Happy 9 months!

Happy 9 months to Ben and his siblings Barnes, Bethanne,
Becker, Boyko, Bernice/Bella, and Ben/Cooper!!!!

Here's 9 things at 9 months about things I like most about Ben:
1. his tail is ALWAYS wagging. If you look at him, talking to him, pet him, or just smile at him his tail goes SUPER fast!
2. Ben likes to sit in your lap. If you sit on the ground he comes and sits in your lap. :) It's so cute!
3. His eagerness to please you and learn and try new things.
4. How fast he catches onto everything! He is a REALLY smart boy!
5. How calm he is. ;) Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed having the crazy energetic Halsa, but it's also really nice having a calm dog that needs little exercise, it makes getting homework and work done a lot easier. ;)
6. His coloring. He is a pretty dark yellow and I love it!
7. That my Mom is raising him, this isn't really something about Ben, but I really think it's fun that my Mom is raising too. I like taking the pups out together with my Mom and I REALLY hope Ben graduates as a guide some day. He will have a proud Mom (my Mom :) and a proud sister? haha Would that be what I am to him? haha
8. How gentle Ben is with Teddy most of the time. He does get a little rough sometimes with Teddy, but Teddy has it coming when Ben gets rough because Teddy is pretty rough with him!
9. Lastly, how fast Ben adjusted to coming to work with me! I'm looking forward to having him at work with me at least twice, if not three times a week. Once Teddy gets old enough I think my Mom and I will rotate which dog goes to work with us each week. My Mom can take a dog to the place she works at in the morning so I think she might start taking whatever dog I don't take to work with me, with her. :)

Happy 6 months (plus 4 days) Dahlia!!! :)

I just realized that it's been 6 months and four days since I got Dahlia back! June/July of 2011 was crazy with emotions. First, I was told she was in class to graduate June 25th, then the match didn't work, but she was going to be going out for Home Training on July 6th so I still went down for graduation on June 25th and got to say goodbye to her. Then on July 12th I got the phone call saying Dahlia was released and then I picked her up on July 23rd. :) It was a crazy couple of months, but I'm glad to have my beautiful girl back home with me, even though she is a couch potato now! :)

Taking Ben to Work

I work at the library and am lucky enough to get to take them to work with me. I work 4 days a week for 3 hours a day. The dogs get to come and work on "auto settle", "sit stay", "down stay", "loose leash walking", and people distractions. Ben went to work for the first time on Wednesday and did pretty good. He went today too and was 100% better then Wednesday! It was amazing how fast he caught onto everything. :)

Ben working on "auto settle" excpet I think I had told him to down in this picture and then I decided to work on "auto settle". lol

"down stay" while I put away books.



After work, I took Ben into town and worked on three different sets of stair cases. They were all different, one was an outside fire escape, one was an indoor stair case that was cement, and one was another indoor stair case with carpet. He isn't totally comfortable on stairs so we are working on this with him. We go up and down, up and down, and stop half way when we are going up and down. He is getting better and hopefully by Walk and Talk time (March 5th) he'll be a pro and won't be scared! :)
First stair case: outdoor fire escape. Open sides, open backed, and weird texture. Did AWESOME!

Inside the PT place there was a grate so we did a "sit" on it. :) And then we worked on the cement stairs. He wasn't as comfortable on these, but it was darkish inside and the stairs were weird.

Final stop for the day, the hardware store and these stairs were carpet and very steap and they seem to go on forever! He seemed most uncomfortable with these, he was rushing a lot and taking treats really hard so I think this is one we will have to work hard on.

Have a good night!

A Tribute to Guiding Eyes for the Blind Joy

Joy at about 2 months

Joy's first Christmas, December 2009

April 2010

Joy May 2010

Joy in her pool, Summer 2010

Happy first birthday Joy! June 2009

Joy, November 2010

Joy was born June 13th, 2009. She had 5 siblings, 4 were released and 1 became a guide dog. Joy had her IFT in December 2010 and passed, she was in harness training for a while and then went into the Heeling Autism training. While she was in Heeling Autism training she suddenly became very ill. She had a very aggressive form of cancer and had to be put to sleep in early January 2012. She was raised in my region and I puppy sat her many times. She was such a sweet, cuddly, energetic, girl and she will be very missed. My heart goes out to her puppy raiser's. :(

Wordless Wednesday :)

I decided to start doing "Wordless Wednesday" so here is our first one! But it's not really wordless since I'm writing things. These pictures are of Hosta. I puppy sat her for three months in the summer of 2010. Her raiser became sick and so she had to go to a new home. She was at a few other sitter's before I got her. I was going to finish her, but they found another raiser who was without a dog to finish her. I love this dog though! She graduated as a guide in November and is now working in New York City! She was meant to go to NYC, she had the drive, energy, and confidence for NYC!

Hosta in June 2010
graduation picture in November 2011

Halsa's sibling

Well two more of Halsa's siblings have been released. :( So that's three so far, Hawkins for seperation problems, Harriet for something, but I don't know why yet, and Holiday for harness sensitivity. :( I hope no more get released!!!! :(

Questions..

