The Man Cave

Sometimes, Coach doesn't want to be bothered.  He has had enough.  He is over it.  He needs some shut eye.  That's when he retreats to the man cave.  Yes, I have a man cave in my office.  It's actually the small dark space under my desk, but Coach really likes it down there.

Coach lying down in the man cave.

One of his favorite things to do is have someone love on him and then all of a sudden he will leap up and walk away.  "I'm done now." 

He usually walks to the man cave and disappears.  He can be coaxed out of the man cave to see someone.  But on occasion, he does get a little grumpy.

Coach is sitting up in the man cave and is sticking his tongue out.

I think he was sticking his tongue out at me.  Seriously, little dude?

"Stay out of the man cave!"

Little buddy, the man cave is under my control.  It is all under my control.  At least, that is my story and I'm sticking with it!

I Feel a Little Nauseous

Last night, I drove with Coach, our Southeastern guide dog puppy, over the Courtney Campbell to the Panera on Westshore and Kennedy to attend a librarian's meeting. It was raining, so I drove a bit below the speed limit. Not much passing either. Still, this was the face that I got as we started out on our trip.

A sad faced Coach peering up from the wheel well of the passenger seat.

About a 1/4 mile before we got to Panera, Coach popped up and looked at me.  He seemed to be drooling.  Oh.  Drooling.  That's a bad sign.  Drooling usually foretells puking.  Sure enough, Coach turned and started to heave and then deposited half his dinner in the corner of my car.

"Oh Coach! Poor baby."  I grabbed his collar, because of course his first instinct upon losing his dinner is to get it back again by eating it. Mind you, this isn't his first time barfing.  He puked on Saturday during our ride to lunch with a former student, but at the time, we thought it was the speed bumps that made him sick.  Now, I'm not so sure.  This trip was straight highway.

I'm nearing the restaurant.  I plant Coach firmly to the front by the seat and as we are at a stop light, I take one of my nifty ziploc bags and reach all the way down and grab the vomit and, through my ziploc glove, maneuver it into the bag.  Mission accomplished and before the green light too! Woot.

Coach gives me the evil eye, sort of.  He's still feeling a bit woozy, but still kind a wants that vomit. I toss the puke bag onto the carpet in the back seat and pat him on the head.

 

Coach is sitting a little closer to the passenger door, but still seems a bit nauseous.

 He's not happy about cars in general.  In fact, we have been working on getting him into cars by feeding him in the car.  So, breakfast and dinner take place in the car, which generally make him happy to jump in.  Otherwise, he is hesitant and unwilling to get near the door.  Sometimes he doesn't even want to walk by the car. It's something we are working on.

We arrived and we tried for another busy busy.  He was on empty.  But he didn't poo after dinner, so I knew he was filled with poo.  I would have to be hyper-vigilant.

All the librarians are sitting around a table at Panera and Coach is sitting in the middle of them on the floor. Left to right: Alyssa, Ramsay, Cyndi, Susan, and Kathleen with Coach down front.

About midway through our meeting, a sleeping Coach pops up and starts to move around.  Hmmm.  Could this be poo-time?  I took him outside and sure enough, it was.  Yea!!!  Success.  We came back in and he went back to sleep.  He was so good during the whole meeting.  Everyone said they didn't even know he was there.  Afterwards, several of the librarians stayed to pet him when he didn't have his coat on.  He was very good.

He made it all the way home without an incident.  Who knew we would have such a delicate flower for a football coach?

Ooops! Did We Just Poop on Your Floor?

They say that sometimes when bad things happen, time slows down or your life flashes before your eyes.  What happened to me is that all sound ceased.  It was as if I existed in a perfectly silent bubble.

We had walked into the restaurant, with Coach and a former student who was visiting us and we were being shown to a table right in the middle of the dining room.  A table right in the middle of the dining room is usually never a good thing and why I didn't stop the girl right there and say, "This won't work, we need a booth." I don't know.  But I let her show us to the table.

She walked off and Allison walked over to her chair.  I pulled out my chair and Fred was about to pull out his chair when all of a sudden he said those word you never want to hear inside of a building, "Coach pooped."

And all the sound went away.  I turned and grabbed what was nearest: a cloth napkin.

I know! A cloth napkin! What was I thinking?  I had a big bag in my purse filled with shamwows and towels and ziploc bags and antibacterial wipes, but I was thinking THERE ARE PEOPLE EATING FOOD IN HERE AND I CAN'T LET THEM SMELL POO!

So I swoop down on the three sticks of poo and in my no sound world, the white napkin drifts down over the poo mountain like a little cloud.  There.  All. Gone.  I scoop it up and race away to the rest room.

