Drakes Creek Park Puppy Meeting

Our puppy meeting was held at Drakes Creek Park. While there a professional photographer spotted us working with the pups and asked to photograph them. She was then kind enough to forward the following pictures to us...

Honey (back) and Moose (front)

Honey

Honey, Moose and Miles

We walked all around the park exposing the pups to the playground, the geese, and a floating dock

Honey was obviously relaxed on the floating dock

We practiced our under-downs

and also practiced our down

(or am I pointing out Goose Poop and begging Honey not to eat it?)

Honey loved the park and did very well with all the distractions!

2.5 Months Make a Big Difference

This is Jenny again! I've just returned back to school after spending Spring Break in D.C. and at home. The last time I was home was over Christmas break, which was only about 2.5 months ago. Honey has changed a lot, but also stayed the same in a few ways:

1. Honey is on steroids. She is much bigger and stronger than I remember her being! She can easily pull me along the floor when we are playing tug-of-war with her toys, instead of the other way around.

2. Honey still likes to eat stuff: rocks, socks, grass, dirt, the floor, the walls, furniture, anything. Her now razor-sharp teeth though make it harder to remove said objects from her mouth.

3. Honey is still not very lady-like at all. She eats with her mouth open & slurps her water very loudly. She sits kind of awkwardly on one hip, and still runs in little bounds and slides into walls.

4. Honey does not bite anymore! However, she now licks and sniffs everything.

5. Honey makes sounds. Before this visit, I think I heard Honey make a sound (bark, woof, arf, whimper, anything) maybe once. Now she barks a little bit when she wants to go and you aren't quick enough.

6. Honey still likes to run in circles with random objects in her mouth. (Marathon dog!)

7. Honey listens better, but not to me. Honey is much better at sitting, staying, "down", and stopping when hearing "no", but only if other people command her. Everytime I would tell her to sit to prevent her from jumping upon me or another person, I was ignored. If I told her "no", she would look at me and then continue to do the forbidden action until someone else said it. Obviously, she is upset at me that I have given up on her & her Hot Hot Dog dream. However, I think maybe it's best for her to give that dream up too and focus on becoming a guide dog.

8. Honey is playful, cute, and fun.

I will be home in 2.5 more months, so we'll see how much more she has changed!

Destination ImagiNation Competition

Honey attended the Destination ImagiNation competition but since I was too busy leading the kids during the competition and Scotty was too busy keeping his eyes on the kids and handling Honey, there are unfortunately no pictures of Honey at the actual competition. I do however have pictures of the kids and Honey during the weeks leading up to the competition. Do I really need to mention that our DI Team, The 7 Aces, was a group of 7 4th grade students or can you guess that from the pictures??

Cheerleading, Basketball and Puppy

Honey hanging out on the sidelines watching

Franklin Firehouse #4 - Puppy Training

Today brought teaming rain and Puppy Training. I asked Becky (our area AC) if our puppy training meeting could meet at Franklin Fire Station #4. Captain Black, who is also a dog trainer, was gracious enough to allow us to expose the puppies to the firehouse. What an exposure!

We first met Captain Black and his search and rescue dog, Jewel - a sweet and beautiful 6 year old Golden. After everyone arrived, we practiced some obedience then off to the truck bay. Before any puppy training could take place, all the kiddoes had a chance to sit in the fire truck! Becky asked us to walk the puppies around the fire truck. Captain Black turned on the flashing lights and we walked around the truck again. Then came the sirens - I was prepared for puppy insanity but each of the dogs was able to stay calm and none barked or made any noise. Captain Black was kind enough to dress out in his full fire gear and walked and crawled around the puppies while we tried to keep the pups in a sit, down, stay.

I would love to say Honey was a model puppy but today the Moose/doggie distractions got the best of her. I was pleasantly pleased with how well she reacted (or more correctly, did not react) to all the noise, lights and fireman distractions. Maybe being raised in a home where there is frequent noise and chaos is good for Honey. All we need now is to expose her to some more dogs.

It was a great exposure and one we hope to repeat with Honey in the future.

If you are a Franklin local, I would highly recommend a visit to Franklin Fire Station #4 even if just for a minute to say hi to our wonderful firefighters and Jewel!

The Guilt!

Ok, the guilt has set in... I will try to update the blog more frequently (thanks Jenny!)

It was much easier to blog about Honey when she was doing funny and cute things every day. And while she is still cute, there really is not too much to report aside from training - and that is quite boring. Since our puppy training Saturday we are focusing on 'under down' at meals. This is a little challenging since we were feeding Honey during our mealtimes. So after a tweak in our schedule Honey eats her supper after our dinner and her under down practice time. So far, so good!

Blog, Clog, Flog, Pog, DOG!

