SNOW!!!!!

We have snow!!!! And OMSI loves it!!! The roads were really bad yesterday, so I didn't go to work (it took me 2 hours to drive home Monday evening - it usually takes 10 minutes). So I got to play in the snow with the dogs :-)

Pictures

Ok, here are some cute pictures :-) I finally remembered to take some pictures of OMSI in his "big boy" cape at church today. Then after church, we decided to go out to lunch. So OMSI had his first restaurant experience, too! He was antsy at first, but then went to sleep.

Jen was asking about how many dogs we have at our house, so here's a picture. The lab mix on the left is our family pet Kippy, the Dobie (Jazz) is a dog that I'm watching for the week (she leaves on Tuesday), OMSI is front and center, the Golden, Cody, is a dog I'm training for someone, Cash the Aussie is our other family pet, and Zen the Weimaraner is my sister's dog. My mom set the limit at 6 dogs, and we rarely have fewer than that. When Jazz goes home I'll be watching another CCI pup for a week :-)

Here are some other funny pictures of OMSI. He crosses his back legs sometimes when he lays down, and I finally had my camera handy when he did it. I've never seen another dog lay like this, but OMSI seems to find it comfortable! I've also been working with OMSI on not eating food off the floor, and here's one of the exercises I've done a couple times with him. He's so funny! He'll look back and forth between the two treats and then look at me, but he doesn't try to eat them! Although I'm sure he would if I left him alone :-)

OMSI's first real outing

OMSI got his "big-boy" cape at class this week, and today I took him on his first outing to somewhere other than pet stores, friends houses, or church. I had to pick up something at Costco, and since I was only going to be there for a short time, I decided to take OMSI. He was sooooo good! He startled at the shopping carts banging together outside, but he didn't try to bolt at all. But, he wasn't bothered by any of the shopping carts inside, or anything else. He had great eye contact (and got lots of treats for it), was mostly calm when people were petting him, and walked next to me with a loose leash the whole time. Once after I had given him a treat he suddenly stopped and was staring at the floor. I looked where he was staring, and the treat had dropped on the floor. But, he knew that he wasn't supposed to eat things off the floor, so he was just staring at it. What a good boy! Before I left we sat outside by the the carts and watched for a little while until he didn't care so much about the noise. I hope this noise sensitivity is just a phase and that the confidence he had when he was a baby puppy comes back! I took my camera, but forgot to take pictures, so here's a picture of OMSI with his baby puppy cape on.

OMSI update

The week before Baja's turn-in, OMSI went to a puppysitter's house so I could spend the last week with just Baja. The puppysitters took OMSI on Sunday night, and I got a call from them on Wednesday giving me an update. They said that OMSI was being good and that if I fell in love with a puppy while I was at CCI I could bring it home since they were going to keep OMSI. Nice try :-) When I picked him up on Sunday they said that he was the best behaved 4 month old pup they've puppysat. He got along great with their dog and didn't have any accidents in the house. And after a week of being away, OMSI definately grew and filled out a bit, and he seems calmer than he used to be. My wild little puppy is turning into a well-behaved dog!
Yesterday, my family went to a friends house for Thanksgiving dinner and I brough OMSI. He was very good and slept through dinner, and he mostly ignored the cats at the house. He did get antsy when it was his dinnertime (I didn't bring his food with me), but he settled down again when he realized he would have to wait. I picked up his first real cape at class this week, and I think he's ready to start going out on short trips in public. I forgot my camera on Thanksgiving, so I don't really have any pictures to share :-( But, here's a picture of Baja during his last week here sleeping by the fire.

Turn-in pictures

I tried to get a picture of Baja's slide during the matriculating pups slide show at graduation, but the picture I took didn't turn out very well. So I thought I'd share the pictures I sent in and a little about why I chose them out of the hundreds of pictures I have of Baja.


This is a picture of Baja in our backyard when he was 3 1/2 months old. It's one of my favorite puppy pictures I have of him.


