Pool Safety!

 Today we had a great pool safety meeting at second in command Stephanie's house.  AC Carolyn was on vacation so Stephanie hosted and ran the meeting, starting with a rundown of all the news that we needed to be updated on.

Stephanie and yellow lab Coastie. Stephanie is sitting in a chair and Coastie is lying on the ground next to her.

 We were a little concerned that the rain might be an unwelcome guest, but it only sprinkled a bit and actually provided for some nice overcast clouds and a cool breeze.

Puppy raisers from left to right Lois, Fred, Susan and Brian.  Lois has Babe on her left, Fred has Coach on his right, Susan is sitting next to Brian and puppy Liz is sitting on Brian's right.

 We all sat in a big circle on the deck out back and listened to the news.  Our next meeting will be broken into two spots: Up north in Palm Harbor with Sylvia and here in Clearwater at the white cane day with Cheryl on Oct. 6th.  Stephanie and Carolyn will be at the AC training day.

Sue and Katie and Bev and Tabina smile for the camera.  Katie is sitting between Sue's legs and Tabina is lying on the floor under Bev's chair.

Lois and Babe.  Babe is in the process of lying down on Lois's left. Lois is smiling and looking left.

Stephanie goes over the list of things we need to know.

Fred leans down to pat Coach's shoulders.

Susan is smiling as Brian gives Liz a hug.

We did have a visitor to our meeting, a guide dog user: Debbie and her guide dog Luke.  She got Luke, who is her first guide dog in May and will be speaking with us at our Nov. meeting.

Visitor Debbie and her guide dog Luke

Gail is staring at the pool waiting to jump in as Michele listens to the meeting.

We also heard some sad news from Bev about Tabina.  Seems Tabina has been diagnosed with bi-lateral hip dysplasia.  The final word and decision will come probably next week, but in all likelyhood she will be career-changed.

Bev gives Tabina a little kiss.

Bev places a kiss on top of Tabina's head.

 Tabina and Coach were the youngsters of the group, but starting today, Nancy will be picking up Ava.  Karen and Bob will be getting Liberty soon as well.  So Coach will just be one of the gang now!

Close-up of Coach looking back at the camera.

Stephanie announced that there was a closed Facebook users group for Southeastern puppy raisers that was run by Jen Gerrity, the trainer.  If you search on southeastern puppy raisers, you should be able to find it.  Just request access.  If you have any questions, let Stephanie know.

Michele and Gail.

 After the announcements, we did some obedience work and Stephanie showed us the turn command again.

The obedience circle.

 Then we did pool safety.  The object was to slowly introduce your dog to the pool, make sure they knew where the steps were and also that they didn't just jump into the pool. They need to only go in the pool when they are given permission to do so.  Jumping in on their own is not permitted.  So, if your puppy is currently doing that, you need to stop them and work on having them enter the pool on command.  It is a dangerous distraction if a guide dog jumps into bodies of water on their own.

Coach is on the edge of the pool steps, but won't get in on his own.

Brian and Liz show the group how swimming is really done.

Liz shakes off the water!

Finally, Gail gets to swim in the water and swims to Michele.

Everyone watches the experts in the pool.

Guide dog Luke wants to go in!

Gail and Luke, swimming and playing in the pool.

Stephanie helped Luke get his pool safety lessons.

Gail and Luke running loose after getting out of the pool.

Debbie and a very wet Luke!

Coastie and Tabina have a moment to play together.

Countryside Mall

Today we had a great hunt and seek game at the Countryside Mall, but before that happened, AC Carolyn gave us some awesome news!

AC Carolyn standing and going over some items on her list.  Second in command Stephanie is sitting next to her.

Puppy raiser Stephanie, who has Coastie, had volunteered to be the official second in command for the group for Carolyn!  Stephanie has already shown some amazing leadership qualities by her skillful handling of the City of Clearwater and the resulting sponsorship of her puppy Coastie. So having her as the second in command will be fabulous and a great thing for our group!

The group is listening to AC Carolyn. (Sylvia, Michele, Sue, Roger and Carey, in back)

We had a pretty full meeting today from brand new puppies to ready to go back to Guide Dog U.

AC Carolyn is explaining the AKC canine good citizen obedience test. On the opposite side you can see Karen, Bev, and Bob.

Carolyn had us line up so that we could try out some of the AKC's Canine Good Citizenship tests.

Getting in a line to do some of the tests from the AKC canine good citizen test. (Fred and Jam, Sue and Bibi, Bev and Sunny and Karen and Babe)

The first test was to have a person come up and greet you, shake your hand, have a short conversation.  Steve, Carolyn's husband, was going to be handing out our Mall event finder pages and serving as our nice person greeter.

