A Tip for "Busying" Your Puppy

Here is a useful tip for how to "busy" your puppy, from a recent post on The Blue Coat Journal:

"Here’s what everyone (male and female dogs) should do during 'busy' time. Take your dog to the relief location. Tell the dog, Busy Busy and then stand still. Let the dog walk around you, but don’t move. This is how students relieve their dogs. It isn’t safe for them to wander around a relief area, so they stand still and let the dog walk around them."

This came from a longer post by trainer Karen Mersereau full of tips for dealing with unspayed/unneutered puppies. The Blue Coat Journal is the puppy-raising blog of SEGDI, so be sure to check it out!

Some pups listen to the Florida Orchestra

Keegan and Laurel pose with Lauren and Darlene's pup at Ruth Eckerd Hall. You can tell that Laurel doesn't seem to want anything to do with a dog dressed up like Darlene's pup is.
























Here is a close up of "the outfit".

FOOD FOR THOUGHT...

Tired of finding fuzzy slippers under the tree EVERY year? Copy and paste this list to your loved ones' gift list and keep your fingers crossed...this is an informal compilation of some titles that trainer Karen has suggested for anyone who might be interested in reading up on our four-legged canine friends:

"The Other End of the Leash" by Patricia McConnell

"For the Love of a Dog" by Patricia McConnell

"Good Owners, Great Dogs" by Brian Killcommons and Sarah Wilson

"Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know" by Alexandra Horowitz

"The Dog's Mind" by Bruce Fogel

"Bones Would Rain From the Sky" by Suzanne Clothier

"The Art of Raising a Puppy" by the Monks of New Skete

Book Club, anyone?

Happy Reading!

Holiday Party

Fun was had by all at the Annual Christmas Party at the Lions Club. Duke missed out on his Santa photo - but we got a surprise visit from photographer extraordinare.... Cindy Weatherby and she got some good shots of Frick and Frack (aka Duke & Trapper)

Puppy Raisers Puttering Around - 11/23/2010

Tuesday evening, before Thanksgiving, the Pinellas North puppy raisers (PRs), went to Congo River Golf on US 19 in Clearwater.






















Courageous puppy raisers about to putter around.
























Courageous puppies going up steps.

























Inquisitive puppies stopping to explore.
























There are lots of steps at Congo River Golf.



















And some bridges to traverse.




















And, even a bridge that bounced underneath them.
Some puppy raisers really went fast across this one, as you can see.

Berniece Tries Out New Places

On Saturday, Glenn and I took 3-month old Berniece to the Auto Show at the Tampa Convention Center. One of the things that I noticed Bernie likes to do is explore new surfaces. Often dogs are a little afraid of new surfaces, but not Bernie. She tried out the gratings, and in some places rubber mulch, around the trees as we walked on the sidewalk to the Convention Center. She tried out shiny linoleum and aluminum surfaces on the floor. She even insisted on getting up on a mirrored surface and looked at herself. She wanted to get in all the cars and check out the passenger well to see if we both fit okay.

Then, today, Glenn and I took Berniece to IKEA, in Tampa. We had a lunch of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and Lingon while Bernie lay quietly under the table.

After lunch we went shopping. Bernie was quite overwhelmed by all the new smells and kept veering off the beaten path trying to discover where the newest smell was coming from. Also, there were a lot of children in the store and she always has a very hard time ignoring children. But she had some wonderful exposures to new things. She got to ride in a huge freight elevator and walk down an enormously long staircase. We shopped in the Swedish grocery store and many of the odors there were also ones we'd never experienced before either.

Now she is home and on a tie-down. Everthing is calm and back to normal.

Puppy Raisers Walk the Santa Parade!

This weekend the puppy raisers participated in the 83rd Annual Santa Parade in St. Pete. It was an excellent exposure for the dogs as it was filled with screams, shouts, loud musics, cars, crowds and craziness and most of that was BEHIND the barricades!

Learning to Blog

A lot has been going on lately in our puppy group, with big events like the 1st Annual Sporting Clays Shoot, the Great American Teach-In, and the Santa Parade in St. Petersburg this past weekend — not to mention various other parades, demos, and fundraising events. It all seems like perfect fodder for a blog, no?

But even though Dodger and I were at the Sporting Clays (not shooting, but we did pick up a few prizes in the raffle), at Starkey Elementary educating the kids about guide dogs (and anatomy), and strutting our stuff with Santa on Central Avenue, we know lots of other puppy raisers were out there with good stories to tell and pictures to share. That's when Dodger (my yellow Lab sidekick for a year) came up with this great idea for our group: a community blog!

If all goes well (this first post is the first test), readers of this blog will be seeing all kinds of good things from, for, and about our puppy raisers. So, blog on!