Picking Up Bingo at SEGD -- Day 1

Today we went down to the Southeastern Guide
Dogs for the Blind to pick up our puppy to raise.
We didn't know his name, only that he was a black lab male of the Meg litter and was 9 weeks old.

We got there about 1:30, as requested the afternoon being better as the puppies are more tired by the puppy play time in the morning from 9-11 am. We did not have a good night's sleep as we were really nervous and I kept waking up and worring about whether we would be good enough parents for the puppy, whether we would be able to follow all the rules, you know, just general insane worrying stuff!


When we got there, we went straight to the puppy place and met Pete. He showed us our puppy and told us that his name was Bingo and that he had delivered him. This is a photo of our first look at him in the kennel. The next photo is of me and Melinda with me holding Bingo for the first time. He weighed 18.9 lbs at 9 weeks old! We had to go to the administration building to sign all the papers and find out the particulars about him, get his tags, medicines, etc.

We found out that his sponsor named him Bingo (his full name is Bingo Harry) after his friend and co chairman who runs the "fun bingo on Tuesday morning and regular bingo on Wednesday evening. He devised a game called "walking the dog" where the bingo card looks like a man walking a dog. It's very cute. I'll scan it in and post it later.

Bingo rode on the floorboard with me and slept most of the way.

Bingo got to experience stairs for the first time as well. He did great. He is a pro at the back stairs. Of course, we have two larger sets of stairs inside the house that we will leave for when he is a bit bigger!

We have been frantically consulting the puppy raiser manual even though we have read it twice already. We are now trying to keep Bingo awake because the manual says to keep him up until 10 or 11 pm if you can. He has been sleepy since 5 pm. We keep waking him up and you feel just awful! Wake up little puppy. He snores! Really loud. But we do want him sleeping in the crate and not running around playing tonight. So we will try to keep him up.

He has been a great dog so far. We've caught him when he was sniffing and he hasn't had an accident. He's gone outside every time like he should. He's adjusted really well to the collar and leash. He seems to be getting his name down pretty well. He seems to adore our dog Willow. Willow is still not sure she really likes him. But he is very sweet to her. He isn't mouthy. He just smells her. he doesn't bite or annoy her. She doesn't snap or be mean to him. I think in a couple of days they will be pretty good friends.

He is an adorable boy.