

Allie, 8 1/2 weeks old; 4 Dec 2010

Allie, 6 months old (minus 1 day); 5 June 2011*

Here's a bonus one: You're used to people staring at you in restaurants, stores, etc. :)

*I know, I know...she's 6 months old in this picture instead of 8 months, but she really hasn't changed a whole lot in two months! She's grown some, but not significantly enough to tell in a photo. :) She's nearly 8 months in the first photo, where she's lying in water.

It’s Not All Work . . .

2011-08-07T19:58:00.000-05:00

Gee, I wish I had a real pool!

The last week in July was a busy one. On Monday the 25th, my mom & I headed to Guadalupe River State Park with Allie. Since she has discovered that she loves water, I’ve wanted to take Allie somewhere where she could really play, other than just a washtub in our back yard. (I’ve since gotten a little wading pool for her, but that’s still not the same as an actual body of water.) The park is close enough for a day trip, about one and a half hours or so away.
I put Allie’s jacket on her before we went down to the river. We walked along the edge of the water for a few minutes. Each time she tried to pull into the water I told her “no”. I wanted her to understand that, with her jacket on, she was not allowed in the water. Once she quit trying to get in the water I took her jacket off and we waded in. She was so excited that I decided to let her off leash. When I did that she was completely ecstatic and went bounding through the water. I wish I’d had a video of it! Her freedom was short-lived, however, because she would not come back to me when I called even though I used my whistle and told her I had treats. So, once I got her back on leash, I decided to put on my swimsuit and get in the water with her. We played for a couple hours or so before we decided it was time to head home. The girl wore herself out. She slept like a rock the whole way home. :) Here are a few pictures from the day at the river.

Two days later, on Wednesday, Allie & I attended a career/volunteer fair for non-profit organizations. Guide Dogs of Texas had a booth there where we gave out information about the organization and – hopefully! – recruited some new volunteers. My job was to talk about Guide Dogs of Texas and answer any questions people might have. Allie’s job was to attract people to the booth by looking cute and being well-behaved. She aced the first part of that job, of course. She did pretty well on the second part, too! She got lots of practice on her greeting behavior that day, which was good because that’s an area where we struggle. She also got practice in being near other dogs.
Part-way through our two-hour shift, Allie went completely nuts, seemingly out of nowhere. I didn’t know at first what had gotten into her! When I looked in the direction where her attention was focused I didn’t see anything at first. Then I saw them. Sandy, the Director of Training at GDTX and one of the Guide Dog Mobility Instructors (GDMI), was headed our way with Celia in harness. Celia is a black Lab who has recently graduated to advanced training (and, I must say, was perfectly behaved!). Anyway, I could not get Allie settled down. She was just too excited at the possibility of playing with another dog. (How do you explain to a puppy that when you’re jacket is on – or when you’re in harness – it’s time to work and not play??) So, I got her away from the booth and we headed outside for a little break. On the way out, we encountered Sarah, another GDMI, with Izzy in harness. After managing to keep Allie under control, we made it outside where we walked around a little bit to burn off some energy. It also gave Allie a chance to “go busy” (her command for relieving herself). Then we headed back inside.
On our way back to the booth, we passed Sarah and Izzy again in the hallway. :) More practice for Allie. Once inside the room where all the booths were, I saw that Sandy and Celia were still at the booth. Allie was still way too excited to go over so I stopped about 12 or 15 feet away and put Allie in a “sit, stay”. Then I knelt down by her and just petted her until she finally settled down enough that I felt like we could go to the booth. Meanwhile, a GDTX client (who is also a board member) came through with her dog, Bonnie, on the way to work the booth. Of course, that excited Allie, too. Eventually, we went back to the booth and Allie was able to be only inches away from Bonnie without being all excited and out of control. YEA!!!
The next day we had a training day with the other three puppies in training, their puppy raisers, and some potential puppy raisers. It’s always fun to get to see the other pups and visit with their raisers. It’s also good for my ego to see how the other puppies are doing in their training. :) Sometimes I feel like Allie must be the only one who’s doing/not doing something she should not/should be doing. So it makes me feel better to know they all have their issues. Is that bad? :) Anyway, we met with Alamo, Atlas, & Alice in a park. Hillary and Larry talked to us about using our voice as a tool in training and about teaching the puppies to walk without tension in the leash. Most of it was review, but it was good to review and to practice. After the training, we went to the dog park there and let the puppies free-run. Of course, they LOVED it!!
When we first got there, there were quite a few other dogs in the park. Some of them played with our pups. After awhile, everybody left until all that was left were 5 yellow Labs: Alamo, Atlas, Alice, Allie, and Egypt. Egypt is a guide dog. Her owner is engaged to Bob’s puppy raiser (who is now kennel manager for GDTX and a soon-to-be apprentice GDMI!). Anyway, the dogs all played hard so by the time we left they had expended a lot of energy! Allie was a mess after lying in the watering area, so I took her back to the training center to hose her off. We had errands to run before we headed home and I couldn’t take a muddy puppy into stores! :) She slept solid all the way home. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, so I don’t have any pictures of the training or the playing in the dog park. Oh, well, maybe another time. I think these training days are going to become a monthly thing. I do have one picture, taken by Natalie (the kennel manager) of the pups in their jackets, all in a nice “down-stay” position. Enjoy! :)

The four A-litter puppies in training: Atlas, Allie, Alamo, & Alice

Switch-A-Roo

2011-07-28T21:54:00.001-05:00

About a month ago, I decided it was time to get Allie a new collar. She was still wearing the same collar she came home with, which was adjustable. However, she had almost reached the point where it would not adjust anymore. It is also a little narrow for her since she’s grown so much. While thinking about her collar, I knew that I wanted to put her name on it, like Alamo’s puppy raiser had done with his collar. The more I thought about it, though, the more I wished I could make it changeable. Finally, I came up with an idea to make her collar switchable! :-) (I thought I was so smart, then discovered people are already selling similar collars on the internet. OH, well!)

After shopping around for just the right collar – I wanted a green one similar in color to her first collar and it had to be a “sized” collar rather than adjustable so it would work as switchable – I finally found the right size and width at a pet store. Then I proceeded to purchase ribbon. :) (Actually, I’d already bought a couple styles of ribbon that I loved before I ever had the collar.) So, four different ribbons, a couple packages of Velcro, and a little time spent sewing and – VOILA! – Allie has a switchable collar! :) She has four different ones (so far! lol). Here is a picture:

She wore the “flag” one on the Fourth of July, of course; but it’s pretty for other times, too. Her name ribbon is sort of her “everyday” collar. I like how the decorative stitching turned out, but it didn’t leave room for her name to really fill the width of the ribbon. The paw prints was the first ribbon I bought – before I even knew exactly what I’d do with it. I just thought it was SO cute!! :) Of course, she wore the baseball one to the Texas League All-Star Game. I’m thinking of making her a “blingy” one with some little jewels glued on, but I don’t know if I’ll actually do that. I’m not really a “bling” kind of person, as a rule. It would be easy to go nuts because Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby have all kinds of adorable ribbon! I think I’ll have to control myself. :-D Here’s a picture of the whole collar:

Sometimes You’re the Louisville Slugger, Sometimes You’re the Ball . . .

2011-07-25T23:57:00.002-05:00


The face of innocence, uh, right?

Most of these blog posts are about Allie’s adventures and activities with only the occasional antic thrown in. It’s time for some “true confessions”. :-D While I love Allie to pieces and adore being a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs of Texas, there are days or moments that are truly frustrating. What follows is the story of one of those days. Well, at least part of the day was frustrating; maybe not the whole day. :) I will preface this tale by telling you that one of the behaviors that I have not yet managed to train out of Allie is “counter-surfing”. By that I mean that she jumps up on her hind legs, puts her front paws on the counter, and proceeds to reach as far as she can with her nose to see what she can find. Occasionally, she is successful in her endeavors, especially if I happen to leave the room for a moment. (Larry assures me that, as long as she gets down when I tell her “off” – and she does – she will grow out of this. I pray he’s right!)
A few weeks ago, I was getting ready to eat lunch. My dad was already sitting at the table in the kitchen eating his lunch. I was going to enjoy some leftover chilled carrot soup. As I opened the container of soup and prepared to ladle some into a bowl I heard a metallic clatter from the adjoining room. (We call this room “the dogtrot” because it reminds us of a dog-trot style cabin. There are doors at either end of the room that lead to the front and back porches.) This room is where our pantry is, where Champ & Wyatt eat their meals, and where the large water dish is kept for the dogs. This dish is actually a rectangular stainless steel tub that holds a little more than a gallon of water. (We only put a gallon at a time in it because we refill it with a gallon pitcher.) The tub sits on a plastic milk crate in order to elevate it so the dogs don’t have to bend their heads way down to drink. Anyway, back to the story. Before I left the kitchen I pushed the container of soup and my bowl to the center of our island, a habit quickly formed once Allie realized she could reach the counters. I rounded the corner into the dogtrot only to find the water pan pulled off the milk crate and a small flood on the tile floor, Allie standing in the middle of it all, looking for all the world quite pleased with accomplishment.
I took Allie into the kitchen to stay with Dad while he ate his lunch & I cleaned up the flood. My mistake was not putting her on leash or putting her in her crate instead. It took some time to clean up the water because I had just refilled the pan so there was close to a gallon of water all over the floor. Meanwhile, Allie kept coming back to see what was going on and I kept sending her back to Dad. The next thing I know I heard the sound of my bowl and spoon clattering around. :-| So I hurried back to the kitchen. You can probably guess what I found.
Did you guess that I found carrot soup everywhere? You’d be very close to correct. Allie had jumped up and managed to pull the container of soup over (thankfully she didn’t pull my bowl on the floor where it would have broken…that would’ve been yet another mess to clean!). It was running across the island and spilling over the edge onto the floor. I quickly set the container upright with one hand while grabbing Allie by the collar with the other. I then marched her into my bedroom and put her in her crate. I know, I know…a little late for that! While Champ cleaned up the carrot soup on the floor (After all, he wasn’t the one who spilled it so why shouldn’t he enjoy the spoils & save me the trouble of cleaning it?), I cleaned up the counter. Then I finished mopping up the flood before I finally got to sit down and eat my lunch!
There is a good thing that came out of this troublesome afternoon, though. As they say, there’s a silver lining behind every cloud. Dad decided to make a stand (something I’ve been saying for some time that I was going to do) for the water dish. He went out that very afternoon. Using some spare 1 x 12 lumber that he had, he built and varnished it this stand. It looks much nicer than a plastic milk crate, but – more importantly – Allie can’t pull the dish off anymore!!! YEA!!!

