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Puppy Sitting Report For Dublin

December 13, 2010 By 3 Comments

Dublin recently had the opportunity to go to the Young Americans Christmas Show with another puppy raiser family.  We thought it would be a great training experience for Dublin since we recently missed walking in the Downey Christmas parade.  He had the chance to not only visit the Christmas show, but he also had the chance to stay with another family and interact with their pets and daily routines.

Not too long ago Dublin received his six month puppy evaluation from the Guide Dogs of America school in Sylmar, CA.  When puppy sitter’s watch your pup they also fill out a short puppy sitting report.  The GDA Puppy Sitting Report is great because it helps to show how your pup is progressing – the good and the bad.

Puppy Sitting Report

Here’s a copy of Dublin’s Puppy Sitting Report:

Puppy Name: Dublin

Puppy’s Age: almost 7 months

List any other animals you have in your home or encountered during the puppy’s stay: Austin (golden puppy), Christy (breeder), 2 Boston Terriers, Catlin (Puppy In Training)

What was the puppy’s reaction and how did he or she interact with those animals? Dublin reacted appropriately – excited and exuberant, but not out of control.

How did the puppy interact with other people such as elderly people and children? There were lots of elderly people in the audience who greeted Dublin.  We worked on calm greetings.  A bit “mouthy”

Where did you take the puppy? Dinner at Red Robins.  Young Americans Christmas Show

The puppy’s overall behavior during the stay was: excellent.

What are the most positive traits/behaviors of the puppy? He’s adorable and wants to please

Do you have any concerns regarding the puppy’s behavior? none.  He has a great puppy raiser and is a normal 7 month old puppy.

Check the commands the puppy knows: His/Her Name – X, Sit – X immediate, Down – X, Here – , All in progress (Come - X, Stay – X, Heel – X, Walking on loose leash – X)

How are the coat, skin, nails and weight?  How is the puppy’s general health?

How much is the puppy fed? 2 cups / 2x a day

Comments: Thanks for letting us borrow Dublin.  He’s a great dog and handled several strange/new situations well

Dublin’s Evaluation

We’re very proud of Dublin and his Puppy Sitting Report.  As they said on the report “He’s adorable and wants to please”.  We agree!  We also had the chance to speak to Dublin’s puppy sitters.  He is over exuberant when meeting new people and dogs, hes “a bit mouthy”, he played nice with the other dogs at their house, he handled new situations well.  One funny thing we did notice was that for the command “Sit” it said “immediate”.  We’ve noticed that Dublin does put his butt to the ground quickly when we say “sit”.  We haven’t done anything different with his training.  We think it’s just one of those commands he’s learned to respond to in a hurry.

I’m glad Dublin had a chance to stay with another family, work with different handlers, and situations.  I’m sure it will help him become a better guide dog in the future.

Do you ever have puppy sitters watch your puppies or dogs?  If so, do they fill out a puppy sitter report?

Thanks to the Guske family for taking Dublin for taking Dublin to Red Robin’s and the Young American’s Christmas show.

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Guide Dog Puppy Evaluation – Dublin

November 23, 2010 By 5 Comments

As many of you know Dublin recently went back to school in Sylmar for his six month Guide Dog Puppy Evaluation. We’ve been working hard on Dublin’s puppy training and socialization for the past 4 months and we were hoping our hard work would show up on his evaluation report. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked over Dublin’s eval. Here’s a look at most of the things listed on his report:

Guide Dog Puppy Evaluation

The first few things are basic:

Dog’s Name: Dublin
Breed: YLAB
Sex: Male
Intact: Yes
Proper Tags (3): Yes
Dog’s current age: 6 mos

Kennel Behavior:

  • In Run: Calm, Happy
  • Overall behavior: Well-behaved
  • Community Run: N/A

Basic Handling / Grooming: (ears, eyes, teeth, paws, tail): Excellent

  • Overall Appearance: Good

Relieving on leash: on command

Evaluation Walk in Unfamiliar Area:

