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.

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!

Preparing for the Paris

There is still no news on when Paris is coming home, but my leader is out of town right now, so I probably won't hear anything until Tuesday. In the meantime, I have been preparing for her return. I've gotten her a few "pet" toys that I think she will like. (Pictured Below) I got her a couple stuffed toys because she would always steal my roommates dogs stuffed toys. She never tried to chew them up, she would just pick them up and walk around with them. I think she will really enjoy having a couple stuffed toys of her own. I got her a goose that honks, and a squeaky frog. I also got her an over sized tennis ball that squeaks (I'm hoping she will learn to play fetch, when I got Prudy back as a CC she never understood the point of the game. We'll see) I also got a peanut butter stuffed knuckle bone and a couple rawhides. I'm a bit nervous about the rawhides because I've never given them to any of my dogs before but I think she will love them. The thing I am most excited about is her new collar. I've always liked the look of martingale collars (although I have never used one) so I really wanted to get one for Paris. I went to three pet stores yesterday with no luck. Paris is not a solid color type of girl, I wanted something with more personality. After literally HOURS of perusing the internet I finally found THE collar!! It's perfect. It should get here next week and I can't wait! I tried to find one with the nylon/chain combination but there was nothing in my price range, so I settled on an all nylon one, but I really like it. Here it is:

[Black nylon based Martingale collar with a pastel green/white polka dotted ribbon around the outside part.]

I have also been doing some research about Paris' eye condition and found this website really helpful. It was the easiest to understand and provided the best info if you want to check it out. I hope to be able to talk to the vets at GDB and ask questions about how bad Paris' eyes are. I can't imagine they are that bad because I feel like I would have noticed. Anyway, it'll be nice to get more info on her.