Jam's First Week

What a week it has been! On Monday, Jam rode with me to school to his first day of a school filled with students. It was quite exciting.



As you can see from the photo above, Jam has taken his full water bowl and flipped it over preferring that it be a chew toy. Of course, now, it looks like he had a giant pee on the floor! Great! This is what the morning crazies are about. Jam doing crazy things and me trying to get him calm to start the day.

Because our convocation was at 8 am and he usually has an 8:30 poo, I needed to make sure he had done his business and was extra tired out. The morning crazies can last from 7:30 to 9 am. So we did several sets of stairs and series of left-lefts and right-rights and hallways so that his little brain would be exhausted by the time we hit the auditorium.

Then we started our walk to convo. It was pretty cool the looks that Jam got. What was even more impressive was the way that the middle division students remembered all the rules. As I was walking down the hall, there was a great big group of them and they all caught sight of him at the same time.

"It's the new puppy!"

"You can't look at him!"

"Don't say his name."

"Turn around!"

So they all straighten their posture and turn around. They were so cute. We passed on by and entered the auditorium.



I thought that Jam did an exceptional job of dealing with the crowds, the clapping and the pipe and drum corps band. Both Bingo and Berkeley had some reaction to convo. Bingo would surge forward at clapping and Berkeley would get bored and bark to be taken back to my office. Jam was very calm and quiet.



But by the end of the day he was so tired that he couldn't hold his eyes open. He was comatose!



Later on in the week we did a small photo shot with some middle division faculty for his presentation to middle. Of course, I was a complete dunce and when I went to go up on stage because I started calling him Berkeley:

"Berkeley, forward. Pause. Good boy. Berkeley, sit. Long pause. Good boy. Berkeley forward up."

The kids were aghast! I had no clue I was even doing it and was wondering why he wasn't following directions well. BECAUSE I WASN'T SAYING HIS NAME! The Middle Division Director told when I came up to the microphone. Horrors!

Sigh. In front of 350 people I did this.

Then on Friday, he attended his first class with me. He was awesome! I was running the computer and lecturing when I noticed there was a little current of Ahhhhhs spreading through the room. I looked up at the teacher.

"Jam's watching the screen."

Sure enough, Jam was focused on the screen watching my explanation on how to set up an iGoogle page. He was fascinated by the mouse movement. When the mouse finally got low enough he leaped up and tried to grab it.

The kids loved him!



Here he is at my last class of the day. Calm and quiet.



Christina looked at him from behind and said he had some "junk in the trunk" and perhaps he needed to move up to the big boy coat.

He is a little big in the booty, but the big boy coat is still a couple inches out on his tail, so it's the puppy coat for a few more weeks. Although he is in the middle of a growth spurt, so who knows.

All in all it was a successful week.

Jam's First Day

Jam's first day went really well. I'm preparing a little film about it, but that won't be ready tonight. However, Jam was a little nutball during the morning and I was able to catch it on film.

So, here is a bit of Monday sunshine for you. Imagine getting to have this goober in your office all day! And I do mean goober in a good way. 8-)

Jam's Upper Division Video

Tomorrow Jam will be presented to the Upper Division students. On Wed., he will got to Middle and on Sept. 9th, Lower. It will be a little different for each division as the age groups are different, but hopefully, Jam will be a good boy at each presentation. I hope to have some video of each to show you.

Here's a look at the lovely time we had on July 1st going to pick him up!

Cooling Off

By Fred
The dogs were so jazzed up at the start of our Tuesday training class that we took them out for a walk on the beach. Here we are, back in the room, and doesn't Cheryl look cute with her curly red hair?

Jam has decided that the Down command is beneath him, that it's somehow demeaning, and he pretends that he has no idea what you are saying while in fact he will pop down immediately in the morning when no one is looking and he's waiting for breakfast. Otherwise, like in the training class, we say Down and he gets that look of a junior high kid whose mom wants to kiss him in front of everyone.

Jam still doesn't know what to think about our neighbor's swimming pool. One thing for sure is that he's not afraid of it (or anything else, at least so far).

This time he jumped in on his own, and he swam around like a cartoon alligator, snapping his teeth at the water.

Cheerleaders Redux

When I had Bingo, I made the mistake of walking him without his coat past the JV cheerleaders.

I was mobbed. Well, they didn't care about me. Bingo was mobbed.