I am shaking all over.  I zoom into a stall and start to empty the poo into the toilet.  Am I nuts?  What then? Am I going to rinse it out in the toilet?  Am I going to stick my hands in the toilet?  Holy crap, I'm still holding this poo napkin!  I look around in a panic and spot the sanitary napkin waste dispenser.  I shove the poo napkin in there.

I power walk back to the table.  Sound has returned.  Allison looks at me and says, "There's a little more poo under Fred's chair."

Crap on toast.  More poo?  I get out the anti-bacterial wipes and look around the room.  Everyone is eating and chatting and seemingly unaware that a mere three feet away from them there had been poo.  Thank the Gods above! I wipe and wipe and wipe the tile with anti-bacterial goodness.  I get the extra poo and wipe with more anti-bacterial goodness.  There is no poo smell, but my hands are filled with poo stained wipes.

Maybe a minute has gone by. Fred and Coach have disappeared and not returned.

By now, all the diners in our dining room must think I have a bathroom problem.  Some weird sort of intestinal disease that makes me run off several times during a meal or that I'm OCD and feel the need to fling my napkin on the floor, throw it away and then scrub the floor clean with anti-bacterial wipes before eating.  Whatever, as long as they don't realize that it was poo, I'm OK with being the crazy, nut job lady they tell their friends about over drinks at the bar later in the evening.

I race back to the restroom.  There is a woman in my stall.  MY STALL.  Rather, the stall with the poo napkin in it.  I go to another stall.  I toss out my nasty wipes and madly wash my hands over and over and over.  Then I look around for towels.  They have one of those Dysen Air Blades.  Oh Man!  We would have been screwed if we didn't have our own supplies!!!

The lady in my poo napkin stall comes out.  I sneak out of my stall and then go into the poo napkin stall.  It occurred to me that the poo napkin might start to become, well, odorous.  I started having visions of people coming in and sniffing and saying, "Something has died in here!"  And then going and getting management.  And then management wandering around the bathroom trying to figure out where the horrible smell was coming from until finally, they opened the sanitary napkin container and saw: poo napkin! Then it would be just a short step to wondering, "How did this get here?  Who pooped in our napkin?" And then they would think about the only missing napkin that night.

And it would be mine.

Therefore, I had to keep the poo napkin.  Fortunately, I carry ziploc baggies with me and so I just grabbed the poo napkin and shoved it into a ziploc and then into my supply bag.  I went back to the table where Fred and Allison wanted to know what we should do.

We decided that retreat was the better part of valor.  So we left and Fred called the restaurant and explained to management what had happened and apologized.  They were more concerned that Coach was ok.

They didn't want their napkin back.

Farting at the Movies

Many years ago, Fred and I had bought tickets to see Phantom of the Opera.  We had never seen it and were looking forward to finally seeing what all the fuss was about.  It was playing at the then named Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.  Then my college roommate called and said she was coming for a visit, so we bought one more ticket.  Only problem was it wasn't anywhere near our seats.

Fred was a gentleman and let Gisah and I sit together and took the orphan seat that was closer and way over to the left.  We were further back and over to the right.  None of us were close and were behind the center line.

As we sat down Gisah and I were very excited about the play.  I seem to recall Gisah had seen it before, so I was a bit more excited about it.  The audience was packed.  There were very few empty seats.  Then just before the curtains rose, it happened.

"Oh!"  I crinkled my nose.  Damn.  That was nasty.  My eyes watered.  I looked over at Gisah and she was looking at me.  I shook my head, which in mime theater talk means I didn't do it!  The lights were out and play started.

We fanned our programs and tried to waft it away.  Which worked a little bit.  Then, about five minutes later, it happened again. Then again, five minutes later.

Every five minutes we were hit with a fart from the man sitting beside me who obviously had Delhi Belly, Montezuma's Revenge, or whatever town or person they want to name it after but means that your body is saying YOU SHOULDN'T BE AT A PLAY! You should be on a toilet like a normal human letting that foulness out, not trying to keep it in!

Honestly, it went on and on.  Gisah gagged a little.  I started to feel nauseous.  I couldn't concentrate on the play.  I think there was something about little boats in the water and I was fantasizing about throwing this contaminated dork over the boat, when the lights went up.

We bolted, found Fred and blurted out, "The man next to us is farting!"

I'm sure everyone next to us heard it.  "We cannot stand it." "It is disgusting." "We have to leave." "I'm about to throw up."

"Uh. OK."  Fred is amenable to just about anything but I know he hated to be in the seat by himself. This solution was great.

So we left.

Jam, curled up on the floor of the movie theater.

Last night, we took Jam to The Avengers movie.  We got there a little late, it was about 10 minutes before the movie started and the only good dog seat was in the front row of the stairs by the stairs.  So I took it quickly.  There was a couple sitting in seats 3 and 4.

