Brendy and the Hall of Flame

From Blogger Pictures

Kristin is 11 months today. I can't believe she'll be a year old in just a month. Kristin is a small dog, people still think she's a young puppy. Things have been going okay with Kristin in the house and out and about, but she's started to have accidents on walks again, despite feeding her once a day and getting her on a relieving schedule. We'll continue to work on this.

From Blogger Pictures

Tonight Lyn and I met our friend Laura and her son Brendy at Salvador Molly's. Brendy had ordered the habanera fritters (a.k.a. Balls of Fire) and the fritters arrived about the time we got there. Anyone who can eat all 5 fritters in one sitting (you can't leave the table) gets a picture on the Wall of Flame. This picture shows that Brendy did indeed eat all the fritters and he's still smiling. He also has a glass of pineapple juice - the secret to getting through the burning sensation.

I was sick last week and still have a lingering sore throat, but it's only bad at night now and not 24 hours a day. I accomplished some knitting - a birthday present for my sister, turned the heel on a sock, and knit fairly far on a scarf that one of the cats found and "killed" (and is now in the garbage). I also finished 2 books I'd been reading and started a third. I missed 2 days of work, but was able to make up the missed time by working the weekend. I'm now on day 6 of my work week with 2 days to go! I can't wait for a real weekend!

Kristin Staying

I've had a wonderful week with Kristin and she didn't have any accidents at any of her long outings this week. We went to the library last night at the Firstenburg Center and Kristin was a little hard to handle around other dogs and in the new environment. Several people in the club handled Kristin and I got a lot of advice to get a training collar for her as she seemed to ignore corrections with the flat collar. She didn't have an accident and we were gone for 2 hours at least.

This afternoon we had a great visit with CFR Michele. We talked about relieving protocol where I learned that proper relieving entails not exercising the dog in order to make her go, and a way to circle Kristin without making myself dizzy. We worked on dog distractions, rode an elevator, and worked on grates. Michele thinks Kristin is more relaxed and we are starting food protocol in new places and a training collar for dog distraction and garbage mouthing (Kristin really likes sticks). Kristin was like a new dog with food protocol. She was amazing and I think it is going to make a big difference. We ended our afternoon by having some gelato and sitting outside in the gelato shops outdoor area to eat it. The weather was fantastic. I feel good about keeping Kristin. The paperwork will be filled out pretty soon and she'll be officially transferred to me to finish her raising.

Kristin had no accidents. I was very proud of her today.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A recent project from our studio. I like the idea of sending a "holiday card" on St. Patrick's Day. 


I'll leave you with a quote which is hanging on a plaque in our kitchen: 
'Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.' W.B. Yeats

Florida Vacation Over - Back to the Daily Grind

Actually, it's not so bad being back - I just got used to being on vacation and rather liked it! Daylight savings time has thrown a loop in time adjustment, but it's almost my weekend and I think all will be well by the beginning of the work week. I will not go into the dumb mistakes I've made since being back - like forgetting passwords and phone numbers!

I don't have many pictures from vacation, other than the ones I posted of the visit with Norine. I spent a lot of time knitting and catching up with family members. I loved visiting with my sisters and brother and parents, but I especially loved getting to know my sisters' granddaughters, Ava and Caroline. Caroline only stayed 2 days, so I spent more time with Ava. We got to be friends and we watched many musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Music Man, which I enjoyed, and a few TV shows I did not enjoy, like Dora the Explorer, but Ava made even that show worthwhile. The Music Man sparked off a game that we played over and over in which Ava dragged in books from my mother's bookshelves, and proceeded to be the librarian and I was the library patron who wanted my books checked out. This game escalated to one where Ava informed me that she was going to leave in the middle of having my books checked out and I was "going to cry." We played this game a lot.

One of the things Ava enjoyed was a lizard that kept getting between the screen and window panes.



I got a few pictures of the lizard and then Ava wanted to take a picture. Here's her picture - not too bad I think:




It was good to see all our old family friends from Tallahassee and it was nice to take it easy and relax.

