Being Flexible

Our meeting last Thursday was one of those meetings where Murphy's law was in attendance.  If something was going to go wrong, it did.  

For instance, we had a wonderful meeting planned at the Clearwater Ice Arena, but unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, that didn't work out.

Bill is our assistant AC and they were
puppy camping Liberty, a yellow lab.

 However, because we have an amazing AC and two amazing assistant ACs, we were able to figure out some alternatives in about 5 minutes flat.

So, Stephanie had us move down the road to the hotel parking lot where we proceeded to follow Bill's instruction for some obedience drills.

Stephanie was puppy camping Petey.

Megan's daughter came in costume, which was a great distraction. One of our puppies was very taken aback by it. She eventually got over it.  (I wonder what costume she will have next meeting? 8-)

Megan and her daughter, who came in a lizard costume.

We practiced the come command.  As we had three sets of prospective puppy raisers with us, we had them handling our puppies with some instructions from our puppy raisers.

Megan has Liberty.

Nancy has Petey.

Sami, a new prospective puppy raiser, practices the come command with Ava,
who is leaping back to her as Blair watches.

 After we all practiced for a while, we were able to do several different exposures in the hotel.  One exposure that we didn't expect was POPCORN.  It was EVERYWHERE.

There was a glass walkway.

There was an open stairway that Treasure and her raisers walked her down.

You could choose to walk up the stairway and take the elevator down or vice versa.  Commands used: find the elevator, forward up, forward down, sit, no (for the popcorn).  There was also a door to the pool where the switch command needed to be used.

Here's the whole group after the exposures! Nice work.

Meeting at the Sheraton

Today we had our meeting at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort where Susan works.  It was a lovely meeting with lots of fun exposures!  We started off the meeting with some Q&A from the newly revised puppy manual.  

Carolyn and Coach with his coat off about to demonstrate the over the head puppy coat move.

Carolyn is trying to buckle Coach's coat and Coach is looking out from under her arm.

Then AC Carolyn talked about how important it was to start putting on the puppy coat over your puppy's head instead of relying on the velcro.  It gets them used to having a harness go over their head. I know some puppy raisers even sew their velcro together because they have some big boys and they keep bursting out of their coats!

Some prospective puppy raisers and some experienced raisers wait for the meeting to start.

Bob gets a smooch from Liberty.

Lois and Barbara talk while Charity sits and ignores them like a good puppy should. 

Everything stopped when new puppy Cochise arrived! He's only 13 weeks old.

Newspaper stars Stephanie and Coastie sit calmly during the meeting.

Carolyn introduces Cochise to our group with Mrs. Woodman and her son next to her.

 After we did some command refreshers and the puppy news, we did some obedience.

Puppy Ava, raiser and host Susan, raiser Bob and puppy Liberty wait for instructions.

 At the back of the circle was the group of puppies: Andros, Thunder, Lightning and Cochise.  They made for a cute little puppy obedience line.

Cochise, Thunder and Andros are all practicing their down stays.

Prospective raisers Jalika and John try giving Coastie some obedience commands.  They are next prospective raisers Paul and Gail.

Brian and Fred practice the down stay with Liz and Coach.  Then they give the Come command, which the puppies did perfectly!

 Once we finished with the obedience, we went inside the Sheraton for some elevator and stair exposures.

Andros did great sitting before and after getting in the elevator.  Here he is sitting on his way out.

Andros was a trooper.  And so were the people in our elevator!  They were so nice and patient.

Here is Andros doing a great sit after getting out of the elevator.  Mom and Dad are looking very proud!

Cochise is contemplating the stairs.

After the inside exposures, we took everyone outside for some sun and sand exposures.  You know, there are some pups that get the zoomies when they see sand.  Bingo always thought sand was ice cream he could eat.

Close up of Thunder with a big sandy nose.

Close up of Ava with a big sandy muzzle.

Pretty princess Charity didn't get sand on her face!

Pretty princess Liberty didn't get sand on her face either!

Mom Karen and Liberty on the beach.

All in all it was a great morning!  Thanks so much to Susan for arranging a wonderful meeting with so many great exposures!!