Threshers Baseball Game!

Last night our Southeastern Guide Dog Central Pinellas puppy raiser group joined the North Pinellas group for a joint meeting at the Thresher's stadium to watch a baseball game.  

Long shot of a bunch of green puppy raiser shirts gathered
at the front steps leading up to the stadium.

 We gathered in front of the steps leading up to the stadium to get our tickets and our list of exposures.  See, this wasn't just a fun baseball game: this was work!  Our puppies were going to have to accomplish some very specific goals.

Nancy and Blair with Ava, their black lab.

Steve and his goldadore Carly stands next to Fred with our black goldadore Coach.
Both dogs are in coat. Carly is lying down, Coach is standing.

Phinley, the Thresher's shark, rode by on the scooter and paid
a visit to Cochise, who was being handled by Michele.

Once we got our list, it was go to work!  We had at least 5 or 6 things we needed to do:

Sign for the men's restroom.

One of the places we needed to visit was the men's restroom.  Large stadium restrooms are great exposures for the puppies.  They are very different from your home bathrooms.  Think about it.  Would you let your dog lie down on the stadium bathroom floor?  What is a blind person going to do when they walk in with their guide dog and they need to use the bathroom?  How are they going to keep their dog standing?

The sign for the ladies restroom.

There is a stand command that can be used, but if your pup starts to sit, merely put your hand under his belly to get him back into a stand if you find that the hot dog, caramel corn, and three beers that you just consumed might cause you to be in the bathroom for longer than you thought.

Blair, Bob and Fred working their way down the list of exposures.

 In addition to restrooms, we had to visit the children's play area and Frenchy's which can be very crowded and noisy.

AC Stephanie and Asst. AC Lois.

 One of the other things that was important for us to do was to take our pups down a row of seats.  It was important that the row below us had people in it.  The goal was NOT to have your pup stick his nose into someone's ear or plate of food!

One of the yellow goldadores in coat.

Then there was the concession stop.  Make sure your pup doesn't jump up on the counter!  Check!

After the concession stand exposure, which Coach passed
with flying colors!, we stopped to eat and chat.

Thankfully, it was two for one drinks night, so we all got two for one....WATER! haha.  You were thinking something else, weren't you? 8-)  It was HOT!

Julie and Brian with Treasure, a black lab. who is in coat.

 We had a couple of new prospective raisers with us, so we spent some time with them.  I think we hooked them. 8-)

AC Carolyn and her husband Steve.

And it was nice to be with our old AC and see our friends in the North group!  In too short of a time it was time to go.

After a long evening, puppies and raisers start to leave the stadium.

 A successful time was had by all.

Wait, what was the score?

Largo Park Meeting: 1st Meeting with AC Stephanie!

Today was the first official meeting of the newly formed Central Pinellas Puppy Raiser group under the new leadership of Area Coordinator Stephanie, with Assistant ACs Lois and Bill.

AC Stephanie is smiling and ready to welcome everyone to Largo Park.
She has two leather guide dog harnesses in her hands for the older dogs to try on.

As we waited for the much smaller group to arrive, we chatted and let the dogs settle down.

Charity, Lois and Bill's puppy, looks directly into the camera.

Brian says hello to puppy Treasure.

 After everyone had arrived, we moved to another area for obedience.

Brian H. gives his puppy Treasure the sit command, and she pays rapt attention to him.

 Largo Park has some great exposures.  One in particular is a giant German Shepard.  Most of the dogs went right up to it without a problem.  Charity, however, did at first have a little problem, but since Bill and Lois are old hands at this (Charity is their 11th dog), it was extremely useful for the rest of the group to watch how they handled the situation.

 Charity barked and backed away.  Both Lois and Bill didn't coddle her, but instead got her to walk up to the statue at her own pace, taking small steps forward, with praise when she would go forward.

At first Charity barked at the statue and backed away.
The photo shows Lois standing firm and Charity backing away.

Lois was able to get Charity up to the statue and she covered the statue's eyes, as sometimes, it is the eyes (or lack thereof) that freak dogs out.

Charity is up at the statue and is able to sniff the statue's head.

 Then Lois took her all the way around the statue, notice her loose leash and she used praise the whole time.

Lois and Charity are walking around the back of the shepard statue. Charity is looking up at Lois.