The new, Allie-proof (I think!!), water dish stand

Wonder if she's trying to figure out how she can dump it out?

"Okay, guess I'll just have to drink out of it!"

Autumn Makes a Visit

2011-07-25T00:07:00.000-05:00


Autumn :)

On July 1st, Larry came out to the house to drop off Autumn. Autumn is an eight and a half year old retired guide dog who serves as an Ambassador for Guide Dogs of Texas. (Normally, they retire at 10, but Autumn had early retirement, ha ha ha.) She lives with Larry. Before I got Allie, Autumn is one of the dogs that I boarded as a puppy-sitter. My whole family loves her so I try to finagle a visit from her whenever possible. ;) Anyway, Larry went on vacation so Autumn did, too. :D She stayed with us for almost two weeks.

Autumn & Allie played a LOT

Allie's muzzle almost fits in Autumn's mouth!

Let me just say, for the first day or so Allie was completely beside herself!! I couldn’t help but wonder if her excitement was just because there was a different dog here, or was it because it was Autumn (she’d met Autumn once before, back in January), or was it because it was another dog that looked like her? Anyway, they played, and played, and played, and . . . well, you get the idea! There were times that we put Allie in her crate simply to give Autumn a break! Champ, our Collie, will simply ignore Allie when he’s had enough play time until she finally gives up. Autumn, however, would bite down a little harder or snarl just a little bit; but she would never just turn away. Apparently, she wasn’t firm enough to deter Allie because they’d just keep at it until we would force a break in play time (by putting Allie in her crate).

Feeding time was interesting for the first few days. Normally, Allie will follow me to the closet where we keep the food (I guess to make sure I’m actually getting her breakfast or supper!) then quickly return to the kitchen to wait for me to bring it back to her. With the arrival of Autumn, though, she did not return to the kitchen! Instead, she sat or stood right next to me and barked a rather possessive bark at Autumn (who was also waiting excitedly near by). It was too funny. I’m sure she must’ve been saying something like, “Back off, girlfriend! This is my food and you can not have it!!” After the first couple days, though, I guess Allie decided her food was safe from Autumn because she went back to her normal habit of waiting in the kitchen.

"Nice digs ya got here, Allie!"

Allie was also somewhat possessive of toys while Autumn was here. Autumn made herself at home in Allie’s crate more than once (which, incidentally, Allie has pretty much outgrown – more about that in another post), but if Allie was nearby she would shove her way into the crate (yes, both of them in there together!) to make sure Autumn wasn’t trying to take a toy. When Autumn just laid down, Allie would back out and let her stay in the crate. Many times, Allie would have a toy or bone in her mouth when she exited the crate. At night, Autumn slept on a comforter next to my bed. She doesn’t sleep in a crate, but I guess she likes the security of one every now and then. On the other hand, maybe she was just trying to escape a puppy that has more energy than the Energizer Bunny! :)

Four big dogs in the house seems like a lot, but it really wasn’t too bad. In fact, for a little over 24 hours, we had five big dogs in the house! My best friend and her husband spent the night on July 4th and brought their beautiful, white German Shepherd. I wish I’d gotten a picture of them all together, but no such luck. We were just too busy! I did get a few pictures of Autumn, Allie, Champ, & Wyatt, though. I’ll leave you with those, and with one of Allie & Autumn lying side by side. :)

Everybody say, "Cheeeeeese!"

"Treats!!! Num num num! TREEEEEEATS!!!"
Notice Autumn is stretching her neck out to get
as close as she can without breaking her "stay".

Autumn and her "mini-me", Allie :)

More Baseball!!

2011-07-18T02:04:00.001-05:00

On June 29th, Allie went to her 4th baseball game. This time, we picked up a couple friends and headed to the 75th Texas League All-Star Game. The San Antonio Missions played host to the game this year, so of course we couldn’t miss it! I didn’t buy tickets ahead so our seats were far out in Right Field. They weren’t the best, but it was still fun to be there. The Texas League is made up of Double-A (AA) teams from various Major League organizations. They are divided into North and South divisions. The Missions are part of the South division. So this baseball game was North versus South. :)

They had a Homerun Derby, but we missed it. It only lasted 30 minutes so it had started right before we got to the ballpark and finished just as we were getting to our seats. There was a very short line to get tickets but it always takes a little time to give Allie a chance to “go busy” (her command for relieving herself), get her jacket on her, and so forth.

Normally at Missions games, the National Anthem is sung and we salute the flag flying out in Center Field. As a special treat for the All-Star game the Cavalry from Fort Hood came. :) The horses were almost perfectly matched. All four had white stars on their foreheads. One horse was sorrel, or chestnut, and the other three were bays. (A sorrel or chestnut horse is brown with brown or lighter mane and tail. A bay horse is brown with black mane, black tail, and black “stockings” on all four legs. That’s your equine lesson for the day. ;-D)

During the National Anthem there was a fly-over of four fighter jets. I’m not educated in the field of aviation, so I can’t tell you what kind of planes they were. I just know there were four flying in a sort of diamond formation. They flew very low over our heads and they were very, very loud. (I wish I’d known it was happening before they were right on us. It would’ve made a great photo.) Most exciting for me was that Allie was not bothered at all by the noise. As the planes came upon us, she jerked her head around to see where the sound was coming from. Then, as they flew past, she followed them with her ears perked up. She didn’t jump or shake at all at the noise. Afterward, I got some shots of planes flying in to land at the near-by air force base. I don’t know if they were the ones that flew over us, or just others coming in from practice flights. However, they looked like the ones that flew over us, so I thought I’d post a picture of one for you. :) This other picture is just because I always love to see baseball players all lined up with their caps off, saluting the flag during The Star Spangled Banner. I thought it interesting when I was editing the

photos that very, very few of the fans in the stands behind the ball players had their hands over their hearts in salute to the flag. I was actually a little bit surprised, but I guess I’m just a patriotic person. :)

You must be wondering by now if Allie was actually there! Of course, I took some pictures of her, as well. :)

I took a few pictures before too many people arrived and filled the bleachers. The one with the scoreboard was taken before the game began. Here are a few more. The last two show her “ball game” collar. I bought Allie a new collar because she had just about out-grown her original one. The new one is wider than the old one and I wanted to personalize it. First, I was going to paint her name on it like her brother, Alamo. His puppy-raiser painted “Alamo” on his collar and I thought it was too cute. Then, I decided to get crafty and make her collar “switch-able”, instead. So I sewed Velcro on the collar, then purchased some different kinds of ribbon and sewed the corresponding piece of Velcro to the ribbons. Now I can change the ribbons out so that it’s like having several different collars! So, this is her “baseball” collar. Stay tuned to another post to see other ribbons . . .

Vacation Bible School

2011-07-16T23:01:00.000-05:00

The second week of June found us smack in the middle of Vacation Bible School at my church. Since Allie is used to going to church, I took her to VBS with me. There were a couple days that I didn’t take her because I knew it would be too busy. Those days my mom graciously puppy-sat. :) Anyway, Allie did quite well, as I really expected. What I wasn’t sure about was how the kids would do. They did great!

On the first day, I took Allie up on stage and introduced her. I explained that she is in training to be a guide dog for someone who is blind, or partially blind. I told them that, as long as she has her jacket on, she is working and should not be petted. I asked them to be careful not to reach out to Allie as they saw us walking through the hallways, or whatever. I also asked them to share with other children who might be there later in the week. So, all week I heard this from various little mouths: “Don’t pet the dog! She’s in training!” “Don’t pet her; she’s working!” “That’s Allie. She’s in training so don’t pet her.” My favorite was, “Don’t pet her! When she has her jacket on, she’s ON DUTY!” :-D

Friday of that week, Allie & I were invited to another area Vacation Bible School. One of their stories was about a missionary in New York and a service dog. I never found out what the story was, but Allie & I went and told the children about what she will be when she grows up. :) Here are a few pictures. We didn’t see the real Statue of Liberty, but it was a pretty good model, don’t you think? ;)

The week after VBS we had a training walk with Larry. We went to a local neighborhood where Allie & I walk sometimes. I go there because it has sidewalks in a residential setting. The only other sidewalks in our little town are around the town square. (We walk there a lot, too.) Anyway, the neighborhood gives Allie good exposure to distractions like barking dogs and the occasional person with a baby stroller. That day, though, she had an unusual distraction. There’s a pond in the neighborhood and, apparently, a goose that lives near the pond! As we walked past the pond a large goose came waddling across the street towards us. It was hissing and had its wings spread all the way out. I worked to keep Allie’s attention on me, but she insisted that she needed to keep one eye on that goose as we walked past it. :) She actually did really well. I also tried to hurry a little bit because geese will bite if given the chance. All in all, it went very well. It was a short walk – only about 25 minutes or so – because it was just too hot for much longer than that even though it was only about 10:00 a.m. After the walk Larry said, “Impressive!” So we were two happy girls. :D

Miles & Miles of Texas, Part 2 . . .

2011-07-09T01:57:00.000-05:00

Well, now that spring is gone and summer is in full swing, I thought you might like to read the second half of our Spring Break trip. :) (Incidentally, I don't actually have a "Spring Break". I call it that because my dad is a college instructor and this trip was during his Spring Break.) If you missed the first half, you can read it here before reading this post.

