Bait Bag Contest/House

Alright, first on the list of "back log". Do you guys remember, way back when, when Mimi and CC Cabana told us about homemade bait bags and within that post was a possibility of winning a homemade bait bag? I know, it was a while ago, but try very hard to remember. You do remember? Well good, cause guess who won the homemade bait bag? That's right! Yours truly here did.

I'm pretty excited about this for various reasons. The first of which is because when I went home over Winter holiday and had Rocco for that month I, of course, had to use my old bait bag. Now, I seem to have bad luck with the bait bags given to me by my club. My first one the clip that allows you to attach it to your body snapped off and the adjustable belt went missing. So, for a while I had to use a very old bait bag that had no external pockets or anything. It was just a bag for kibble. The second one I got (and the one I used for Rocco throughout his time with me), one of the butterfly joints broke almost immediately when I tried to open it. It's not like I wrenched it open or anything. The clips but just have been brittle or something. It didn't really cause a problem so long as I didn't flip the bag completely upside down. If I did, there would be kibble everywhere so I ended having to be real careful where I set it down in the car otherwise I would spent the first 10 minutes of an outing trying to collect all of the kibble that fell from the bag.

The second reason I'm pretty excited about this actually has to do with the second on my list of "back log" posts. I finally found a place to live next year. *FINALLY* I'll be moving in with my friend Lisa. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a four bedroom house in Aberdeen so we did have to split into two groups of two. So, besides the fact that Lisa and I have a really nice flat for next year in a really nice neighbourhood for relatively cheap there's more icing to the cake. The landlady is very, very nice so I told her that I was hoping to raise for Guide Dogs here. Guess what she said! If you guessed that she said that I was crazy for wanting to do that and that she wouldn't allow it in her flat you'd be DEAD WRONG. :D She basically said the opposite. She said that she's very excited that I wanted to do this and that she'd give me full permission to have a puppy (so long as it was a Guide Dog Puppy in Training) while I was leasing from her. Pretty cool huh!? So, this means that I'll be able to use the bait bag for more than just the three months I'm home with my new transfer puppy. I won't have to pack it away for 3 years while I'm here in Scotland. I can bring it with me and use it with the puppy I get here.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure if I will be raising a puppy right away. I know that I'm going to wait until at least mid-October to get the puppy so that Lisa and I have time to settle down in the flat. I want the puppy to be at least 4 months of age by my exams in January so that I don't have to be taking him/her out every 15 minutes to go potty. If I get the puppy in October that solves the exam problem and it also means that I'll have my schedule for next year and I'll have gone through a month or so of classes so I'll know when I can come home to feed the puppy and relieve it because the puppy probably won't be ready to sit through hours of lectures. Of course, puppies do have a wonderful way of surprising us, but still...a 6 week old puppy (yes, puppy walkers get the puppies at 6 weeks here. Whereas back home GDB doesn't usually start sending out puppies until they're 8 weeks of age) in a lecture could be a bad thing. If by October I don't think I'm ready for a puppy I'll wait until the first of December to get one so that I have a month to spend with the puppy while I'm not in classes. The puppy would just have to deal with being in the crate for 2 hours while I took an exam in January. But, it really is up in the air. I want to get a job as well so that I can pay for frivolous things like DVDs and clothes and that means I'd have to look for a job that would allow me to bring a puppy into work. So, lots of stuff to consider, but I'll probably try it. Or, I'll get a job from September to December then get a puppy. Yeah...still up in the air but I'm sure I'll work something out that'll allow me to use this cool homemade bait bag for years to come.

Soooo...

Thanks Mimi and Cabana! I can't wait to see the Bait Bag!