The weather was so-so, half the time it was warm and sunny, the other half it rained, especially the last 2 days we were there. It has been cold in Florida - colder than in the northwest, and there weren't many spring blossoms this year. The weather affected the trip home, in that our plane from Jacksonville to Atlanta was delayed 3 hours and we had to hustle to get another plane and route to Portland in order to get home Friday evening. Fortunately, we were able to be rerouted to Minneapolis, were able to get on the evening plane to Portland (flying standby and getting the bulkhead no less), and arrived home 30 minutes later than we were originally scheduled to arrive. Oh and it pays to be nice to the ticket agents when schedules go awry. I got to send my bag free.

It was good to be home and great to see the dogs and cats again. We picked up Kristin from Mike's house and came back home with some new strategies to help Kristin's relieving frequency problem. We're only feeding her once a day. The vet at GDB says it is not unusual for dogs to need to go as often as Kristin does, and that we should see lessened frequency by the time Kristin is 14 months or so. In the meantime, we are watching her schedule closely and we only go out and about during dry and empty periods of the day. So far no accidents. We're going on 2 weeks without one and I'm keeping my fingers crossed this will continue to work.

I went to graduation on Saturday with Kristin and felt like I couldn't handle her well - I kept getting reprimanded. Kristin needs some work in public settings. Fortunately, my leader was there and helped me relax a bit. Honestly, if I didn't know puppy raisers who had dogs graduating, I don't think I'd go to graduation with a dog. It's becoming so STRESSFUL! I did enjoy meeting Sarah (Millie's raiser) at graduation and perusing the boards in the kitchen with her. I also got to meet Sarah's new dog, Rafferty. That was the graduation highlight.

Aside from graduation, I've really been enjoying Kristin this week. I confess that the bonding has been slow, but I really think this week has been successful and I'm very attached to Kristin now. It was very helpful to have my leader keep Kristin during my time away and to get insight into Kristin from another person. She does have some great qualities and is very, very sweet. We go on an outing tomorrow night and then have an evaluation with my CFR on Friday. I'm looking forward to it and am keeping my fingers crossed that both events are accident free.

A Day With Norine and Santino

I'm in sunny Florida right now and just returned from spending the day with Norine and Santino, December graduates from GDB. Santino is a wheelchair guide for Norine and is her 4th guide dog. We met last year at a local yarn shop where I saw Norine sitting at a table with her then guide dog Princess. I told her I was a puppy raiser for GDB and she told me she was waiting for a wheelchair guide from GDB. We've kept in touch since and on my return to Florida we made arrangements to eat lunch and knit in the same yarn shop where we met.

We ate at a restaurant called Bagelheads, which was a great sandwich/salad restaurant. We talked and ate lunch and then the bus service Norine uses came to pick her up to take her to Really Knit Stuff so we could attend the afternoon social knitting called "Adult Daycare." Norine had me snap a picture of how Santino gets on the bus with her.



When we got to Really Knit Stuff, Norine took off Santino's harness so we could visit. I was able to give Santino hugs and kisses from his club at this time and to pet him and tell him what a wonderful boy he was. Quite frankly, Santino was not very focused on me at all, he was more concerned about people entering the store with boxes. He stood right in front of Norine and faced the people with boxes. Norine tells me Santino is very protective of her.



Norine wanted to demonstrate the two special tasks Santino was taught for her: Retrieve the dropped cell phone and retrieve the yarn. Here is Santino bringing the cell phone back to Norine:



Here he is fetching and bringing the dropped yarn back to Norine:









Santino thinks of fetch and retrieve as a game - he enjoys it.

Tallahassee is a challenging place to have a guide dog. The sidewalks aren't in the best shape and do not run down the entire length of a street. You'll have sidewalks on one side, then they will end and start up across the street. People aren't aware of obstacles they can pose with parking and overlapping on driveways and sidewalks. Santino does a wonderful job, but he sure has some challenging situations. I believe GDB has worked a little with accessibility issues here, but there isn't a lot they can do right now. This is the capital of Florida and is a big university town. I would have thought people here would be more aware of accessibility issues.

After knitting awhile with patrons at "adult daycare," Norine had to go home. Here are pictures of Santino waiting at the lift the shop has for wheelchairs. After Norine gets to ground level and the lift to the bus, she calls Santino and he comes and hops on the wheelchair with her.







I had a great time. Norine's parting words to me were "see you next year." I certainly hope so!