CGC Test

Well, Teddy's Canine Good Citizen class is over and he.... passed the CGC test! Yay! :) So now he is an AKC STARR puppy and an AKC CGC :)

Halsa News :-)

Some pretty exciting news. :) Halsa has been bred to black lab Frankie! Her due date is July 25th with an estimated puppy test day for the puppies on September 20th. As long as the breeding took (which we'll find out in about a month) I will be getting a puppy from this litter.

Frankie's stud picture, he's pretty handsome, don't you think? :)

Happy Memorial Day and month day!

Happy Memorial Day from Aggie, Tom, Ben, Dahlia, and Teddy!

Ben's 13 month day picture :)


I have been puppy sitting Aggie and Tom for their raiser. Aggie is a few days older then Ben so she is 13 months and Tom is 5 months old. They have been WONDERFUL visitors and are super sweet. We also had released GEB dog Fivel from Thursday to Sunday, but I didn't get any pictures of him. I hope you have a great Memorial Day and thanks to all of our armed forces past and present for protecting the USA!! Especially my brother Ben! <3

Agility

Tonight was Dahlia and my first night of agility classes! We are taking the classes at a local humane society and the instructor happens to be a fellow puppy raiser so that's always fun to be with other raisers! :) Dahlia did really well! We did some introducing to the jumps and tunnel and also talked about stretching and warming you dog up before doing agility. We also did recalls. Dahlia was great at everything! She is already familiar with the jumps and tunnels, but it was good for her to practice. I also got to practice working with a clicker. With the guide dog puppies we use the word yes, kind of like the click of a clicker, but I have never used a clicker before so I was trying to stop myself from saying yes. Dahlia already knows what the clicker is since they use it in formal training so right now it's me learning! :) We have classes until June 20th and then I'll probably do the 2nd agility class with her and then hopefully (crossing our fingers and paws!) she will be ready to compete at State Fair with me! That's my goal, I only have this summer and next summer in 4-H and I'd really like to do agility with her. I don't have any pictures and probably won't until my last few classes when my sister will be able to come.

Happy 3rd birthday Dahlia!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! :)

 Beau's mom, Thelma

 Dahlia's mom, Moon

 Halsa's mom, Shelby

 Whitley's mom, Wren

 Toby's mom, Buffy

 Ben's mom, Sasha (who also happens to be Halsa's moms sister :)

And Teddy's mom, Vinca!

Oh and we can't forget my next pups mom, Halsa :)

Month day!

Today Toby turned 17 months! And only 3 weeks and 3 days until his IFT!

A weekend away

Last weekend I went to visit another puppy raiser friend of mine who lives about 1 1/2 hour away. I ended up not being able to take any of our dogs with me, but Saturday afternoon I got to visit with Toby for a half hour!! :) Toby is in the same region as the friend that I was visiting so I asked his finisher raiser if I could see him and she let me. :) He was soooo excited to see me, I didn't know if he would remember me!

 What a handsome boy!

 The yellow lab is GEB pup Tucker, the choclate lab is Duke who is my friend's sister's dog, the German Shepherd close to the camera is GEB pup Anchor, and the German Shepherd in the back is my friend's named Lukea. :)

 Sunday we took Tucker to the zoo! :) He was VERY VERY well behaved and loved looking at all the animals.

 Tucker watching the Sea Lion

 Lukea, Tucker, and Anchor playing

 Sunday afternoon before I left we took Lukea and Tucker swimming.

Happy 2nd birthday to....

Halsa! :)

And... she is in heat! She was admitted to the Breeding Kennel on Wednesday and will hopefully be bred by the end of next week. A friend was at the BK today and snapped a picture of Halsa, the birthday girl. :) Oh and she is rooming with her mom, Shelby!

Training Reports - finally! :)

I finally got another training report on Whitley. She is doing well working indoors and outside on sidewalks. She will have her final blindfold test in the next few weeks and she will also start training in NYC which is the final step of training. So proud of her! June 11th should be the day I find out if she is matched for June graduation and if all goes well, we will be making another drive to GEB on June 22nd! :)

Whitley at Niagara Falls :)

Reading with Dogs Summer 2012

Every summer since 2008 the library in my town has done "Reading with Dogs". Children who need to practice reading (or anyone who wants to come!) signs up for 15 minute times to read to whatever dog I am currently raising. :) Summer '08 and '09 was Beau, Dahlia was the end of '09 and '10 and Halsa joined Dahlia in '10 too. Summer '11 was Whitley and now Summer '12 will be Ben and Teddy. Since I have two dogs this time and one isn't a tiny puppy we are doing something different, this year Ben and Teddy will rotate weeks. One week will be Ben, then next Teddy, the next Ben, etc. We start Thursday July 5th and will have it each Thursday 9:30-12 until August 2nd. Also,  I wrote up "bios" that Ben and Teddy "wrote" about themselves and then we took pictures of them in front of the big "Once Upon a Time..." book that our library has. :) Below is the one we took of both of them in front of the book, but we also did individual shots as well. Oh! This years summer reading program theme is "Dream Big" so another puppy raiser made me night time bandanas with a patch that says "Dream Big" on it for them to wear when they have their reading times. I'm super excited for this and can't believe this is our 4th summer doing this! :)

 Teddy and Ben

 Ben is closest to the camera, I can't believe Teddy at only 6 1/2 months is taller then Ben who is 12 months!

 GEB graduation was the 28th and a friend asked a friend who was having a dog graduate to get pictures of Whitley for me! :) Whitley is now rooming with a female yellow lab named Tally. :)

And lastly, here's Toby! The region he is being finished in now posted this picture of him. :)