Nessie!!

Sorry for the long gap between posts...life has just been a bit crazy! However, I wanted to introduce my new CCI puppy, Nessie!! She is a Golden Retriever born August 24th, 2007. She is from a local breeder and was donated to CCI. Her mom is Brackenhollow Ginas Riley ("Riley") and her dad is Midas Rowdy Mate ("Rowdy").

I am very excited to be raising Nessie since my first CCI puppy, Pasha, is Nessie's Aunt (Rowdy's half-sister). Also, Cody is Nessie's Uncle (Riley's half-brother). Both Pasha and Cody are amazing dogs, so I'm excited to see how Nessie turns out. So far she is a great puppy!

She has gained a lot of points with me since she has slept through the night almost since I got her. She is an active puppy, but entertains herself very well. She is also fairly quiet. She is a big girl, weighing in at 20 pounds at 11 weeks. So far she seems smart and willing to learn, and has started learning Sit, Down, Wait, Stay, Here, Speak, Quiet, Kennel, Car, Shake, and Heel. Anyway, here are some pictures!

Rabbits

There are lots of little bunnies around my work (I work at a boarding kennel), which OMSI has been very interested in. There is a path through some woods in the back where the boarding dogs go for walks and stuff (the area is completely fenced), and I had OMSI off-leash back there Thursday night. There were four of us practicing off-leash heeling around the trail, and OMSI and I were in the front of the line. He was doing great walking right next to me without needing any reminders. So we were walking and a bunny hopped out of the bushes about 10 feet in front of us then hopped up the path away from us. OMSI didn't even miss a beat next to me. He perked up his ears, but didn't make any move towards the rabbit, or even a little jump like he wanted to chase it but remembered he wasn't supposed to. He just kept right next to me. When I stopped he automatically sat, although it took me a couple times of saying his name before he gave me his full attention without glancing at where the rabbit had been. We were able to finish our walk without him once trying to leave me to look for bunnies, and he wasn't even overly alert after the bunny disappeared. I was so proud of him! It's times like this that I think he might actually have a chance at graduating :-)

Baltimore

Last week OMSI went on a trip to Baltimore to assist in a presentation about using Facility dogs in a courthouse setting. The person who took him is a King County prosecuting attorney whose son has a CCI Skilled Companion dog, and she went with a prosecutor from the Snohomish County office who has a CCI Facility dog. Ellen could not take her son's dog, so she asked if she could borrow OMSI. Of course I said "yes!" - what a great experience for him! Ellen reported that OMSI was "fabulous". Her only complaint was that he forged a bit when walking. She said he was great on the plane, buses, and trains they went on, and was well-behaved at the conference. Ellen dropped OMSI off this morning and then we went to help sell Mariner's calendars at a booth in front of Fred Meyer's. When we got home from that he just crashed and has been sleeping most of the afternoon. I'll have him all this week, then he's going to go to high school next week with another puppy raiser (who is currently puppyless). He's a busy boy!

Updates

Well, I haven't posted any updates for a while, so here's a brief overview of what's happened in the last month. First, here's OMSI's "14 month" birthday picture.

OMSI:

OMSI participated in the Evergreen State Fair in the Puppy Power 4-H club (it's a CCI group mainly). He was shown by a girl who doesn't have a puppy right now, and competed in showmanship, control training (like obedience), evaluation course (walking around the fair), costume, and agility. Since Adrianna is a primary, he didn't get scores in any of the classes, but they both did very well together. I've included a picture of OMSI in his costume...he was a baby (complete with "diapers" that aren't apparent in the picture) and she was his "babysitter" and pushed him around in a baby stroller. He started out sitting, but then got bored and squished himself down.

BAJA:

Here's a cute picture of Playa from his first litter. She was also shown at the fair and did very well. For the costume contest, she was a butterfly and her handler was a flower. Very cute!

CODY:

I flew down to Honduras for just over a week to visit Cody and work with his new owner. Cody is doing GREAT and is already very attached to his new Dad. He also lives with a black lab and a terrier mix. He is being used as an "ambassador dog" to educate people about working/service dogs of all types: guide dogs, hearing dogs, service dogs, search and rescue dogs, police dogs, etc. His owner takes him to schools, firehouses, and places of business and does demonstrations on the types of things service dogs can do to help people. If it is a business and agrees to allow service dogs into the establishment, he gives them a sticker to put in their window. There were signs up in pretty much every store saying no dogs/animals allowed...even in the pet store! So, Cody has a big job ahead of him. He does a great job in the environment there, too. He ignores stray or off-leash dogs and cats or other small animals running around and is very calm when greeting people. This is very important, since a lot of people that I met kept asking if he would bite, and the kids were very tentative about petting him at first. But, since he didn't make any sudden moves or tried to lick or anything, they soon relaxed with him.

The trip was also interesting because of the development of Hurricane Felix while I was there, but fortunately it didn't come to the area that I was staying in.

Mariner's game

This afternoon we went to a Mariner's baseball game to present the new Mariners-CCI calendar. I am very excited about this calendar because OMSI is Mr. December 2008!! Also, another of Blaze's puppies, Risa, is Miss September 2008! We had a booth on the first level of the stadium where we could sell the calendars. The cool thing about it is that all the proceeds ($10 per calendar) will go to sponsor Skilled Companion teams (I think for kids from Washington). The Mariners are not keeping any of the proceeds for themselves, and the printing was donated. The calendars are also being carried in the Mariner's team store. Anyway, OMSI and I spent about an hour before the game at the booth and walking around the stadium promoting the calendar, then we watched the game for a while (it was great! the Mariners won 11-5, so there was a lot of action! Plus, it was a sold-out game since the Mariners are in first place in the Wildcard race). We spend the last couple innings at the booth again. Overall, OMSI got lots of pets, and a naptime in the middle. He was very good with all the crowds and noise and stuff, like usual. There were a bunch of CCI dogs there, and here are some pictures of some of them.

Last agility class :-(

Today was OMSI's last agility class. We took two series of classes, and we had a lot of fun! Tonight we did a series of 5 obstacles (tire, jump, jump, jump, tunnel), but there were two rows of jumps and we practiced sending the dogs through in a zigzag pattern. This was the most difficult thing we've done so far, and after a couple tries we did it perfect! He runs faster than I can think of what to tell him next, especially if he does something unexpected, so all our mistakes are definitely my fault. Agility handling is much harder than it looks! OMSI is also doing very well with the weave poles, and they only need to be off-set a couple inches now. He is starting to stop on the contacts on command on all three contact obstacles, and he has never had any problem with the teeter-totter, which some other dogs in our class did not like. OMSI and I will definitely continue agility training if he decides that a career as a service dog is not for him :-) I have no pictures of him doing agility, but here's his 13 month birthday pictures.

Stanwood Fair

Today OMSI and I, plus Risa and her raiser Lisa, drove up to Stanwood and went to the Stanwood-Camano Island fair. I used to go to this fair when I was showing in 4-H, and it's a small, cute fair. OMSI and Risa got to meet lots of different animals, and their owners were nice enough to let them approach and say Hi. He got to meet a goat, a dairy cow, some pigs, some sheep, rabbits, chickens, and geese. Plus, we watched the horses for a while and some dogs practicing agility (boy, OMSI wanted to go practice, too!). We also walked around the rides area and through the food booths. It was a great experience for the dogs and they both did very well! We had numerous kids come up to us and ask to pet the dogs, and both pups were very calm while greeting them, and did very nice "shakes". Afterwards, we let the dogs run in a sports field by where we parked. Then we went to eat at Red Robbin, and the dogs enjoyed a nice nap on the floor under the booth. Enjoy the pictures!