I Luvs You

My Valentine's Day was lovely.  I got a great pre-look at my wonderful card, from my great husband.

Close-up of my handsome husband in a coffee shop in Puerto Rico.

 His gift was a stone elephant aroma therapy oil warmer with some Tasmanian Lavender oil so I wouldn't be so stressed.  Isn't that sweet?

Here's a photo of Coach standing next to Fred's piano with his curly tail showing.  He and Jam have the same dad.

Coach got me a special present too.  He was a little love bug on Wed. Here he is chewing his bone while having to touch my feet.

Coach lying on the ground with his bone between his front paws.  His paws are also resting on top of my shoe.

My friends Christina and Jan in the library, who watch Coach for me if I need to leave him for a meeting, said that they have noticed that his tail stops wagging when I leave the office.  It starts wagging again when he hears my footsteps.

I am loved by two very special guys. How could I have had a better Valentine's Day?

Virtual Valentine

By Fred
It seems like forever since Coach and I were out for lunch. Vacations, puppy camp, etc., it's a busy life, but I miss my outings with the little guy.

Today we had a mission, a simple mission, to visit several of the Dunedin gift shops and practice our Down/Stay. But first, a nice long walk, just to get our puppy craziness in check.

Usually at this time of the year I succumb to market and peer pressure and I have some flowers delivered to Cheryl at school. But lately the flowers have not been very nice. How hard is it to deliver some nice flowers? This year I was resolved to find something new.

As usual I discuss all of this with Coach...

Coach and I walked into several of the stores and he, tired out from the walk, was just perfect. Sit, down and stay, and just inches from all sorts of temptations. Very good dog.

Coach, is it too old-fashioned to get her a card? Virtual cards don't seem quite right. A hand-made card would be nice (and not at all predictable, coming from me).

But what about the missing flowers this year--do they need to be replaced with some other public display of affection?

Just in case...

Shots in the Head

 Today I went in to see the migraine doctor.  And I took Coach in with me.  Normally, this might give me a fair amount of stress (bringing Jam did), but Coach is really laid back and he actually was very good in the waiting room.

Coach staring out from under the chair into the waiting room.

 There's kind of a funny phenomenom when you are out with a guide dog in training: people usually smile at you, strangers will strike up conversations, and many will talk to you about their dogs.  Today I learned about keeshonds.  The lady a few chairs down had a keeshond puppy that she wanted to show me (Kaia was her puppy's name) and that puppy was amazingly gorgeous.  I don't think I have ever seen a keeshond.  So, I got to learn all about one as I waited for my name to be called.

Coach sat peacefully under the chair.  Fairly soon, my name was called and I went back with Coach.

He went under the chair quietly and soon fell asleep.

Coach, asleep under the chair I am sitting on.

The nurse taking my blood pressure commented on how good he was and how it must be having a great effect on my blood pressure.  (Well, that's awesome.  Yea Coach!)  She said Dr. Vollbracht would be in to see me in a few minutes.

Coach woke up.

Coach looking at the camera.

I thought that it wouldn't be a good thing for Coach to act up in front of Dr. Vollbracht.  He is a very nice doctor, but he is rather no nonsense and I didn't think he would be very happy.  I took a deep breath.  Coach laid back down and went to sleep. I let my breath out.

Dr. Vollbracht and his nurse Darlene came in.  We chatted about migraines and stress and decided that I needed some shots in the back of my head.  This procedure would involve me putting my head on the seat of the chair, essentially flipping all my hair over and being in an "L".  Dr. Vollbracht, who was very impressed with Coach said that he would just step over Coach and give me the shots.

Hmmm. OK.

I flipped my hair.  I bent into an "L".  I got two shots into the back of my head.  

Coach never moved.  Darlene and Dr. Vollbracht were in love.

Coach and Darlene.

Now if I could just do something about all the stress.

I know!  More Coach.  More Coach.