Guess what? It happened again today.

It was late, I was tired and I knew that Jammers needed to pee, so I walked out the back way (not my usual way). I figured he could busy on the grass of the mound on the way to junior parking lot, since we had to park out there because of Middle Division Book Sale Day.

As I left the library and walked down the side of the building, I noticed that the JV cheerleaders were practicing on the mound. Had they noticed us? We were walking behind a screen of plants, but soon enough we would be out in the open.

We rounded the corner and headed into the open hallway. Jam gleamed like the Holy Grail. I could see all children under the age of 16 turning in our direction. We neared the small stairs.

Jam, sit. Good boy! Forward, down. Jam, sit. Good boy! He was trying to veer into the plants. He was filled with pee. Hold on, little grail of pee. Soon we will be at the grass. I looked over at the cheerleaders. They were on the other side of the mound and seemed to still be doing poses.

Safe, I think.

Busy, busy! Jam starts to wander around the grass to choose a spot. This might be a good spot to tell about Jam's predilection for taking a Superman pee stance. While other dogs might lean forward or hunker down or lift a leg (guide dog puppies are discouraged from lifting their leg), Jam has chosen another route. He stops mid-stride and pees.

Yep. Mid-stride. Imagine Superman leaping into the sky...


and then peeing. That would be Jam. He has one foot forward, one back and his head is lifted to the sun as if to say, I am the Sun God! Watch me pee!

So, here I wait for the Sun God to pee while the JV cheerleaders are finishing up their practice. Jam is taking his sweet time, because, YOU CAN'T RUSH A GOD WHEN HE'S PEEING.

Just when he finishes up and I think I might be able to slink off into the hallway, I hear a low roar, well, more of a high pitched, OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!

Yes. They are coming. For the Sun God.

We are mobbed.

And this is why I love cheerleaders: in the middle of the mob scene, I say ONCE, "Ok, I think we need to line up single file to pet him."

BOOM!

Single file line of 15 JV cheerleaders, who one by one file by and love on Jam.



It is, indeed, Jam's World.

Sarasota Discovery Center Meeting

Saturday we had our monthly meeting in the SEGD Discovery Center in downtown Sarasota. We had the obedience part of the meeting first, then we spent the rest of the time mingling with the visitors to the Center, letting them love on our puppies and ask us about the whole puppy raiser experience.

Judy started out the meeting with a controversial move: she threw food on the ground! Well, not really. 8-) It was all part of her lesson involving getting the puppies to work on their food distractions. Evidently, getting distracted by crumbs on the floor, trying to vacuum them up, snarfing up after a meal or begging for food is one of the number one ways a puppy can get bounced from the guide dog program.

What's a puppy raiser to do? Why, train them to ignore food on the ground (Note to self: work in cafeteria more! 8-)

Here are some of the chicken treats that she placed on the ground:



As you can see by Jam's expression below, the chicken treats smell DE-LIGHTFUL! Even Annie thinks they are amazing.



Judy didn't stop with chicken, she added some other yummies as well. It was quite a pile of joyful goodness as evidenced by the lunging, drooling puppies in the background.



Jam remained at the ready to leap up and eat a pile when the word go was given. Unfortunately, that word was never given.



Judy did give the word for every raiser to try walking in a circle around the treats to see if their puppy could make without lunging.

Fred had the leash. I had the video camera. I have to say that Mick, our last puppy to go was quite...unusual. You have to wait for it. I guess somethings are more important than food.

No More Duck Buddy

Below is a photo of duck buddy with his innards spilling out onto the floor. Rather a fluffy white mess.



When a friend of ours saw this in Fred's post and the original post on duck buddy, she very kindly emailed us and said stuffed toys were a no-no.

EEEK! Holy Crap. Jam is our third puppy. Are we ever going to learn this stuff? I ran to the computer to look up toys, because I was sure that if as long as the toy didn't have a squeaker I was on solid ground.

Nope. There it was in black in white:

The only approved toys are Gummabones, Nylabones, sterile bones (bought in a pet shop or catalog), and Kongs.

Stuffed toys were CLEARLY in the bolded NO category. And I completely understand. The main point of the rule is to make sure the toys the puppies play with are the safest possible. So, no stuffed toys. Jam will deal.



And we are aren't a complete waste of space. We do have approved toys in the house.

He's going to miss duck buddy though!

I think we all are. 8-)