Okay, now that you've read (or, perhaps, RE-read!) the Part 1, we now continue with Part 2:

The next leg of our Spring Break trip was to head to Lumberton, north of Beaumont, after visiting the San Jacinto Monument. We camped in Village Creek State Park in Lumberton. It's a very small park, but had nice hiking trails. Allie hiked these trails with us and enjoyed herself. I wish I had a video camera because there were some sandy parts of the trails that Allie just loved. She tried to romp and play in them, but I couldn't let her off leash, so we'll have to make an opportunity for her to play in sand sometime. :)

Beaumont was just a few minutes away from Lumberton so we had to visit the Spindletop / Gladys Boomtown museum. Spindletop is a famous oil well that was the beginning of the modern-day oil industry. It was really all quite amazing!


Replica of the Spindletop oil derrick

Allie & I are in front of the Spindletop
Gladys City Boomtown museum on the
campus of Lamar University in
Beaumont, Texas.

Allie lies in front of an antique barber chair in a barber shop replica.

This is the view from one corner of the boomtown. The buildings
in this photo include the blacksmith's shop. I can't remember
what the others were. I think one was the livery stable.
Another was a place that sold photos.

The view from the opposite corner. Buildings include
a general store, post office, barber shop, and hotel

While staying at Village Creek, we attended the family wedding in Orange. Before our trip I researched things to see and do. One of the items of interest to me wasn't really anything to "do", but it was definitely an item of interest - at least to me! Just east of Orange, on Interstate 10, is the highest numbered mile marker in the United States. It's mile marker 880. That's 880 miles from the western border of Texas on I-10 to the eastern border. So I thought Allie & I needed to have our picture taken near the nation's highest numbered mile marker. :)

Allie & I stand on the edge of the front-
age road of I-10. In the background is
mile marker 880, the highest numbered
mile marker in the United States.

We took this picture on our way to the wedding, thus the dressy clothes. We didn't have time to drive further and cross into Louisiana (I wish we had!), but when we took the turnaround to get back on the interstate we saw the Sabine River. The Sabine is the border between Texas and Louisiana so at least we saw Louisiana. I wish I'd had time to get out and take a picture. Oh, well, maybe some day in the future. . . I did drive through Louisiana once years ago, but it was dark. For those who live/have lived in smaller states, or closer to the edge of Texas, I'm sure I must seem a little silly to you. However, having grown up and lived all my life in the central area of Texas, it's something for me to see another state! Remember, it's 880 miles from the west edge of Texas to the east!

The morning after the wedding we hiked one more trail in Village Creek, then packed up and headed home. We drove the home trip in one day, so we didn't make any sight-seeing stops. I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit of Texas history in these posts about our trip!


A view down one of the trails in Village Creek State Park.

Noise? What Noise?

2011-06-19T17:56:00.001-05:00

June 3rd found Allie at her first graduation ceremony. We travelled to Houston to watch my cousin graduate in the Toyota Center. This was our first experience in a large, arena-type setting. She did quite well. :) Having gone to church, meetings, and baseball games, Allie is used to sitting (or lying, in her case) for long periods. So that part was no big deal for her. I was prepared with a bully stick, though, in case she got restless. She did. So I held the stick while she chewed. I couldn’t just let her have it because we were sitting on an upper level at a railing. She would have dropped it on the people below at some point, I’m sure, had I not held on to it. That would not have been a pleasant experience for me OR the people below! Anyway, at the very end they shot these confetti cannons that were pretty loud. Other than cause Allie to glace up at the sound, they really didn’t phase her.

The next day, June 4th, I took Allie to a local antique tractor pull. The main reason I went was to see how she’d respond to all the loud noise. It can be almost deafening at times. We sat on the front row, as close to the track as we could be. A couple of the tractors made a “POP! POP!” when they started. She perked her ears toward them then quickly returned to her napping. The tractors pull a piece of equipment called a sled down a dirt track. (Forget your idea of what you think a sled looks like.) The sled has very large weights on it. The goal is to pull the sled as far as they can. The farther they get down the track, the higher up on the sled the weights travel, which shifts the load and the center of gravity. The higher up the sled the weights are, the harder it is for the tractor to pull. The tractor in this picture is at the beginning of the track.

Even though some of the tractors were very loud, this is how Allie spent almost the entire time:

Spreading the Word & Riding the Trolley

2011-06-19T17:08:00.003-05:00

Well, here I am playing catch-up AGAIN! Oh, well, that’s just the way it is. :) Rather than one long post, I’ll break it all up into smaller posts.
Back on May 24th, Allie & I went to a local elementary school where I spoke to a class of third graders and a kindergarten class. Larry, the Guide Dogs Puppy Program Manager (& one of my “bosses”), met us there to help me out. Allie & the children were great! The kids were really good about not trying to pet her and she was really good about not trying to get to all the kids! For a couple weeks prior to our visit, the children had been bringing money to donate to Guide Dogs of Texas. They wanted to raise enough to buy Allie a harness for when she’s in advanced training. I don’t know the exact amount, but I think they raised almost double the amount needed for a harness! They were SO excited to bring their money and drop it in the little donation banks that we brought. (Note: I’ve soft-focused the photos of the children for privacy reasons.) Before we left, the children presented Allie with a gift bag of goodies. It was so sweet! They gave her two boxes of treats, a package of “doggie” tennis balls, and a tuggable duck toy.

Two days later, on the 26th, I took Allie to San Antonio for a training walk with Larry and Hillary. We went downtown for a ride on a trolley. The last time I’d been on a trolley was when I was a child. Back then, they were open-air. Now they are fully enclosed and air-conditioned. It was nice! :) Anyway, Allie did GREAT! I got her tucked under the seat quite easily and she stayed there for the whole trip (about ten minutes or so). Even when people got on and off, she didn’t seem to notice. While waiting for the trolley, we spent a few minutes working around a bunch of pigeons. She was quite distracted and wanted to chase them, but was doing much better at focusing by the time we were ready to head for the trolley.
You may notice in the school picture above that Allie’s jacket is pretty small. :) So, while we were in San Antonio for the training walk, we stopped by GDTx to pick up a new jacket! Her “big girl” jacket fits much better. In fact, it’s actually a little big; but that’s okay. She’ll grow into it! Here’s a picture of Allie in her bigger jacket with her goodies from the school children.

They Say a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words . . .

2011-06-02T00:20:00.001-05:00

Puppy Splash Day

2011-05-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

Every year, Guide Dogs of Texas hosts an event just for puppies, puppy raisers, friends, and family. This is an event that is purely for fun and fellowship. It's Puppy Splash Day!! Puppy Splash Day is held at a neat place where there is plenty of fenced-in room to run. There's a pool for the dogs to swim in, playground equipment surrounded by sand that's great fun to run in, tunnels to run through, things to climb on . . . The place is GREAT. All 7 'A'-litter PIT's (puppies in training) as well as 4 older PIT's, 1 retired guide who is now a certified Therapy Dog, and 3 family pets showed up for the fun.

Is it an otter or a puppy?

This was Allie's first opportunity to get in water, so I was interested to see what she would do and how she would react. Her first experience in the water was accidental - she slipped in! She got out as quickly as she could. I think she was a little stunned. Later, she did get back in the water a few times and swam around quite a bit. I think she likes it!

Allie had soooo much fun. She literally wore herself out! On the way home we stopped at a few stores for some quick errands and she was not at all interested in walking and keeping up. She slept all the way home, played a little with Champ once we were home, then crashed into bed. Normally she wakes up around 7 a.m. to go out, but this time she slept until 8 a.m. when I had to get up to get ready for church. I think if I hadn't gotten up, she'd have been happy to snooze a little longer!!

Here is a slideshow of more pictures from Puppy Splash Day:

Vacation

2011-05-25T18:36:00.000-05:00

Hello, all! It’s Allie here. Since my girl is already behind on blog posts, I figured I'd tell you about our vacation trip. She closed up shop for a week at work and headed out before it got too hot and before everybody else was on vacation. We camped for a couple days at Nails Creek State Park on Lake Somerville. The lake was very, very low, but we did see LOTS of deer and plenty of different birds. One morning, while on a walk, we scared the bajeebers out of a small group of deer! (They startled me a bit, too; but I quickly recovered!) Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to hike any of the trails. Maybe we can go back one day.
Our first visit was to the small town of Brenham. My girl had a very dear friend to visit in an assisted living home there. Everybody that saw me just loved me and said how beautiful I am (I get that a lot). :) If you are a reader from Texas, you know there is something special about the town of Brenham. It’s the home of Blue Bell Ice Cream. (Apparently, this is an extremely desirable food and people in Texas think Blue Bell is the best. I wouldn’t know, since I don’t eat people food!)

During a tour of the creameries we walked alllllll around and saw people filling containers of ice cream and making ice cream sandwiches. The people on the tour were in awe of the machinery that does most of the work. The one that filled the half gallon cartons of ice cream was filling at a rate of one carton per second. That’s sixty cartons of ice cream every minute!! Our tour guide said it takes about 50,000 cows to keep up with demand. All of the milk comes from dairies within about a 200 mile radius of Brenham. So, if you eat Blue Bell ice cream, you are supporting Texas dairy farmers!

At the end of the tour, the people all got ice cream to eat. I just got to sit and watch them eat it. On our way outside there was a pretty steep staircase for me to walk down. I’m still learning to navigate stairs. Going up is usually not too big of a deal, but sometimes it’s a little scary for me to go down. I did pretty well on these, though! :-D

Once we got outside, my girl had to take MORE pictures of me. I’m getting really good at posing and taking pictures. Sometimes it gets a little old, though. I mean, come on…how many pictures does she need??? Anyway, one was with the ice cream truck. Then she took more by this cow statue. It’s a little girl leading a cow. That’s the Blue Bell logo. They dreamed it up in the 1970’s and it stuck. (Do you think they’d want to add an adorable Yellow Lab puppy to the logo?) It’s pretty cute! That cow is life-sized, but it didn’t scare me because I live on a farm with lots of cows.