Fred got up to use the restroom and the lady in seat 4 leaned over and asked, "Do you want us to move over a seat so the dog has more room?"

"Oh, he has plenty of room, between my chair and my husband's.  But thank you for asking." I thought that was sweet. This theater was super clean.  Not one popcorn kernel anywhere.  But there chairs are weirdly spaced so it was hard to scrunch my purse between them.  It kept falling to the floor.  GRRRR.

Fred came back and sat down.  The movie started.  Jam was starting to sleep.  Then some of the action started.  Jam would wake up and watch it.  Then he would move around and try and get comfortable.

Fred leaned over, "Did Jam fart?"

"Oh no he didn't!" I may have done the head bob thing as well.  If there is one thing I can tell you it's where a fart is coming from in a theater.  I was on the end of the aisle.  Jam was with me.  WE WERE NOT FARTING. I have no problem admitting to a fart or assigning blame on Jam when he is farting, but when he isn't, I'm not going to just blame him because he is the only dog in the theater!

Evidently, the girl behind Fred had said in a whisper, "I hate when I go to the movies and there are people farting!"

Fred said the farts were about every 5 minutes for the first part of the movie.  Then the man next to him (Seat 3) got up to go to the restroom (I'm guessing). (Seat 3 is the farter! Says me.)

Jam continued to pop his head up at every roar from the Hulk.  It was like they were talking to each other or rather the Hulk was being annoying and Jam was an old grumpy man who needed to give him a glare.

Finally the movie ended.  We waited until the end for the shawarma scene which was worth it.  Many people smiled at Jam, so I'm guessing that they didn't blame Jam either.

They blamed Fred.

Secret Photos

My Dad likes to send me random photos of things that he likes: pretty flowers, javelinas that are in walking by his office window, new haircuts my mom gets and any service dog that he sees when he is out and about.   I love getting these photos as they are usually accompanied by some funny remark.

The service dog photos are a little different though.  Those I think he takes on the sly without letting the dog's owner know that he is capturing their puppy for posterity. I never thought about it until yesterday when I was stopped at Nature's Food Patch, our neighborhood grocery store and go to dinner spot for a quick salad.  I had put Jam into a down stay by the cold drinks and was taking a photo while I waited for Fred to get his salad from the amazing salad bar.  I was approached by one of the store managers.

Guide dog puppy in training Jam lying down.

"Hi!" He said as he strode up to me.  He was a little out of breath as if he thought he might have missed us and hurried out from behind a counter to talk to us. "You know I have a photo of him on my phone."

I looked at him.  "You do?" I smiled.  We go to Nature's Food Patch a lot. We like salads and even more, not cooking during the week. 

Encouraged, he continued, "Yes.  He or she?"

"He."

"He has a bag of treats in his mouth and is sitting." He smiled at me.  "He's so beautiful."

Now at this point, I could quiz him on the bag of treats he says are in Jam's mouth (Seriously! What?!! Fred says it never happened.), but I decide that quizzing this clearly besotted man is not the right thing to do, so instead I start talking about Jam's impending IFT date and how smart he is.  Jam is calmly lying down and being good and not lunging for crumbs under the drink holder. (Thank you!) 

Fred comes over to take Jam and the manager walks away with his secret photo of Jam.  

At school, during one of the all school convos, I happened to sit next to one of the girls who was taking photos of Jam with her phone.  She showed the photo to her friend.  I caught just a glimpse of it.  

"Oh, can I see?" I asked.

"Sure." She showed me.  It was a great shot of Jam.  I told her so.  She said she had a photo of Jam as her phone background.  I asked her to send me the shots she took of Jam.

It made me think of all the people who take secret photos of our puppies and think happy thoughts of them or dream big dreams for them.  They are so excited to get to know one of our puppies.  I know my student was thinking Jam would make it.  And the store manager will always ask about Jam.

Guide dog puppy in training Jam at the check out counter.

At the checkout line Jam was ogled by three checkout girls.  They commented on how pretty he was, how good he was and how calm he was.  We gave them our hopes for his bright future as a guide dog once he goes in for training and they nodded and looked down on him with optimistic gazes.  Yes, they believe in Jam.

We believe in Jam.

Jam Will Never Poo Again!

Today we had our meeting at Countryside Mall.  So, since Jam was still feeling a little snakey about the backyard, I took him for a walk before the meeting.  We went around the block.  Wouldn't you know it, as soon as it looked like he had picked out a spot and was about to do something, the people who owned the house came out the front door (grandma and grandchild).  The little girl wanted to pet Jam.

All thoughts of poo immediately retreated, so to speak.  Jam was now more interested in the approaching people and I felt a vague need to take my plastic bag out of my pocket and wave it like a white flag as if to say, "See, if he had poo'ed in your yard, I would have picked it up.  I am a good neighbor."  Instead, I stood there awkwardly and looked a bit shifty eyed.

