Jam's First Week

What a week it has been! On Monday, Jam rode with me to school to his first day of a school filled with students. It was quite exciting.



As you can see from the photo above, Jam has taken his full water bowl and flipped it over preferring that it be a chew toy. Of course, now, it looks like he had a giant pee on the floor! Great! This is what the morning crazies are about. Jam doing crazy things and me trying to get him calm to start the day.

Because our convocation was at 8 am and he usually has an 8:30 poo, I needed to make sure he had done his business and was extra tired out. The morning crazies can last from 7:30 to 9 am. So we did several sets of stairs and series of left-lefts and right-rights and hallways so that his little brain would be exhausted by the time we hit the auditorium.

Then we started our walk to convo. It was pretty cool the looks that Jam got. What was even more impressive was the way that the middle division students remembered all the rules. As I was walking down the hall, there was a great big group of them and they all caught sight of him at the same time.

"It's the new puppy!"

"You can't look at him!"

"Don't say his name."

"Turn around!"

So they all straighten their posture and turn around. They were so cute. We passed on by and entered the auditorium.



I thought that Jam did an exceptional job of dealing with the crowds, the clapping and the pipe and drum corps band. Both Bingo and Berkeley had some reaction to convo. Bingo would surge forward at clapping and Berkeley would get bored and bark to be taken back to my office. Jam was very calm and quiet.



But by the end of the day he was so tired that he couldn't hold his eyes open. He was comatose!



Later on in the week we did a small photo shot with some middle division faculty for his presentation to middle. Of course, I was a complete dunce and when I went to go up on stage because I started calling him Berkeley:

"Berkeley, forward. Pause. Good boy. Berkeley, sit. Long pause. Good boy. Berkeley forward up."

The kids were aghast! I had no clue I was even doing it and was wondering why he wasn't following directions well. BECAUSE I WASN'T SAYING HIS NAME! The Middle Division Director told when I came up to the microphone. Horrors!

Sigh. In front of 350 people I did this.

Then on Friday, he attended his first class with me. He was awesome! I was running the computer and lecturing when I noticed there was a little current of Ahhhhhs spreading through the room. I looked up at the teacher.

"Jam's watching the screen."

Sure enough, Jam was focused on the screen watching my explanation on how to set up an iGoogle page. He was fascinated by the mouse movement. When the mouse finally got low enough he leaped up and tried to grab it.

The kids loved him!



Here he is at my last class of the day. Calm and quiet.



Christina looked at him from behind and said he had some "junk in the trunk" and perhaps he needed to move up to the big boy coat.

He is a little big in the booty, but the big boy coat is still a couple inches out on his tail, so it's the puppy coat for a few more weeks. Although he is in the middle of a growth spurt, so who knows.

All in all it was a successful week.

Problem Child

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley has a small problem that we are working on: she doesn't like for me or Fred to leave her side when we are out. For me, that is a HUGE problem because I teach research classes so I get up to point things out on the screen. This enormous length of perhaps 5 to 6 feet is apparently so annoying that it has HRH popping up and barking for me "Come back right now!"

You can imagine how that goes over. Usually, it involves a lot of me doing sit, down stays over and over while continuing to lecture with students trying not to laugh at HRH or me. It is quite comical. However at Honors Chemistry class, something different happened. I think it was all because of Simon.

I always have certain students who particularly care for the dogs I raise and Simon loves Berkeley. So he was really happy that we had research day on a Berkeley day and he watched HRH behaving badly with a calm demeanor (Simon is always calm).

"Perhaps Berkeley would be better without her coat on?" He said. I did recognize the longing to pet her behind the request and when I looked up and noticed the stillness of the rest of the class as they realized that I might actually go for it. I thought, I have tried all day everything else, why not try free range puppy?

"OK, Simon." Then I told them they had to be really focused, pay attention to what I was saying, not call her, only pet her when she walked by and she could be visible for the period.

Then I took the coat off. And class continued the same as always.

But every now and then a black dog walked by someone and they reached out and loved her and she slowed down for them. And she did find her way over to Simon, her biggest fan. Here are the Honors Chem boys and HRH.

School Debut

Today Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley makes her debut before the middle division and upper division students. Here is the video (my first really big video project!) I'll be using to introduce her to the students. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to Durga Garcia Photography for the photos of Bingo and his brothers and the final photo of HRH.

HRH Berkeley's First Two Days at School

Her Royal Highness Berkeley is an underfoot dog. She likes to be underfoot as it were. If I am cooking, she will wrap the leash around my ankle and then curl up on my feet as the photo below shows.