After we left Brenham, we stopped at some historical places on the way to our next location. One place we went was Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park. This is known as “The Birthplace of Texas” because it’s where the Texans declared independence from Mexico in 1836. (That’s nine years before Texas was a state in the United States.) Anyway, they have a living history farm there with people and real live animals. The people dress like they live in the 1800’s and they do things like it’s the 1800’s. (For example, they plow with oxen, raise cotton, spin it, and weave it to make blankets, and so forth.) I met a pig there for the first time. We have a lot of animals on the farm where I live, but not pigs. It was a little unsettling! I’ve never seen such a strange creature and they make really weird noises! Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the pig I met.

The last part of our trip was to the George H. W. Bush Museum in College Station. We were there allllllll day with just a short break for my girl and her parents to get lunch. (Well, I got bathroom breaks, too, but no lunch for me. I outgrew that awhile back!) Anyway, my girl and her parents thought the museum was very interesting and enjoyable. For the most part, I thought it was incredibly boring!! I got a little excited at one point, though.

In one room I spotted not one, not two, but THREE tennis balls!!! I made a beeline for those balls, surprising my girl with my sudden energy. Unfortunately, there was a piece of glass that kept me from the lovely yellow orbs. My girl told me that they weren’t mine and I couldn’t play with them. Oh, well.

My girl got a little frustrated during the day because I like to lie down a lot, so I did almost every time she stopped! She was very proud of me, though, because I was so good the whole day. In fact, I’ve heard her and her mom telling people I was excellent even after we’ve come home!!! (That’s encouraging, because sometimes she says I’m a PILL. I’m not sure what that means, but when she says it, it doesn’t sound like something I get treats for.) At the end of the day I made her very proud AGAIN. (I know, I know…I was on a roll! Hee hee hee.) There’s a large horse sculpture outside the museum and she wanted my picture (of course!). So she put me near the sculpture and told me to “STAY”. Before she could take the picture a little boy came running up to the sculpture at the other end. I know she was afraid I would break my “stay” and go chasing after the little boy. I DIDN’T!!! I did turn to look at him, but immediately looked back at my girl when she said, “Watch me!” My body never moved. She was SO excited and told me I was such a good girl! I love it when that happens. :)

Here are a few more pictures she took of me. The museum has lots of rooms set up exactly like President Bush had them when he was in office. So, she took a picture of me in the “Oval Office” and in front of a small replica model of the White House. She also snapped a shot of me with a statue of the 41st President. At first, I thought he was a real person! I was wagging my tail and sniffing his hand, but he didn’t move and I quickly figured out he didn’t smell like a real person. My girl wasn’t quick enough to catch my immediate reaction, but she took a picture anyway.
Oh, one other photo is of me coming down a flight of stairs. Remember, I need practice on stairs. I think they’re great fun to run up and down if they’re not too steep! I’m not supposed to do that, though. I’m supposed to walk calmly and steadily on them. If the stairs are kind of steep, like these were, it’s a little scary for me coming down. So my girl likes to practice at every opportunity so I’ll learn it’s not scary at all. I did pretty well!

Well, that about covers our vacation! When we go camping, we stay in a travel trailer. It doesn’t have a lot of room, so I’ve learned to adapt. (I think that’s something I have to learn. When I grow up and I’m working as a guide dog, I’ll have to adapt to all kinds of situations.) There’s not a lot of room for me to run and play, but I do have plenty of room for napping and just hanging out! I hope you’ve enjoyed the tales of my adventures on vacation! I’m pretty sure my girl won’t be too upset that I took over the blog for this post. ;-) I’ll leave you with a couple pictures from my time in the travel trailer. Until next time, happy tails!! (OOPS! I mean, happy TRAILS!!)

Getting Spayed

2011-05-15T16:57:00.000-05:00

Well, as is par for the course, I am way behind in my blog updates. :) One of these days I will have high speed internet and not procrastinate my posts.

Allie was spayed about a month ago, back in April. I had to have her at the vet by around 7 a.m. Since she was being spayed by Dr. L., the vet that Guide Dogs of Texas uses, our drive was about an hour. So I had to leave around 6 a.m. I am not a "morning person", so that was a little tough. We managed all right though. :) Her sister, Alice, had arrived right before we did. I spent time running errands until it was time to pick Allie up to go home that afternoon.

She had to wear an E-collar (aka "cone") for about a week after she was spayed. I would periodically take it off of her to give her a break, and also to see if she would try to chew or lick at the stitches. After about a week, she finally left them alone so I took it off for good. At two weeks I took her to have the stitches out. Normally I would have done that myself (I used to work for a veterinarian, so I am well-acquainted with suture removal), but I knew from experimenting that Allie would not be still enough for me to do it. Everything went well and she was free to return to her regular romping! That was the hardest part of the two weeks -- keeping her from running and rough-housing. That girl is FULL of energy! Here are a few pictures of her with her "cone" on. :)


"This is SO humiliating!"

"Are you sure this thing is necessary??"

"I don't let anything keep me from my chow!"

"Hmmm, this contraption fits perfectly over my food bowl!"

It didn't take Allie any time at all to figure out how to eat with the e-collar on. She takes meal times very seriously!

Training Walks, Baseball, & Volunteers! OH MY!

2011-04-22T01:26:00.001-05:00

Allie & I had a training walk with Larry & Hillary last Thursday morning. We went to a local grocery store this time. For the most part, Allie did pretty well. I have some things to tweak, though. :) I was really proud of her because she walked right by a bunch of grass in the floral department and left it completely alone! That was a big thing because she normally grabs any bit of flower or plant that is near her pathway as she walks along. I didn’t even tell her “Leave it!” and she just walked right past. YEA! We need to start working on the “heel” command. I still have work to do to get her walking nearer to my leg. Later, I showed Larry how she knows the hand signals for “sit”, “[lie] down”, and “up-sit”. I can give her the signals without saying a word and she will perform the command (usually!). I think he was impressed. ;) Greeting favorite people is still a huge issue with her, but I was assured that she isn’t the only puppy in the litter that still needs to work on that.

Allie's first baseball game!

Thursday evening, I took Allie to her first baseball game. I love baseball, so I don’t think this will be her last game. :) We went with a friend to a local Minor League baseball game, the San Antonio Missions. The Missions are a Double-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. Anyway, Allie did really well! Other than trying to get to peanut shells (and me having to pull them out of her mouth multiple times when her reflexes were quicker than mine!), she was perfect! She spent over three hours under my seat without getting restless or noisy. I think she barked twice, maybe three times. Of course, we got to practice “Leave it!” a lot with all the stuff that gets dropped on the ground at places like that. Interestingly enough, our seats were in front of a couple who have raised four puppies for the military. He asked quite a few questions about Allie and I learned a few differences between how a guide dog puppy is raised and how a military puppy is raised. The picture at left is after the game. (Those are rubber balls on the field behind us. It’s part of a game they play after every game and people pay for the balls to throw.)

Larry Tuttle, GDTX President, welcomes
everyone to Volunteer Day.

Saturday was Volunteer Appreciation Day at Guide Dogs of Texas. This is an annual event where they recognize their clients, staff, and volunteers for all the work they do. Many get certificates or special awards. The puppy raisers who have had puppies “graduate” into formal training get little trophies with a dog that matches whatever breed they raised. They’re very cute. :)

This was the first time I’d seen most of Allie’s littermates since I brought her home last December. It was really neat to see how they’ve changed and grown. Some have gotten darker in color, some haven’t. Each one’s head and face is a little different. Other than Aggie, the puppy who went to Susquehanna Service Dogs, only Ava, one of the littermates wasn’t there. I was able to get pretty good pictures of everyone except Alice. She is darker like Austin (though not quite as dark) and very similar in looks. All of the older puppies in training (PIT) were there, as well as several clients with their dogs that have graduated from the program. All in all, there were 10 PIT’s present and 5 or 6 graduates. It was a fun day, and also good for me because I got to see how Allie compared to her littermates in some aspects. They all share some similar issues with various aspects of their training.

You can see a larger image of any of the pictures just by clicking on them. (At this point, I apologize to my visually-impaired readers. I usually try to have alternate text for each photo, but I've had so much trouble trying to get this post loaded and posted, I just GIVE UP this time!! I may try to come back later and edit the post to include the text. Please forgive my impatience and negligence this time. :) )

Austin - such a sweet face
though a little out of focus!

Atlas - Is he adorable or what?!

Alamo with his puppy raiser

During the day, Allie got an opportunity to play with Aspen and Alamo, two of her littermates. (Aspen is one of the females chosen to be a breeder.) They had a BLAST. :-D I managed to snap some pictures.

Here comes TROUBLE! :-D

Aspen stares Allie down. Maybe she's thinking, "You
wanna piece o' ME?!" Hee hee hee.

Aspen & Allie, ears a-flying

Alamo joins in while Aspen takes a breather.

Allie may have met her match!


Three isn't a crowd! It's just more fun!!

"Whatcha got there, Aspen?"
[Aspen was chewing on a golf-ball sized rock.]

"Well, ya see, Allie, it's like this . . ."
[Aspen is still chewing on the rock.]

"WHAT?! Play time is over ALREADY?!"

At some point I will get “part 2” of our Spring Break trip posted. :-D

Miles & Miles of Texas . . .