This is Jenny and the last time I saw little Honey was at Christmas vacation. Since then, I have checked everyday for updates on her and there never are any! I know that things at home have been kind of crazy with everyone having 75840572 places to be at the same exact time. Hopefully if I add a post, this blog will be revived! But since I have not seen Honey since Christmas, I'm not the person who can say anything meaningful about her. So instead, of doing my psychology homework I've decided that I must admit that I can no longer fight fate: Honey will never be a true Hot Hot Dog. So instead, she will become a Flower Dog! (Thankful she's not an ugly pug.)

Foundation Fighting Blindness Puppy Training Meeting

Today we attended the kick off for the Foundation Fighting Blindness walkathon luncheon. It was also Puppy Training day. I learned a lot! I primarily learned that most folks go out to eat A LOT! All the other puppies had multiple restaurant 'under down' exposures each week. I felt bad for Honey as we do not eat out (and I blame Dave Ramsey for that [Dave Ramsey is our 'Get Out of Debt' Guru]).

Each time Honey and her brother, Moose, are together craziness ensues. I am not certain if it is due to the fact they are siblings, if Honey is not being raised with other dogs, if it is because they are just shy of 6 months old so this is typical puppy behaviors or if we are doing a poor job as puppy raisers. But today was better as Honey, after much cajoling, finally stopped trying to play with Moose and did pretty well with 'under down' throughout much of the luncheon. The pictures afterwards tell a different story but for her first exposure to 'under down' since she went to the mall with us several months ago, Honey did a great job!

Foundation Fighting Blindness Luncheon

Today we headed out with the pups to a restaurant for the Foundation Fighting Blindness kick off meeting. In attendance were...

Moose (left), Diva (background right) and Honey (foreground)
Pat with Moose, Lyndsea with Diva and Karen with Honey

Pat received her SEGD volunteer award!

Honey - Destined to be a 'sniffer'

I love Honey, I really do  BUT sometimes I wonder if she is really cut out for this 'Guide Dog' stuff.  Loyal to her partner - yes.  Drive and determination - yes.  Sweet and trainable - yes.  BUT Honey has never met a stranger.  She wants to greet everyone with a slobbery lick.  Although she is smart - very smart - she does not quite yet understand not to lick everyone.  Since there is no career change to 'professional licker' I think Honey wants to be a 'sniffer'.  Maybe an arson dog?  Maybe Bomb sniffing dog?  Maybe Customs or Police cadaver dog but almost certainly not guide work.  Honey can stay perfectly still for hours - the only time she is still - while sniffing the air.  She is curious about everything and her activity level is very high - not the greatest traits for guide work but I believe highly sought after for 'sniffer' dogs.  We keep working with Honey, hopeful she will settle down, but my money is on Honey helping people through leading investigators rather than the blind.  We will be proud of Honey no matter what career she chooses!

Been Busy?

It would be easy to blame my recent lack of blogging on any number of things: Trying to get a new business off the ground, having children who catch the ‘germ of the week’ at school, southern snowfalls and the subsequent ‘no school today so you have to keep your own children busy’ school cancellation days, suffering from a horrible head cold, making valentines gifts, the ever time consuming Destination ImagiNation team meetings several times a week… I could go on but it is really just a busy life taking me away from the computer and Honeys blog.
But just because I have not blogged does not mean Honey has not been doing fun and funny things lately. Honey is now 50 pounds and still growing! She has lost most of her puppy teeth including her canines – or as the kids and I say – her fangs (she had both upper canines come in without the baby ones falling out) – so we can no longer call her Jaws or Fang Face. Honey absolutely loves snow – eating it, playing in it, and burying her nose in it (although I suspect she is secretly trying to scavenge for rocks, dirt or grass!). It appears that she cannot go out in the snow without coming in with a beard of snow, hence the new nickname Old Woman.
Today was our puppy raiser meeting. We had some quick obedience lessons and then Honey and her brother, Moose, boarded the trolley and rode around town for an hour. Honey did very well until the 45 minute mark when she decided it was time to busy. It was hard to keep her in a down, under (or was it an under, down?). Luckily, Honey was able to hold on and busied after the ride. Honey then sat through a DI Instant Challenge meeting for 1 ½ hours. I let her stay home instead of attending the Boy Scout meeting today since she was tuckered out from all the morning and afternoon activities. Now the sweet girl is sleeping next to my chair as I type away. Of course, she is sleeping on the hard plastic mat my chair rolls on instead of the soft carpet a foot away or the brand new bed I bought her today! Gotta’ love her!

String Stealer

I love Honey (the dog, not the condiment) but sometimes I really want to kill her. Take today for example....

