Vacation so far

So, we're on vacation!! Yay!! We left on the 26th for our 15 hour car drive. We're here in Colorado staying at a little cabin that my Oma and Opa (grandparents) own and rent out throughout the year. We drove 8 hours the first day, and the remaining the next. The dogs were pretty good, no real problems except for bed hogs - mainly Egypt because Bob gets up too often, giving her the option to move into the middle. He was laying on the suitcases at one point lol. Overall though the trip was good. We all got here in at least two pieces or less.

Hi backseat buddy!

Bob's reaction to the snow wasn't easily judge-able... He was really excited to get out of the car so he was just hopping around and jumping up and down. Now, seeing him go out into the snow for a few days now he just does that, he'll hop a bit or bring his paws way up when he first gets onto the snow. He gets used to it quickly though and acts just like a big, playful, goofball. Egypt's reaction is a bit different, I don't know if she's ever been in snow before but she tends to avoid it when she first gets into it. She'll walk all the way around or pace a few times before going in... then she's fine, maybe its like jumping into a pool you know is going to be cold. You want to jump in but know its going to be uncomfortable so you put it off... just a thought lol. 

Bob playing with Egypt in the backyard.

Anyway, the first day we got in around 5:00 P.M. so we didn't do too much, it gets dark pretty early here because the sun sets behind the mountains. It drops like 2-5 degrees a minute as soon as the sun starts to disappear so it gets pretty cold - the high being around 25-30 degrees. I know that that isn't very cold for a lot of other people, especially peeps up in the northern states, but dropping below that with no sun is enough to get us Texans inside! 

Catch me if you can!!

These are a few pictures of the dogs playing in the back yard the first day we got here (Monday). Bob stays on the long lead due to all the yummy smelling deer poo that surrounds the houses. The deer here are so used to people, most of them come down regularly to say hi to the folks that throw corn in their yards. Some of the deer will come right up to you if you have something good enough in your hands. -Another blog post on that though. 

What? Sniffing snow up your nose isn't normal?

I only have a few pictures of Tuesday, my brothers and dad went skiing but came back early due to the mass of people that were there. Erin, Darrell and I were thinking about going but I would rather stay home and sled or ice skate if the place is going to be too crowded. Anyway, when my brothers came back into town they convinced Darrell to get onto one of my Opa's bikes that he has up here. They got him on it in the middle of the road and he followed my younger brother's clapping for a good 30 yards or more. Doesn't sound like too much but he had fun and it was funny to watch. After the bikes we all decided to walk around the neighborhood and play in the giant snow piles in the ditches along the side of the road. I know there are a few of you out there laughing at us either out loud or in your head but we never see snow so we're more than happy playing in the ditch piles haha. Bob was funny to watch because he would come leaping after us and sink just the same - I don't think he cared lol. 

Darrell following my brother as he walks backwards clapping for him.

Bob sitting waiting to be released so he can go play again. 

Well, once again the sun started going down and it was about time to head back inside to warm up when the deer came down for their dinner lol. There is a guy a street away that throws corn out for them so my mom took the camera and got a few pictures. 

I want to go get some corn now so I can get better pictures lol. 

Yesterday was a lot of fun. We went to a few big hills to go sledding and to a little town to go shopping. I didn't take my camera to the town (wish I had - the scenery on the drive is so pretty) but I did take my camera to sledding - and handed it straight over to my mom lol. She managed to get quite a few really funny shots and when I have all of them uploaded to Facebook I'll post up the link. In the meantime here are a few of Darrell, the dogs and I. 

Top of the sled hill!

Darrell had made a snow angel - face down.. this was the product on the human side.

Me sitting with Bob. 

Egypt licking the only skin she can reach lol. 

Sledding pictures / embarrassing wipe out pics lol

It took Darrell a few tries to get the balance act down right.

He figured it out quickly though :)

Me not so much haha - in my defense there was a ramp my brothers made and that was my landing. 

Darrell's was worse haha. 

Oh and for some reason in the middle of all this Darrell felt to the need to pick Bob up and hold him for the camera lol. Bob is used to being handled and wasn't bothered by it at all but this face cracked me up.

He's begging my mom to talk sense into Darrell...

I guess Darrell felt like Egypt was being left out...

Egypt just doesn't care like always lol. She probably liked the break from the cold snow haha. 