2011-04-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

On March 19 we had a family wedding to attend in the Eastern-most town in Texas, Orange. Orange sits at the border of Texas & Louisiana on the Sabine River. (Sadly, Allie & I missed the first puppy training day at Guide Dogs of Texas. Hopefully, there’ll be another one soon that we will be able to attend. :) ) Anyway, rather than travel hours and hours for just the wedding, we decided to make it a mini-vacation and camp a little along the way. Our round trip (including little side stops and driving back and forth from campgrounds to towns) was over 900 miles! A word of caution: this post is photo-heavy! (If there are any photos you wish to see larger, simply click on the photo and you will be taken to an enlarged copy.)
Our first stop was San Felipe, Texas. San Felipe was originally San Felipe de Austin and it’s the location of Stephen F. Austin’s first Anglo colonies in Texas. Stephen F. Austin is considered the “Father of Texas” and a state holiday is set aside in November on his birthday as “Father of Texas Day”. Stephen F. Austin State Park is located in San Felipe. (We wanted to camp there, but they were full, so we camped a few miles away in Sealy.) We visited Stephen F. Austin State Historic Site, then picnicked and hiked in Stephen F. Austin State Park. We also picked up special “passports” that are part of the 175th birthday celebration for Texas. There are certain historical sites in the booklet. When you visit these sites, you get a stamp in your passport unique to that site. So we got the Stephen F. Austin stamp as well as the 175th birthday stamp. Here are some pictures from that leg of our trip.
The San Felipe de Austin historical marker reads,

San Felipe de Austin
First Anglo-American Capital of Texas. Came into being on July 26, 1828, as capital of the Austin Colony, by decree of the Mexican government. Father of Texas Stephen F. Austin had begun under the 1821 grant from Mexico the settlement of more than 1,000 families. The original colony ran from the coast on the South to the Old San Antonio Road on the North, and from the Lavaca River on the West to the San Jacinto River on the East. In this first American town in Texas lived Austin, William Barret Travis, Sam Houston, David G. Burnet and Jane Long. All settlers crossed its threshold for land grants. After the organization of other colonies, this continued to be the recognized center of Texas. It was capital of the Mexican Department of Brazos, site of the conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the consultation of 1835 where Texans aired grievances and tried to reach understanding with Mexico. The Provisional Government created with Henry Smith as Governor in 1835 functioned here until it gave way to the convention declaring Texas independent of Mexico on March 2, 1836.

Allie "meets" the Father of Texas

Replica of S.F.A.'s dog-trot cabin.
Austin had a "dog-trot" or "dog-run" cabin, the term used for homes built with a breezeway that divided the two rooms of the house. This breezeway was often a place where the family dogs lounged in the cool shade, thus the name "dog-trot".
Plaque on the replica of S.F.A.'s log cabin

A dog in the dog-trot!

Replica of Stephen F. Austin's flag
Marker in front of the Visitor's Center.
Click on the photo for a larger view to
read the marker.

Stephen F. Austin's flag is full of symbolism. The red star in the blue field was for England. The thirteen red & white stripes were for the original 13 colonies of the settlers' home country. The lone star was for Texas. The green color went with the red and white to represent Mexico, the settlers' new home country. This replica of the flag hangs in the Visitor's Center.

The Visitor's Center is a former General Store.

This is the view down one trail.
This is a view of the Brazos River.

Here are a couple photos from Stephen F. Austin State Park on the hiking trail. I didn’t get any photos of Allie in the park. The hiking trail was a new experience for her, but she did great! The only problem was she wanted to be in front. When my dad was in front, Allie was pulling on her leash almost constantly. When we shifted to the front, she stopped pulling! There were lots of opportunities to practice her “Leave it!” command as there were plenty of things to sniff and see. She also had a few different types of surfaces to cross including a wooden bridge and a metal grate. Neither bothered her at all.

We camp in a travel trailer that doesn’t have a whole lot of extra space. In the bunk end of the trailer there are two bunk beds. I took the mattresses up from the bottom two beds and put Allie’s pop-up crate on one side. This gave her a little room to sprawl. At home, Allie likes to run figure-eights in our living room as fast as she can go. Most of the time she carries a toy in her mouth while she does this. She attempted to run her figure-8’s in the bunk area, but it really cramped her style. :-D Here are a few pictures of Allie in the trailer. The last one begs for a caption, but I couldn’t think of one. :-D
Um, this place is kinda small...I can't run my figure-8's in here!

The second half of our trip was to head toward Beaumont, but we stopped at the San Jacinto Monument in La Porte, just east of Houston, along the way. The San Jacinto Monument marks the location of the final battle in the war for Texas’ independence. General Sam Houston and his army surprised General Santa Anna and his army, winning independence from Mexico for Texas. The monument is one of the sites in the passport for the 175th anniversary of Texas Independence. Anyway, we had to ride a ferry across the Port of Houston to get to the monument. Allie slept through the whole ride. I don’t think she even raised her head when the ferry horns blew. On the trip across the port we saw lots of oil tankers and barges coming and going. Full ones came in to port riding low in the water and empty ones headed out riding high. Most of them had tugboats pushing them along. (It just occurred to me…why do they call them “tug”boats and not “push”boats? They’re rarely tugging!) The marker for Lynch's Ferry reads:
One Mile Northeast to Site of
LYNCH’S FERRY
A pioneer ferry of Texas under Mexico and the Republic. Established at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, 1822, by Nathaniel Lynch, one of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred” colonists. Usual chares at ferries like this were man and horse, 25 cents; cattle, 4 cents a head. But rates could be raised for risky high-water service.
Lynch, from Missouri, was an active Texas merchant and judge. After a small settlement grew up near his ferry, he platted the town of “Lynchburg” about 1835, but few shared his enthusiasm for the spot.
In March and April, 1836, as Texas settlers fled the Mexican army during the War for Independence, hundreds crossed the San Jacinto at Lynch’s Ferry. By April 2 the prairie was covered with wagons, horses, mules, tents, and baggage; but 19 days later at the Battle of San Jacinto, the Mexican General Santa Anna, hoping to cut off a Texas retreat at the ferry, was himself defeated near the site.
In later years Lynchburg became a steamboat stop for the picturesque stern-wheelers plying Buffalo Bayou as eastbound freight was transferred there.
Today the modern, motor-driven “Lynchburg Ferry” is operated at the site of the original ferry.

(Today, the ferry is free, operated by the state and county, I think.)

This was our view of the monument
while we waited for the ferry.
The 'William P Hobby' ferry was docked for repairs.
I sure hope they put new windows on the requisition forms!
The "Claxton"

After our ferry ride (the wait was longer than the ride) we arrived at the monument. It is a VERY tall monument. You can ride an elevator up to the top and check out the view from the observation deck. Since we needed to get to our campground, we didn’t take time to do that. Instead, we took lots of photos outside the monument, got stamps in our “passports”, and visited the gift shop inside for a couple souvenirs.
View of the monument with the reflecting pool.
This looks straight up from right next
to the building at the base.
See those little dots? They're
people walking around the
monument!!
Allie & I were on the landing of the second set
of steps down from the monument. The thing
is massive.
All eight sides (four large sides and four flat corners) of the monument have graphic depictions of Texas history from the colonists to the industrial age. This one of the pioneers is my favorite. Each side of the building base also has a written account of Texas history. You can see just a glimpse of one in the earlier picture where I was looking straight up. Below is a shot looking out toward the reflecting pool from the steps of the monument. You can barely see the very top of the Battleship Texas just to the right of the pool.

Since I’ve taken sooooo long to get this update posted, I’m going to stop here and say “To be continued…” so I can get at least part of this trip on the blog! Stay tuned for the second half . . .

NEWS!

2011-04-01T23:55:00.002-05:00


Did somebody say "eat"??!!

This is just a quick update with a couple newsworthy bits of info. For those concerned that Allie is too thin, you will be especially happy. :) I got a call yesterday from Larry with good news for her. Her food has been upped to almost double what she’s been eating. It seems Dr. Andy has said the puppies can start putting on a little more weight. YEA! I had just about decided to stop explaining when people commented on Allie’s weight and just say something like, “Well, she’s a growing puppy and her weight just can’t keep up!”
Currently, she weighs 31.6 pounds. We’ll see how much she gains this week! Needless to say, I’m sure Allie is thrilled with more to chow down on at breakfast and supper! She loves to eat and “eat” is one word that she definitely understands. :-D
The second bit of news is that the decision has been made regarding which female puppies will be breeders and which will be guides. Allie is going to be a guide dog! Yes, she will continue down the path to being a hero for somebody one day. Yea! Alice is the other guide. Aspen and Ava have been chosen to be the first two broods actually bred by GDTX! As I said, just a quick update. A longer post with pictures of Allie’s recent adventures is coming soon, so stay tuned . . .

Playing Catch-up…

2011-03-16T02:28:00.001-05:00

If you’ve been following Allie’s Antics you may remember the post where I mentioned our visit to StayTuff fence and the picture that was taken of Allie. Well, I finally looked up the company online and sent an email regarding the photo. I didn’t remember the guy’s name that had taken the photo (It’s Scott, incidentally.) but I told the story about how he was going to email it to me. It turns out he emailed it right away, but just had the email address off by one letter. So he sent it again. Here, a few months later, is the promised picture. Allie has grown quite a lot since then! It’s funny the difference in her size. She’s much taller and longer now; but she’s also much slimmer. Her vest no longer covers her whole back; but she doesn’t fill it out anymore like in this picture. She doesn’t have that roll around her neck, either! :) Thanks, Scott, for sending the photo!!

Last Wednesday Allie & I had a training walk with Larry & his assistant Hillary. I reported that her weight had increased slightly to 30.6 lbs. Previously, she had held steady at 30.2 for two weeks. Larry says she’s “perfect”. The desired weight range for her age is 29-33 pounds. She is very slim & trim! We went to a mall this time, which was a first for Allie. I’ve taken her shopping lots of places, but we hadn’t been to a mall yet. She did fairly well but, unfortunately, it was a short walk. We didn’t give her enough “break” time before the walk (time to “do her business”) and she had a “dirty walk”. When that happens (The goal is that it never happen, but remember that we are in training!), the procedure is to terminate the walk and go again later. There were a couple of bright spots, though. :) She walked right by a little boy and didn’t try to head toward him as she often does with children. She also walked right over a rather large piece of a cookie and appeared not to even notice it!! I couldn’t believe it because food is still a big distraction for her. We left the mall, took off her jacket, and headed for a coffee shop. Removing her jacket and riding in the car would make the coffee shop a completely different “walk” for her. She was PERFECT in the coffee shop.