At school, this manifests itself in her curling around my chair and then sticking her nose through and resting it either against my foot or on my foot as in the following photo.

Today, she got into a bit of trouble though, under the desk. Jan was watching her while I went to a meeting and HRH went to town on Jan's phone cord.


No phone service for Jan anymore! Fortunately, Fred has extra cords at home. HRH also found some loose siding on the cabinets (Good investigative work! I'm pretty sure this was really already loose. At least that's my story and I'm sticking with it. 8-) Glue repair has already been done.)

What seemed to be slightly timid behavior on Monday morning, got a wee bit better on Wed. morning. And when Eddie and Rob saw us arriving this morning and came running to meet meet her Highness, she immediately sat down.

Good Girl! I have some hope for the school year. Phone cords, aside. 8-)

Bingo’s MUN Tournament

It Begins

The day started off early: 4:30 am. It was supposed to start off at 4:30, bu the the alarm didn’t go off and I woke up at 4:41 and bounced out of bed panicked. I got the dogs downstairs in a flash, fed and watered and then Bingo and I raced to school.

Here we all are waiting for the bus driver to arrive.

Breakfast

Bingo got to experience breakfast at Panera with the kids. Panera was overwhelmed with 29 kids and three adults and a bus driver AND a dog descending upon them for breakfast. But they handled it well. After Panera, we dropped the kids off and headed to B&N to chill until lunch. Here we are chilling.

Lunch

Bingo got to have lunch with the Ellen, a former student and her service dog (a hearing dog). That was an experience. Bingo was not inclined to be calm about Ellen’s dog. He wanted to be excited and play and jump. When we went into the Thai restaurant, I let Tim, Ellen and Michele go first and I took Bingo in last to keep him under control. Tim walked up to the counter where the hostess told him that they didn’t allow dogs in the restaurant. Tim said, “They’re service dogs. It’s the law.” And then asked if we could sit in the other room. It was great. They were fine and took us to the next room where they had a bit more space. I was still feeling a bit uneasy about having the two dogs next to each other all through lunch, but Ellen sat at one side of the table and I sat on the other with Bingo on the outside. I told him to lie down and he did. That was that. No problem. Here we all are, one big happy group.

The Hotel

We stayed at the Radisson, which I have to say, has gone done a bit since last year when we were here (especially the vacuuming, I kept having to take things out of Bingo's mouth. They really need to vacuum the floors of the rooms!). I checked us into the hotel and didn't have an ounce of trouble with the front desk person. Bingo dealt with the marble lobby floors and the elevators just fine. He did great in the huge ladies room with the super noisy toilet.

When the days events were over and we went back to the hotel for the evening Bingo explored the room thoroughly as you can see from the photos. We had some of the boys help us get his crate up to the room and in the morning they helped us get it back down to the bus.

Second Day

At our local area meeting, I was chastized a little bit by Don for doing a weak scold on Bingo when he peed in coat. I was very nervous in front of everyone and my scold voice was very wimpy. So this morning when we were walking the kids to their meeting and Bingo was in coat and he started to hump to poo (his second for the day) I pulled out the super loud SCOLD voice, NO! and grabbed him! then I took the coat off to let him poo. It was 3 hours before he pooed. This must be the only time in history someone has scared the crap back into someone! That's a good thing, right?

Here's a shot of Tim and Bingo relaxing before Bingo got the crap scared into him.

40 Hour Work Week and Halloween Meeting

Bingo went to school EVERYDAY this week because my husband had hernia surgery and wasn't able to pick up anything or walk the dog. Fortunately, my headmaster allowed Bingo to come a couple of extra days (he usually comes on M-W-F) so that Fred could recover at home. That meant that I was in charge of it all. I'm not sure how single parents do it.

It was a tough week and it isn't over yet. This weekend Bingo and I are going to the MUN (that's Model United Nations tournament, for all of you who aren't in the know) tournament at the University of Central Florida tomorrow morning. We leave at 5 am. We will get to experience a HOTEL. OOOOOH. And a university. The kids are really excited about having Bingo on the trip.

In addition to Bingo working a 40 hour work week, he also got up early with me on Tue/Thur and went on a 40 minute walk in the morning with another teacher, Maty, our French teacher who LOVES Bingo. He did great! He walked right by our side. The second walk Bonnie joined us and brought her dog. Bingo was a bit distracted and took a while to calm down. But he finally did. I tell you, getting him to walk in the morning is quite a cure for the morning madness. He was pooped out and very calm all day. 8-)

I lost my camera, with my cool photo of Bingo and Maty on it. I'm very sad about losing the photo. Things you can replace, but the photo, that can't be replaced.