I moved Jam out to the sidewalk and said in a rather loud voice, "OK, Jam you need to sit." And then I made Jam sit and go down.  Jam is much more controlled in a down stay than in a sit.  When they got closer I explained about Jam's situation and that Jam needed to be calm in order to be petted.

Our new neighbor was AWESOME!  Everytime she approached, Jam would pop up and she would step back.  I would make him sit and down and then she would try again.  Until finally, he was calm.  By then her granddaughter had decided that Captain Crazypants was to crazy to pet and she didn't want to pet him.  But Annette did and Jam was very good.

I was so happy to meet such a nice neighbor.  And Jam was really tired out.  We were able to walk on two or three houses down before he had to poo.  Those neighbors stayed inside, thankfully.  

Guide dog puppy in training Jam sitting at food court table.

When we got to the meeting, Jam was anxious to meet everyone.  Fred thinks that if Jam is able to at least sniff all the dogs he is much better able to stay in the circle of acceptance than outside.  I don't know.  I just know that Jam had a good poo and was in the circle of acceptance and life was good.  I was even feeling very good about myself because just that morning I had cleaned the dogs' ears and part of the obedience was doing some of the tests from the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test, which includes having someone massage the ears and paws.  Little did I know another paw massage was coming up later (dum dum dum! foreshadowing!!).

Soon enough, AC Carolyn had sent us on our way and we were off to see what we could find on her list.  We did have one marking problem.  GRRR.  We have been avoiding all upright and vertical surfaces and keeping an eagle eye out for any slight veering to the left, but Jam got a quick one off on a planter.  I was able to clean it up quickly.  ShamWows are very good at cleaning up pee-sasters. Even small ones.  He never marks inside, but Malls are tricky and dogs can feel like they are outside.

Guide dog puppy in training Jam sitting in front of noisy arcade games.

We were still making our way around the mall with our older dog group when I happened to notice Jam's butt.  Frankly, I look at his butt a lot just to make sure he isn't holding anything back.  And sure enough, he had the gopher butt.

"Fred! He has to poo!"  Fred started to speed walk towards Sears with Jam.  Sylvia followed with Denny.  Fred and Jam were really going and made it to the doors without any problems.  They made it outside and Jam took the opportunity to water some more plants.  I pointed out a spot that was wider than the small median where they currently were and it was mostly mulch and a couple of flowers, so this would be a different type of ground on which to relieve himself.

Jam and Fred and I walked over to it and Jam hopped up the curve and started to twirl.  It seemed a bit odd to me, that a dog who is normally really concerned about things "being right snakey" would just hop up on some strange median without even looking at it.  But he did.  He didn't look or smell or even take into consideration that there might be little flowers that he was crushing (he wasn't).

He poo'ed and then he did a crazy thing.  He did a little leap, a leap high into the air and landed by Fred. Then he stuck out his back leg, which was now the color of night and started to shake it violently.  You see, Jam had twirled and stopped to poo on top of an anthill and those ants were extremely opposed to being covered in excrement.  Or having their house stopped up with big logs of well, you get my point. So to express their displeasure they had run screaming out of their hill and raced up his paw.

"Oh my God!" This is me, not taking any photos of his paw and swiping off ants. I can't understand those photojournalists who are the only ones on the scene when someone is going to set themselves on fire and they just stand there and shoot film.  Really?  Get a blanket and stop, drop and roll that crazy nutjob!

"Do you see his leg?" This is Fred, equally discomposed and frantic knocking ants off his paw as Jam is trying to bite the little bastards as they are trying to bite him.

I went in between his toes and looked for every little ant I could find and we got them all.

Now Jam will never poo again!

Update:  Jam has pooped.  I'm so relieved.  It seems our backyard is safe now and he is perfectly willing to walk around all parts of it once again.  He is also willing to relieve himself on any and all spots in the yard.  I'm glad I am not a mind reader.  I would think a mind reader would get trapped in the tangled mess that is Jam's brain.

It's Right Snakey Out There

Fred's mother, when looking into dark, mysterious undergrowth, would say, "Looks right snakey in there."  Meaning in essence, she wasn't setting foot in that space as it was a possible snake pit.

Lately, we have begun to suspect that Jam has actually seen a snake. Or seen something that looked "right snakey" and doesn't want to step foot out in the side yard again.

At first he wouldn't step off the porch.  He would go to the edge, peer out into the distance and you could hear him say it.

"No Ma'am.  I will not step off this porch!  It is right snakey out there!"  

But gradually, after a bit, he would step off the porch and down to the side of the yard.

"No! I will not step off the stones! It looks right snakey out there!"