 Lois lets Charity sniff and look at the statue all she wants and continues to praise her.

After all this, she walked Charity away and then walked her back up to the statue: no reaction!  Yea, Charity!!  Good girl!

It's important to remember that when your puppy sees something that startles them, let them approach it slowly, give lots of praise, and then return to the item again.  Perhaps next week, go back and try it again.  Or find another similar object and try it.

Photo of Debbie with guide dog Luke leaning against her .
Katie and Bo are behind her.  Katie is smiling

We had some special guests at our meeting: Debbie and Luke and Debbie's husband, and Katie and Bo and Katie's boyfriend.  They were all able to provide a valuable perspective to the conversation we had and it was great fun to have them with us!

Close up of Luke as Debbie presses his head into her thigh.

 Charity will be going in for training in August and she was able to try on the harness as well.

Charity with her harness on!

Bill is holding Charity's leash as she walks with the harness on.

 She had no problems walking in harness.

Coach walks by some statues of children and has no problems.

Another exposure: flags flapping. We are all standing in the memorial courtyard with 6 flagpoles.

 All of the puppies were very at ease with the flags flapping on the flagpoles, and it was a very windy day.

Ava managed her harness with ease.

One of our prospective puppy raiser families has very small children, so our puppies got to experience interactions with infants and small children today as well.

Puppy Pauline, Emma and raiser Melissa.

It got a bit hot, but we had plenty of water for Coach and Ava to share a drink.

Max and Emma continued to love on Pauline.

In For Training and A New Start for Puppy Central

Today is a culminating day for puppy raisers.  It is one of the days they call IFT, which stands for In For Training.  That means that certain puppy raisers got a letter about a month, month and half ago that told them to prepare to bring the puppy they had been raising for the last 12-15 months, back to Southeastern Guide Dogs so that they could begin their final phase of their journey to becoming a guide dog: Guide Dog University.  

Now they would be matched with a certified trainer and begin formal harness training.  They would be taken out into the field and trained, tested and trained and tested again and again.  But first, the puppy raiser has to give his or her puppy up.  After all, it's in the job description.  It's what we do.

Stephanie has been raising Coastie for a little over 15 months.  The City of Clearwater sponsored Coastie and Stephanie and the handsome yellow boy have been fixtures at City events over the last year.  They even had a farewell party for him this week to wish him luck in his studies at Guide Dog U. 

Photo of puppy raiser Stephanie and Coastie.  Photo by Southeastern Guide Dogs.  To see more about this event go to the album Guide Dog University.

Stephanie is also taking on a new role with our group.  While she has been an excellent puppy raiser, as the amazing Coastie is living proof, her next role with Southeastern will be as Area Coordinator for our Central Pinellas group, since our group split in two as of June 1st.

Photo of the Central's Area Coordinator Stephanie saying goodbye one last time to Coastie.  Photo by Southeastern Guide Dogs.  To see more about this event go to the album Guide Dog University.

Just as we know that Coastie will be giving it his all as a guide dog in training at Guide Dog U and making us all proud, we also know that Stephanie will be an amazing AC.  As hard as it is to send your puppy back, Stephanie, know that we are all there for you, wishing you the best and here to help you on your new journey.

Please Welcome Our New Pups!

We have three new pups in our group: Barker, Treasure and Colonel.  Here is the scoop on them:

Born on January 26, 2013, Barker is a male, black lab.  He is being raised by Jalika and Johnny. While being named Barker, Barker doesn't seem to be unnecessarily noisy!  Let's hope it stays that way. 8-)

Barker on the floor looking very cute.

Our next pup is being raised by Woody and was born on January 17, 2013.  He is also a black lab and was actually named after the Kentucky Fried Chicken creator, Colonel Sanders.  His name is Colonel.  It seems the sponsors' dad really loved KFC chicken, so they named the puppy Colonel.  Colonel is very mellow and spends a great deal of time sleeping (from what I noticed at the puppy conference).

Colonel curled up doing what he does best: sleep.

Brian and Julie have the third new puppy: Treasure.  She is our only girl and was born on Feb. 2, 2013.  She also is a black lab.  Their daughter Ellen will be helping to raise her.  Brian said that Treasure is something special.  "More valuable than gold or silver!"

Treasure trying to escape from "Doga" at the puppy raiser conference.