This is a picture of Baja last fall when he was about 7 months old. This bush was right outside the Psychology building, so I took a picture of Baja there at school one day. The background is beautiful, and Baja looks so cute, too! I love the contrast between is big, dark eyes and nose and his almost white coat. Plus, I love labs with big, blocky heads :-)


This is from last June when I graduated from Central Washington University. I borrowed a matriculation cape from CCI and ordered a kindergarten graduation cap online. Baja's outfit turned out great!


This picture was taken this August at the Evergreen State Fair. I took Baja through the Swine barn, and he sniffed noses with a pig. I was lucky enough to get this picture of it :-)

Baja's Turn-in

Baja is now in California in Advanced Training. Last Thursday evening my Mom and I flew down to Oakland. Of course, Baja flew in the cabin with us. He was perfect at the airport and managed to squeeze into the tiny space under the seat in front of me on the airplane. He slept through take-off and landing, as well as most of the flight. We got in about 11pm and stayed in a hotel in Oakland. Baja slept on the bed with me (shh!), and actually fell off once in the middle of the night! We got up early and drove to Santa Rosa.



Friday afternoon we went over to Blaze's house to visit. He has the nicest Breeder-caretakers! Blaze looks great, although he's already starting to get gray on his face! His BCs found a box of 100 frisbees, and now Blaze's favorite toy is a frisbee (even more than a tennis ball). He'll even jump in the air and catch it! It also seems like the novelty of the pond has worn off slightly (it took over a year), and now he'll even go a day without swimming.



Friday night we went to the reception at CCI. I had multiple people comment on how handsome Baja is (of course!), and he behaved himself very well. I even got to take a picture of him with his grandma Patrice! For those who don't know, Patrice is the matriarch of CCI. Her sons Bobby and Hemet (Baja's dad) are two of CCI's most successful male breeders, and her grandsons Terrell and Baumann have been having lots of pups lately. Of course, there are lots of female breeders related to her as well. So, pretty much all of the labs and lab/golden crosses in CCI are decended from Patrice. What a girl!
Saturday we had pictures in the morning then went out to lunch with another PR. Baja also got to run around the play yard with some other dogs. I noticed Saturday morning that Baja's left ear was goopy, so I think he got his first ear infection ever the day he turned-in :-( So now I have something else to worry about, too. We got to see Blaze again at the graduation, and with 4 dogs graduating from our Puget Sound Chapter and 17 matriculating, there were lots of other people I knew there, too. Sadly, we had to leave right after graduation and head back to CCI for turn-in so we could make it back to Oakland for our flight home. So, there wasn't time for another romp in the play yard or drawn out good-byes. I found out that Baja's roommate is Aris, a very big neutered male LGX who was also raised in Washington. As an interesting note, Aris' dad Zen was raised in WA as well and was my 2nd pup, Jaba's, roommate in advanced training. Hopefully these two boys will do as well! Baja had no problem going with the trainer who took him back to the kennels, and I think he'll have a lot of fun in "college". If all goes well, I won't hear anything until the beginning of January. I think the 6 weeks after turn-in until the first report are some of the longest in the puppy raising process!

Costume Party and Boat Trip

Last Wednesday we had our "Bone Voyage" party for the 17 puppies turning in November 18th (Baja included). We had our annual Costume contest (usually it's before Halloween, but it didn't work out this year), and Baja and OMSI went dressed as dragons and Mikayla, a 7 year old girl I've been taking to class with me, dressed up as a princess. Very cute!
OMSI went to the vet for his last set of puppy shots on Friday, and Baja went to get a health certificate so he can fly to California. OMSI is a light weight at 22.4 lbs, and he is definately tall and gangly and a bit scrawny right now. But he is healthy and now ready to meet the world :-) Baja weighs 72 lbs and is also in excellent health.
On Saturday I went on an Argosy cruise around Lake Washington with our puppy group. I took all three dogs, but fortunately had people to help handle them. Cody spent the last half of the cruise on our leaders lap outside, and OMSI was held by various people almost the entire time. Baja ran around with Mikayla for most of the cruise. All the dogs were very well behaved, especially considering it was a fairly small boat that was full of people and probably 15-20 dogs.