Growing up...

My little girl is growing up. She is becoming more mature both in her actions and her looks. I still wish I could get her to eat more but she is slowly putting on weight. I have her entered in her first fun match on June 6th. It will be good for both of us. We have been practicing every day so she should be more than ready! Me, well....we will have to see!

Yesterday we went swimming for the first time. Olive *liked* but didn't really *love* the water! It will take time for her to get used to it.

Here she is contemplating on whether she should go in or not:

Once she decided she had enough swimming for the day she ran up and down the docks at FULL SPEED!

Splash Dogs will be at our fair this year. I am going to see if I can have her jumping by then. Olive is always up for any game we are playing so I think she will do it. We have until July to practice.

Thats all for now. This week we start our two week client camp. We have 3 people here to receive their service dog and 1 person here for a facility dog. Should be a fun but busy two weeks.

Love,

Molly & Olive

I am a bad blogger!

Oops...I just realized it has been a month since my last blog! Those of you that know me personally know that I tend to start lots of projects and don't always finish. I swear to stick to my blogging!

I don't have any new photos for this blog as my camera is MIA.

Olive is growing leaps and bounds and is finally eating like a champ. I have never in my life had a picky labrador but she is teaching me all kinds of new things!

Olive has been to many new places this month. We have been to a dog show, to an obedience/rally trial, a ton of stores and the biggest test - Costco on a Saturday. I have been extremely impressed with how she manages herself in even the most stressful situations. She has such a solid temperament.

May 1st I will have a new litter (of one puppy!) and Olive will no longer be the baby of the house. I wonder how she will feel about that?

All for now but I will try to get some new photos posted this week so you can see how big she is getting!

Molly and Olive

One of "those"

Okay, it is official. I have become one of "those" puppy owners. My assistance dog friends surely have had puppy raisers like this and I know my breeder friends have had puppy buyers like this. You know, the over protective, over worried puppy owner. It is hard to believe that after a lifetime of owning dogs (mostly labradors), living in a house full of dogs and whelping/raising almost 20 litters of pups, that Olive has turned me into one of "those".

OMG...she blinked...that is soooo cute. OMG....she sneezed....is she sick? OMG...is she eating enough? This is me. I finally had to stop myself from concocting all of these mixtures of food items trying to get her to eat more. I realized that she will never eat just kibble if I don't stop this. She is growing up so fast!

I joined a local dog training club and Olive and I will start conformation classes in about two weeks. I also want to take a rally class but the new session does not start until April. In the meantime we continue to work on basic obedience.

We have been doing tons of field trips. This weekend we conquered Target and Costco. Both places were insanely busy but she handled it like a pro. There was another dog in training at Costco and she didn't react or try to visit the other dog. The other dog - well, not so well behaved....

Today we took a canoe ride. There is this little area on the way to the beach that always has cars lined up and people launching canoes. Rick has been dying to try this out so we loaded up Gabe, Olive and the canoe and off we went. It is about 5.5 miles down the Ocean. We made it to just before the Ocean but had to turn around because it got really shallow. Olive slept almost the entire time. Next week will be her first beach trip!

Love,

Molly and Olive

And then there was one....

It has been two weeks since my last blog and I sure have a lot to fill you in on. First, after 12.5 weeks of carting all 5 of the Z pups plus Olive back and forth to work I had to cut the apron strings and leave the Z's at the facility. Olive of course continues to make the trek back and forth. It was not that the pups were too much work at home, it was more that I couldn't keep lifting the 35 pound pups in and out of the car twice a day! The Z's will be heading to puppy raiser homes soon but Olive will stay here with me. She missed having the boys to rough house with but the adult dogs here still play with her.

This meant that Olive is now 100% integrated into the adult dog pack. I enjoy having the older dogs model behavior for the pups. Olive has only had one accident in the house in the last two weeks. Of course, I have a doggie door so she doesn't have to tell me that she needs to go out - she just does.

Another important lesson she is learning is that sometimes she spends time in the crate during the day. With a service dog in training the pup is often with the handler 24/7. This sounds great but it could easily set a pup up for separation anxiety. In order to avoid this I try to be sure that Olive spends at least 15 - 30 minutes per day with out me. At this age that means in a crate, when she is older it will just mean in the house alone (well, with other dogs!). I count my blessings that I don't have to make time to spend with my pup but rather make time to spend without! I time these stints in the crate for when she is tired and I have something to do that would be easier without her. She really doesn't mind and usually sleeps the whole time anyway.