Treasure fast asleep under the table at the puppy raiser conference.

Please welcome our new puppies!!

Now, I realize that last night we received an announcement about the formation of a fourth group: the Central Pinellas group.  Until June, these new puppies are in our group.  After June, I will do a post on whatever group I will be blogging for.  

Until then, we will continue as always: for the puppies!

Sue's Katy Finds a Forever Home!

Photo of the various stages of Katy:
6 week puppy portrait, harness portrait and a March 2013 portrait. 

Puppy raiser Sue's golden Katy has found a home!  We just received the official adoption story from Southeastern Guide Dogs the other day and are able to pass it on to everyone.  Here it is:

"Katy’s adorable smile and willingness to please made her a fast friend of anyone she met. A golden fluff of sunshine that wanted nothing more than to bury her head in a lap, Katy was a natural companion. When Katy’s hips showed a mild structural problem, her trainers were disappointed that she wouldn’t be sound enough for guide work.

Katy had aptitude for many alternative lines of work, but when Katy met Rosemary, there was a special spark. It was more like a reunion than a meeting! Call it serendipitous, but Rosemary had lost her beloved Golden Retriever, Lady, in November of 2011… the same month Katy was born! “I’m still grieving,”
Rosemary said, “but this dog makes me feel happy again.” Rosemary cried happy tears while Katy uncharacteristically whined and squealed in delight as they played. We knew right away that Katy had found her forever home. Katy will join Rosemary, her family, and Rosemary’s Pomeranian mix, Molly, in Sarasota. We anticipate great reports and many more happy stories."

Photo of Rosemary gazing down at Katy who is sitting pretty at the Southeastern rock.

Please join us in congratulating Katy, Rosemary and Sue!!

Puppy Meeting at the Girl Scouts

Photos by Barbara.  Text by Cheryl.

Last Thursday we had our puppy meeting during one of Troop 973's meeting in Old Harbor Bay.  It was quite a gathering.

These pups are training to help someone who can't see

Carolyn got us started off by telling the girls exactly what the job of a puppy raiser is.

Kudzu,  SIT!

For a while her puppy Carly listened. Then her puppy decided to take a break!  The girls thought that was too funny and it was a nice teachable moment for Carolyn to show what to do when your puppy gets the sillies.



Close your eyes and imagine what it would mean to you, if you couldn't see

As you can see from this photo, Carolyn ended up handing off her pup to Susan. After the talk we all broke up into groups of two (there were 9 pups and 18 girls). The girls were going to rotate around and meet as many pups as they could.

Karen has Liberty in a sit while two girl scouts
are sitting nearby to pet her.

Here is Liberty and Karen with two girl scouts.

Some of us did some obedience and had the girls watch that before we broke into petting.  

Lois and Bill have Charity doing some down stays for the girls.

Brian, Susan and Liz are standing with two of their girl scouts.

Black lab Andros  has two fans!

Coastie sitting beside two girl scout fans

There was something that happened that was kind of cute.  Some of us brought business cards for our puppies.  We got them for the walkathon.  Coach has his own for the blog.  Well, the girl scouts thought those cards were AMAZING!  They wanted one for each dog.  It became THE collectable.  It was really cute.

Karen and Lightning with Bob and Carly in the background.

After we met with the girl scouts, we showed them how to play puppy tic tac toe. It proved to be an interesting game as Coastie and Coach  are 13 and 11 months old, respectively, and not fixed and we have a couple of young lady pups who are nearing their "red tent" time! 

One of the black team pups does a down stay in his corner.  This might be Coach.

Jerry holds Thunder's leash as Liberty watches for Karen who is out of sight of the camera.

Stephanie is giving Coastie a stay command.  There are two black labs in their squares.  The girl scouts are watching.

Karen stands in Lightning's square.  There is a yellow pup behind her and a black pup in front of her.

An almost full board is achieved! 

In the end, it turned out to be a draw!  Those smart girl scouts. 8-)

We took some group shots and then the girls scouts did a really neat thing:

The girl scouts did their evening meeting end thing where they pass along a squeeze and a prayer. They were in a circle around us.

What was so cool, I thought, was that all the girls and their troop leaders circled us and the pups and then they did their closing ceremony.  They crossed arms, passed on a squeeze and a prayer for all the puppies to be successful and become guide dogs.  It was all very sweet.