Ok, well thats all for now, I have a few more pictures from last night but no time to upload them - internet is slow here. Here is one last image to leave you with - it is the view from where we were when we were sledding but it gives you a feel for where we are. the place is pretty much surrounded by the mountains and most of the homes are tiny cabins like the ones here.

Its so cloudy here because its snowing up on those mountains - its slowly making its way down to us!

Oh and on training talk, Bob has been doing very well, I had him walking nicely around the neighborhood with me the past few days. Deer smell is everywhere here and he's just getting better :)

Back to being a good blogger :)

So - there hasn't been much going on since finals stopped but there has been enough so here goes!

First off - Bob has been progressing very nicely these past couple weeks with his work and his pulling. Its strange how you can see that semi-big kind of tiny change in him that comes with obvious maturity. He's still a little crazy but only really at home. He's starting to behave himself without being told to on walks and he's getting really good at notpulling all the time. He still gets a little over excited when asked to find things so there is a lot of re-working with his finds - not because he doesn't know what he's looking for but because he's just way too excited to get there lol. We had a walk with Larry the other day and it went really well compared to our last walk, which was just a month ago. I thought this one would go kind of terribly considering it was about 3 days after my last final. That means Bob hadn't had as much work as he usually gets but I was pleased with the results. He even got to meet one of the several horses that pull the cart things around in downtown San Antonio.

Well hello very big puppy.

This was actually the second horse that Bob passed, there were four in a row, the first one he was cautious of but passed with little problem. This one however, the second one, had its head turned around and was looking at him - that spooked him a bit so he tried to turn around and get away from him. So after getting Bob a little more under control we were allowed to introduce him to it. He was ok, cautious but also curious. Overall it was good because next time we passed them he wasn't as crazy as he was the first time. Anyway, it was a pretty good walk. Now that its colder he is getting more work outside so it will be good with his distractions.

Oh, and also, Bob has kind of made up a new game for himself. He had a bath the other day and when the tub was filling up I had him step into it - he's getting big and I'm not into lifting him unless I have to ;). Anyway, after the bath I had him hop out of it and I dried him off - all normal. Well then he had those crazy funny hyper moments after bath time that most dogs do. During his crazy time he decided he would start throwing his bone into the bathtub - watch it flail around helplessly and once it stopped moving would hop in, grab it, hop out and run around the apartment with it. He did this at least 3 times and finally wore himself out enough to go crash on his bed. Well apparently he thinks its a lot of fun to hop in and out of bath tubs... He's done it multiple times since then and even has gone to my sister's bathroom and played in her tub.... he's gone a bit crazy I guess. I even found a bone on edge of the tub against the wall the other night... that one must not have been as much fun as the others...

Can you see his bone at his feet?

Another scrap of news, Egypt had surgery yesterday - she had to have a broken tooth extracted. Apparently she got a slab fracture at some point. We noticed it because her breath was smelly and I checked and you could see the crack in her tooth. I snapped a picture with my phone but its not very good. Please ignore my fat looking fingers - the camera adds ten pounds remember. Anyway, she had her surgery and was really groggy yesterday but is much more herself today - hope she feels better by the time we go on vacation! She and Bob get to play in the snow in Colorado!!

The fracture was in her upper right dog molar, can you see the crack?

Monday

I have my last 2 finals (hopefully ever!) on Monday and after that I promise to turn back into a good puppy raiser / blogger / person who isn't glued to a text book. In the meantime - guess what Darrell did a weekend or two ago.

He went skydiving!!

Finals - just saying ;)

So, obviously I haven't posted in about a year - sorry. My last day of class was Friday (yesterday) and I have 3 finals coming up but only 1 in the coming week so yay for free time - yay for blog time. Lots of stuff has been happening lately - but this post will be about the A-litter Puppies. Last I left off they were three weeks old, since then I have visited them at 5 weeks, 7 weeks and today at 8 and half weeks old. These visits weren't just for fun though - much like the last one I had a job to do - guess what it was. I got to run the puppies through their 5 and 7 week temperament tests!! Sounds cool huh? Well it was, I learned so much about puppy brains I could write a book - it would only be half a page long but a book none the less, meaning I will print and bind it and sell it to people.. maybe.

