A Girl and her Rib Bone

Okay, so it's been nearly 2 months since I last updated this blog. I assure you that we are alive and doing well. Paris has been a pet dog now for 3 1/2 months and is doing wonderful. She loves all the new privileges such as, walking/hiking off leash, sleeping on the human bed (although I have to race her to the bed once she knows it's time or I have to shove her off my pillow.), eating (very minimally) human food, and other fun stuff like that. I don't want to recap the last 2 months so I'll just tell you of our latest adventure.

Paris and I love to go hiking, so we try to get out as often as we can. We went hiking last week and Paris had a blast because we had a couple friends to hike with. She loves running around off leash and will come check in every once in a while which is great. After hiking for about 10 minutes Paris ran up to me and I noticed a very long stick sticking out of her mouth. Upon closer examination I realized that it was an animals rib bone that she had found. She was very proud of herself and carried it through most of the hike. She would drop it occasional but always go back to retrieve her rib bone. Here is a picture of her with the rib bone sticking out the side of her mouth.
Happy Paris running through the woods.
Running through the bushes.

Stopping for a drink. She loves the new water bottle.
Paris with her rib bone again.
Paris is having a grand ol' time as a pet. She is a wonderfully smart and stubborn girl and I love her more than anything! She has assumed the role of co-raiser perfectly and is really showing her 2 charges the ropes. I am excited to see what the next 30 years holds with this girl (Yes, we have an agreement that she'll be around that long.) :) Hope everyone has a great night.

P.S. I am working on a post for the GDB blog, it should be up in the next couple days. :)

Paris is back

I got Paris back on Friday and was so happy to see her (the feeling was mutual as she jumped all over me) Paris was able to be part of a kids camp while she was gone, the purpose was to educate the kids about dogs. When I got there they were doing an Agility game with the dogs and the two girls who worked Paris during the game came up and told me how much they loved Paris. She won them fifth place out of ten or eleven dogs and they were really happy with her. I got to see her do her last round and was pretty impressed with her. There's another possible career for her. ;) I am happy to have her back home and she settled back into the routine pretty well, although she must have been exhausted because she slept nearly a whole day after I got her home.

[Paris laying on my bed with her eyes half closed.]
I had a BBQ for some friends and family yesterday for my b-day and decided to share some food with Paris. She really enjoyed my corn on the cob and nibbled it like a pro. It was cracking me up. She also enjoyed a small bite of steak and chicken. I love spoiling this dog, she makes it so easy. (But I definitely won't let her get fat. :)

Missing The Paris

Paris has been gone for a week now and I sure am missing her. But here are some pictures I got of her stay with her 1st raiser and it looks like she is having a great time.

[Paris, Becky, & Rafferty sitting next to each other.]
[Paris getting her fanny kicked by 5 month old Becky]
[Paris enjoying a walk in some grass and flowers]

[Paris having a cool swim]

P.S. Paris comes home in 5 days and I can't wait!!

Swimming

Yesterday I went out with a couple friends and their dogs to go swimming in a river. It was so much fun and I was really impressed with Paris. She took to the water like a pro and swam around for a couple hours. I would throw a stick and she would swim out and get it and bring it back. I am so happy that she is catching onto fetch because that was something that Prudy (my last CC'd pet) never caught onto. I would throw something and she would just stare at me like "Why'd you throw that, now you have to go out and get it." Anyway, here are some pictures from the swim.

[The three dogs in attendance standing in the water, Boone, Paris and Julimae.]
Julimae wasn't a fan and mostly watched from the shore, she got some swimming in, it was quite amazing for such a young'n too. [Julimae shaking off some water.]
[Paris swimming in the water.]

Paris bringing back the stick I threw. Not sure how she didn't choke on water with her mouth open to hold the stick, but she never did.

Paris bringing me the stick again. She is quite the swimmer, really slow and deliberate, like she's been doing it her whole life.

Little Julimae paddling like crazy. She is a pretty good little swimmer.