Blake and yellow lab puppy Tabina. Tabina was the star of the Mall and everyone wanted some puppy kisses. 

Blake and puppy Tabina were the first to go.  Tabina was amazing, especially for a little puppy.

Steve greets Blake while Tabina sits calmly by her side.

Blake, as her puppy raiser, did a great job!  She was calm, cool and collected and it traveled right down the leash to keep Tabina calm as well.

Steve greets Stephanie will Coastie lies down calmly at her side.

Steve went down the line to greet our new second in command, Stephanie, whose puppy Coastie, did a great job.

Steve greets Susan while Liz sits and tries to gets Susan's attention by tugging a bit on the leash.

Then he went over to Susan and Liz, where that team was wonderful as well.

Steve greets Carey while Bobby starts to get up.

When he got to Carey and puppy Bobby, Bobby got up a little bit, but nothing Carey couldn't handle.

Steve greets Fred while Jam is looking the other way. (Ha! Super lucky for us!)

Steve went down to Fred and Jam and Jam just happened to be looking the other way.  So, they completely passed the test.

Tabina gets an ear massage from Cheryl

The next task was to do an ear massage and a paw massage.

Tabina gets a foot massage from Cheryl.

Blake and Tabina did a great job.

Liz gets an ear massage from Cheryl.

Liz was very patient while I massaged her ears.

AC Carolyn gives Jam an ear massage.

Even Jam was a good boy while AC Carolyn gave him an ear massage.  Then we were released to find certain items in the mall such as headless dummies, lifesize statues, which I captured some of in a video at the end of this post.

Babe, a yellow lab being puppy sat by Karen, gives her a big kiss from a proper sit. 

After we had done most or all of the tasks set out for us, we headed back to talk about it.  Then there was a little puppy loving.  But before we get to the puppy loving, here is a short video of some of our tasks:

Bob finally gives in and gets some Tabina puppy time.

Karen follows Bob for some Tabina puppy loving.

And some of the puppies were able to just relax, like Gail who was outside the circle of acceptance at the beginning of the meeting, but calmed down after mallwalking for the whole meeting.

Roger and puppy Gail. Gail is in a down at his feet during a quiet moment.

Ending on a good note! Go Gail and Roger!!!

Celebration Station

Thursday, a rainy, rainy night, we all trooped out to Celebration station, to participate in our monthly meeting.  Carolyn, in addition to having some great noise (apart from the thunderstorm) distraction games for us to play had a lot of news to pass on like the very cool puppy raiser training conference that was coming up in June.  Many in our group were going to be participate in it.
 

Roger is holding Sunny, a yellow lab, who is sitting and Fred and Jam , who is sitting as well, are on the right.  They flank the doorways of Celebration Station.

Since it was raining so hard, we met under the canopy, so everyone going to Celebration Station walked a puppy gauntlet.  It was a very cute puppy gauntlet and we even had a crowd at the windows who just stood eating their ice creams and watching us go through our obedience exercises.  Carolyn is so crazy good about obedience exercises, she draws a crowd! 8-)

Stephanie and yellow lab Coastie come up the path.

Fred and Jam, Brian and black lab Liz, Lois and yellow lab Babe, and Stephanie and Coastie are waiting for Carolyn and her hat.

Carolyn tried to get Liz to react to the sombrero.

Soon, Carolyn put on her sombrero and walked around to each puppy to see if they would react to the hat.  Reacting to hats, sunglasses, earphones, etc., is one of the tests that a puppy will have to go through once they go in for training.  So wearing a hat or doing an exercise like this one is useful to get your puppy used to strange things happening.

I think Jam is laughing at the sombrero. (Jam is in a sit on the left of Fred looking up at Carolyn.)

I think Jam found the hat amusing.  Carolyn told us that she had four sombreros.  Then she had to tell us why.

Shadow, a very sturdy black lab, thinks the sombrero smells like tacos.

Every puppy was pretty even tempered when it came to the hats.

Babe, a yellow lab, wants to know why Carolyn has four sombreros. "Why, Carolyn?"

The only exception was one of the puppy raisers, who will remain nameless, who said near the end of the exercise, "Oh, your wearing the hat for the exercise?!" That was pretty funny!

Carolyn surrounded by puppies staring at her huge hat.

In addition to the hat distraction, we worked on noise distractions.  I took a little bit of film on it.

Since Jam was still limping, when everyone went inside and upstairs, we went home.  But inside was a wealth of loud games, pinball machines, all sorts of noises and things to distract and give a good exposure to your pet.  It also includes lots of children.  So be prepared for the public and to be stopped and asked to have your dog pet or if your dog is over 10 months, be prepared to say no in a polite way and explain the rules.  You can always have them follow you outside where you can take off the coat.  If you want and if your puppy is calm.