So, bet you want to know what exactly I had to do in these puppy tests and what are they were for right. Well, the purpose of the puppy temperament tests it to rank the puppies sociability, soundness and biddability. Translated meaning we were testing how well the adapted to a new-ish environment, how the handled being startled and a crazy dancing penguin, as well as how much support they needed from the 'handler' (me) or if they needed any support at all. By support I mean if they would come to me when they were uncomfortable and if they were 'coax-able'  when I was trying to get them to do what I wanted (with verbal efforts first and food if needed). Well anyway, I didn't do any of the actual evaluation - my job was to actually walk to the puppies through the test / obstacle course. We had stations set up to have them go through.

pshhh no problem walking over this thing! 

This is a big part of the test, we did this same test both times (5 weeks and 7 weeks) but during the 7 week one we moved them out to the driveway because they were way too big by then. It was my job to get them to walk on top of all of them and then their reactions would be evaluated by Michelle and Tracy. There is also an orange cone there in the background, that is to test their reaction to a brand new object in their environment. Another thing you can't see is a crazy maniac singing and dancing penguin (who sang a very annoying version of the cupid shuffle). This was to judge their recovery time as well as their auditory sensitivity.

The flexi squirrel and penny can! 

So, whats going on in the picture above is there is the pink bunny and it is attached to a flexi leash, what happened with this is the puppy would see the bunny sitting for them nicely on the floor, and then when they go up to investigate it, it would be retracted in fast short bursts and then they would do it all over again in one long fast burst. This was to test their pray drive and (if they grabbed it) how willing they were to give it up. Also, see the can with the green tape on it - its full of pennies, this was also to judge their sensitivity but to a different type of noise/distraction.

The reasons we conducted the exact same tests at 5 and 7 weeks was to judge how they differed from the first one and if they did how much. So, after the tests were all complete we did get to play a bit - we had ourselves a little play session and photo-shoot (duh) so here are a few pictures from that.

Ummmm I think this should be the new header for the website - just my opinion lol

Miss Aspen peeking over the big log. 

We put Alice in the log - can't lie and tell you that she did it herself. 

These last ones were all from 5 weeks old. Then they grew up lol - these next ones are from after the 7 week test.

Big Aspen chewing on a branch

Big Austin chewing on dirt... :?

Alamo finding a nice place to rest. 

And here are the pictures from today: today was Puppy Hand Off Day - so today all the puppies went to their raisers. There was a news crew there for a bit and lots of picture taking with people and puppies and people and puppies.. and some people. Here are just a few of the pictures from today.

Poppy gets her fifteen minutes of fame. 

And a peanut butter stuffed dog bone. 

And the puppies with their raisers!!! From the Left going right we have Alamo, Alice, Aspen, Ava, Atlas, Allie, Austin and Poppy in the front :) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!!!!!!!!!

Today is Bob's birthday! He is 1 year old!!!!!! He (and Egypt) got a yummy dessert tonight of peanut butter and bananas - they enjoyed muchness.

And sorry -thats all for now because I'm too tired to blog - I have had a half written one sitting in the edit box for a week now and just need to finish it already!!! Promise it will be up soon though!

Celeb Status - oh yeah!

Had to share a Facebook message with the world - it made me smile :) 

"I would looove to meet Bob! For me, meeting him would be like meeting a celebrity, only better." 

Oh yeah - Bob's pretty much a big deal around here lol. 

Thanks Abbey - we can't wait to see you and Baily!! 

Bob's cough is much better by the way - Haven't heard him cough since he started his meds :) 

Cold and Flu season....

That includes doggies too apparently... Bob has a cough...

Can you see his birth mark lol?

The Vet unofficially diagnosed Bob with Kennel cough over the phone today. He has had a funny cough for a couple of days now and I called the Vet's office earlier to get him an appointment. At first I thought he was just getting fuzzy stuff stuck in his throat as there is a small hole in his dog bed but we went out of town and the cough followed so call to the vet it was. It doesn't seem to be affecting him or his over all well being. He's eating and drinking and pooping all normal... Basically he when he gets excited he has a short (no more than a minute or two) episode of coughing, it sounds really dry and wheezy and then he'll hack a bit like he's trying to clear his throat.. All this was told to the vet over the phone and he's pretty convinced its just Kennel Cough. He doesn't want Bob to actually go into the office though because its highly contagious and would like to avoid any exposure to other's pets... I'm fine with it though because I'm pretty sure it was transferred to me at another Vet's office anyways. Apparently it can travel on clothes! Hopefully I didn't pass it onto any other pups when I went and visited GDTX to give them pictures the other day :/

If he gets worse over the next week (after taking antibiotics that I'll pick up from the parking lot of the Vet tomorrow lol) then I'll take him to the Vet. The Dr. said if anything worries me enough to go ahead and bring him in. He just wants to take precautions for now since he's pretty sure its just a cough.

