Bad Puppy Raiser

With a good night's sleep comes a clear head and with a clear head comes clear vision. With clear vision I can see all the things I did wrong yesterday, especially on that short little video.

First, when you give a command and your dog doesn't do it, you should correct them, then gently move them into position. I just said the command again. And again. Although softly. I plead lateness of the day and diva fatigue.

The barking however, confounds me. I give the No Noise correction and that usually spurs her to more barking. Holding her muzzle is no good as that is negative reinforcement and she likes it. Her tail wags. We had to stop doing that. We tried the lemon idea. Most of you saw the video on how that went. Last week we had to leave convocation due to barking. I did give her a No Noise and a leash correction, which resulted in more barking. After three barks we left. The water has been an effective deterrent up until yesterday.

We did promise to show the good and the bad. I wish Fred had been bad and not me! 8-)

Getting a Feel for School

Monday I took Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley into to school for her official meeting with the Headmaster. She had a quick meeting with him when we brought her home at 9 weeks, but she was groggy and didn't really know what was going on. This time, she had on her puppy coat (she looks slightly like a parade float in it, but moves majestically as royalty should) and I was eager to point out her easy execution of the sit command.

We entered his office and of course the first request was:

"Is the coat coming off?" And, I don't know about you, but when the Headmaster wants something, you do it. Plus, when HRH sits and gives you her you will love me stare as see below, you do what they want.



With the coat off, she became touchable (everyone at school has been pretty good, with some notable exceptions, about sticking to the no touch or acknowledge rule when she has her coat on, the kids are especially good at it). So, the Headmaster made his feelings for her known.


Later, we visited the Director of Communications to drop off her 6-week portrait in case there might be a need to use it to announce her in any of the school newsletters. We also found out that the bookstore only stocked school spirit dog shirts in small sizes. Imagine that. As if HRH would attend a pep rally in an inappropriate outfit. That will be soon corrected!

Lastly, after rounds, we walked past the library doors, where inexplicably, HRH went over to them and sat down. Almost as if to say, "Back to work."

It will be a good year.

Bingo's Vacation Part II

The continuation of the diary of Bingo's puppy sitters.

March 18th, 2010

Today was a great day. We took Bingo out in the car to the bank and a jewelry shop and to Red Lobster. He hates our car and doesn't like getting into it. He was very good at the restaurant and even cleaned up al the ice cubes Joe dropped when he knocked over his iced tea glass. Aved the wiaters from picking htem up. Then we brought him home and worked him with the wheelchair doing ovedience work for 20 minutes. Placed his play collar on him and threw the kong around for 1/2 an hour. He loved it. He finally laid down and didn't want to move any more so we brought him in. He was given a dental stick and went into the bedroom to lay down. He's exhausted. We were very proud of him.

March 19, 2010

Today we took Bingo to socialize with other people around the neighborhood. He is still lunging at people and tried to jump on the physical therapist. Bingo's biggest problem is scrounging for food in the house. He acts like he's hungry all the time and this may be a huge problem for him in being a service dog. He never begs at the table or in the restaurants we've gone to, so that's good.

March 20, 2010

Today we put Echo's run together and Bingo was able to be in the backyard with us for the whole day. It got very warm and he wasn't happy inthe sun so we gave him the option of the back porch. He went into the run when it was completed and promptly christened it. Not a bit afriad of it and seemed to enjoy it. Practiced obedience and he is very good next to the wheelchair. Very good sign. His sits are getting better and the downs are great.

March 21, 2010

It poured today and that has limited our time with obedience or taking him to church with us. He had to be crated while we got some personal things out of the way, but was very good about it and received a dental stick when we got home. Bingo seems to be scratching his right ear and I've checked it, but I think he needs the solution that the manual suggests for itchy ears.

March 22, 2010

McLean's on way back home to pick up Bingo.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

They took really good care of him and we are so grateful for their attention to his training and health. That's why when we left and my parents came to take care of our chocolate lab Willow, they couldn't also take care of Bingo. They weren't puppy raisers. They didn't know the program, know the manual, understand how the obedience commands worked. Granted, most of the time, I feel clueless about how the obedience commands work as well, but you do need to have a clear understanding of the program in order to puppy sit a guide dog in training.

