Lasts

The week before turning in a CCI pup is almost just as hard as turn-in itself. It is a week of "lasts", last time going to work, last time shopping, last day at home, etc. Since I'm co-raising Nick with friends, my "last" came a week early as I wanted our co-raisers to have Nick the last week. One, because I thought it would be easier for me (it wasn't!) and two, I thought it would be better for Nick so I wouldn't stress him out due to my stress.

It was still a really hard week and this time around, it just came a week earlier. During our last week together, the weather finally started cooling down a bit, so I was able to take Nick out a little more during our breaks at work. Across the street from my office is the American River Bike Trail that leads to Willow Creek (where we put in our kayaks) and is a quick 10-minute walk. Here's a picture of Nick I took at Willow Creek.

For some strange reason, a force I can't explain pulled me off the trail on the walk back to the office. I took a walk on the side trail where I took Molly during our last few hours together. This trail is a special place for me, so I wanted to show it to Nick. I admit I shed a few tears thinking about Molly again and thinking of Nick - our last time together here for both of them. Here is a picture of Nick at that special place...

It always amazes me how in the course of 15-18 months, how much change these pups go through. They mature from a young 8 week old puppy who knows very little to a confident, mature pup ready to conquer the world. I try to remember to take pictures of my pups at work on my chair to see that transformation. Here's a picture of Nick on his first day at work with me and on his last day.

First day at work...

Last day at work...

And in front of the sign at work...

Another summer pool party

We were invited for yet another summer pool party at a friend's house. It was Nick's last day with us before he left to go back to our co-raiser's for his last week. Boy turn-in sure came out of nowhere this time around. :-(

In the morning, I decided I would make some dog cookies for the party and Hope and Nick were right there to supervise. So I gave them each a spoonful of peanut butter to enjoy as I was baking the cookies! Too cute...

And here is Hope, shocked at herself that Nick's excessive drooling is beginning to rub off on her!

The dogs had a blast at the party. Nick even joined in on the fun a few times and went for a swim now that he found his swimming legs. Here is the group shot of almost all the dogs at the party...

And a little video of the group picture...not so easy to get the picture sometimes...

Big Dog class and Najee visit

At the last minute, we scrambled to have Nick's brother Najee come up to Folsom on their way to Mill Valley. It was great for the boys to see each other again before they turned-in. Because I had to work, everyone arrived here before I got home and Najee's puppyraiser said he ran all over the house looking for Nick (who was at work with me). Too cute.

The black dogs and one lone yellow dog... (Nick, Hope, Najee (in back), Titian, and Emilio)

Nick actually went into the pool by himself to get a toy!

As we were stacking the dogs on the waterfall for a group picture, Hope found herself a nice little cubby hole to rest in and just stayed there for a few minutes even after we released all the dogs...it fit her little body just perfectly!

And finally, the group shot (Emilio, Nick, Titian, Hope, and Najee)

After dinner, we went to puppy class in Orangevale at one of our local puppy raiser's house for an Ice Cream Social and our last class. Here is a group picture of most of the dogs that will be turning in with Nick in a week. We really had a nice class this time around, and many of my best CCI friends would be turning in with us which always makes it a bit easier. It will be interesting to see how the dogs do in Advanced Training. The other interesting piece of information is that in this picture, there was a total of 65 dogs raised by these puppy raisers in our area, amazing.

There was even a News10 crew doing a little story on our class. They got some of the details wrong, but still a nice story...

Last hike with Nick

I ended up taking a day off from work to take Nick to CCI for his turn-in hip x-rays and was planning to take Hope for a hike while we waited for him to get his x-rays done. But, plans changed as CCI called me the day before and asked me where he was that day...uh, the x-rays are scheduled for tomorrow I said. Well, they informed me that they couldn't do them on the day I had scheduled. Oh well...guess they will have to do them when he gets turned in.

So instead of driving to Santa Rosa...Hope, Nick, and I went for a couple of nice hikes instead! It all worked out for the better as we got to enjoy a nice relaxing day with Nick. In the morning, I took them to the Salmon Falls area for a hike and a swim. And, guess what, Nick finally found his swimming legs...for the first time ever, he actually swam rather than hanging out on the shore waiting for Hope to bring the stick in for him to steal. Figures it has to happen a week before turn-in...oh well.

Here's a video of Nick and Hope on the hike....

And of course, a few pictures...

In the afternoon, I took the dogs to Folsom Lake for another short hike and a swim. The water at the Lake is so low right now, its amazing to see how fast and low the water has dropped since the middle of the summer. Kind of sad actually...but the dogs could care less. Again, Nick has gotten the swimming down and Hope finally gave up trying to get the stick as Nick would get too rough around her to get it. How times have changed :-)

Here's a video and a few pics of them at Lake; I took them there in the afternoon mainly so they could wash off their morning mud....