  • Location: Valencia
  • Response to people: friendly-interested
  • Other dogs: interested-walks by
  • Animals (birds, squirrels, etc.): ignored birds
  • Loud sounds: not bothered
  • Traffic: not bothered
  • New Handler: very responsive – eager to please
  • Other (stairs, kids, sniffing, etc.): no pulling, loose lead, some concern with people  walking up behind him, recovered quickly

OB response:

  • Name: Very Good
  • Sit: Excellent
  • Stay: Excellent
  • Down: Excellent
  • Come: Excellent

General Handling:

  • Energy Level: medium
  • Response to correction: responds well – remembers
  • Behavior in establishments: polite, well-behaved
  • Overall stress: did not seem stressed today

Comments / Recommendations:

Dublin is a pleasure to walk.  He walks nicely on a loose leash and is very responsive to handler.  Dublin has excellent manners and a great obedience foundation.  Overall, Dublin was not bothered by any situation he encountered.  However, he did become concerned when approached from behind by a woman talking on a cell phone.  He startled and became distracted bu recovered quickly after she passed by.  Continue to expose Dublin to new experiences including crowds.

Keep up the Great Work!

Recommend Re-evaluation: 3 months

My Thoughts On Dublin’s Evaluation

Dublin does a lot of things very well and his puppy evaluation made me proud…I’m a happy parent :)   Here are a few things I though after reading this report:

I left a couple things out including Date, DOB, ID#, and Evaluator.  As I mentioned most of this stuff is very basic, but a few things to note are:  He is still intact – I guess that won’t change until his next evaluation so he gets to keep his man parts for a little while longer.  Proper Tags – He has his Microchip Tag, GDA Tag, and a Personal Tag with my information I have not yet received his Irvine City Registration tag, but should have that soon.

Although it was his first stay at the GDA kennels his behavior report does not surprise me.  He’s a happy go lucky dog and has always got along with other puppies from his group.  Also he’s always done very well with his crate training.

We’ve been working on basic handling with Dublin including petting, manipulating and dressing him in dog costumes since we first brought him home.   We even put together a puppy training video showing Dublin and some of the other puppies in training wearing their Halloween dog costumes and explaining the purpose behind puppy dress-ups.

The part of Dublin’s evaluation that did surprise me was his response to people and other dogs.  He generally ignores people unless they are coming up to say hello.  In that case he gets super excited for about 10-30 seconds and takes a little bit before he calms down.  Meet and greets with people is one area we’ve been working on nearly every day.  By the way, we had Baron for a few days and he is great with his meet and greets.  Also, if we get close to other dogs Dublin will pull and want to go play.  This is another area we’re working on.

Finally, Dublin is great with most of his Puppy obedience training.  However, the past couple weeks he has regressed with his Name and the “Come” command.  We’ve gone back to working with him on a long line to increase his responsiveness.

3 Months Till Dublin’s Next Puppy Eval

As I mentioned earlier there was no mention of…shhhh…neutering…so I assume Dublin gets to keep his man parts for another 3 months till his next puppy evaluation.  Until then we’ll keep working on Dublin’s puppy training.

I just looked back at  Stetson’s Puppy Evaluation and guess what?  One thing I noted was that he was really bad with his sniffing (not allowed for a guide dog).  What are we doing with Stetson today?  K9 Nose Work Training!!!

Are you raising a puppy for Guide Dogs of America?  If so, we’d love to hear about your Guide Dog puppy evaluation.  Are you a puppy raiser for another organization?  If so, I’d love to hear about your programs puppy evaluation process.

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What Are Good Dog Names?

June 10, 2010 By 3 Comments

The question, What Are Good Dog Names? pops up quite frequently when you raise puppies.  For instance as a Guide Dog puppy raiser we choose a new puppy name every year or so.  When fostering a litter of puppies we often times have to come up with several puppy names in a short period of time.

