PUPPIES VISIT LONG CENTER

Stephanie talks with her friend and her guide

Thunder sat while the kids asked questions

A great time for socialization

Karen & Barbara talk about the duties of puppy raising Thunder & Lightening

Stephanie demonstrates some training techniques,well maybe not!

Stephanie and Coasty

Barbara and Thunder mingle with guests

Justice Gives Birth to Six Puppies!

Justice, Bob and Karen's breeder girl and one of our former guide dog puppies in training, just gave birth to an entire yellow litter of six puppies. (All photos were taken by Bob and Karen.)

Justice is sitting up with all six puppies nuzzling at her and she has a smile on her face.

Mom and puppies are doing great!

Justice is feeding five of her six puppies.  One is lost asleep in the foreground aqua blanket.

As you can see from Karen's face in the photo, she is very proud of her very tired little Justice!

Justice closes her eyes in the sun and takes a little nap sitting by a very proud Karen.

Good work Princess!  With your great personality, these pups are sure to make great guide dogs!

Justice turns her smile on the vet crew.

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!!

Essie Becomes a Mom!!

On Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013 Susan and Brian's breeder dog Essie gave birth to 8 puppies (6 boys and 2 girls) by Cesarean section.  All the puppies are black.

Photo of the 8 black lab puppies that Essie birthed.

 The puppies were delivered by C-section due to the heart rate of a couple of the pups, however, all are fine!

Another shot of the puppies in their crate.

 Mom and pups are doing great.  Essie is nursing them all and being a great mom.

Mom Essie nursing her puppies.

Congratulations Essie, Brian and Susan.  We can't wait to hear who is getting those amazing pups!

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.

Gail's Forever Home

Over the Christmas holidays Roger and Michele's puppy Gail was adopted by a family in St. Pete.  The family also has a retired breeder dog, Boomer.  Although Gail's calling is to be a family dog and not a guide dog, her job will still be very important.  Her main handler will be their son Andrew.

Andrew has been asking to get a dog of his own for a long time.  He met a few dogs but knew Gail was the one right away.  He just loved her personality.  He kept saying to his mom, “I want Gail.”  

Andrew, who has a huge smile, is sitting on a sofa with his arms around Gail.  Gail is sitting on the floor between his legs and has a smile on her face.  Boomer, a black lab, is sitting off to the right.

Andrew is on the swim team at his high school and plans to take Gail swimming with him when it warms up.  He hopes she likes swimming as much as he does.   Until it warms up, Gail has a big back yard to play in with Boomer, Andrew, and the rest of the family.  She left with her tail wagging and a Golden smile on her face.

She has a sweet smile on her face in the photo above as well.

Shadow Gets Matched and Cochise Starts His Journey

Our North Pinellas group has had several of our puppies go in for training.  Sunny and Jam have been there since July.  Katy just went in a couple of weeks ago.  As puppy raisers, we wait eagerly to hear back about them worried that they are doing well, making the grade and performing as expected.  We want them to be the best that they can be.  Sometimes that means being a guide dog and sometimes that means going on to another career.

Happily, for the Woodman family, they got the call that Shadow had been matched with a visually impaired partner and that they would be going to graduation to see dog and partner perform as a team. Now, I will turn the story over to Susan Woodman:


Shadow was matched with Luciana Belfiglio of Bradenton.  Shadow is her 2nd guide dog from Southeastern.  He will be living with her retired guide dog Beamer,  a puggle named Lucky and  Mickey the cat.  I was so happy to hear she had other animals, because he was used to a house full with us.  As for  Lu, if I could have hand picked someone she would have be it.  You were right about bringing tissues: we used all I brought and then some.  Lu's vision loss is not obvious at first.  She is legally blind from retinitis pigmentosa.  She has no peripheral or night vision.

 After experiencing life with a guide dog she was able to navigate without accidentally running into people and things.  It has given her more independence.

 As I watched Shadow do his walk with Lu I felt as if I were watching one of my sons graduate from college, except this one wasn't wearing a cap and gown, he was wearing a harness. We are so proud of him!!

 A couple of weeks later, the Woodman's started the guide dog journey again by picking up puppy Cochise.  

They contend that the Southeastern has upped their puppy training game and Cochise is a super smartie able to do things no other puppy can.

Hmmmm.  He does have the blue cape on.