Can anyone tell me how (1) I add my favorite blogs so I can check my blog and see when other blogs have been updated? And (2) I've seen on some blogs that there are "things" (I don't know what else to call them!) up at the top that you can click on and it goes to a picture and a blurb about the puppy (ie, I was reading "Carrie's Raiser" blog and she has them for all her dogs". So how do you make those too? Thanks!

****EDIT**** With the help of my brother I figured out how to do what I was asking for help with! :)

I can't wait! :)

So a region in VA is selling these cups and I'm buying one (the tall one) and I can't wait! :) I'm getting sometime after the 28th and I'm excited. I LOVE buying, wearing, using, and showing off GEB stuff (ie cups, mugs, sweatshirts, wristlets, keychains, etc). Actually, I just got a sweatshirt that I got done and it has "Guiding Eyes for the Blind" and a yellow lab dog head on it and then on the sleeve it has all my dogs names (and Ben!) on it and next to Beau, Dahlia, and Halsa it has their career on it. Once Whitley, Toby, Ben, and Teddy graduate I'll take it back and get it edited so that their careers are on it too. :) I love it. :)
I'm bored right now, even though I've enjoyed the month break from college, but.... my days are so boring! I work, babysit, walk the dogs, take the puppy places, and that's it! So I'm kind of, sort of, looking forward to college on Monday.....

P.S. The beautiful dog in the picture is GEB Tori who is 5, maybe 6 months old. :)

Shelby puppies

Halsa's mom is Shelby (a yellow lab) and Shelby has had two litter's since Halsa's litter (her first litter and was all yellow puppies). Shelby's 2nd litter was the FF11 (all balck) litter born on May 22nd, 2011. The dad was Panther and the puppies were Flex, Freedom, Ford, Favor, Felicia, Fulton, Floral, and Francine. Fulton went to another school and Flex was released, but the rest of the litter are all with puppy raiser's and are now almost 8 months old. :)

FF11 puppies :)

Shelby is a pretty girl!

On December 16th, 2011 Halsa had her 3rd litter, the Z411 litter (all yellow). The dad is Jensen (Teddy's dad!) and the puppies names are Zettie, Zane, Ziva, Zed, Zeo, and Zeus. :) They are 5 weeks old and will probably have their puppy test the week of February 6th. :)

Lenny/Ben Puppy Switch

At least once a quarter we are suppose to send our pups on what we call a "Puppy Switch" or a "Home Switch". What it is, is either you send your puppy to another raiser's house and get their puppy or you send your puppy to another raiser or sitter's house and don't get a puppy in exchange. You can do it for any ammount of time, I use to try to do one switch a month for a weekend, but this time around I've decided (with the advice of other raiser's) that I'm going to do only one a quarter, but do it for a full week because, with a weekend, but the 3rd day the pup is usually finally settling in and then a da later they go back to their raiser, but with a week, they have plenty of time to settle in and then have fun going different places they haven't been before. So, Ben is on a switch for the week with another raiser in my town. We got here dog, Lenny, who is a male black lab and he is 14 months old. Because he is 14 months old he will get an IFT date soon and so his raiser said why don't we just take Lenny from Monday to Wednesday (which turned into Thursday, today) and she'll keep Ben until Monday the 23rd. Anyway, while we had Lenny we did a fair ammount of things with him. Monday I didn't do anything with him. Tuesday he ran some errands with me, we went to the library and the store. Wednesday he came to work with me at the library for 3 hours, then we went to the bank and Subway; and lastly from 4:30-5:30 my friend and I went to the local high school to walk Lenny for an hour which went well too. Thursday (today) was his last day and he came to work again with me. In the afternoon I met up with his raiser and Ben and we went to a high school basketball game and then Lenny went back home and Ben will get to spend the rest of his switch with Lenny, they are best friends. :) So, here are some pictures!

Lenny on the 17th (Tuesday) when we were heading to the library

Lenny at the library. He has a "gentle leader" on because he has a medical problem, a soft trachea. They are keeping him on program until IFT and then once he goes in training they will see if he will be able to pull in harness without it bothering him.
Lenny at work on the 18th

Lenny and Ben watching the basketball game on the 19th :)

Lenny at the game on the 19th

Ben at the game on the 19th

I'm down to two dogs which feels weird! haha But it was fun to have some snuggle time with just Teddy on the floor tonight. :) Have a good night! We're getting hit with more snow overnight, yay!!! :) Well, yay as long as that doesn't mess up my plans of going to the barn tomorrow to ride Abel and do chores... lol

Training and Graduating Region Dogs :)

Gabriel - IFT April 2011, Heeling Autism training since November 2011

Sadie - IFT August 2011, slotted to graduate February 2012
Martha - IFT October 2011, slotted to graduate April 2012

Whitley - IFT December 2011, slotted to graduate June 2012

Hermie - IFT December 2011, on Breed Eval to become a possible stud

Jamie - IFT Janaury 2012, slotted to graduate July 2012

And lastly, Ned - IFT July 2011 and he is graduating as a guide this month!!!! Yay Ned!!!! :)

Here are the dogs in my region who are currently in training and the last dog is graduating this month. :)