When I first picked up Linus from the animal shelter in Carson I never really thought about the question: “What Are Good Dog Names?” or even “What should I name my dog?“…

I remember driving home with my girlfriend brainstorming good dog names including front runners like Max which by the way is the most popular dog name according to some polls.  Another name I really liked was Fiver (I just finished reading Watership Down and Fiver was the one of the rabbits in the book).  It actually took us a couple days before we settled in on Linus.

On the other hand sometimes a good name will just pop in your head the moment you see a new puppy.  For instance, when we brought home and fostered litter of 7 puppies one stood out and I immediately said he looks like a George (this name breaks one of my rules for naming puppies).  However for some reason I did not have a name pop into my head for the other six puppies, but the one was definitely a George (my brother and his wife ended up adopting George and he still goes by that name today).

What Are Good Dog Names?

A while back we wrote a short article on how to name a puppy and received some excellent feedback from our readers.  I wanted to point out one comment that stood out in particular from one of our fellow puppy raisers:

We were going over names one day while having lunch at Farmer’s Market in L.A. and after our second glass of wine, we came up with DUDE…And after “Sit Dude” and “Dude, Come”, and “BAD DUDE!!”, we were laughing hysterically.

I don’t think GDA would approve, but, ya never know….

Seriously, a strong 2 syllable name works best when you are issuing commands. That’s why we’ve had Boomer, Buster, Trooper and now Dexter.
If your dog wanders away, what will bring him/her back? “Here Decartes!!”??”Come DAEDALUS!!”??? Don’t think so. Not that those aren’t great names. I wanted to name a dog Zampano, after a famous Italian Strongman, but Janet gave me the “Are you CRAZY??” look. These are WORKING dogs that need working names.

A strong two syllable name is a good rule to try and follow when choosing a good dog name.

Another thing you might consider is to avoid common human names.  My name, Colby is not too common, but anytime I hear someone say “Colby” or even “Kobe” I immediately turn my head.    If your dog has a common human name he may start hearing it all the time when out in public.  I can think of two things a dog might do when hearing his name constantly out in public.  First, he might at the minimum turn his head, but also may want to head towards the person calling his name.  On the other extreme, if he hears his name all the time he may just start ignoring his name in all situations.

How To Name A Guide Dog Puppy?

As I said before we discussed how to name a puppy in a previous post, but I still wanted to highlight a few main points from that article.

  1. We (Puppy Raisers) are given the opportunity to name our puppies.
  2. Guide Dogs of America assigns a letter to each litter.  Each puppy’s name from that litter starts with that letter.  For instance Stetson was from the “S” litter and Derby was from the “D” litter.
  3. The name can’t be the same as a current Puppy In Training, current Guide Dog, or current Breeder.
  4. It also can’t be a funny type name. For instance, our puppy manual says please no guide dogs by the name of “Popcorn”. Guide Dogs of America are usually pretty lenient. Before getting Stetson I submitted a list to Louise our puppy program manager, and she let me know what names were available/appropriate.

If you’re still having trouble coming up with a list of  good dog names or puppy names then check out our page of puppy names sorted alphabetically.

It’s been a couple years, but once again you may already have guessed why I’m talking about puppy names again…

That’s right!  We’ve decided to raise another puppy for Guide Dogs of America!

What Should I Name My Guide Dog Puppy?

Do you want to help us name our next Guide Dog Puppy?  Here’s  what you need to do:

  1. Visit the Puppy In Training Fan Page
  2. Click the “Like” button on our fan page.
  3. We will announce the letter assigned to our litter in the next few days.
  4. In the comments section in Facebook or in the comments section below let us know what you think we should name our new puppy.

That’s it!  Be sure to visit our Fan Page and click the “Like” button so you can be the among the first to find out what letter is assigned to our litter.  Do you know of any good dog names that start with the letter “D”?

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CCI Puppies In Training

September 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

I follow a lot of blogs in my RSS reader and too no surprise one of my feeds are simple images and descriptions of adorable puppies.  Every once in a while they (The Daily Puppy) highlights a puppy in training.  In this case we are lucky enough to see Puppies In Training.