I was also able to do some search and rescue training with Paris today. I was really impressed how quickly she is picking it up, she is such a great dog. She is now with her first mom for 2 weeks and I am sure going to miss her, and I hope she is behaving herself.

Fourth of July

Paris had a pretty good Fourth of July. We spent the weekend at my parents house and the girls had a blast in the backyard.
[Paris and Picassa running around, Picassa is about to fall over and Paris has her nose squished into Picassa's side and has her ears sticking straight up.]
[The girls sitting in front of a really tall rose bush and my parents gazebo.]
[Paris laying in the grass sporting her new scarf. It's black with blue, green, purple, pink and orange stars on it.]

On Saturday I took Paris to a fireworks display. I was so proud of her because about 5 minutes into the display a track of fireworks fell over and about 10 or so got shot into the audience and exploded in the grass. It was quite crazy and people were running and screaming and Paris slept through the whole thing. (Luckily no one was seriously hurt a few burns but that's it) Here are the few pictures I got before all the craziness happened.

[Paris looking at me while a firework goes off behind her.]

[Paris fast asleep while people run and scream all around us.]

It really is too bad she couldn't be a guide, she is the most bomb proof dog I have ever raised!

Well, that was our super exciting fourth of July. I could not be prouder of the Paris, she is an amazing dog!!

Picture Post

Here are a couple pictures from Paris first walk. I must say her loose leash walking is much better after getting back from GDB.

[Paris laying next to a river. It's been raining a lot so the river is much higher than normal.] I loved this sunset. It didn't come out very well in the picture but the sky was a bright purple and pink.

[A picture of Paris head from below with big white, purple, and pink fluffy clouds behind her.]This is the latest trick I am working on with Paris. I want her to learn to ride a skateboard. At this point she will get her front feet on it and stand there for a bit. Once it moved she hops off but eventually she will get it.

[Paris standing with her front feet on the skateboard.] And she can roll over without a cue now. She loves this trick and will usually offer it when I ask her to do something else. It cracks me up.

This video is of her getting her front feet on the skateboard.

P.S. I LOVE THIS DOG!!

Images from Pet Life

Paris is adjusting to pet life amazingly well. She loves all the freedom and "rule breaking" that is involved. I have invited her onto my bed the past few nights and she hesitates at first and looks at me. I think she believes it's a setup. I love that she waits for an invite though. We've been on a couple walks (those pictures in a later post.) and today I think I am going to get her licenced in our county so we can go hit up the dog park sometime. . . anyone got advice on dog parks? I've never been to one so not sure what to expect. I am just hoping she comes back when she is called with all those dogs to distract her, and I hope she doesn't embarrass me too much. Anyway, here are some pictures from her first few days of pet life.

"Mommy may I please play with my froggie." [Paris thinking about stealing a toy off of the top of the kennel.]
Within the first few minutes in the house she ripped the rope out of the Jolly Ball. She really enjoys picking it up and running around with it though.
They pretend not to like each other but I caught them both snuggling together on the dog bed. The little stinkers both looked up when I got the camera out though. :D
[Paris and Picassa sharing the dog bed.]

I got all of the paperwork from GDB in the mail with the adoptions forms and everything and there was a plate to put on her collar. Prudy wore hers on every collar she had and I intend to do the same with Paris. I love how shiny it is! It says: I'm proud to be a Career Change dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind. And it has their phone number on it too. Here is a picture of it after I attached it to the collar.

[Paris LOVES the bed. Here she is as comfy as can be. I love that you can see Picassa in the background. She is a little jealous. She gets really upset when I do training sessions with Paris and she gets lots of treats for doing her tricks.]

I think pet life is okay for The Paris.

She doesn't love the Mamma at all. . .

Paris and I relaxing on the couch. She has her head tucked under my chin and looks as content as can be.
I think pet life is agreeing with her.