And more pictures...

It was a fun day and sure beat driving to Santa Rosa!

Nick's photo shoot

Since a bunch of us decided to go camping at Dillon Beach the weekend of Nick's turn-in, we won't be getting "official" matriculation pictures of Nick like we have for all the other puppies I've raised. Luckily, I have friends who are great photographers and one of my friends was nice enough to do a photo shoot of Nick for us.

Even though we won't have "official" pictures, I think these pictures capture Nick's personality and expressions. I realized this after taking a look at my "official" pictures of my other four CCI pups, they all look so serious and sad.

This is my favorite picture of Nick as it totally captures his true personality and expression:

Here are a few more favorites:




We even had a "peanut gallery" during the photo shoot...Gerrit and Carlo kept peeking in the door, it was so sweet. Finally, Gerrit went and got a toy and dropped it by the door, too cute! Here's a picture of Gerrit taunting Nick.

I'm so glad we got this nice shots of Nick...he has turned into such a handsome boy and these pictures prove it! :-)

Playtime with Hika

Hope's sister Hika graduated as a Skilled Companion for a young boy a few years ago and now lives in the Bay Area. When her family goes on vacation, Hika's puppy raiser is lucky to be able to dogsit her, so we got the sisters together for a little playtime at a school.

They were so cute as at first they didn't recognize eachother and then you could see the "light bulb" go off and I think they remembered each other and got wiggly. I don't think they recognize each other for being sisters, but more as playmates as they went to puppy classes together, did agility and played together a bunch.

Here's a little video and a picture of the sisters (Hika on the left, Hope on the right)....

A houseguest

Hope, Nick and I had a houseguest for about a week in July. He is Nick's "brother" from his other house and his name is Ethan. He is a retired service dog who is now living with our co-raisers as they took him back after he retired from service.

Even though he is now retired, he still is very savvy on all his commands. It was funny as he and Hope would have little contests when I asked them to "push" a drawer closed, open the fridge with a "tug" etc. Even though Hope did not graduate she still has such a desire to work and do commands for me, which has been fun. Here's a little video of Hope and Ethan showing Nick how its done...

I also thought it was kind of funny as Ethan and Hope have different methods for picking up their food bowls. Hope picks hers up so the bowl is facing up, Ethan picks it up so the bowl is facing down. Either method works, its all a matter of choice I guess...maybe Hope figures I will drop the food in her bowl faster if the bowl is facing up!

And, we spent some time going to the school to play...



Because it was one of our co-raiser's birthday...we also made her a sign to wish her a Happy Birthday, pretty cute, huh? Nick hasn't learned the advanced stuff there, so he was stuck in the middle just to look cute :-)

A picture of the brothers...Nick and Ethan

Since the weather was still so warm and we couldn't go out much, I took the time to start playing with my camera a little more...so got a couple of shots of Nick in the backyard. Here are a few of those...first a profile shot

And another shot...he's turned into such a handsome dude!

A field trip for Nick

We took Nick to "Big Dog" class at UCDMC (UC Davis Med Center) where we worked on commands inside the hospital went to the Pediatric and Neurology wards to visit with patients.

Here are a couple of pictures of Nick outside of the hospital. The pictures aren't great as these were taken with my camera phone...

And, here he is practicing working next to a gurney. The funny part of the story is he had no problem jumping on the gurney, but when he laid down, he laid down ON the patient! Oops...no harm done as the "patient" was one of us puppy raisers.

Nick was awesome with the patients we visited, he seemed very comfortable and was very gentle. We visited a young boy who seemed to enjoy his visit. His mom told us it was the first time her son smiled in two days.

Good job Nick!

Dog Days of Summer

July was a month of hot weather...several straight days of 100+ degree weather. During this time, it was too hot to take the dogs for a walk (too hot for their feet on the pavement), so we spent a lot of time just hanging out by the pool.

Ever since one of my friends got an underwater case for their Flip video camera, I've been wanting one as I thought it would be fun to get a video of Hope swimming from underwater. It finally occurred to me to try using the waterproof case I have for my GPS that I use when I kayak.

It was actually a little tricky to take the videos as it was hard to keep myself underwater AND hold my breath long enough to take the video. But here are the results of that effort:

And another...