I woke up, brought Honey out to busy, fed her breakfast then headed to the bathroom where Honey (usually) patiently waits while I shower. Today Honey decided to mix things up a little. Unstead of patiently hanging out in the bathroom while I shower, Honey decided it would be fun to try to grab the 'new toy' I was wearing. The problem was that the 'new toy' was the string to my pajama pants. In a single bound, Honey jumped up grabbed the string and started to pull. She pulled hard enough to turn the little string into a long string. The other end was about half way around my waistband. I always love the puppy, but some days it is tough to love puppy antics!

Down On The Farm

Honey visited the farm for the first time today. As you can tell Scotty was the photographer!

This picture describes exactly what Honey was thinking.. what are these other 4-legged things and why are they heading in my direction? They seemed friendly enough as long as they stayed behind that fence. When Honey met them out in the open, those donkeys were not so kind.
Lad and Honey, on the other hand, forged a new friendship (even if Lad was a lot bigger!)
Honey met some barn cats, watched them get fed and seemed unfazed. But for Honey the best part of the farm was the pond.
She had a blast! The video is even better but I do not know how to load that on blogspot (homework for me!). I cannot wait for Honey to get a little older so we can let her play in the pond without being on the leash. And maybe by then the water will be a little warmer!

Roller Rink

Billy attended a birthday party at the roller rink from 5:30 - 7:30 and I thought it would be a great exposure outing for Honey. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?! I was well prepared for Honey - water, clean up supplies, toys - I was not well prepared for what seemed to be 1000 kids skating, tons of food on the multi-colored patterned carpet and extra loud heart thumping music. Honey initially tried to jump on each child as they skated by but settled down after I bribed her with her peanut butter laced kong. She was, thankfully, unfazed by the music. She displayed her carpet fascination by trying to lick every square inch of each pattern. I would post some pictures if one of the two cameras I had with me worked. Considering the late start time, the length of the exposure and the amount of distractions, I think Honey did very well for a young puppy.

Away For the Weekend

I thought one of my co-bloggers would have fulfilled my blogging duties while I was away for the past few days... but NO! Scotty took Honey (and Billy) to this weeks puppy meeting at Centennial Sportsplex. Diva, Honey and Honeys brother, Moose, had a great time at the pool and ice rink! Moose is a lot more laid back than Honey and Scotty is now hopeful our next dog will be a male.

Monday, Honey came to meet me at the airport. Sounds better than it actually was . Our flight was a little early and by the time Scotty got Honey out of the car, Michael and I were already out of the airport. She was VERY happy to see me (as was I to see her).

Today was DI group with Billy and six other 4th graders at my home. Talk about a crazy dog. I still have to ask Michael to take care of Honey since Honey gets too excited with all the kids here. The DI group meeting routine is as follows: say hi to Honey, eat snack, work hard and have fun. We must vacuum after the kids leave or else Honey would spend all evening scavenging and she would be too full to eat dinner. Billy volunteered to vacuum as I took Honey out for a quick walk. As I went to sit down for dinner I noticed a white paper on the floor and asked Billy why he did not vacuum the entire carpet. He assured me he did and upon further inspection it was not a piece of paper but one of Honeys molars! I had to soften the poor dogs dinner tonight so she could eat. I think maybe I missed her a little too much!

Ever Have One of THOSE Days?

If I were ever to have another one of 'those days', today was going to be it. I had too many things to do and too little time to do it. To top it all off, school was cancelled due to snow again (1 inch). I was managing pretty well until Honey shared her newest trick. I do NOT like this trick. Recently she has been trying to steal trash from the can beside my computer. I could make life easier by moving the trash can but I (foolishly) thought it is good opportunity to practice 'leave it' and 'no'. Of course, in my head I am screaming 'knock it off already!' - but I digress. Today Honey garbage picked a discarded sock with a hole in it. I told her to drop it and she ran off - and kept running. I tried to step on her leash but she was too quick. There was no way I was going to catch her. Honey kept circling from the kitchen to the front hall, to the dining room, to the living room, to the recreation room, to my bedroom and back. For a change, I was thankful the boys were home as we zeroed in and limited her avenues for escape and cornered her in the butler’s pantry. It wasn't 15 minutes later when Honey stole my pajama top and repeated her earlier escapades. This time we wrangled her down in the front hall. Before dinner she stole a shirt I just folded off the couch. We pinned her down in the dining room. As if that was not enough, tonight she stole a dirty sock from the laundry room. Billy helped me capture her in the kitchen. While Honey may think this is a fun game, I am not enjoying it. Not one little bit. And before you start thinking ‘poor Honey’ let me assure you she is not a poor dog without toys. Scotty is on Honey duty this weekend (explanation to follow in Tuesday’s blog). I hope he can put a quick end to this new trick!