A few more Paris Tricks

I've been working on a couple more tricks with Paris since this morning. She is doing so well and I am amazed at how quickly she picks up on them. These are still in the very beginning phases but they are still fun. Here is a little movie I made of her new tricks. The first is "which one" where I put a kibble in one of my hands and then she sniffs each one and puts her paw on the one with the kibble in it. Then she gets the kibble. This one she picked up on in about 10 minutes. I thought this would be fun for therapy too, letting the kids put a treat in their hand and having her pick. I bet they'd get a kick out of it. The other is crawl, I lure her with a kibble to get her to army crawl across the floor. She is pretty goofy with this one but she loves it. The last clip is her dive bombing me because she knows she needs to stay close to the ground. I really missed her enthusiasm about everything. :D

Return of The Paris

I just got back from picking up the Paris. When we pulled up they had her tied to the back of the van. I got out of the car and started walking up to her. She just stared at me until I started talking to her and then she went crazy and started jumping all over me. (Video Below)

[Paris jumping up on me.]
[Paris with her feet wrapped around my waist and me giving her a big hug around the neck.]
[Paris jumping on me some more. She almost knocked me over.]

[Paris looking up at the camera, it looks like she is winking (her right eye is closed) and her tongue is slightly out.]

[It looks like Paris is barking but she was taking a treat from the puppy truck driver after showing off her new trick. (video below)]

After Paris calmed down a bit the puppy truck driver was able to talk to me about Paris. She was the only puppy on the truck on the way out so she got to sit up front with the drivers the whole time. They loved her and said she was really well behaved, that's my girl! They also said that the kennel tech that worked with Paris loved her and wanted to adopt her if I didn't take her. She wrote a sweet note on the back of Paris' info sheet saying how much she loved Paris. After that I got a few more pictures of Paris before we headed home.

[Me and Paris kneeling in front of the training van.]

[Paris jumping up on me some more.]

[Crazy Paris is standing on her back legs jumping toward me with her mouth slightly open.]

[I like this one, Paris has all four feet in the air and she is crashing into me, you can tell her tail is going a mile a minute.]

[Paris sitting nicely and licking her lips.]

[A close up of Paris' sweet face.]

[I picked up Paris and held her on her back, here is a close up of her face.]

[We went up with Mitch and Meade and his parents so Paris got the back of the SUV all to herself. Here she is standing in the back before we took off.]

After we got home I let her meet Picassa. They get along really well and Paris is really good with her. [Here they are doing the circle sniffing.]

Then it was time to switch her collar. GDB sent her home with a pink collar and pink is SO not her color. I love how the new green with white polka dots collar looks on her.

[A profile of Paris wearing her new green polka dotted martingale collar, she also has a blue GDB tag silencer.]

Then I got out Paris' new toys. She is a big fan of her frog and her ball. I am glad she likes them.

[Paris with the frog sticking out of her mouth.]

[Paris with her Goose between her legs. She is not really sure what to make of it, but she's got a huge smile on her face.]

[Paris really likes the big tennis ball, she likes to make it squeak. Here it's in her mouth and she is swinging her head to make it squeak. It took a few tries to get her to squeak it, she would make it squeak once and then drop it but she got the hang of it.]

Here are a bunch of videos of Paris' return. I've already started working a few tricks with her and she is picking them up really fast. What a smartie!!

Here she is with her Frog toy she is looking around while she makes it squeak.

Her intro to the ball. She would squeak it and then drop it and I had to coax her to pick it back up. She really loves it now!

Paris showing off the trick that the kennel tech taught her. It's "head down" she lays down and you tell her "head down" and she does it. It's really cute and I am hoping to convert it into a sitting command so she'll put her head in someones lap. I think it'll come in handy while doing therapy work. :D

I am also starting her on "roll over" she is picking it up really fast. This video is after about 10 minutes of working on the command. I love it and so does she! She does much better than Prudy ever did. :D

She is also learning crawl and she loves that one but it's hard to get a video so that one will come later. I am so excited about our next years together. I couldn't be happier to have The Paris back, she is a stellar dog and just what I need right now. Hopefully she can make some appearances at puppy class when we don't go on outing. She would really like that. I am going to stop rambling now and go play with my girl some more. Happy weekend everyone!