This attitude of course will not stand.  He must be able to walk around and go whenever and wherever we need him to go.  Wet or dry, he needs to do his business.

This morning, Fred and Jam had a small battle of wills.  Jam had determined that the edge of the deck was as far as he would go and he was unwilling to do his business at all.  This was after a full evening's sleep and breakfast, Jam was chock full of "business" so to speak.

Fred brought him inside.  After about half an hour, Fred tried again, only this time, he got the leash and tried to take him through the gate and into the front yard for some busy work.

Nothing doing.  Those orifices were closed for business.  Fred waited an hour and they went out again.

Nothing.

"It's snakey out there."  Jam hopped back onto the deck and looked longingly at the door inside.

A little later, I decided to try and walk him around the block.  We went out the gate and through the yard and over to the neighbor's yard.  It was now about 9:30 am.  Jam was bursting at the seams with poo.

We got to the tall, wet grass and Jam stepped out onto it delicately.  He stopped and stared off intently.  

"It's right snakey out there! No grass for me!" and he hopped onto the sidewalk.  Seriously?  There was no snake.  None.  Just wet grass.  I, however, had an evil plan.  On the other side of the sidewalk is more grass.  It was the neighbor's actual green, green lawn.  And there was a green lawn space between two oak trees that are bordered with oyster plants.  Jam immediately tried to jump into the oyster plants.  

I positioned myself firmly in the center of the lawn.  Equidistant from each bed.  The leash just reached the beginning of each bed, but it wouldn't allow Jam poo access to the planting beds.

Jam ran from side to side trying to contain his poo, all the while trying to figure out a way to poo on the oyster plants and not on the snakey grass.  Finally, it was too much.  The poo would not be contained and he had to let it out.  He did 5, count them 5, twirls and then a big poo.

I think I heard a sigh.

But later, when we got back out on the porch, it still seemed a bit snakey to him.

So, we will continue this desensitization plan until he is completely over this strange sensitivity to wet grass.

Or snakes.

It just might be right snakey out there. ;-)

Good Bye Photo

Tuesday was our last official day in the library, so we took our annual last photo with our guide dog puppy.  We thought it would be a breeze as HRH and Bingo hadn't put up much of a fuss.

Jan, Christina and I are posing facing the camera as Jam has turned his back to look at Jan.

Jam, however, proved obstreperous.

Jam is still looking at Jan and now Jan is talking with Jam and not posing for the camera.

Every time we tried to take a photo with the timer, he would wait and watch Jan instead of looking at the camera.

Jam is bored and licking himself, I'm trying to stop this activity and Jan and Christina are posing.

 Then he got bored and started looking for other things to do, like lick himself, which always makes for a great photo.

Jam has a cute thoughtful expression on his face and I am thinking and looking off to the side.

Jan snapped a shot of me thinking about what we should do, but I was at a loss.

Everyone is smiling, looking at the camera and Jam is front and center looking handsome.

Finally, we gave up.  It just wasn't going to work.  Then Christina remembered that Jyl in the Business Office is a photographer and actually knows what she is doing.  So here we are on the final day of the 2011-2012 school year with our handsome boy Jam!

Thank Jyl!  We couldn't have done it without you.

Joseph A. Merluzzi (JAM) has left the building.

Jam Meets Darth Vader

On Saturday Fred was sanding upstairs (which is why Jam and Willow and I were downstairs!).  Fred had bought a super duper mask because he was getting all the paint off of our doors and these doors are from 1923 and you just don't know what kind of paint they used.  Better safe than sorry.

Hence, the Darth Vader look.

Fred with his respirator on looking like Darth Vader.

But it did give us a good exposure for Jam.  We decided that while the babygate was up blocking the upstairs, that we would have Fred come down and surprise Jam with his mask.  Kind of like they do for the canine good companion test.

One portion of the canine good companion test is to have the puppy in a room and have a person walk in dressed normally.  Then that person walks out and walks back in with sunglasses or a hat on.  (This test is the one that HRH Berkeley failed.) Now, I have been working with Jam on not being scared of hats, sunglasses, earphones, costumes, etc.  This respirator test would be a really good measure to see how well we have been doing.

So, we filmed it.  I won't tell you how he did.  After all, how well did Luke Skywalker react?  

"Jam, I am your father!"

Yeah, Jam kicked Luke's pansy butt! 8-)

Jam goes in for training on July 21st. Six more weeks.

Baker's Secret

Jam was only a little bit bad.  It was only one little paw on the seat.  What did one paw mean in the grand 

Jam in the front seat with one paw on the seat.

scheme of things? Really? OK.  One paw is the start of a long slide into juvenile delinquency.  I know, I know.  It must be stopped.

So, Jam was not allowed to leave that little paw up on the seat.