Good thing is Egypt isn't showing any signs - maybe she has been able to fight it, she's older and I imagine her immune system is a bit better than his... He had Giardia and Coccidia at the same time once and she only picked up Coccidia so lets hope she doesn't pick this up from him.

Anyway, Bob probably won't be going too many places with me this week - we'll just let him rest and get over it.

Keep ya posted - send chicken soup and teddy bears!

Massive doses of cuteness here!!!!

Guess what I did on Monday?!?! Well, Darrell and I - we went up to Austin to visit the puppies again and take them to the Vet to get wormed or something.. yellow stuff went in the mouth thats all I know. We got to have ourselves a little play session to get them good and tired out for the Vet visit and then we brought them back to do a (shhhhh) Christmas card photo shoot. Yup - we put them in little christmas sweaters and made them sit all in a line and smile at the same time... just kidding lol. It was actually a lot harder than it seems - trying to get a good shot of 8 puppies that now can walk and semi run - that means they're fast, fast and squirmy - but we handled it. You won't get to see those pictures though for obvious reasons lol.

Back to the cuteness I promised - Here are some pictures of the play session and Vet visit.

The puppies got some fish oil and Alamo got a little too excited - he obviously thought there wasn't enough on his side lol.

I think this one is little Atlas - please ignore mom's behind in the background :)

Darrell getting some luvin from Alamo. 

I'm pretty sure the smiling one is Ava but not sure which one is next to her. 

nom nom nom 

This picture is from the Vet's visit - we threw all the puppies into 2 laundry baskets (to make them carry-able) and loaded up the Guide Dogs Van. Darrell's job was keeping the puppies from escaping on route. The puppies are just about too big to be hauled around in the baskets.

see his little teeth!!! and tiny ears!!!!! ah! 

Ah! Ok thats all the photos for now - just know that Bob hasn't been living in a cave I just haven't gotten any good pictures of him lately. I did have a really cool experience with him the other day though. We went into a Petco that I have never been into before and our mission was to find the bathroom - the girl's room to be specific. Well we took an entire lap around the store with no luck - so we did it again and found the area at the back of the store. Now the mission was to find the right door. Bob first led me down a hallway to the employee's room - we quickly turned around lol. Then he found the area in between the boy's and the girl's bathroom - there he needed to 'work it out' and find the correct bathroom. He sniffed the bottom of the girl's door quite a lot and I thought he would stop and let me know he had found it but he just kept on sniffing and then he moved onto to the boy's door and seriously took the longest whiff I have ever seen/heard him take... I had no idea his lungs could expand to that much. After that one long whiff he went straight back to the girl's door - took another (shorter) whiff and stood there and looked at me like "Did I find what you were looking for?" We had a little party there in the hallway when he did this. I was so excited because I had never worked him with the boy's room and to see him actually work it out and find the correct one by comparison was exciting. They family he spent the month with in apparently did some good work with this find (thanks Ron!!).

Photoshoot

We tried for a home-done engagement photo shoot this weekend - I haven't gotten done going through all of the photos but there are two shots I wanted to share - I read somewhere that engagement photos are supposed to capture the couple and how/who they are during the engagement period. I think these help to sum up a good chunk of it - what do you think?






I need to play with the color of the top one a bit more but what I would like to do at some point is get one of these printed on a canvas (Check out Color Inc) and hang it somewhere.. which one do you think would be better? I like the top one because both dogs are looking at the camera but I like the bottom because it looks more natural... your thoughts?

Funny Friday

I think he's settling back in quite nicely don't you?

Shady

Guess who's back, back again - 

Bob is back, tell a friend - 

Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back... 

No? Not feeling it? I don't like Eminem either... 

Either way Bob is back!!! Back again! Da nuh nuh nuh nuh... Sorry - its stuck in my head now... I picked Bob up today at the Guide Dog office around 1:00 and am very happy to have him back! 