I’m sure The Daily Puppy receives tens of thousands (if not more) visitors a day some I’m very happy to see they are highlighting a great cause like Canine Companions for Independence (CCI).

Here’s a little excerpt from the The Daily Puppy:

Canine Companions for Independence is a non-profit organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly-trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships. Canine Companions assistance dogs are trained in up to 50 commands designed to make everyday life easier for adults and children with physical and developmental disabilities. They open and close doors, retrieve dropped objects, and turn on and off lights. Outside of physical tasks, Canine Companions assistance dogs provide immeasurable emotional support to their human partners.

And of course they included some adorable pictures of their Puppies In Training.  Here’s one:

Puppies In Training

For the full article and more images of these adorable CCI puppies visit the Daily Puppy.

If you’re interested in becoming a puppy raiser and raising a CCI puppy then visit their website at http://www.cci.org.  If you don’t have the time for puppy raising then they offer many other volunteer activities and also accept donations at their website.

Of course my last two puppies, Stetson and Derby were both puppies in training for Guide Dogs of America.  If you’re interested in puppy raising for GDA then visit their website at http://www.guidedogsofamerica.com.

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Guide Dog Puppy Training At The Irvine Spectrum

June 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

If you were at the Irvine Spectrum this past weekend you may have seen 10 or so Guide Dog Puppies in Training walking around, working on obedience, and having a little fun.

This past Saturday our Orange County Guide Dog group had a little scavenger hunt also know as The Greatest Puppy Race.  We broke up into two teams and we were given several clues, instructions, pictures that we had to follow and rack up points for our teams.  We were instructed to take pictures of our dogs in several different situations and places.

Sidney The Guide Dog Puppy In Training

As you all know Derby is waiting to be adopted and is no longer a puppy in training, however this past weekend I had the priveledge of working with a young 6 month old yellow Labrador Retriever named Sidney.  He did great!  Although he was beat by the end of the day.  We met up at Champps for lunch and Sidney did not budge during the entire meal.

Here are a few photos from our adventure this past weekend:

Puppies In Training Reading Marley And Me

Guide Dogs Reading Marley And Me

Puppies In Training In A Sit Stay At The Fountain

Catalina Surfing At The Toy Store

Thanks to Jan, Barbara, and Anne for organizing and everyone else who participated in the OCGDA Scavenger hunt.  We had a great time and hope to do it again next year.

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Who Picks Up Guide Dog Poo?

May 19, 2009 By 4 Comments

How does a blind person pick up after a dogs poo?  Who picks up guide dog poo?  I’ve seen this question many, many times in my twitter feed and in comment threads.

Guide Dog Poo

Guide Dog PooThis is a totally legitimate question:  How does a blind person pick up guide dog poop?  I asked this question a while back.  While raising Stetson I remember Ramona, our instructor, reminding us to pet our dogs while they were “getting busy” – “Get Busy” is the command we give to let our dog know it’s time for them to go pee or poo. I always thought this was a strange thing (petting the dogs while they do their business) to do, but figured that it was another way for a blind handler to know exactly where their dog was squatting.

Finally one day I asked “Why do we pet our dogs while they’re getting busy?” As usual there was a very logical response:

As a guide dog puppy raiser we tell our dogs to “get busy” letting them know it’s time to eliminate. At this time we get the dogs used to having their back rubbed by petting as they pee or poop. When the dog is older and working as a guide dog, the dogs blind handler can say “get busy” and rub the dogs back (the back arches differently whether the dog pees or poops) and then within an inch there’s the dog poop.

I actually learned two things that day. The first being “Why do we pet our dogs while they pee or poo?” and “Who picks up guide dog poo?“

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Hotel For Dogs Review

February 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Derby and Colby MovieHave you been looking for a Hotel For Dogs Review? by a dog? Derby (my yellow lab puppy in training) and I went to see Hotel For Dogs this past weekend with several of our fellow puppy raisers. We had the chance to do some training before the movie and after the movie we went to eat dinner at the Lazy Dog Cafe.