Olive is learning that the cats of the house are not to be chased. A simple..ah ahh is enough to stop her in her tracks.

She had her first Friday night happy hour this weekend. Every Friday we go to a local bar/diner for happy hour. Our group often has dogs with us so we are always known as "the dog table". She happily laid under the table and was unobtrusive and quiet the whole time.

Now that she has had her complete set of shots the field trips will increase.

Here she is with her kitty friends, Jelly and Bean.

Here she is in the office waiting patiently for Nettie to finish with the bone. Of course, there were plenty others but she wanted THAT bone!

Her very best buddy is Chrissy.

Until next week,

Molly and Olive

A Week of Firsts

This was a big week of firsts. Olive is learning to be one of my "office dogs". Each staff member at Bergin U has a group of dogs that share their office. The dogs range in age from puppies to graduate dogs and often include personal dogs. On my side of the building I have all the intact females. Olive shared her office with two of my personal dogs, Holly and Florence. The Bergin U dogs she joined are Chrissy and Nora. She really enjoyed playing with Chrissy. I don't have any pictures of this but will get some next week.

We had our first real fieldtrip on Friday. We have had fieldtrips where the pups were carried but Friday they were walking by themselves. We went early before the mall was really open. We cause quite the scene with 7 students and 7 puppies parading through the mall. All of the pups did really great.

After that first field trip the pups were exhausted. They all crashed! I was able to sneak this picture.

As the pups get older they must learn more self control. One of the "games" we play each night is the treat game. All of the pups sit in front of me and when I say their name they get a treat. They have to learn not to grab at the treat, that they must wait for it to be given to them when it is their turn.

We had a 3 day weekend so the pups got plenty of running in the grass and playing in the sunshine. Here are a few pictures of the fun.

After all the fun outside Olive is practicing being a house dog. Here she is enjoying the couch.

I think thats all to report for now. She and the rest of the pups are growing like weeds...they will be all grown up before we know it!

Molly, Olive and the Z's

Not too much to report this week. It still has been rainy or too wet to play outside much. Olive and the gang are moving along wonderfully in their training. This week we started with the leash. We use a harness when teaching the puppies to walk correctly on the leash. We don' t like them to have strain on their little necks while they learn that they have to stay close to the person on the other end of the leash!

The pups first get used to just training with the leash/harness combo and then move to actual walking with the leash. Olive is also learning to turn the light on! She is getting quite good at this!

I hope to take some pictures tomorrow if we don't have rain.

A day in the life....

Each morning I greet the puppies with "Are you ready to go to school"? They wiggle and waggle and bounce around ready for the day to begin. I load them into the crates in the back of the car and they settle in for the short ride to "school".

Once we get to school the pups have a short time to play before training. Also included in the training sessions is grooming. The pups learn to get used to having their nails grinded and also their teeth brushed. We use the battery operated toothbrushes and yummy chicken flavored toothpaste.

After training I feed the pups breakfast. I use a feeding system called a "Weenafeeda". A very silly name but an amazing product. A durable plastic carrier has individual slots for six stainless steel bowls. Each bowl is surrounded by a partition so each pup has a designated area to eat from. I don't like to feed pups in the traditional saucer style bowls because I would always see the bigger puppies eating more than the smaller and I also felt that I was teaching them to gulp down their food. Since switching to this system I no longer have puppies eating super fast.

After breakfast the pups spend the day playing in their covered outdoor play area. They also have a small door leading into the puppy training room. They can hang out in there if they don't want to be outside. It seems they prefer to be outside because that is where they spend the most time. A very dedicated group of people called "puppy petters" come to socialize and play with the puppies. Staff also comes in from time to time for a puppy fix.

It has rained 95% of the time since Olive has joined my family. We have only gotten one day where it was sunny enough for a romp in the field. I brought Rain (mom to the Z litter) out with them for their first real run. She led them around and they ran their little legs off!

After such a busy day the pups settle into their crates and sleep soundly all night long. They are up and ready the next morning for it all to start again!

Molly