Wrestling and Whistles and OMG I Met Someone I Had to Just Walk Away From

On Friday I went to see some of the wrestling tournament that was held in the Straz Family Field House on Campus.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a program and it was a bit confusing, so I didn't know when our boys were going to wrestle.  Evidently there were over 300 wrestlers at the tournament, so it was a really big deal.

It was also a great puppy exposure.  Wrestling involves lots of whistles.  And flailing around.  I guess if you are a wrestler you would argue with me on the flailing part...perhaps I should say a lot of hand holds and Greco-Roman things going on. Add in some grunts and hollers and coaches and fans shouting and clapping and you have yourself a fine exposure for a puppy.

Oh, and there was this, oh how shall I put this?  Idiot seems to harsh a word.  Willfully disobedient might be a better way to put it.  I needed him to be wearing a training collar so I could have given him a good correction!

Anyway, Coach and I had just walked into the wrestling area and were standing there taking it all in.  It is rather like a two-ringed circus.  There are at least two circles of wrestling going on and there are tons of schools who have decamped to different areas of the bleachers.  I don't see our wrestlers anywhere and only see Berkeley shirts on the officials at the table and I don't want to bother them.  We have made a bit of a spectacle of ourselves just be walking in.  A lot of eyes are upon us.  To my right is a group from a school that will remain nameless and on the bottom row of the bleachers is a family who has come to watch their son or daughter (yes, there were girls who were wrestling!) wrestle.  They started to talk about Coach.

"Look at that gorgeous dog!"

"Would ya look at the head on him.  He's huge." Then, it began.  The moment when I needed every bit of my smiling and my public relations training to come out. "Hey, what's he being trained for?"

I turned and looked at the group.  There looked to be a grandparent set and a mom and dad perhaps with an older sister.  The grandpa was asking me the question. "He's a guide dog in training.  We are hoping he will be a guide dog for the blind one day."

"What's his name?"

I hesitated.  Why did I hesitate? A couple of years ago, I read the blog of a visually impaired person who said she never gave out the true name of her guide dog because inevitably, the people who had asked for it would then start calling her dog and distracting him.  So, she lied.  "My dog was named Tim and I would say his name is Delany.  They would say "Here Delaney" over and over and then be so amazed by his lack of interest."

Suddenly, it all made sense.  Why give out his name?  Why do it? But I had hesitated long enough and I wasn't good at lying.  I'm the worst liar ever.  "Coach.  His name is Coach Dominick Ciao after our football coach."  I smiled.

Then I looked away willing nothing to happen.  

"Hey Coach!" Grandpa called.  I turned and looked at grandpa.  

"He's supposed to ignore you."  That was my super nice way of saying, You are a butthead, quit calling my guide dog by his name!!!

"He's doing a great job!" He laughed.  He called out again:  "Hey Coach!"

I could take Coach's collar and put it on grandpa and give him a correction or I could walk away.

A photo of the back of Coach's head looking at the wrestlers in the wrestling ring.

I walked away.  

Grandpa lived to see another wrestling match.  Coach got to experience the whistles.  It was all good.  Now I need to think up a fake name that someone won't want to shout out over the stadium.

What about Booger?

At the Car Wash!!

While Coach was away at puppy camp, he got to go on a very new exposure: a car wash.  Let's just say, I live with the dirt on my car.  So, he's never experienced a car wash before and you can tell from the photos that at first, it was a little disconcerting.

Coach sitting in the wheel well of the car and looking a bit nervously at the water on the window.

However, he is a very good boy and gets accustomed to things quite easily.  So he by the end he was looking around curiously.

Now, he isn't hunched down, but is sitting normally and looking out.

He has turned and is looking out the window.

Great exposure and one that we WILL try again.

The Honeymoon Is Over!

The reason you do a puppy camp for two weeks instead of one is because for the first week the puppy is on his best behavior.  Why, well, new house, new people.  The puppy is getting a feel for what the rules are, what he can do and can't do.

The second week, the puppy sort of unbuttons his pants and as Fred's mom used to say, "Gets loose."