I also spent some time working with Nick on swimming, mainly so he would know what to do if he ever fell in the pool, but also to see if I could get him to swim. He was happier just hanging out on the side of the pool and stealing toys from Hope as she would bring them in rather than swimming. I did get this video of him on one of the occasions where I put him in the pool with us...he knows how to swim, he just chooses not to! :-)

Hounds & Rebounds

In mid-July, we had a night out on the town with our pet dogs. Hope and her buddy Carlo, another Change of Career Dog, were able to go to a Sacramento Monarchs game even though they are pet dogs now. The Monarchs were hosting a "Hounds & Rebounds" night where you could bring your pet dog to the game and they would donate a portion of the ticket sales to a non-profit animal organization of your choice. I chose to give my proceeds to Lend A Heart, the therapy organization that Hope and I belong to.

Nick was with our co-raisers, and Gerrit was with another puppy raiser. So this night it was all about Hope and Carlo. They put us in the nosebleed section, but it was pretty organized and we still enjoyed the game, even though the Monarchs lost.

Here's a few pictures of Hope and Carlo outside of Arco Arena before the game...


And a shot of Hope inside the arena, see how far we are from the basketball court?

GO MONARCHS!

Another day, another pool party

The day after the 4th of July, we were invited to another pool party at a friend's house. Nick didn't go as he went home with our co-raisers after the BBQ, so it was just Hope and I. For once, it was not all labs/goldens at this party.

The other black dog is Guinness, a young CCI pup who had his first swim at the party. He actually did really well, just got right in and swam. Wish Nick would do that!

4th of July

4th of July??? It's August for goodness sakes! Well, I've been a little behind on blogging I guess. Sometimes life just gets in the way. So I'm going to attempt to get caught up on the blog...

For the 4th, Hope, Nick, and I hosted a casual bbq dinner with our co-raisers and their pet dogs Spencer (the beagle) and Ethan (a retired service dog who lives with them now) and our friend Jill and her dog Hollie.

The backyard is not very dog friendly, but as you can see, it didn't matter and they still had a blast with Spencer leading the way! We ended up coming in when the fireworks started as it was quite loud and we didn't want to scare the dogs.

Here's a video...

Hope goes kayaking!

After our successful experiment of getting Hope on my kayak in my pool, it was time to move to the real world and try it out on Lake Natoma. I met two of my friends at Willow Creek (our usual put-in location) and Hope had no issues getting on the back of the boat like she did in the pool.

However, transferring the kayak to the lake made a HUGE difference, it was not like the pool at all! I have to admit I was a bit nervous, but when she was sitting on the back deck of the kayak, I kept thinking to myself that the boat seemed a little "tippy". After paddling around in the calm water for a few minutes, I definitely could tell it wasn't feeling very stable with her back there, especially when she would shift her weight around. One of my friends then tried it out and agreed it was not very stable with her back there. Now what?

Well, we "stuffed" her in the cockpit and that was much better! So we got her in my boat and ventured out to the main part of the lake and started paddling towards Negro Bar. Boy, was the paddling ever hard with that extra 50 lbs in the boat, I had to paddle a lot harder! At one point, knowing I would need to paddle back, I told my friends that I was going to turn around and go back to Willow Creek as I was tired. We stopped at a little island and one of my friends volunteered to take Hope back in her boat to give me a little reprieve. Phew...I felt like I was Speed Racer on the way back without Hope in my boat. Who would have thought that extra weight would have made that much difference?

Hope did a great job staying in the boat with all of us, but I'm not sure if she really enjoyed it all that much. So the verdict is not really in as to whether I will take her out again or not. I think she would probably have more fun if we take it easy, stop along the way to let her swim, then paddle. The other difficulty is I will not be able to take her out alone, it takes at least one other person as I have to get in the boat first and the other person has to help her in the boat. So we'll see...at this point, I'm just happy she behaved herself and we got a chance to try it.

Hope and I paddle at Willow Creek (love the little heading sticking out!)

Hope was happy to paddle with her Auntie Jill too...

Cindy helps me out by paddling back to Willow Creek...that's Hope's little black head sticking out...

The Drooling Dog - redux

Boy, its sure nice to have friends who can use Photoshop! Here's a picture of Nick in front of the Drooling Dog sign that is more appropriate; notice which way the arrow points now!

Sierra's Pool Party in Grass Valley

Yesterday, we were invited up to Grass Valley for a dog swim party at Sierra's house in Grass Valley. We had 11 dogs in all and they ran and swam, and ran some more, all afternoon! They had a blast! And we humans had a great time watching the dogs play and visiting with each other, it was a great afternoon.

On the way to Grass Valley, we stopped at a BBQ place that is called "The Drooling Dog BBQ", what a perfect fit for Nick. Of course we had to stop and get a photo of him by the sign! Shoot, if I were paying attention I would have sat him next to the sign so that the arrow was pointing at him. Maybe we'll have to come back to re-shoot the photo!

Here is Nick living up to his name, The Drooling Dog...


