We reached Oceanside and Hope was happy to stretch her legs at our friend Laurie's house. Her puppy Kane is about 9 months old now. Its funny, but I think Hope and Kane look a lot alike and have very similar expressions, even more so than her brother Hefner.
Here's a picture of them together:
On Saturday, we went to CCI's Southwest Region campus in Oceanside. Dean Koontz, who is a huge supporter of CCI, was there autographing copies of his latest books. I watched one of the CCI puppy classes in the morning then we waited in line to have our books autographed. This is Kane doing an "up" in front of him (after he attempted to do a "jump", oops...):
On Sunday, it was time to go on the HOPE callout with Hope at Camp Pendleton. We met as a group and drove to the base together. The purpose of the callout was to ease the tension on base as many of military families were waiting in the long food distribution lines. This was the 2nd HOPE callout on base and it just seemed like any other visit to me until I heard the person in charge say that the HOPE teams really eased all the tension in the air as people waited in lines. Apparently, in past times, fights have actually broken out.
I was so glad I had made some stickers and trading cards with Hope's picture as they were very popular with the hundreds of kids we met. I am also very impressed with the teamwork that occurs on these callouts, everyone really looks out for eachother. Some of the families had pet dogs so our HOPE team leader and other members gave us all warnings of dogs in the area that didn't appear to be very friendly.
Here is a group picture of all the HOPE teams from the callout that day:
And, I just had to get a picture of Hope with our buddy Oz, a huge 150lb Newfoundland. He is the sweetest, gentlest creature...yet Hope is afraid of him. No wonder, he's 3 times her size. You don't need to be an expert in body language to know how she feels about Oz. We went through certification with Oz last year and Hope would never get near him. She will at least approach him from the rear and the side now. But if he comes towards her from the front, she bolts behind me. Little by little she is getting used to him each time we see him.
This is Hope, Oz and Oz' owner Mary...we nicknamed Oz "magnet" on the callout because he attracts so much attention!
I was hit with the realization of what sacrifices military families make for our country so that we enjoy the freedoms we have. Many of the people we met had spouses who were deployed or being deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan, etc. We even met many individuals who had been deployed or were going to be deployed. Many of them expressed their appreciation to us for having our animals there as their military housing situations or the fact that they have to move around so often doesn't allow for them to have pets. So many of the children loved having a dog to pet!
It was another amazing experience and taught me a lot about something I knew very little about - military life. It was another rewarding callout and a new experience for me, and of course, Hope did great.
On Monday, we met one of the HOPE members for breakfast at Beach Break Cafe, our favorite breakfast place in Oceanside. I was trying to time things right for avoiding traffic in L.A. on the way home. I put a local puppy raiser in touch with one of our HOPE members who was looking for a golden retriever that she can use as a therapy dog and as a future HOPE dog. Her released dog, Izzy, has now been adopted by the HOPE team member. Here's a picture of Hope with Izzy and her other dog, Denali, who is a therapy dog and HOPE dog who was at the Camp Pendleton callout. Hopefully, Izzy will be a HOPE dog in the future.
Another weekend of lots of driving, but well worth it!
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