It's all about consistency and as you may remember, Jam is nothing if not stubborn.  The paw and front seat fight is a silent battle we have been fighting for months.  He will get in and turn around and then right as I am about to sit down, sneak a paw up on the chair.

There!  One paw.  One small paw.  It's not even comfortable.  But he's touching it.  Look, he's touching it.

He's just waiting for me to cave and say, "Fine, leave your paw up there.  Just sit up there, I don't care. Whatever."  But I never do."  Poor Jam.  I'm just as stubborn.

On Sunday, after I got back from graduation, Fred asked me if I would do him a favor.  I was reading, so this favor asking was a bit of an annoyance, but I knew that Fred was working upstairs on the door to the bathroom and that I was basically sitting on my butt doing nothing and saying no was not very nice.  I said I would help.

Fred was baking bread and he is REALLY into baking bread.  He started to tell me about to what temperature the oven needed to be preheated and that he had the timer started and that it needed to go to 450 degrees and then I needed to remove the wax paper (the dough was rising) and put it in the oven.

I waited and the timer went off.  340 degrees.  Poo.  I set the timer again.

Ding.  370 degrees.  Double poo.  This new oven is a sloth.  It takes forever to heat up.  I checked the loaf of bread.  It was rising.  I put the wax paper back down.  I considered just putting it in the oven.  But NO, that would be wrong.  So, I set the timer again, and I ran upstairs to change into shorts and a t-shirt. Now, usually when I run upstairs for anything, I have a shadow.  But this time, I ran and I didn't have a shadow.  But I also had 2 and a half minutes to change and get back downstairs.  What could possibly go wrong?

I came back down and the oven was at 450 degrees.  Hooray!  Finally.  I could put the rotten loaf in the oven.  Then I noticed the wax paper.  It was twisted off the loaf.  That's odd.

Then I looked at the loaf.

Horrors!  Someone had shoved their big fat nose right into the loaf!

The loaf with a big fat caved in spot on the right hand side where someone's nose was shoved in.

Who would do such a heinous thing?

Close up of Jam and his big nose.

Well, who has the biggest nose?  Jam. That's a Jam-sized nose print.

The nose bread in the oven baking.

 "Uh.  Fred!"

"What?"

"Jam stuck his nose in the bread!"

"What?!"

"Jam stuck his nose in the bread!"

"How did that happen?"

"Uh. I went to get some shorts and a t-shirt and he just shoved his nose in the bread?"

Silence.  It was kind of a mad silence.

Close up of Jam and his big nose.

I decided that I should put the bread in the oven anyway. The other half was fine.  It didn't have a nose print in it at all!

Nose bread baked!

Fred ate some of the bread and he liked it.  He doesn't stay irritated very long.  After all, how many people have a Labrador for a baker's assistant?

Close up of Jam and his big nose.

The Return of Captain Crazypants

Jam has been on an extended leave from school due to his limping.  He's been out over a week.  Wednesday was his first day back and you would have thought he was the wild dog of Borneo and had never seen a school before.

He didn't want to follow any commands.  He decided that he didn't want to lie down and be a good boy.  He wanted to play tug with the leash.  Captain Crazypants was back.  Time for obedience lessons.

Sigh.

But then I saw something that our AC shared with us on Facebook: Southeastern tweeted the following yesterday... thought it was important to pass it along.. DogGuideTrainer (AKA Trainer Karen) said... "Dog I'm working was a certified crazypants as a puppy. Now he is my best dog. He just needed job to focus on. Raisers-don't give up!"

And I thought about how Jam looked later that day:

Jam taking a nap in the workroom, a very sleepy puppy.

Not Captain Crazypants at all.  Rather more of a sweet baby boy. OK.  She's right.  Jam needed a job.  Right now his nuggets are sending him all kinds of orders and I needed to give him lots to do to override those crazy thoughts. It's all a question of desire, focus and system overload:

1. Desire: what does a guide dog puppy want most?  To please us.  So give them something to do and then praise them.  A lot.  And then give them more to do.  Create the desire to work.
2. Focus: if they have the desire to work, they will know to focus on you and your commands.  Be consistent and praise often.
3. System overload: when in doubt, do puppy pushups (Thanks trainer Jen!)! I also recommend doing stairs again and again.  

It's only 1.5 months until Jam goes IFT and we still can only manage a 2 minute sit stay without falling into a narcoleptic sleep.  But we are trying.  

We have the desire and the focus.  We just try not to practice at nap time. After all, everyone deserves a good nap.  Sharpens the focus for later.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Taco Night

We took Stephanie and Coastie out for a belated birthday dinner last night.  It was Stephanie's birthday, Coastie still has quite a ways to go until his first birthday. 8-)

Stephanie and Coastie, a yellow lab, pose by the car.  Coastie is sitting by Stephanie's left side.

