Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to my two January boys!

Rocco turned four years old on January 20th. As far as I know he's still working as a Guide Dog, but I haven't heard from his partner since just after graduation. While I miss him, I know he's well loved and right where he needs to be.

Rocco (yellow lab) in his harness when he graduated in August 2011.

Frankie turned two on January 28th. He's just graduated as Guide in September and still doing well. No surprise there of course. We haven't heard anything from his partner, but that's OK since he is also well loved and right where he needs to be. We were told that it would be a bad idea to visit again even if invited since he's such a baby boy and very attached.

Frankie (yellow lab / golden cross) in his training harness

I miss both of these boys very much and I hope they got the spoiling they so rightfully deserve on their special day!

A PWAP Update

It's been quite a while since I last updated about my puppy group back home. And since I've just returned from a month long visit I feel like it's a good time to give a quick update.

Our Current Club Puppies are;

WAFFLE - female black lab - 13 weeks
RAQUEL - female yellow lab - 5 1/2 months
JIMINY - male golden retriever - 8 months
CINNAMON - female black lab - 8 1/2 months
ALDEN - male golden retriever - 8 1/2 months
PIONEER - male black lab - 9 months
DULCIE (my girl!) - female golden retriever - 10 months
HARLEM - female black lab - 11 months
GIA - female yellow lab/golden retriever cross - 12 months
GALLOWAY - male yellow lab/golden retriever cross - 12 months
SWIFT - female black lab - 14 1/2 months
NEDRA - female black lab/golden retriever cross - 16 months

TINA (transferred) - female yellow lab - 16 months

CAMINO - male black lab - Phase 2 of formal training
CHEVELLE - male black lab - Phase 1 of formal training

Since I last updated TITUS, ELI, MARLEY, and TORI all became guides. HANK, NEVADA, NAPA, DARRELL, FIENNA, and SAM were all Career Changed. Hank and Fienna were both adopted by their raisers which Hilly absolutely loves. And KENO become our very first breeder in 10 years as a puppy group! We're all very excited about Keno. He's such a sweet boy and will produce some very lovely puppies.

We've got some really nice puppies at the moment. My guess is that all but Jiminy, Raquel, and Waffle will have finished their puppy in training stage by the time I get back since they will all be over 16 months old by then. Jiminy might also have finished his puppy in training days by then but since he's a golden retriever and right on the edge he may be given some more time to mature before formal training.

It's amazing to me to see how much my little group has grown in the years since I started almost 6 years ago and definitely how much it's grown since I've been in University. I seriously laugh when I think about how we used to have Harvard and Freya as club puppies and we were worrying about being disbanded as a group because we didn't have enough puppies. Now we have 12 puppies in raiser homes, 1 transferred, and 2 in formal training!