It is not the usual thing to have the puppy raisers write up such a lovely diary, but it was a wonderful gift. Bingo was very sweet and compliant for about a week after he came back. Then he went back to his Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde routine, which I am sure is directly attributable to us.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, Steffe and Joe!

Puppy Sitting

Above is a photo of Bingo with Stephanie and Joe who will be puppy sitting him when we are off on our spring break trip to Ireland. Stephanie is sitting in a wheelchair and Bingo is sitting next to her. Joe is standing behind Bingo with his hand on her chair. Bingo wasn't afraid of the chair at all. In fact, he didn't react to it. It was a non-threatening item in his eyes. (Yea Bingo! One more item off the checklist.) When Bingo and I got out of the car to walk down to their house, I was a little nervous because both Stephanie and Joe are experienced dog trainers and Bingo was pulling on the leash. I was doing my best to show some leash control, but he was really excited. So there was a lot of panting and pulling and me stopping along the way. Not quite the entrance I was hoping for.

The only thing I can think of is that Stephanie succumbed to Bingo's charms because she declared him a handsome boy and said that he was doing very well for his age and she even praised me (for which I KNOW I deserve no praise!). He must have been uncommonly cute that afternoon. At one point Bingo scooped up a rock and tried to eat it and I fished it out of his mouth; then he tried to eat mulch, then he tried to eat some strange 5 inch seed that had dropped from a nearby tree. Sigh. All this and she still said that they would love to take him on for us while we were in Ireland. My heart lightened. These were people who got Bingo. Who thought he was a good dog. I have a feeling that Bingo will come back to us a better behaved dog than when we gave him to them. I'm feeling a trifle guilty about that. Wee, small prickles of guilt, but guilt just the same. 8-).

On the walk to the car, Bingo walked right by my side, no lunging or pulling. I whispered, "Good dog. Good dog. Good dog." All the way back.

Mea Culpa

Today we had our monthly big area meeting at the St. Pete Pier. On our way down we met up with John and Bagheera (his well trained and very well behaved dog). We took the trolley down to the pier where our meeting was to start. Bingo doesn't seem to mind public transportation at all. Neither the trip on the trolley bothered him a bit.

These meetings are always part obedience and part informational. Today, for me anyway, it was a bit more informative because it was information that I could relate directly to how I was training Bingo or how I was training Bingo incorrectly.

Normally, at school, when Bingo pulls I will say, "No Pull." I learned that the command is NO. Simply No. For all things bad. Just No. Don't have a conversation. Don't discuss it with him. NO.

I also learned that I correct before he has a chance to do the action. I also realized that his "teething" is actually biting and it is my fault for not stopping it. I learned how to stop the biting. I learned that when he pulls I am to change direction, and to do it again and again and again until he is so confused that he finally looks to me for an indication of which direction we are going to go. "Ah, perhaps this person on the other end of the leash knows something. Let's look to her and see." See photo above of me changing direction on him.

I learned that at five months that he's still young enough that I haven't ruined him, that I can still undo all the things that I have unknowingly instilled in him. I learned all these things, so while I started and went through most of the meeting completely filled with a sense of failure, I left it with a very small, tiny seed of hope. One tiny seed that I might be able to grow into the owner that Bingo needs me to be in order for him to be the guide dog I know he can be.

Bingo, as you can see, is filled with hope.

Bingo's first guests and his first night away from SEGD - Day 2

Well, the puppy manual was right. He slept with nary a peep. We had to keep him awake from 5 pm on, but he went right to bed and it was quiet all night. I heard a creaking about 1 am and took him out and he peed. Again about 3 or 4 am he moved around and I took him out to pee and he peed, but no crying. He was a very good boy. He did his "kennel in and kennel out" commands very well. This is a shot of him with his first dinner. He didn't like the deep dish so we switched him to a shallower pan.

He also had his first visitors today. I had some former students and a friend and faculty member at my school come to say hello to him. You'll notice that he is looking at Willow but she won't look at him. She is still snubbing him. She plays hard to get.

The breeding program seems pretty incredible to me. Bingo is a very mellow dog. Although he does seem to enjoy being a plant warrior and attacking all manner of plants outside. Mostly he battles evil by napping.

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.