 We decided to go to our favorite Mexican food restaurant, who just happens to also LOVE our puppies in training: Casa Tina's in Dunedin.

Fred and Jam are waiting for Stephanie and Coastie to join them on the sidewalk.  Jam thinks that Coastie is a wee little thing.

 Fred and Jam have been coming to Casa Tina's for lunch about once a week for months.  So, most of the servers know him.

This photo shows Coastie at the bottom of the photo and Jam at the top lying down under the table. 

The only problem with Casa Tina's is that there isn't a good place for two dogs to lie down.  The quarters are a little tight.  So there was a little bit of the "Mom, he poked his nose over the line!" funny business.  But after awhile, they settled down.  However, Jam remained just a little antsy. A funny kind of antsy.

Jam and Fred walking down the sidewalk with Stephanie and Coastie following.

Sure enough, when we got close to the end of the block, Jam started to show a poo butt.  We yanked his coat off and let him twirl and poo.  Mind you, he had gone after his dinner, so this was a double poo night.  We continued to walk and about a block down, Jam did another twirl.  Off came the coat and he tripled poo'ed.

After Mexican food, even if you are only smelling it, it is advisable to take a good, long walk.

Adventures in Babysitting

 Last night we went to the wedding of the daughter of one of my first friends at school.  Eileen and Tom are the parents of Maggie and Eileen is the health teacher where I am the librarian.  Every year Eileen and I work on a research project with the freshmen class so we have become very good friends over the years.

Even though Jammy has become quite comfortable with the kitchen/crate substitute, given his separation anxiety issues, we wanted to make sure that he wasn’t left alone too long.  So we made some babysitting arrangements.  Christina, who is our collections development librarian at school, also serves as my back up Jam corraler with Jan, our library assistant.  I've trained the both of them in appropriate Southeastern puppy handling behavior so that if I need to leave Jam with them for a meeting he is appropriately taken care of by adults.  This baby sitting job would be an at-home, no-coat job.    

Christina lives right by where the wedding was taking place, so we could drop Jammy off and then pick him up on the way back.  It would work out perfectly!  Christina was free so we made the date and dropped him off.

Here Jam sits in the doorway in a rare moment of nonshadowing, looking off to the left into the foyer and the front door.

When we went back to pick him up, Christina said he was a little nervous about being left and did some heavy breathing for about an hour.  But after he realized the we weren't coming back, he decided to do what he normally does when he thinks he might be left again: he will shadow the person.

Here is a photo of Christina cooking.  You are looking down at her feet and Jam is lying in between her feet.

 So, Jam decided that Christina was his glue and he stuck to her.  He followed her from room to room, even the bathroom.  He watched her cook dinner.
 He watched as she ate dinner.

Jam under foot at the dinner table.

More Jammy between the feet.

Sometimes, he would change it up and be on the feet.

Or sometimes, it was beside the feet.

Finally, at some point during the night, he got relaxed enough that he wasn't compelled to shadow.  He could explore on his own.

Jammy, sitting in the living room.

He decided he would check out the side window and see what was out there.  After all, during his walk, he did smell that there was a crazy cat lady next door and it did smell like there were 100s of cats lurking about. 

Holy Crap!  Crazy cat eyes glowing in the dark at Jammy as he peers out the window!

Boy, did he score on the cat jackpot!  There was a crazy cat just outside on the sidewalk and it was crazy enough to sit there and torment Jammy.

Jammy staring at the cat who is just barely visible on the sidewalk in the upper left of the window.

 He sat, and he sat.

Jammy standing and staring out the window.

Then he stood and stared.  But at the point the cat had had enough and wandered off for more interesting things to do.  Poor Jammy was left to wait it out for us to come home.  He finally curled up and slept.

Eileen, the one with the umbrella, watching her daughter and husband walk down the aisle.

The wedding, by the way, was lovely.

Father and bride walking down the aisle.

The bride was stunning and the wedding was a lot of fun.  We didn't stay out too, too late.  But, I had to get a few dances in!

A Safe Place

We have found a safe place for Jam to settle when we need him to be at home while we are out and about.  He will tolerate the crate, going it without any fuss, but he is not happy.  You can tell.  And we feel bad about leaving him.

Just by happenstance, though, we came upon the idea of babygating him into the kitchen with Willow.  What's not to like about that?  They have free reign of the kitchen, which is relatively large, and he has a buddy.

The first time we tried it for 30 minutes when we went grocery shopping.  Success!  No wild barking or panicky breathing when we returned.  There was the sneaking suspicion that perhaps one or both of them had searched the counters for something to eat, but nothing could be proven.

So we tried it again.  For a longer period of time.  Again, it was a success.  So on Friday, when we went to Bern's, we were pretty comfortable with leaving Jam in the kitchen.  We checked all the counters and left them both safe and happy.

