Coach Visits the Coast Guard

Thursday was Coach's first puppy meeting and it took place at the US Coast Guard's Air Station Clearwater.  

We were shown two planes and a helicopter.  The first plane, shown below, had four VERY LOUD engines that were on.

Stephanie and yellow lab Coastie with the large plane with four engines in the background. Coastie is sitting, Stephanie and a member of the Coast Guard is petting Coastie. Photo by Roger Reese.

Even though the hanger that we went to was significantly far away from the plane, the noise from the engines was still really loud.  Tabina and Coach were the only pups who were visibly annoyed with the noise, so we took the little guys out the back of the hanger to a quieter spot where the second airplane was.  It didn't have any engines going.

The second plane was really quite neat as the back of the airplane came down and we got to walk the dogs up the ramp and then through the plane.  When we got to the front of the plane, we had them sit and then proceeded down some steps.

The back end of the plane is down and five Coast Guardsmen wait while Stephanie talks Coastie into stepping up onto the ramp. Photo by Roger Reese.

As you can see the flooring was metallic and there were all sorts of different smells and machinery in the airplane.  The dogs had a blast walking through it.  Coach followed Babe, which was a good thing.  Babe was very confident which built up Coach's confidence so he pranced all through the plane like he owned it.

And then there was the helicopter!

Brian and black lab Liz are checking out the inside of the helicopter.

I ended up picking Coach up and placing him in the bed of the helicopter.  There was a lady Coast Guardsman inside and Coach went over to her and said hello.  He was impressed with the helicopter.

Tabina, a yellow lab, and Coach, a black goldadore, are  the babies of the group.  They are both four months old.  Here they are waiting patiently in the parking lot for the helicopter to taxi away. Photo by Carolyn Hersh.

Afterwards, we all went behind the fence to watch them taxi away to test out their new equipment.  Oh, did I mention the film crew?  The entire meeting was filmed by a reality TV film crew.  There was a video guy, a sound guy, another gal who just seemed in charge of things, and another guy who had a smaller video/digital camera. 

Shot of the film crew shooting the puppy raisers and pups watching the helicopter. Photo by Carolyn Hersh.

They were filming Coast Guard: Florida (evidently, Coast Guard: Alaska was a big hit!) and our meeting seemed interesting enough to be part of the show.  We'll see if we make it to the small screen. 8-)

Shot of the sound guy shooting the puppy raisers and pups watching the helicopter. Photo by Carolyn Hersh. 

Because Coach and Tabina were the smallest puppies there, they did get a lot of video time. So, perhaps, they will get on the show.  They were looking mighty cute.

Photo of Coach lying on the asphalt, chilling.

In the end, though, Coach didn't seem fazed by the film crew or the photographers.  He didn't seem too freaked out by the planes or the helicopters.  He didn't go crazy with all the other dogs nearby.  He was his calm, serene, self.

This is going to be a change.