Bell Ringer

After complaining about Honey not indicating her need to busy another puppy raiser suggested we bell train Honey. In theory, you hang a bell near the door and teach the dog to ring the bell when s/he needs to go out. We have huge sleigh bells we decorate with at Christmas so we thought we would give it a try. At first we would ring the bell and then take Honey out to busy. After a few days Honey was ringing the bell to go outside (not to mention all the angels she was helping get their wings!). I was a little worried that each time Honey heard a bell she would need to busy but my fear was unwarranted. Oddly enough, I am the one responding the bells as follows:

1) hear bell ring

2) immediately stop doing what ever I was doing

3) rush to put on shoes

4) put on coat

5) grab a leash

6) run to door

Sounds great, right? Not really. Honey has taken to sleeping at the back door where the bells are located. Sometimes when getting ready to settle down she accidently rings the bells. I leap into action completing steps 1-6 in record breaking time to find Honey asleep at the door. Honey hears the commotion, sees me standing there with her leash and fully awakens thinking we are going out to play.

One of three things needs to happen soon:

1) relocate the bells so Honey cannot accidently hit them (but that would then require her to jump to ring them so really not a solution)

2) find Honey a new resting spot

3) stop reacting like one of Pavlov's dogs each time I hear a bell ring

With a lot of my fb puppy raiser friends bringing their dogs IFT this past week, it made me think - I hope in the future I do not cry each time I hear a bell ring.

Little Miss Muddy Mess

Yesterday's rain continued through today which led to a huge muddy mess in the backyard. Before we knew Honey would be coming to live with us for a while, Scotty and I decided the backyard would be our next project. We started by determining if we wanted a deck (Scotty) or a new patio (me). Since we could not come to a decision we decided to clear out the 'landscaping'. (Too) many weekends were spent cutting down bushes, tearing up grass, relocating the the fire pit - brick by brick -, pruning trees, heading to Home Depot and Lowes to look at plants and bricks, purchasing bricks. loading bricks and unloading bricks and building a beautiful little wall to contain the new plants we never got around to buying. While I like the final backyard design the actual backyard is no where near finalized. The grass we tore up has not been replaced and with all this rain our backyard is a muddy playground for an active puppy. Even just taking her out to busy means at least 1 ton of dirt in the house (maybe exaggerated but not by much!). We were told one important thing to do with Honey was to make sure she gets use to having her paws touched. We started as soon as she arrived wiping her paws with a towel each time she came in from the wet yard. Luckily, she does not mind. The rain and the mud create a vicious cycle. As Honey grows so does the size of towel needed at the back door. The more it rains the more towels we go through. The more towels we go through means more laundry to do. The more laundry I have to do means less time to play with Honey. All I can say is the sun better come out soon. I miss taking walks outside with Little Miss Muddy Mess and there are only so many times I can throw a toy.

Rainy Day Dog

The snow has long since melted. Today brought a cloudy, drizzly, spitting rain kind of day. I was really not motivated to accomplish much but I had some errands to run (translation - more shirts to deliver) which took me and Honey out to one elementary school, one middle school and the dreaded trip to the market. I really believe today was the first day since Honey arrived that we had enough rain to create puddles. Honey, much like my children when younger, wanted to jump in each and every puddle.

Emily @ 1989

Thankfully none of my children tried to drink from a puddle as Honey attempted but her antics today brought back some fond memories of the kids playing in the summer rain, jumping in puddles and the magic of being young. Just another reason I am thankful to be a puppy raiser!

A Dog With Many Names

It occurred to me that sometimes I refer to Honey by different names. Some favorites from the past include:

• You Know Who - as in you are 'You know who wants to go o-u-t' which goes hand in hand with
• Oh No You Don't - as in 'Oh no you don't look at me with those puppy dog eyes'
• Apolo - as in Apolo Ohno the skater
• Artemis - Sister of the Greek God, Apollo. Protector of the Vulnerable and animals. I thought this a little more fitting than Apollo since she is a female.
• Athena - Greek Goddess of wisdom and achievement. And who said taking Greek Mythology in college would be a waste?
• Missy - as in 'Get over here, Missy' - it's a southern thing
• Stop Thief - see previous blog
• Crazy Dog - as in you are not going to believe what the 'Crazy Dog' did today
• Devil Dog - as in the wonderfully delicious Drakes Devil Dog snack cakes
• Wonder Dog - when she breaks free from the tie down or otherwise amuses us with her antics
• Numerous versions of Sweetie, Love and Good Girl

Her newest nickname is... Pinocchio. Her snout seems to be growing longer by the day! Maybe her face is changing since she is getting her adult teeth? I read a fun science fact a long time ago which stated human ears and noses never stop growing. I hope that is not true for dogs lest Honey's nose enters a room 5 minutes before her body!