Next week I will take Allie to the Guide Dogs of Texas training center for the breeding program evaluation. Her litter is the first litter to be bred by GDTx. Three of the puppies will be chosen to be kept intact (not spayed or neutered) and will become breeders for the program. This evaluation is to determine which three (two females and one male) will be future mamas and papa for future generations of guide dogs! I’m not sure how I feel about all this. On the one hand, I want Allie to be a guide dog and help change someone’s life. On the other hand, if she were a breeder, she would be helping change many lives with puppies she produces. (I could also potentially “keep” her as her boarder if she were a breeder.) So, I will just wait and see how the chips fall. Either way, she will continue her training with me and will (hopefully) someday make an impact for somebody, somewhere in Texas.

Speaking of Guide Dogs of Texas, Allie’s blog is now listed on the website with all the other puppy blogs! As far as I know, Allie is the only one of her litter with a blog. All of the other blogs are older puppies. Be sure to check them out, too! You can also get to Bob & Alfie’s blogs by clicking the links for them under my blogs list to the right. On a side note, the puppies pictured at the top of the GDTx website is Allie’s litter. She is the little roly-poly just right of center with a green collar. Her sister, Alice, is to the right of Allie and wears a purple collar. I’m not sure if the puppy in the center is Atlas or Alamo. The others (I don’t know which is which) are Austin, Aspen, Ava, & Aggie. Aggie now lives in Pennsylvania and her name was changed to Sammie Mae, but she’ll always be Aggie to us! She went to be part of Susquehanna Service Dogs, the same organization from which her father, Fire, hails.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of my funny girl. :-)

Allie still has issues with steps…well, at least some steps. Sometimes they don’t bother her; but she is a bit stubborn about the steps to the back door at work. She doesn’t like to go either down or up them. On the left, she’s just staring at me like she thinks she’ll just sit there all day rather than come down those steps. She’s the same way about going up them. There are only 4 of them and the bottom step is ground level! The stinker has no problem with them when a treat is waiting for her at the top or bottom, whichever the desired destination. In the picture on the right, I can’t help but wonder if she was thinking, “Maybe if I pretend to ignore her she’ll just go away. Or, better yet, she’ll pull a treat from her pocket. How long can I make her wait?”

Look at the way she’s tilted her head here. Don’t you just know she’s thinking, “WELL??!! Where’s my treat??” I promise, she does not get a treat every time I want her up or down those steps.

Remember the pop-up crate I bought to use at work? There are pictures here. I bought it at the end of February and Allie’s already grown quite a bit to the point that her back touches the top when she stands in it. Maybe it won’t fit her as long as I thought! :-\ (The package says it fits dogs up to 70 lbs, but it doesn’t say anything about height. Ha ha ha!) She still has plenty of room to lie down inside, though. However, a few weeks ago Allie discovered a new, more preferred way to use her crate. I’m pretty sure she thinks it’s great fun to make her crate fold down. She almost does a little leap when she pushes the top in. At first I thought it was cute and even funny. I quickly realized that it’s not so funny because it’s causing her crate to stand crooked! I make her get off every time she does it. Sometimes I can actually catch her before the thought becomes an action and prevent the action! I still had to snap a couple pictures, though. :-D

Run-in with the Police ;)

2011-03-12T22:30:00.002-06:00

Friday, March 4, my dad & I drove close to a couple hundred miles away to pick up a horse. Of course, we took Allie with us. All told, we spent nearly 10 hours in the truck that day! WHEW! She was such a trooper!! Allie is really a great traveler and has been since I first brought her home. Of course, the 10 hours weren’t all in the truck because we did stop for potty breaks, lunch, fuel, and a couple of slight detours, as well. We drove through a State Park with thoughts of possibly camping there in the future. We also stopped at a cemetery where I have one set of great-great grandparents and one set of great-great-great grandparents buried. My dad was a little boy when my great-great grandfather was buried in 1953. He had not been back to the grave since then. While we were there we made some rubbings of the graves.
Allie was more interested in seeing what she could find on the ground. She picked up a couple sticks as we walked along. Then at one of the grave sites she decided a rock would be a great toy. Here she is picking it up. :D She was very focused on that rock and nothing could deter her. She carried it around for a few seconds. Prior to this picture I did not have her jacket on.
Although the cemetery is a public place, & I should have put her jacket on when we got out, I didn’t because there wasn’t anybody else around. I also didn’t think we’d be there more than a few minutes (I didn’t expect to be making grave rubbings). Anyway, while we were reading the stones, a policeman drove through the cemetery and honked. (No, he didn’t get out of his truck to come to us, I had to go to him.) I was pretty sure I knew what it was about. :) He told me they didn’t allow dogs in the cemetery. I told him she was a Guide Dog in training. He then asked, “A Guide Dog?? What does she need to guide?!” I told him she was in training to be a guide for a visually impaired person when she grows up. So he then asked if I had any “papers” for her. I said I had identification. He asked if I had it with me. So I took him to our truck, showed him my badge and Allie’s jacket. I also picked her up so he could see her brass “Guide Dog in Training” tag on her collar. I apologized for not putting her vest on (although since he didn’t understand what I meant by “Guide Dog in training”, I don’t imagine seeing her in her jacket would’ve made any difference.). He then explained that others want to bring their pets and if anyone saw me they’d be calling in wanting to know why they can’t bring their dog! Oh, brother. I was at fault for not putting her jacket on, though. It was an interesting experience, anyway! Here’s a photo of Allie and me in front of the cemetery sign.

Remembering Confederate Veterans

2011-03-12T21:39:00.001-06:00

Allie & I have had a busy last few weeks, so I’m a little behind in my blogging! Sorry about that! I guess everybody has weeks like that, though, so I’m sure you all understand. :)

February 26th we attended a memorial service for Confederate Veterans buried in a local cemetery. You may be aware (if you are a history nerd like I am!) that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, which was, in fact, the bloodiest war in American history. Groups around the nation are marking the event all year long with services and ceremonies at various battlegrounds, cemeteries, and other historical sites relating to the Civil War. Anyway, this particular service was, to a great extent, a re-enactment of a memorial service. The service began with re-enactors posting the colors and then we recited pledges to the U.S., Texas, & Confederate flags, followed by prayer and a solo of “Amazing Grace”. A “roll call” was read of names of the Confederate veterans buried in this particular cemetery. (All the veterans’ graves were marked with Confederate flags, as well.)

Then there were rifle salutes and cannon salutes. Allie was just a little startled with the first volley of rifle fire, but after that she just watched with interest. The cannons didn’t even bother her. Both the rifles and cannons produced a lot of smoke. None of my photos of the cannons firing turned out very well, so I’ve posted one of the “soldiers” cleaning the larger one after it was fired.

The salutes were followed by the “Black Rose Ceremony” and “The Libation Ceremony”. Both were rather solemn and moving. In the rose ceremony, only ladies participated. They took rose petals from a basket, scattered them around a veterans’ grave, then curtsied in front of the grave. This re-enacted what the widows and other grieving women did after the Civil War, except in this ceremony it was only done at one grave. In a “real” ceremony the ladies would do it at all the graves. The “Libation Ceremony” was only for the men. In the “real” ceremony, each man puts a little whiskey in a cup, takes a sip, and pours the rest over the grave. Then he steps back and salutes the veteran buried there. For the present day ceremony, apple juice was substituted. :) The memorial service ended with the re-enactors posting the colors. There were five flags in all: the “Bonnie Blue” flag, the St. Andrew’s Cross flag (a.k.a. Battle flag), CSA flag (a.k.a. “Stars & Bars”), the Texas flag, and the United States flag. The first three are all flags of the Confederate States of America. After the service ended, I asked one of the re-enactors if he would take a picture with Allie and me for her blog. :)

Report Cards & Rodeos

2011-02-23T22:41:00.001-06:00

Allie had a busy Sunday & Monday this week. On Sunday, I took her to the Ranch Rodeo Finals at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. Overall, she did really well! There were sooooo many smells & lots of people to distract her. If I said “Leave it!” once, I said it 500 times! (I know that’s an exaggeration, but it seemed like 500!!) I was proud of her that she didn’t try to lunge for every person passing by in attempt to greet them. Also, when we met up with my good friend Katie she greeted her very well. (My thanks to Katie for snapping the photo you see at left.) I squatted down next to Allie just to be sure, but she didn’t try to jump on Katie at all.

She slept through most of the ranch rodeo. The rest of the time was spent trying to keep her from eating the peanut shells dropped by the children seated behind us. The seating was aluminum bleachers, much like you’d see at a high school football stadium. Allie navigated the stairs in to the seating area very well! I was a little surprised as stairs are not her favorite thing and she sometimes has to be coaxed along, especially when she’s descending. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with ranch rodeos, it’s a little different than a “regular” rodeo that you normally think of. In a ranch rodeo, teams made up of cowboys from working ranches and, sometimes, feedlots compete in various events that are meant to mimic “real cowboy life”. For example, in one event they must rope a steer and load him into a trailer parked in the middle of the arena without the aid of any pens or chutes. It’s all really very exciting and a lot of fun!)

Monday we had a training walk with Larry & his new assistant, Hillary. Larry is training Hillary to take his job in a few years when he’s going to re-retire. :) He’s already retired at least once & would like to get back to part-time at Guide Dogs of Texas.

Overall, Larry was very pleased with Allie’s progress as well as her physical condition. She weighs 29.2 pounds, which is exactly what she weighed last week. She has slimmed down quite nicely. Allie performed her much-improved “down” perfectly when Larry gave the command. I was so proud of her! :) We still have a ways to go to perfect her greetings, but she is a little better. Whether or not she jumps up when greeting someone also depends on the person. Allie jumped at Larry but not Hillary. I’ve noticed that she has a tendency to jump at people she particularly likes or knows well, but other times there’s really no rhyme or reason.

