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!!

Puppies and Boy Scouts

 On Tuesday we had our monthly meeting at the Heritage United Methodist Church where the Boy Scouts hold their meeting.

The group waiting in the foyer.

Michele first explained about Southeastern Guide Dogs, their mission and what puppy raisers do.  

Then as everyone was still waiting patiently in the hallway, she talked about the puppies.  She, of course, had Andros, the newest (youngest) and cutest puppy of the group.

Coach watched as Liz got her coat on.

Liz is still not super excited about this boy scout thing.  I think she is missing Essie, who just gave birth to 8 puppies!  All black, 6 male, 2 female.

 

Liz lies on the floor, her raisers Brian and Susan look on.

 Then it was show time.

Coach, a black lab; Liberty, a yellow lab; Andros, being held and a black lab;  Coastie, a yellow lab;  their raisers and Charity's raiser Lois stand in front of the boy scouts.

We brought our puppies out in front of the group and there was a short Q and A.  The kids had to guess who sponsored Lightening and Thunder.

A shot of the boys waiting patiently to be matched with their puppy group.

Another shot of chaos as boys leap up to get into one puppy group as the puppy's name is announced!

Now, I didn't shots of individual group shots (Barbara, if you want to send me some!), as I had Coach and it wouldn't be fair to just use shots of Coach's group.  But suffice it to say that when I looked around the room, fun was being had! Boy scouts were happy!  Puppies were being given an experience of a lifetime.

Tabina's New Forever Home!Tab

Today, Tabina (9CPD12), was adopted by her new forever family!  They live in Bradenton.  Tabina will have three kids, ages 12, 8, and 3 and a 10-year-old yellow lab, who just so happens to be named Taby, to play with every day.   So, she will always have someone to keep her company.

Tabina reaches up to plant a kiss on her new mom's face.  Jaclyn is in between them.

It was love at first sight for the her forever family when they met Tabina.  Jaclyn, age 3, said, “Mom, she is the cutest puppy I have ever seen.”  Her mom agreed.  Jaclyn is home with her mom during the day and plans to spend lots of time with Tabina.  Until her brother and sister get home from school and take over, of course.  They are all already arguing over who Tabina is going to like more.  We think she is going to love them all the same.  She is full of both love and energy.

Her new family is also full of energy and is a very active family.  The kids will keep Tabina very busy.  She has lots of playtime and new friends to make in her future.  Their neighborhood is full of both kids and other dogs and Tabina loves being around both.  We all think she is going to be very happy with her new forever family.

Tabina and Jaclyn get to know each other. Tabina is on the back car seat sniffing an animal Jaclyn has.

Thank you to Bev and Blake for taking such good care in raising her!

Of Fires and Puppies

Our puppy raiser meeting was to be a scavenger hunt at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Sports Authority.  We were going to do some obedience outside and then inside for the fun. (although, true to my competitive nature, I was interested in completing my form first! 8-)

Little Ava, a black lab puppy, create quite a stir with her big belly. Here she is with raiser Nancy showing off her cute pink belly.

 We all fell in love with Ava, a dark beauty and I am always reminded of Ava Gardner when I hear her name, although Ava Gardner didn't have a pot belly that gently swayed to and fro when she walked.

Golden Gail made the meeting and was calm as she was being greeted by Steve.

 Golden Gail was at the meeting and she was fully recovered from her surgery.  She had a cyst removed from the top of her head and wasn't wearing the cone of shame anymore.  Coastie and Coach were with their raisers and Gail's raiser Roger were waiting in the parking lot for things to get started

Hershey, our group's first chocolate puppy, arrived.  Here she is greeting Katie.

 Our AC Carolyn was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Hershey, which her family sponsored.  Hershey is a chocolate lab puppy and is being raised by one of our new puppy raiser families.

Carolyn comes over to say hello to little Hershey.

 Poor Ava got knocked off her cute puppy pedestal in less than 30 minutes! But we all still love you Ava!

Hershey sits and gazes into the distance.

 Then it was off to the obedience races and we were lined up and doing sit stays and down stays with our pups.

The group is lined up against the wall in various stages of doing a stay and return to your dog.

The camera catches Gail in a rare moment of calm sitting by her raiser Roger. (Roger told me to say that!)

 Gail may have been near the edge of the circle of acceptance, but I think she was doing pretty well as the photo above shows (see Roger 8-).  Our obedience continued with some distractions and then we heard an alarm sound.

Carolyn walks by with some paper mache corona bottles for a distraction.

Coastie was interested, but he didn't break his sit!

 After the alarm sounded, we noticed that there were some people streaming out of the Bed, Bath and Beyond store.  Then, we heard what sounded like a siren.

As you can see from the video, the puppies were amazingly good natured about the noise and the sirens.

Carolyn holds Hershey in her arms.

Carolyn took the opportunity to pose with Hershey.  Turns out that there was some kind of fire on the roof and they sent out two fire trucks.

Photo of the ladder truck with firemen going up on the roof.

 It was a great distraction for the dogs: men in fire suits, alarms, sirens, flashing lights, huge fire trucks and ladder trucks.  The dogs were not impressed.

The puppies weren't impressed by the firetrucks.  They were more captivated by each other.

We ended the meeting by doing a short scavenger hunt through Sports Authority.  Coach teamed up with Ava (I think he has a little crush).  Ava had a little accident inside (Nancy, you do NOT need to return the Shamwow! Keep it with my compliments.  Ava may have future need of it. 8-), but we were very quick and efficient and cleaned it up before anyone even knew it was there.

We were going to take a cute photo of Ava in one of the tiny tents, but we didn't realize that they were all up on the shelves for display.  It made the photo a bit difficult.  So we passed on that.

All in all it was a successful evening.

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.