Thursday we had our local area meeting and it was the best one we have had. The obedience part was very good. I learned quite a lot. For one thing, I haven't been changing Bingo over to the other side when we approach a door that opens on his side. No wonder he doesn't want to go through it. So I tried the new way today and he was much happier. Amazing! 8-) Don also pointed out some tips on the right about, the turns and the difference between praise voice, command voice and scold voice. I still need work on scold voice being more forceful. Bingo, was much better at this meeting than he has been at other meetings. He actually paid attention for minutes at a time.

Of course, he still showed his butt, but I'm sure I was the cause of that! 8-) I was really proud of him sitting and paying attention for most of it. Honestly, he is doing much better, but we have a long way to go. After Don's great obedience session, we went into the halloween shop and walked around. I have to say that Bingo isn't afraid of anything. Here is a photo of a witch popping up out of caldron that had some of the dog a bit skittish, but Bingo was fascinated as you can see. Of course, Fred's response was "That's my boy." Men.

The Good, the Bad and the Silly

I'll start with the good. Bingo went to school today. We had a very full day and it started out fairly well. the walk in was not our best. He was very distracted by all the other teachers walking in and was pulling on the leash. I was constantly having to say easy, easy. Katya was very sweet with him on our walk in. We walked in without the coat so that he could do a free walk and get some loving if people wanted to say hello. I'm thinking that come that morning when we arrive at school with all the students it is going to freak him out! He's really not going to know what to do. School is going to be such a major learning experience for him. I just can't imagine a better place for a guide dog puppy to be.

He slept through two meetings this morning, evidently my voice puts him to sleep (I think many students might agree with him! 8-). In the second meeting I was looking around to see if anyone noticed his snoring, but I think I was the only one. I wonder if that would be considered rude? Would going to a meeting with your guide dog puppy and then having your puppy fall asleep and snore be a reflection on me or on the current speaker? And what is the etiquette for a snoring puppy in a meeting? Should I wake him? What if my gentle nudge brings on a loud snort? Wouldn't that be more rude? Isn't it better to let sleeping puppies lie? Or snore, as it were?

Here are our Honors Chemistry teachers trying to contain Bingo as he trys to eat Karene's gradebook. He slept through two meetings, but for the Chem teachers, he was WIDE AWAKE. Didn't want to wear his coat, or sit down, or stay seated, or stay still, or anything. He was a pill. Sigh. Pure puppy.

Fortunately we do have some time to get out of coat and get a little lovin'. Here Bingo is with Jan our Library Assistant who one of his biggest fans. 8-)

We ended up leaving a little early as there was a siren test and I didn't want his little eardrums to get blown out. So we scooted. On the way out we fortunately met the Science Dept. Chair, who is a huge dog lover. You Tampa people will know that today was wicked hot, and since we have had some construction at our school, we had to park way out of the way and our walk to the car was a long and hot one. About 1/3 of the way to the car, Bingo just stopped. John and I turned and looked at him and it was pretty clear that Bingo was hot and was done walking. John said, "Would you like me to carry him to your car?" This is why I love working at my school. I have wonderful colleagues like John, who carried Bingo all the way to car for me. He made my day and he certainly made Bingo's day!

Early that evening, we ended up at the salon for my back to school hair cut. Bingo came with me and fortunately, my stylist Sandy is a dog lover. She was uber patient with him (and me) as he again got a bit of the puppy crazies and wasn't interested in sitting still. Bingo found out about mirrors. Sandy said that when dogs see themselves in the mirror that it is a sign of superior intelligence. Bingo saw himself in this mirror, in the mirror opposite her station and the one opposite that station, so he must be a genius. I don't think I have ever seen his ruff fluff up as much as it did when he thought that he had a rival in the mirror. It was quite cute.

Tea Party on Friday

On Friday I had a Book Club reunion for my former students, some now college sophomores!, to see them before they went away and Bingo was a big hit. Here they all are with a very tired Bingo.Of course, Willow did have her admirers too. Lauren and Allison have house sat for us and are big Willow fans. So, Willow was not without lots of pats and kisses as well.

But, Bingo did get the lion's share of the attention. He sat to receive attention. He didn't bite very much. He played nicely. The kids were all super good about following the rules: no people food, no letting him up on the furniture, etc.

This is why I love working in a school: the chance to connect with wonderful kids. These kids are so bright and talented and it is such fun to see them as they head out to college and then go off on their careers. Tonight, for example, we are headed off to an art gallery photography show that a former student and New College graduate curated. That should be very interesting.

I'm very lucky to be able to have a job not only where I work with such wonderful teens, but also where I am allowed to bring my guide dog in training to work, which will happen on Monday.