Derby was so happy with the movie he wanted to write a review.

Hotel For Dogs Review

Derby’s (the dog) Review

It was great! I got lots of attention before and after the movie from dog lovers outside and inside the theater. My brother Dutch and other friends joined us, but sat on the other side of the theater ):

The movie was awesome. I saw a dog that looked just like me. I also saw dogs that looked like my stepbrother’s Stetson and Linus. I was able to cry during the movie (because it was sad) and no one noticed because there were so many dog noises happening during the movie. The star of the movie, “Friday” looked just like my cousin Ralphie. My favorite part were all the gadgets Bruce made for all the doggies. I hope someday I have my own tennis shoe vending machine.

I hope my daddy takes me to another movie really soon. If you can’t go to the movies try to get your mommy or daddy to rent Hotel For Dogs when it comes out on video.

Guide Dog GroupColby’s (the human) Review

I wasn’t expecting too much, but Hotel For Dogs was surprisingly good. Then again I am a dog lover. There were some great dog gadgets that we might have to someday create for the dogs. My favorite was the automated doors…not automated like you’d think. These doors were automated for dogs. When the dog ran to one door it would ring the door at the other door and when they got to that door a boot would kick at the opposite door…very clever. Another device that was pretty cool was very similar to the Dog Ball Launcher we featured last year.

All in all we thoroughly enjoyed the movie. If you’re a dog lover I definitely would recommend Hotel For Dogs.

Lazy Dog Cafe

After the movie we met up with more of our friends at the Lazy Dog Cafe. It was a great time and we got to socialize with other puppy raisers. Derby was good, but he insisted on relaxing half under Tammy’s chair and the other half under me. He’s definitely a long puppy.

Derby Down Under

There’s quite a variety of food at Lazy Dog Cafe. A few items I noticed on the menu were Pizza, Burgers, Chicken Pot Pie, Hawaiian Poke…definitely a variety. I had a Caesar Salad with Grilled Salmon – the semi-healthy choice. Derby did very well and even though he didn’t go to sleep he stayed underneath me (at least part of his body) the entire dinner and didn’t squirm much at all (very good for him around other dogs).

We had a great time and yep the second picture is Derby smooching with his brother Dutch in front of the theater. I can’t wait for our next Guide Dog group adventure!

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Finally…Back From Alaska

September 22, 2008 By 1 Comment

***WARNING THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT DOGS OR PUPPIES***

It’s been a while and I apologize for not getting a post up here on my blog a little sooner. I have been back from Alaska for two weeks and still no posts during those two weeks. Well…

The day after I returned from Alaska I caught the flu (I think I might have gotten it on the flight). I stayed in bed for the majority of the first week. Then I got caught up in my friend’s wedding. I was part of the wedding party and had to take care of my groomsmen duties. Finally, one week of vacation put me way behind at work and I’ve been putting in extra time at the office in the evening and on weekends.

I know…unacceptable excuses. First post back and I wanted to get some pictures from our Alaska trip.

Unfortunately the only wildlife (in the wild that is) we saw during our trip were Bald Eagles (very cool, but our river guides said their basically like vultures) and fish.

The photos below were taken by my mom at the nature preserve:

My mom takes some great photos and cleans them up real nice with photoshop. It’s amazing, but there was actually a fence between us and all the animals and my mother was able to remove the fence from the pictures. I’m going to try and get her to post her pictures to a website with tutorials on how she takes and cleans up the pictures with her digital camera and photoshop.

It’s good to be back and tomorrow I’ll get some more posts about Derby, Stetson, Linus, and puppy training.

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Vacation To Alaska

August 31, 2008 By 4 Comments

I just thought I’d let everyone know that I’ll be in Alaska for the next 8 days.  Unfortunately, I won’t be bringing any of my dogs with me.  Lucky for me I was able to find three different families to watch my dogs.

I’ll do my best to try and get posts to the blog next week, but unless our cabin has internet it’s highly unlikely.  I’ll try to bring back some salmon and halibut.

Everyone have a great week!

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