Happy Birthday to My Royal Baby!

Today is Her Royal Highness's (HRH's) birthday! She is all of one year old today. She escaped out of the red tent seclusion in SEGD and traveled over the pond to see her relatives William and Kate, who had picked her birthday as their auspicious wedding date!, married. You won't see her on the TV of course. She is doing a perfect down-under under the Queen's chair and keeping very quiet.

She will be back at home on Monday. Long live the Queen and HRH! And congratulations William and Kate.

May 18, 2010: Happy Birthday Bingo!

Tuesday was a big day for Bingo. It was his birthday! So I bought two full size sheet cakes (feeding at least 80 a piece) and two half sheet cakes to celebrate the occasion. We had a cute slide that was shown in convocation and thanked all the students and faculty for their help in getting Bingo ready for his training. I also told them that he might be going back for training in July and that we would be getting a new puppy for the next school year if that happened. I also told them that I had bought cake for them and that it was in the library.

You would have thought these kids had recently gone through a famine, or perhaps were related to locusts. It was quite a cake mob scene. I guess this is why Marie lost her head. People go nuts over cake.

I mean, the cake was good, but really! Bingo was just beside himself. He was pumped the whole day. He had visitors all day, he got birthday cards and presents. In fact, it was a very busy day for him.

Here he is with two of his presents. He loved them so much that he wouldn't let them go and proceeded to sleep on them. I kept one in the office and one at home.

It's been a long journey, from puppy to teen. Now he is one. The school year is almost over and the summer is approaching. But our work is not done.

Too Many Parties

By Fred
Following Bingo's big blowout at school with four cakes and hundreds of kids having fun, he went to yet another party in the evening, this time at our weekly training class, where he and his favorite brother, Jim, got some free nose-to-nose time on their birthdays, at least until we had to separate them (yes, Bingo started it).

It was Bingo's best class ever, though a cynical person might not want to give him any credit. Maybe his good behavior was due to the fact that he was partied-out?

No, Bingo gets full credit--an A for effort. He loves training class so much that his heart starts beating fast. He starts huffing and puffing and his ears start ringing, which is why he doesn't always Sit when he should--he can't even hear the command (at least that's my theory). And he loves people so much that it clouds his judgement (not unlike a teenager in love). And he really loves other dogs--his biggest distraction of all.

But most of all, he's had one year of living with two first-time guide-dog puppy raisers who, despite their good intentions, have not been perfect (to put it nicely). Yes, he's had a lot to overcome and we are both proud of him.

Here he is toward the end of class, walking the circle with Cheryl and looking more than a little worn out.


The next morning Cheryl asked Bingo if he was ready to go to school, and here's the look he gave her. So he got to stay home and have a quiet day. Happy birthday, Bingo.

Bingo and the Bowling Alley

You heard it right! Bingo went bowling. Eliot was having his 34th birthday and his wife threw him a party at the local bowling alley. I had the bright idea to bring Bingo. I did ask beforehand (Fred said, No, this is not a good idea. Eliot said, Why not?) I went with the birthday boy's answer. I mean, he is the birthday boy, right? Why deny him?

Uh, bowling, with a dog who goes from 0 to 100 on the excitement scale to a PARTY. Bowling, where all they do is throw big BALLS around. What was I thinking?

Bingo was great on the walk in. The only problem was that none of Eliot's friends were familiar with service animals and they all fell in love and wanted to pet Bingo. So I felt like the party pariah by saying, "No, I'm sorry. You can't pet him. He's working." They were super nice about it, but still, Cheryl = party fun killer. Plus, you can't bowl when you have a guide dog. I wasn't thinking about that. Although, technically, he is on the LEFT side, and I bowl on my right side, so I could bowl with him. I think the bowling people might have objected to that though.

The other thing that happens at birthday parties that I had completely forgotten about was effusive greetings, back slapping, huge hugs and high fives. Each one was watched eagerly by Bingo and in his tiny labrador mind they all heralded mammoth, spectacular ecstasy just moments away. He vibrated.

I sat at the table and had Bingo lay down. What struck me immediately was this bowling alley had the cleanest floors in the nation. I swear that you literally could eat off this floor. There was not one crumb on it. I know this because Bingo looked and was unable to find one. NOT ONE. I think that is what saved the evening. He was so disheartened by the fact the there were no crumbs and that I was sitting and no super ecstatic revelatory experience was in the offing for him that he just gave up and lay down. He was a good boy, a really good boy for two hours.

[ A photo of CD, Tracy and Chad at a table with Bingo on the floor in a down stay. Notice he is not snuffling around for food crumbs! Bingo did really like Chad's feet and whenever Chad was at the table with us, he would try to lick Chad's toes. Tracy said it was because Chad had unusally smelly feet. I told Chad it was because Bingo loved him.]

He even got to experience Galactic Bowling where the lights go out, loud disco music comes on and strobe lights, multicolored lights start to wink on and off. It makes for quite an experience. Bingo, the disco doggie.

We did have one close call though. Fred finally came over to let me bowl a couple of times and he took off his shoes. He wasn't paying attention and one of the bowling managers came over and gave Fred a stern look and pointed down at Bingo.

"He's chewing on the shoes!"

Fred said, "Oh." And then reached over to take the massively abused shoe (abused by other bowlers, not by Bingo) out of Bingo's mouth. "Right." We decided that I should walk out with Bingo first and Fred should return the shoes. There were no visible teeth marks. 8-)