Sins of Omission

By Fred
I remember that day in Sister Agatha's class when I learned about sins of omission. An eight-year-boy like me got in trouble often enough without this new idea of getting in trouble for doing nothing.

I believe I sinned again the other day at Casa Tina's restaurant. The little girl at the table next to me dropped some of her food on the floor. It landed with a messy, stinky, loud splat only a few feet from Coach's nose. Normally he would have pounced, but this time he just looked up at me calmly and smiled. The girl's mother was very impressed when I told her that Coach is only eight months old.

"You are doing a wonderful job with him," she said, and I just smiled. Sin #1.

A picture of Coach with his tongue hanging out.
We are walking along the busy streets for practice.

This brought on a typical conversation about the guide dogs, and two other tables joined in with questions. I was so full of myself that by the end of the lunch I thought I'd double down.

"We're working on his go-to commands," I told them as we got up to leave. "I'm going to ask Coach to lead me out of the restaurant, and then I'm going to let him lead me without prompting. So we might be here for a while." I have an audience at this point.

"Find the door," I said to Coach. I fully expected that I would have to cheat a little (a real sin of commission). But Coach walked me right to the door and sat down. Applause.

A moral person would have turned around and admitted that, wow, Coach had never done that before. I just walked away. #2.

Naming a Puppy: Almost Halfway There!

I'm excited and proud to announce that we are close to $1500 in our quest to name a puppy for the Walkathon for Southeastern Guide Dogs.  The Student Library Proctors are trying to raise $3500, which is the amount you need to name a puppy.  Our next milestone is $1500.  We just had a breaksale and sold almost $200 in donuts and bagels and ice cream bars!  It was lovely!

Here is photo of one of our previous breaksales that shows two tables full of Dunkin Donuts! 8 dozen to be exact!!

We have quite an energetic crew that is trying to reach this lofty goal.  I am so impressed and proud of them.  They have really worked hard and pulled off something great.  To have amassed this much already is amazing.  

We just received a note from Southeastern that we were a "Top Dog" fundraiser for raising over $1,000. Won't you be part of our success?  Email me if you want to get some raffle tickets or go to Coach's fundraising page to contribute.  We also have cute totes for sale for $15 plus shipping (unless you live in Tampa: 

Photo of our totebags with the drawings of famous authors on them.  The drawings were done by a  student library proctor.  Authors include: Shakespeare, Poe, Austin and Lee.

  

As a sidenote, what library-related puppy names do you think we should name the next male puppy?  So far we have:

• Dewey
• Booker

Harry Potter themed names include: 

• Sirius
• Harry
• Lupin
• Hagrid
• Fluffy
• Ronald
• Pigwidgeon
• Dumbledore
• Albus
• Aberforth
• Neville
• Dobby
• Firenze
• Buckbeak
• Severus

What is your favorite?

Happy Holidays: Snoopy Gets a Close Shave

 Sometimes you just can't win.  It's those times when you put little antlers on your dog and the fall to the floor in disgust and embarrassment and won't sit up, like Willow did on Saturday.  Try as I would, she just wouldn't sit.  She would barely look at me.

Coach is on the left wearing a red velvet bone hat with a pom pom on top and Willow is on the right with a red antler headband.

Coach was no better.  He was barely able to contain himself.  If he wasn't trying to rip the hat off, he was giving me THE LOOK, which essentially meant I had ruined his life.

Close up of Willow's face and some of the antlers.  She is not pleased.

Above is a photo of Willow giving me her version of THE LOOK.  She is tell me how horrified she is to be in antlers and what was I thinking?  So, I moved on.  I admitted defeat.  There was to be no cute holiday photo.  We would just go get the tree and move on.

Coach is sitting pensively in front of a bare Christmas tree.

Coach was very chill at the tree lot.  He didn't mark one tree.  Not even the tree we picked out (yea!).  

Willow is on the left and Coach on the right.  They are in front of a decorated and lit Christmas tree.  Coach has his paw on Willow's arm.  They are both in down stays and looking up at the camera.