From there, we drove to Sierra's place and the dogs played and swam all afternoon while the rest of us humans enjoyed watching the dogs play and having a great visit.

Here's a video of the dogs playing....

As usual, I deleted so many of my blurry photos of Sierra running around the pool. Until I saw her in person again yesterday, I forget how fast that girl is...I borrowed this shot from one of my friends.

And...after they were tired out, the group shot on the waterfall...photo courtesy of one of my friends as the rest of us were wrangling the dogs to get them settled on the waterfall, such a cool picture of all the dogs!

What a great afternoon!

Kayak dog!

I've been really wanting to take Hope out paddling with me at Lake Natoma. A while back, I put her in the cockpit of my boat, but it was too small for me to paddle with her in the boat. So ever since then, I've been contemplating getting another kayak that she could fit in.

Today, I went to Paddlefest at Lake Natoma with a friend to try out some kayaks. We tried out several boats that could Hope could fit in and I found a sit-on kayak that I liked where Hope could fit in either the front or back.

After we got back, my friend had a great idea to put Hope's dog bed on the back of the kayak I already have, strap it in, and let Hope try it out. We first had her practice jumping up on the boat while it was on dry land and we held it steady. After she got comfortable with that, we had her jump on the boat and rocked it back and forth a little to get her used to the motion of it moving. Then the real test, we put the boat in the water and had her jump on it several times. Then the next test was having my friend get in the boat, then paddle with her on the back.

Surprisingly, she did GREAT! I was totally expecting her to panic or be nervous, but she seemed comfortable after a few tries. We are going to take her out to Lake Natoma and try the same thing as a final test, next time with me in the boat. I stayed out of the boat today so I could encourage her and give her treats.

So now the dilemma is, do I get the new boat or do I use my current boat? Hmmmmm....what to do, what to do....

Tight-Rope Walker?

Hope says that Nick is a crazy boy....she wasn't about to walk about on that bridge at the school playground, but Nick said, "No problemo!" Good boy Nick!

Hope flunks Dock Diving School

It was a BDC at Lake Natoma today!  

Hope and I met her buddy Maggie, who we met through pet therapy and who also likes to hike and geocache, at Lake Natoma's Negro Bar today after work.  The intent was to have Maggie show Hope how to jump off the dock...well, Hope was having none of that and did her usual run back down the dock and go in from dry land!  She earned a D-minus for her first lesson, it would have been a "F" had she not jumped in off the side -- once.  She's just "HOPE-less"!...

Maggie, on the other hand, is an awesome jumper, just like our buddy Mason.  We also met another black lab who was going out with his owner on a kayak. That's what I want to do with Hope! Here's a video of Maggie showing us her stuff...pretty cool!

When we got to the dock, there was a guy sitting on the dock so we let the girls swim off the ramp/gravel area.  Hope kept sniffing around the gravel and when I looked, there was a dead baby rattlesnake right under her nose! Holy $#@%....good thing it was dead!  The guy on the dock told us a dog had just been taken off to the vet as it had gotten bitten by a rattler about an hour before we arrived.  Ok, that's now 4 rattlesnakes I've seen this year, and this is getting a little scary! Maggie has had a rattlesnake vaccine, maybe we ought to start thinking about it for Hope...YIKES...

Hope poses for a picture...

Hope and Maggie pose for a picture

Maggie brings the ball in...

I was disappointed these action shots came out blurry, hard to get those dogs in focus!

Hey Maggie, where'd you go?.... ;-)

A great way to end the day...I just wish we didn't have to worry so much about the rattlesnakes...

Hope and Nick have a new friend

And that friend's name is Hollie, a 10-month old, Aussie/Husky mix who was adopted from the Sacramento SPCA by a friend of mine.  Hollie is currently learning how to walk nicely on leash, how to have nice table manners (inside joke - her owner will understand), and play nice with other dogs.

Here she is trying to teach Hope how to move her ears up and down.  Hope says she'd rather wag her tail than move her ears up and down. :-)

Here is a video when Nick and I met Hollie and Skipper at the Dog Park in Roseville the day before Skipper was turned in for Advanced Training at CCI.  Good luck in Advanced Training Skippy...

Take me out to the ballgame...

Today was "Bark in the Park" at the Sacramento River Cats game.  We took Nick and his best buddy Gerrit to the game.  It was a fun day of greasy baseball food, good friends, and baseball. We bought tickets for the lawn area, but halfway through the game we went and sat with our fellow puppy raising friends who have season tickets as there were some empty seats near them in the shade as the dogs were getting hot - well, and so were we!

Here's a picture of Nick and Gerrit that Gerrit's puppy raiser took of the boys...I didn't think to bring my camera!