Coach, almost an exact week to the day, unbuttoned his figurative pants and got loose in the bathroom of the Kriseman's house on Saturday.  Kerry sent me the photo below with the caption, "The one week honeymoon has passed." 

Shot of a bathroom with lots of toilet paper pieces strewn about the floor.

Coach loves his paper.  He also loves going in the trash and getting paper out of the trash: used kleenix, receipts, anything.  He steals napkins off laps. Fortunately, now that they see the behavior, the Kriseman's can try to work on correcting it.  We have been working on it, but puppy camp is all about having a different approach from a different family.  It may be that their approach is more effective and they can pass those techniques on to us to incorporate into our raising.

Coach is sitting on beige carpet with a very big wet spot beside him.  What is the wet spot?  Read on....

The other thing that Coach does when finished with dinner, is that he will pick up his dinner bowl and bring it to you.  I'm not sure if this means "I want some more" or "This is empty: Fill it back up!" or "Put this away now."  Since we have a HUGE water bowl that is big enough for 40 dogs, there is no way that he can do this with the water dish.....unless the water dish is small.  Do you see where I am going with this?

So, at work, where I have a small water dish, when he is done with the water dish, he will pick it up and dump it.  And if there is water in it, it goes everywhere!  Fortunately, in the photo above, that is not an "accident", but rather a water dish spill. Now when I am at work, I usually give him water and watch him drink and then pull up the water dish when I see him stop, but I forgot to mention that to Kerry.  He's done this behavior from day one and we haven't figured out how to get him to stop.  So any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.  This behavior would not be acceptable to have with a visually impaired person and it is something that we need focus on.

All in all, we are very grateful to our puppy campers!  They are working on issues and giving Coach exposures he hasn't had before.

Tomorrow: All about a new exposure for Coach!!

Coach Is at Puppy Camp!

 Coach is puppy camping it at the Kriseman's house.  They have two very active kids and one dog, a female black lab named Peppermint.  So, Coach has a household that is different, yet with some of the same elements (Willow, being an older lab mentor 8-).

Coach's good night photo to us! He's sitting and looking up at the camera.  He doesn't look tired at all. He's tongue is hanging out.  I think he has been playing hard with Peppermint.

 From all accounts, he was a good boy that first night.  He played all night long stopping only to take a 10 minute break.  Poor Peppermint!!

This photo shows Peppermint sleeping by Coach's huge food bin.  She is guarding it.

Peppermint may have loved Coach more for the food he brought than the energy he showed as the photo above indicates. 

Hound Down!  Coach finally crashes and falls asleep.

Coach then had some busy days with Kerry and Rick at work.  

Coach in Kerry's car.  He is sitting looking at the camera.

I had mentioned to Kerry that Coach might have some hesitation with getting into the car, but she said he was great and had no problems with the car.

Coach is smiling and looking out the window.

It certainly does seem like he is enjoying the car ride!

Coach sleeping with his head under Kerry's chair.

At work he liked to keep a close watch on Kerry and Rick.  He would put his head under Kerry's chair and put his head on Rick's foot and go to sleep.  Rick calls him the Velcro Dog.

Coach sleeping with his head on Rick's foot.

Coach also got to visit clients (where he was very good and interacted appropriately with small children) and he met Senator Bill Nelson! Unfortunately, we don't have a photo of that meeting.

Hound Down at work!  Coach sleeping against the wall.

Overall, though, I think he mostly slept at work.

Another good night photo, notice the tail is wagging so fast it is a blur!

Another successful couple of days at puppy camp!!

Photo of Coach looking at the camera with a football game in the background.

On the weekend, Samuel had a flag football game that Coach got to attend.  He tried to eat a lot of grass (bad Coach!), but otherwise was pretty well behaved. 

Coach getting a hug from one of the other dads.

There was a fundraiser for Southeastern Guide Dogs at the Quaker Steak and Lube that Coach attended.

Rick and Coach are eating lunch.  Well, Rick is at the table and Coach is under it.

Coach met some other puppies.  Here he is meeting Maggie.  

Coach and Maggie having a very calm meet and greet.

More adventures to come!!