As we walk, Larry walks behind, watching & listening as we go. I had no idea how thorough he is until we finished on Monday! He said Allie is doing really well with the “leave it” command because I only had to used a leash correction (a quick, sharp jerk on her leash accompanied by a stern “Leave it!”) about 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time she responded to just the command. Who knew?! Honestly, I didn’t even notice that I don’t always need to use the leash correction. During part of the walk Larry takes Allie while I walk behind. He also had Hillary take her. Allie did well with both of them.

My “assignments” this month are to work on getting Allie to sit next to my leg when we stop (or whenever I have her “sit” when she’s on leash) rather than sitting in front of me or off to the side, and tweak the way I signal a right turn to her. The latter will be very easy to correct. The former will be a bit more of a challenge, but not difficult.

The latest of Allie’s “antics” is jumping up and putting her paws on the kitchen counters, island, or dining table. She is tall enough on her back legs that it’s not much of a stretch for her to get her nose on the counter once her front paws are on the edge. Of course, we tell her “Off!” as soon as we see it, but it’s still very frustrating. (One of these days maybe I can catch her with the camera!) One trick that we’re trying is a sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the surface. We can’t have cayenne on every counter every day, so I’m planning to rotate it to different areas in hopes of breaking her of this behavior. When she got a taste of it the other day, she did not return to that particular counter for the rest of the day. Of course, she just moved to others! :) There is the chance, too, that she may just one day stop all together. She did that with another ill-mannered behavior already. We hang our dish towel on the oven handle and Allie would pull it off and go running away with it. At one point we would just lay it on the counter rather than have to keep taking it away from her. One day we suddenly realized that Allie no longer pulls the towel off the oven. Yea!! She has also gotten better about not jumping on the furniture. While that behavior hasn’t stopped completely, it’s definitely improved.

Finally, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Allie, but, rather, my work with Guide Dogs of Texas. Several months ago I had volunteered to help make the jackets that the puppies & dogs wear if the lady who made them ever needed an extra hand. Larry brought me the stuff to make jackets…all of it!! Apparently, the lady who made them before was ready to retire! I guess I am now the “puppy jacket seamstress”! :) Be careful what you volunteer for…it may be more than you bargained for! I really don’t mind, though. Here are a few pictures of the materials. There are several jackets of each of the two most-used sizes already cut out, and one example of each is completed.

These are the jackets for Dakota, the GDTx-trained Diabetic Alert Dog.

Lots & lots of supplies for puppy jackets!

Small & large puppy jackets with patterns and examples

That’s a lot of puppy jackets!

On the left is a completed medium adult jacket. It will be worn by the older puppies that have pretty much reached their adult size. Notice the edge will be a little more challenging to sew on the binding. Below are supplies for the Ambassador jackets. Ambassador jackets are black rather than blue. I don’t have the black fabric for those, yet; but there isn’t much need for them. Ambassadors are generally retired guide dogs that are used for education and public relations purposes.

There are even a bunch of tiny jackets for the stuffed “Guide Dog puppies” that are sold to help raise money for Guide Dogs of Texas! You can see one if you click here and scroll down the page. These jackets are very small. I’m not sure how I’ll do trying to sew these. I guess I’ll find out!

Puppy Love

2011-02-13T21:21:00.001-06:00

Since it's almost Valentine's Day, I thought I'd be "cutesy" for this post and make a list of things I love about Allie and about being a puppy raiser. Before I get to that, though, I'll give a quick progress report.

In the last blog entry I told about our training walk with Larry and some of the things we needed to work on. One of the biggest challenges was the habit Allie had gotten into of just sitting mid-walk and refusing to budge without LOTS of coaxing. Since implementing Larry's instruction on correction and being firmer with her there has been virtually no more of that foolishness. Yea!!!! There have been times when Allie started to slow down and I could tell she was getting ready to balk, but I've been able to stop it before it happened. Thanks, Larry! I think her biting/chewing on hands has gotten a little better, but there's still a ways to go on that. Greeting people calmly has also improved slightly. Allie is getting better at obeying the "down" command. While she still has work to do there, I have seen significant improvement over where we were. Hooray for small accomplishments!!

Remember the pictures of Allie in her teeny tiny crate at work? Well, here are a couple of photos of her in the new "pop-up" portable crate I bought for her. It folds like those car windshield shades that fold into discs. It gives her plenty of napping room. I think (hope!) it will fit her for a while and the bonus is that, since it folds up, I can take it if we go overnight somewhere! Cool beans. :)

Ahhhh! There's so much more room in here!

Most of the time, Allie likes to be in the back of the crate.

Okay, here's the star of this post. There are 14 things since Valentine's is the 14th. :)

Allie in her jacket after a recent walk.

I Love . . .

...when I'm sitting on the floor watching TV & Allie comes over to ~~crawl~~ climb into my lap & curl up for a nap. (She really doesn't fit anymore, but she still does it anyway. (: )
...the way Allie comes running at breakneck speed, her ears flying back in the wind, when I blow the whistle to call her in the yard.
...how excited she gets when it's time to eat.
...Allie's frustrated groans & sighs when she has to stay in her crate when she doesn't want to. It's too funny. :)
...soft puppy ears that feel like velvet.
...big, brown, expressive puppy eyes.
...the way our Collie, Champ, loves to play with Allie as if he were a puppy himself. (He turned 9 in January.)

Allie loves Champ & I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

...the way she likes to curl up on our feet when we're sitting down.
...the great people I get to work with at Guide Dogs of Texas!
...that I get to take a puppy into stores, restaurants, & other public places. :)
...to hear little children say, "Mommy, there's a dog in the store!!!!"
...parents who know it's not okay to pet or otherwise attempt to distract a dog in training and tell their children so.
...that I'm privileged to play a small role in giving visually impaired Texans the wonderful gift of independence -- something that, until my involvement with Guide Dogs of Texas, I had totally taken for granted.
...that one day Allie will (hopefully!) be a hero for someone!

I was lying on the floor & Allie crawled in between my legs.

Okay, I just have to put one more. It messes up the 14, but who cares? I love her webbed lab feet. :-D

I'll have to see if there's a "National Frustration Day" so I can make a list of the things that frustrate me. Hee hee hee. Just kidding!!! (Not that there aren't things that frustrate me, but I won't make a list of them....I don't think. ;) )

We've napped together on the living room floor on more than one occasion. :)

We Have Work to Do!

2011-01-28T22:01:00.001-06:00

Today Allie & I had a training walk with my supervisor, Larry. Personally, I think the walks do more good for me than Allie. :) It's a chance for Larry to watch how Allie & I interact & observe my techniques so that he can make corrections where needed.

I've been having problems with her just stopping mid-walk (& even just sitting down). Larry showed me how I needed to correct her & pointed out that I need to be firmer with her in those cases. She's testing boundaries & isn't always accepting me as the boss. It's "the terrible twos" he said. I'd already figured THAT one out! :-D He was pleased with our "straight-line work". It's important to walk in straight lines so that she'll learn to walk like that when she guides. That's been something I have to do consciously as it's natural to just cut across parking lots, etc.

Other good news is that she is fairly consistent in sitting by the door when she wants to go out (we just have to be sure we're paying attention & notice it!), she's VERY good at sitting & waiting for her meals, & she's pretty good about sitting when we stop.

On the down side, Allie still has a tendency to want to bite your hands when you pet her, so Larry showed me a new technique to try to help stop that. It's gross, but it seems to be helping. When she bites our hands, we stick our finger far back in her mouth. The goal is to make it uncomfortable for her to bite hands. She definitely doesn't like fingers in her throat! Another thing we really need to work on is greeting people calmly. Some people she does very well with; but with others she is so excited & wants to jump up. Lastly, she needs to do better with her "down" commands. I need to get her to where she will lie down when I simply point at the floor.

I like having goals and challenges to work toward. These are all very attainable goals. :) At one point on our walk (after having dealt with Allie stopping mid-walk), I told Larry, "Please tell me she's not the only one doing this." He smiled & said, "She's the only one doing it; but she's also the only one who has a first-time puppy raiser. Don't worry, it will all pass."

For those of you who see us out and about, don't be alarmed if you notice that Allie is trimming down over the next few weeks. Larry cut her back from 3/4 cup of food, 3 times per day, to 1/2 cup 3 times per day. The vet says we need to be able to easily see her ribs. Large dogs, and Labs in particular, are notorious for hip & elbow displaysia. Keeping them really thin when their bones are growing so fast is key to preventing those health problems in the future. Besides the fact that those are very expensive problems to fix, they can often leave a dog lame, or at least somewhat impaired, even after surgery. Guide Dogs of Texas is completely funded by donations, so they want to be the best stewards of those donations they can be. They also don't want to risk the countless hours put into training the puppies. Preventing future health problems is one way they can help meet those goals.

I'll leave you with a funny photo of Allie with her bones. She loves her bones. :)

I love my bones!

FREEEEEEDOOOOOM!!!!

2011-01-23T02:25:00.000-06:00

Allie at 15 weeks

What, you say? Has she morphed into Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"? Nope. :-D Allie was 15 weeks old on Tuesday and got her last round of vaccinations. That means now she can walk (and do her "business") on ANY grass, dirt, gravel, whatever! No more carrying her over grass to get to pavement for her to potty! YEA!!!!! It also means she can now run in our front yard or anybody else's yard should we visit friends.

Allie & Autumn with the Delta Gamma girls from TAMU

Last Tuesday (a week and a half ago) I was asked to bring Allie to Guide Dogs for a photo shoot with some girls from the Delta Gamma sorority at Texas A&M University. The philanthropic thrust of Delta Gamma is vision; and the D.G. girls from TAMU raise money for Guide Dogs of Texas. The photos and videos taken that day will be used in their membership recruitment. Allie's litter-mate, Atlas, was there, as well as Petey, a beautiful black, long-haired German Shepherd Dog that is 15 months old (he is still a puppy in training), and Autumn, a retired guide dog who is now an "ambassador" for GDTX. I've kept Autumn several times since I got involved with GDTX and she is a favorite in our household. Anyway, Allie did very well for the most part. She hadn't been back to the training center since the puppy handover day, so she was rather excitable at all the "new" surroundings, as well as the other dogs to play with. :-) I only have one picture from that day. They will send me copies of all the photos they took, so maybe I can post them later.