Jam and Willow lying down in front of one of the kitchen babygates.

The good news.  He was so happy and relaxed that when we got home, he had actually fallen asleep!

Woot!  Sleepy Jam.  Separation anxiety, I am the boss of you!

A Frog's World

By Fred

Yes, the water falls from the sky in big drops. It soaks through the patio stones. The bushes droop under its weight, and the frogs have a new-found confidence because a wet back yard is a frog's favorite world. It is not Jam's world.

Jam prefers to stay inside when it rains. He will reluctantly go out to sit on the porch, but he will not venture beyond on his own, not without a leash, and then with a leash he will only walk along sadly and sigh. He will not pee or poop, not in the backyard when it is raining.

Then at bedtime he is given one more chance. Cheryl and I take turns with an umbrella, giving him all the various encouragements, lies, threats, reassurances, feigned indifference, etc. that we can imagine, because we know that he really needs to go and that the next opportunity will be early the next morning, or rather when he wakes us in the middle of the night, or worse.

And then we remember that our front yard is in a completely different universe for Jam. In the front yard, which is just as rainy and wet, he has no problem at all. Jam is keen to walk along and sniff at every soaking thing, as long as it's not in the back yard.

At the garage door I hold his leash in one hand and the umbrella in the other, and he is thrilled with the idea of walking out into the pouring rain, walking down the sidewalk and into the black night. Within 30 seconds he pees and poops.

Surely we have done something wrong...

Saved by the Bounce

Today was a calm day for Jam.  He seemed to have less than the normal amount of testosterone racing through his system resulting in a calm and steady, dare I say it, guide dog like presence today.

Apart from the small incident of leash tug of war (I won by virtue of taking him upstairs and making him do obedience for 10 minutes, which the kids reading up there found incredibly amusing), he was very good on the leash except for one incident on the way back to the library.

As we were walking through the mall to the library, a freshman boy in front of us started to bounce his tennis ball as he was walking.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bouncey, bounce. Bounce.

Jam stopped and seemed to quiver all over.  Every hair seemed to stand on end like he was electrified.  I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen next.  Would he explode?  Or would he leap at the ball?

So before anything bad could happen I called out, "Hey, could you stop bouncing the ball until he can't see  you?"

The boy turned and saw that Jam was very nearly ready to pop.

"Yes, ma'am," he said cheerfully and walked away clutching his tennis ball.

Jam watched him out of the corner of his eye until we were headed off in another direction.

"Good boy Jam.  What a good boy you are."  I patted his head marveling that all of his hair was now flat against his skin.  "What a good boy you are."

Getting Ready for IFT: Sit-Stay and Down

Jam had his birthday a couple of weeks ago and his in for training (IFT) day we estimate is July 21st.  So, after I completed his CBARQ questionnaire, I went looking for the 12-month evaluation form for puppies.  But there wasn't one.  There was one for 14-month old puppies, so I looked at it.  

I noticed that there is a list of commands that all the puppies should know (and this list is up on our pantry).  However, on the 14-month eval, there are some details that the manual doesn't give you, such as time limits for a sit-stay and a down command (see below list). 

Jam, sitting down and looking up at the camera.

Commands Puppy Should Know:

• Forward (got it covered)
• Sit (working on his placement)
• Sit-Stay (3 min. Hmmmm)
• Down (5 min. Double HMMMMM)
• Stand (knows it, but doesn't always do it)
• Come (knows it, but we try only to do it with the leash on)
• Heel (knows it, but since the new Blue Coat Journal came out, we will be revisiting this)
• Switch (got it covered!)

Oh my.  A three-minute sit stay?  A five-minute down stay?  We hadn't really been timing them.  It was a good thing I had looked at the evaluation form because we now had our work cut out for us.  I decided we needed to do a baseline test to see what he could do. 


Let's see where we stood for the down command:

About a minute and a half in Jam gets bored and stretches, but doesn't break the down.

Jam finally rests about 3 minutes in.

The beeping of the camera disturbs him and he breaks the down at 3:21.  Over all, though a good down.

Now, for the sit-stay.

Jammy is in the sit position.

Jammy is getting sleepy about 45 seconds in and wants to lie down! No, Jammy!

Jammy is back in a sit, but still wants to lie down.

3:06 seconds.  We made it, but Jam tried to lie down three times.  I think that counts as breaking the sit-stay.  This sit-stay is going to be the hard one.  Jammy is a very lazy boy.

I think the sit-stay is going to be much harder than the down-stay.  Jam loves to lie down.  He isn't much for sitting.  Most of his sits merge into a down.  So, now we have a goal.  A 3-minute sit-stay.


We can practice this when he is in the library by my side at the table.  I'll start timing him.  We have two months. 


Not a problem.