Later, when the tree was decorated, I decided to try again, only without the demeaning hats.  They must have forgiven me for I couldn't have asked for a better holiday photo.  They were even holding paws.  It was so cute.  And for all you Southeastern Guide Dog people, do you see the pinecones, as decoration, in the background?! Check that one off the list of exposures!

The only thing left for Coach to experience was Snoopy and the Snoopy song, which is technically called the Linus and Lucy song.  Those are student library proctors dancing in the background.  Wait for Coach's surprise ending.  It's a hoot, maybe not for Snoopy, though!

 

Happy Holidays!!

Thanksgiving Puppies!

Thanksgiving is that time when friends and family gather to break bread and eat together in peace and harmony.  Thanksgiving is also the time when some who might harken back to old slights and fights of family members should truly forgive over the calming influence of tryptophan and pie.  

Melisa, another puppy raiser, had invited Fred and me, Willow and Coach, over for Thanksgiving.  We were extremely grateful and I had made a 5 layer chocolate pie and a Jack Daniels Pumpkin Cheesecake as desserts.  

Coach panting by the side of the house.  He is looking off the right at Bo, who is not in the photo.

Willow is pleased as punch and looking up at me with a big smile on her face.

When we arrived, Dave and Petey, St. Pete's first puppy, were already there.  Duke and Lil Bo Peep live there, so they were there too.  Melisa's parents, Judy and Jerry and her partner Ed were also there.  Willow was wearing her pretty princess sparkly pink crystal collar, which she rarely gets to wear, so she was feeling fine.

Melisa is passing around the delicious baked olives. Her mom is on a swing chair to the right and Fred is making a grab for more olives.

Melisa had cooked up a feast: cheddar wrapped olives and stuffed artichoke hearts for appetizers, which were very tasty were just the start.  The weather outside was perfect.

The boys: Fred, Dave, Jerry and Ed sunning themselves on the patio outside.

The dogs seemed to get along, until Petey decided that being head of St. Pete meant that he was the boss of everyone.  When Coach realized that he and Petey weren't actually playing but were doing a dominance contest, Coach was desperate to get out of it.  Coach is a live-and-let-live kind of fella.  So we separated the two unnuetered boys and kept them out of each other's way the rest of the night.  Coach got his confidence back playing with Bo and Duke as you will see in the video.

Petey spent some time in Duke's crate and he got a peanut butter kong later in the evening.  Bo, Duke and Coach figured out someone was getting a kong and it might as well be them, so they tried to influence Dave into giving Petey's kong to one of them.

Dave is at the counter filling a kong with peanut butter.  He is watched by Coach, Bo and Duke.

They even followed him to the door in a last ditch effort.  But it didn't work.  They are nothing if not persistent.  

Bo, Coach and Duke followed Dave to the door and stand outside the door hoping he won't give the kong to Petey and will bring it out and give it to one of them.

In the end, they were able to coexist with each other and here they are at the end of the meal breaking bread, or rather staring at bread and thinking about eating it. 

All five pups in a semi circle around a bowl of rolls.  Of course they are being held back by Fred, Ed and Dave.  Petey is the only one on a loose leash.

It was a photo op, not an actual treat moment. We hope you all had such a lovely and tasty Thanksgiving Holiday!

Enjoy some puppy exuberance in the video. Coach and Bo are BFFs!

 

Puppy Crazies

Coach is a pretty calm puppy.  He rarely gets the puppy crazies.  So, yesterday, when he got them AND we had a camera at the ready, we were able to get some rare footage of our calm and sedate puppy being a wild man.

That is until he got a shoe...

Puppy on Ice!

Last night Coach and I went to see my advisee, Chad, play in one of the Berkeley hockey games.  We were playing a pretty good team and we still have a very young team.  So, it was going to be a lesson in determination, teamwork and enthusiasm against superior skills.  

Coach, Jamie, Merideth and another mom watch the game from the goalie's perspective.

The Clearwater rink has an interesting set up as far as seating goes.  There is more indoor seating, but there is also space behind the goal so that you can watch the whole game from that special perspective. That's where all the moms were, so that's where Coach and I went.