It's hard to believe I've had her for seven weeks! She's really grown a LOT. She has lost a lot of the "puppy" look to her face and her body has really stretched out. Of course, she's gained weight and height, too. She weighed 26.6 lbs on Tuesday. Some people comment that she's "big" for only 15 weeks. I don't really think so, though. From what I've heard, she seems to be pretty much on par with her litter-mates.

Her training is progressing slowly but surely. I have to catch myself sometimes because I tend to be a "hurry-up" kind of person. (Patience is not my greatest trait, although I'm much better than I used to be.) By that I mean that I keep thinking, "WHY isn't she further along than she is??" Then I have to remind myself that it doesn't happen overnight, consistency & persistence are key, and she's still very much a baby. She is getting pretty consistent at sitting at the door when she needs to go out. I'm also getting better at keeping a close eye on her so I'll know when she needs to go out. This whole process isn't just puppy training.....it's person training, too. :-D She sits AND STAYS really well until I blow the whistle for her food. (That is, unless she happens to be exceptionally hungry. Then she has a hard time waiting.) She's starting to "get" the command to go to her crate, which is "bed". She isn't to the point that you can tell her from another room and expect her to go there, but she will go into it when you are very close to it with her and tell her "bed".

I think that Allie is going through the "terrible twos" right now. :-) I figure if 1 year in dog years equals 7 years in human terms, then she is approximately two. That could explain why, for the last couple weeks, she's had a hard time settling down through a meeting (such as church). Before that, she was always very good, from the very beginning. We could go into Sunday School or worship service and Allie would just settle in, lie down, and go right to sleep, sleeping through the whole hour. For the last two weeks at church (every time we've been, and we go 3 to 4 times per week) and earlier this week at a club meeting I attended she just would NOT settle down. She did finally in church, but not in the meeting I attended.


Allie wants to jump in the chair.

Allie has also been testing us by jumping on the furniture. She knows that she's not allowed on the furniture. I know that she knows because she waits until I've stepped out of the room for a minute before she jumps on the couch or in a chair. When I tell her to get off, she just looks at me until I come all the way to the piece of furniture, point to the floor, & repeat "Off!" She's really been a little pill about that. Sometimes she will go over to a chair even when I'm in the room and look at it in a certain way that I know she's planning to jump up. When I tell her "leave it" or "no" she will look back at me and then either sit right in front of the chair, or lie down in front of it. She's a stinker, I tell ya.

Here are a few pictures of Allie with Champ, our Collie. He turned 9 on the 11th of this month, but he loves to play with her. You'd never know he is as old as he is. Sometimes he does get enough of it, though, and he lets her know.

Champ & Allie share the "bed" in the living room.

"I can sing louder than you can!"

I love the expression on Allie's face here.

The "throat-hold". I promise he isn't hurting her one bit. :-D

Look at those ears!

Do you see Wyatt in the background?

Wyatt, our Australian Cattle Dog (aka Blue Heeler), really has no interest whatsoever in playing with her. He was 8 in October. If they are playing in the house & he is nearby, he will bark and occasionally nip at Allie. I think he will warm up at some point and play, too; but it hasn't happened yet. He does love to play, but can get a little rough. I think it's the working dog in him. You might be able to see him in the background of this picture playing with a ball by himself.
Later, Allie really wanted that ball, but Wyatt wasn't about to give it up to her. :-D

Man, I want that ball!

I'll leave you with a couple photos that show a comparison of how she's grown. They are photos of her in the (very) small crate I have at work. The first one was taken shortly after I brought her home. The last was taken earlier this week. She pretty much fills the crate now. :) I have a blanket on the floor for her, which she does use; but she still likes to crawl into the crate to nap a lot of times. Usually, she'll move back and forth between the crate and the blanket. Silly girl. :)

It's a New Year!

2011-01-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

Yea! The Christmas tree is DOWN! Ha ha ha. Usually, I'm the one in the family who wants to "leave it up a little longer"; but this year I was ready for it to come down. I think we had all had enough of constantly battling to keep Allie out of the tree. :) Happy New Year to everyone out there. I hope your Christmas & New Year's holidays were nice. We had a small gathering of friends for New Year's Eve. Dad shot off some very pretty, rather loud fireworks. I took Allie outside for the first few to see how she reacted to the noise. Other than a little jump or startle at each explosion, they didn't seem to bother her at all! She quickly recovered each time and never trembled at all.

Today Allie is 13 weeks old. She weighs 24.0 lbs. She's gained almost 4 pounds in the last week, which seems like a lot to me. When I talked to Larry today he said our goal is to keep the puppies as slender as possible until they're about 12 months old. Apparently, chunky puppies tend toward hip, elbow, and knee problems when they're older. So our girl may need to slim down just a tad. :)

Last week Dad & I needed to visit the Stay-Tuff fence company. While we were there, the man who oversees the manufacturing offered to show us how the fence is made. It was so neat! I carried Allie for safety reasons, but she didn't seem bothered a bit by the noise of the machines. I think the plant manager fell totally in love with her. :) He asked all about the guide dogs program and I told him about Guide Dogs of Texas. Before we left, he asked if he could take a picture of her with his phone. We said, "Of course!" I set her down in front of a roll of freshly made Stay-Tuff fence. He promised to email the photo when he figures out how to use the email feature of his new phone. When I get the picture, I'll post it.

We haven't been on many training walks the last week or so because I've been a bit under the weather. However, the times we have been out, she's made a little progress. It's all in baby steps which is good for helping me to practice patience. :) We are working on the "stay" command and continuing to practice "down". Of course, the chewing/play biting and jumping up are still an issue, but I'm sure they will all be resolved as she develops more maturity. Sometimes, when I think about it, I'm a little amazed at all she has learned in just a few weeks.

I didn't really take many pictures this week, but I'll leave you with a couple I did take. One day she decided my shower would be a nice place to nap. :) Our other two dogs also like the shower, but Champ has pretty much outgrown it long ago. He just doesn't fit anymore. We have photos of both Champ and Wyatt in the shower at one time or other. :)

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-27T00:22:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas!! I know, it's a day late, but I didn't have a chance to be online yesterday. A more informative post will come later, but until then I thought I'd share a few Christmas pictures. :) Enjoy!

Allie thought the bows, paper, boxes, & packaging were the most fun to play with.

This is one of her favorite napping positions. I wanted to straighten out her tail, but was afraid I'd wake her up & ruin the shot. :) That's a partially destroyed "Clifford" toy on the floor above her. She was playing with it when she fell asleep. :)

I just love this one. Dad tied the "Christmas bow" around her neck. She got it off after wearing it for maybe an hour.

Here she's playing with her new "quacking" duck while Champ looks on in interest, his new toy forgotten between him & Allie.

Two Weeks Have Gone . . .

2010-12-22T00:30:00.001-06:00

Today Allie is 11 weeks old & she weighs 19 lbs. At 9 weeks she weighed 16 lbs. I had to loosen her collar this week by about an inch or so. Today I needed to adjust the front of her jacket, as well. This little girl is definitely growing! :) She's making progress in her house-breaking, too. It doesn't happen every time, but she is beginning to go to the door and/or whine when she needs to go out. YEA!!!!

I'd wanted to post photos before of the cards that the preschoolers gave to all the puppies. The lady who has Poppy, Allie's mom, has a preschool. So all 8 puppies spent the first 8 weeks of their lives surrounded by children. On the day we got our puppies, each of us was handed a little packet of cards. Allie has a green collar & her cards were green. :) Each puppy got cards color-coordinated to their collar.

Each card had a different quote on the front. Left to right, here are the quotes.

"Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I'll miss you until we meet again!"

"Farewell, my sister, fare thee well. The elements be kind to thee, and make thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well." - William Shakespeare

"Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Some trails are happy ones, others are blue. It's the way you ride the trail that counts, here's to a happy one for you." - Dale Evans

This card is SO Allie...all the puppies flying through the air & frolicking all over the place. :-

Each card was different and all so sweet.

The first couple of training walks we went on were a learning experience for both her and me. Initially, I found it difficult to keep her attention on me and off of all the leaves, acorns, cigarette butts, & whatever else happened to be on the sidewalks. Squeaky pig, crunchy treats, whistling, "Disney voice" (that's how we refer to speaking in a higher, excited voice to get the puppy's attention) -- nothing was more interesting than the stuff on the ground! Finally I discovered that, while crunchy treats are great at home, it's the super-smelly, chewy treats that help capture her attention while she's working. Once I made that discovery, training walks are better. Sometimes I have to remind myself that "she's just a puppy". I tend to want to see more progress, sooner, than is realistic.

Is the girl all work and no play? ARE YOU KIDDING??!! Ha ha ha! I think she's really more play than work at this point, but we'll get there. She's so much fun to watch when she's running at break-neck speed in the house or yard. When that's happening, Allie is the epitome of "joyful exuberance". You can just see her smiling. She's a little smarty-pants sometimes. It didn't take her long to figure out what is off-limits for her. When she gets hold of something that's not hers to play with, she dashes away from me, no doubt laughing inside, turning to look behind as if to see if I am giving chase. I'm still trying to figure out how to fence in the Christmas tree so I don't have to battle her the rest of the season. If you have any ideas, be sure to post them in the comments! :-D

Another of her funny quirks is how expressive she can be when she whines. This almost always occurs when she's in her crate & doesn't want to be there. Sometime maybe I can record it & post it on here. It's just too funny. I would love to know what she's thinking. Occasionally, I'm pretty sure she's completely put out with me from the sounds she makes. She'll flop down in her crate and heave a HUGE sigh or sometimes just huffs it out.

I've included a few fun pictures of Allie when she's playing in the yard. I think she has something in her mouth in every picture -- a bone, pecan, piece of wood, whatever. She always has something in her mouth!

I took this one from a distance away. She was in such a perfect pose.