We have had a walk since he's been back, we walked around the campus for about 30 minutes working on his pulling, which I'm happy to report has improved a bit, finding trashcans, staircases, doorways and his favorite - an elevator! That was actually the first elevator I've taken since he left lol. After our walk I had a meeting about my internship for next semester. I got one of those comments when I walked out - you know the ones where someone says "OMG I didn't even know there was a dog in the room! Where was he?" I like those comments :) 

Thats the news so far - hasn't been a very eventful day honestly. Hopefully this weekend will bring more fun :) 

Say hi to the now 11 month old Bobzilla!!! and his bone.... I think he was more excited to see it then he was to see me... 

"Hello lover" - this would be him talking to the bone of course....

Poppy's Puppies - 1 week old

Soooooo as you might have guessed a certain someone was allowed to go visit Poppy's puppies the other ay (Wednesday actually). I had to scrub, gown, glove, and foot booty up before I was allowed to even look at them. Well I was allowed to look at them I just wasn't allowed to touch or breathe on them.. well I could breathe I guess, if I really wanted to...

Its not very much fun petting a dog through a glove but oh well :)

You may be wondering why I was required to do all this - I mean, puppies are born everyday and their people don't put themselves in a plastic bubble so they can hold them, and sniff their breath.. and rub their tummies to make them potty. Yes I did that, I considered it a privilege thank you very much.

I can't even begin to tell you how cute I felt in these lol. I think I might steal a pair and wear them to the mall.

Well the reason for all this is prevention - see Poppy tested negative for the Doggy Herpes Titer immune thingy... basically she doesn't have the antibodies to fight it so she had not antibodies to pass onto her puppies. So what does all this mean? This means that anyone with a dog or who has come in contact with a dog has/had the possibilities of picking up the Doggy Herpes virus and if they then come into contact with Poppy or her puppies the whole litter could possibly die within 24 hours... not a good thing to happen. This is the process that anyone wanting to meet the puppies or Poppy has to go through for at least the first three weeks of puppy life. Once they are about 3 weeks they will be able to fight off the virus themselves but in the meantime - we get saran wrapped. We also had to make sure we were sterile for the 3 weeks preceding labor if we wanted to interact with Poppy, that is just the window.

Well hello mr. blue buffalo, this boy is the biggest one of the bunch... regardless though point of this picture was to show you the puppies sealed ears and to point out that their eyes are still sealed. I like his tiny ear.

Some might disagree with all of this but these are the precautions GDTX is taking in order to ensure their pups get the best care possible - I'm fine with it though because if that is what I have to do to hold them and help out its worth it ;)

Now on to our actual visit...

The pee party:

Come on Poppy, we gotta work together doing this! 

Above is where I had the privilege of helping each puppy expel all their urine, I had Poppy help me too of course. See, when puppies are new they don't know how to do this, usually the mom will help to stimulate this by licking their "special spots" which will make them expel their urine. Poppy however needs a bit of help (new mom and all) so we went through each puppy and she happily assisted me in the process, or is it the other way around? Who knows.. point is Teamwork! Well, Safety first then teamwork - wear shoes around the house! (Anybody can tell me the movie that quote is from I'll give you a star sticker - **Darrell can't play cause I know he knows)

Trying to do a photo shoot:

Puppy Pile! 

Look at his little nails!! 

We did an individual puppy photo shoot with all of them but I haven't gotten all those in order just yet so maybe I'll show those in a different post...



The Collar Changing Party:

Well, I don't know if you can tell from the other pictures but their paper collars were getting torn up and too tight, so we got to replace them!

All their first little puppy collars 

New collars - we made one for me too :)

Sorry no pictures of the actual process.. don't know what I was doing... ? But here is the finished product :)

All their new little collars - they look so official now :)

Yay puppies!

Also, there is a naming contest going on if you would like to take part in naming of the puppies - they have to be A letter names and if you're my friend then they have to be Texas related lol...

Here are the ones I like if you don't have any suggestions but just want to help my names win :)

Alice - city in Texas where Darrell went to high school :)
Alamo - Please tell me I don't need to explain that one...
Abilene and Amarillo - other cities in Texas
Aggie - for Texas A & M University (even if you like UT better vote for it because B litter we can add Bevo! (all non Texaners that is the Longhorn's mascot name))
Austin - for the UT fans who are just really upset about Aggie :)
Andi - this one isn't a Texas name but its for Dr. Anderson who made a generous donation at the GDTx luncheon the other day (a blog post about that will come soon).

Here is the link if you would like to participate - Click Me!!!