Coach was not particularly fond of this spot.  He didn't seem to be able to get comfortable on the floor. I think he is a real Florida dog.  We did have a couple of struggles with the down command as he wasn't fond of the cold floor.  Ultimately, he ended up sitting between my legs. And we took a walk at one of the breaks to warm him up.

He got to experience whistles, buzzers and crashes.  It seemed to me as if he did, in the end, enjoy the game, because when he was sitting his ears were perked and he was following every swoosh of the skates, every pass by of the skaters, every crash into the boards.  

At games end, we were down 20-2.  Our team was feeling quite legitimately down in the dumps, despite leaving it all on the ice.  Our goalie in particular was incredible.  Michael deflected so many shots on goal and was swarmed.  This year is his first as goalie and I was quite impressed with his fortitude in the face of an intense and nonstop barrage of shots.  Well done! 

After the game I had asked if there was a possibility of getting Coach on the ice with the boys and parents Bobby and Merideth made it happen.  It seemed to cheer the boys up a bit too, if their smiles in the photo below are any indication.

Photo of the whole team with Coach finally sitting his butt on the ice in front of them. 

But then, who wouldn't love to see a puppy get on the ice for the first time?  I let Dawson take him out on the ice as Dawson has an ambassador dog at home and knows all the rules.  It was only that very tail end of the skate that Coach goes a little puppy crazy, but you can see that in the video.  Coach really didn't want to sit down because it was so cold. So he was doing this weird hunching thing.  One of the boys asked about whether he had to poo.

I said he just didn't want to freeze his booty.  then I thought to myself, "Please Lord, don't let him poo on the ice!" He did sit for them, finally. And I walked with him back over the ice to the doorway thinking to myself, "Do NOT fall on your butt! Do NOT.  Walk VERY slowly!!"

We made it safely to dry land.  Please enjoy the video of Coach's first ice experience.

Nature Boy

We have a big puppy party coming up in December.  So we are busily trying to get our crazy yard to look ship shape.  This weekend that meant that we had to replant all of the beds under the windows of the garden room.  Since we have tried several different kinds of plants there (gingers, to name just one that comes to mind) and all of them have failed miserably, we thought we would go with a drought tolerant variety: succulents.

Coach is sitting by the left hand side of a large black rack of succulents.  There are three full shelves of plants.

We were rather pleased with our choice, but Coach wasn't.  As we approached the succulent stand, his tail drooped until it was practically tucked under.  He was not happy about succulents.  He didn't want to go near the stand or the plants.  

Of course, he doesn't get to make that choice.  As a Southeastern Guide Dog in training, he has to at least attempt to become acquainted with things he doesn't like.  I parked the cart and we did a right about and walked back to the succulents. 

"Look at those awesome plants, Coach. Aren't they great?"  I was talking in a cheery voice.  The man in the aisle next to me started to laugh.  I'm sure he thought I was crazy.  Coach looked at me like I was crazy.  His tail was still down, so I walked closer and he followed me willingly.  "These plants rock."

Coach was clearly doubtful.  He got close enough to sniff.  He sniffed a jade plant. His tail began a little wag.  I said nice things about his manhood and his tail wagged some more.  I think we were good here, so I began to load up the cart with succulents.

Coach is sitting on the left of the shopping cart and is looking up at the succulents in the cart.

Coach didn't mind them in the cart and sat rather close to them.  Perhaps it was the shelving instead that he didn't like.

Coach is in the side yard by the green wagon.  He is looking at the planting bed that has new succulents in it.

Just to make certain, Coach joined me for a gardening lesson and seemed very uninterested in the plants at all.  He certainly didn't fear them.

Coach is standing by the edge of the koi pond with his front feet a little splayed out.  A white water lily if in front of him in the water.

Later, we checked out the water lily that was blooming in the koi pond.

Coach leans into the lily to take a sniff.

He seemed able to stop and sniff the lilies, if you know what I mean.

Coach stands at the end of the pond looking into the camera.  The lily pads and flower are all in the foreground. He has his head tilted slightly to the left.

My little nature boy.  Not afraid of succulents after all.  Willing to lean out over ponds and sniff flowers.  Adventurous.  That's what he is!