Educating the Kids

Yesterday I was walking through the grocery store with Quinn. Some rain (and 'bad behaviour') disrupted our plans of spending some time in the park, so I figured I might as well go and get food while I'm out. And I noticed two things while I was there.

1. Children are ten times as observant as adults.

Since yesterday was Saturday the store was crawling with children. I mean, it was a weekend and raining so what else are you suppose to do with your children besides take the food shopping with you. Not that I'm knocking taking your children shopping with you. Quite the opposite. I believe it is important for the children to help pick out the food and cook it. But, that's a different story. Anyway, I heard "Look mummy! There's a dog in the store!" and it's many variations about twenty times in the half an hour we were there. Some of them really cracked me up because their language was very, very British. (I'm in Scotland so I guess that's the be expected, but it still cracked me up.) And a couple of time when the child noticed Quinn, the parent was confused until they looked around and finally saw Quinn. 

2. All the parents seemed fairly well educated on Guide Dogs.

Seriously, every single parent said "That's a helper dog." or "She's training that dog to help someone who is blind." It was refreshing to say the least. I don't know what it is about the States, but about half of the time the parent will explain to their child that my dog is in training to be a service dog and they can't pet him/her without asking and the other half will actually tell their children to just go and pet my dog or won't do anything when the child runs up to my dog and starts petting them. Here, every parent I encountered explained to their child what my dog was and kept them from petting him. It was...amazing. 

It's time like this where I feel I should start up a youtube channel or something about service dog education. Because this is really the only way we'll see a majority of people not try and love on the dog and we're walking; get to them young. 

What I really wanted to say with this post is Thank You. To every parent out there who educated their children with proper service dog etiquette I can only say that you are making my job easier and are helping to ensure the safety of any working Guide Dog team. And that's pretty big. So, thank you! We all appreciate it! 

What's in a Name: Dulcie Edition

Another edition of "What's in a Name" only this time, for Dulcie. Dulcie's litter has a bunch of great names. I think it's one of the only litters I've seen that has a mix of great names and "eh" names. They are all pretty cute, but some of them don't really attract your attention. One thing is for sure, Dulcie's name is the best name out of all of the females in the litter. And that's not just because she's my puppy and I'm biased. She really does have the best name out of all of the females. 

DULCIE

Name: DULCIE

Pronunciation: "dul-see" or "dool-see" 

Meaning: Sweet 

Nicknames: Dulcie Doodle Doo, Doodle Bug, Doodle 

Fun Fact: Dulcie is the second of my own puppies whose name I guessed correctly before she arrived. The first, was my first puppy Freya. (I guess technically I guessed that I was getting Hilly before I was told, but I didn't really guess her name...I already knew it). Dulcie fits her name perfectly. She's an absolute sweet heart and has the sweetest demeanor. 

What's in a Name: Frankie Edition

Ah, can't believe that I never did this for Frankie!

I love finding out more about my puppy's name. Normally when you get a dog you get to name it and that name means something to you. You don't get to choose your puppy's name when get a Guide Dog Puppy. And there are some pretty terrible names out there which means that not only to you not get to name your puppy, but you are stuck with a horrible name that you have to deal with and get used to. I've been lucky with my names so far. (Even though you may remember that I thought Hilly's name was the worse in the litter I really, really LOVE it.)

So, without further ado:

FRANKIE

Name: FRANKIE
Meaning: "free one" or "free man"
Nicknames: Frankie-boy, Frankenstein,

Fun Fact: Frankie was sponsored by Total Oil here in the UK. I can't remember exactly who he was named after, but whoever he was named after has a brilliant name. Right before his turn in date in March, Frankie visited Total Oil and the employees who helped name him.

Frankie Update: The Last

I just received word today:

Frankie is a Guide!

What a good job my little Frankie-boy! I loved that boy and I miss him a lot, but I'm super proud of him for making it all the way! I knew he could do it!

Quinn

Quinner Quinner Chicken Dinner. Quinn-B. Q.

Quinn in a bow position playing with a toy on a free run

These are the nicknames I have for Quinn. He's such a character while still being a mellow dude.

Quinn lying in the grass with a toy

He's a little on the softer side. I imagine that he would have been absolutely fine on the bus to work, but they cancelled the bus to and from work. There is a University Shuttle that I could take...but I have to have my student card to use it and unfortunately I can't find my student card at this point in time. And it seems to run at funky times. Anyway, we walked to work and while Frankie was calm, cool, and collected, Quinn needed a little more encouragement. He was fine perfectly fine in the end and even had a bounce to his step.

Quinn rolling around in the grass with his toy

He is absolutely stellar when out. I mean, he was darn near perfect at work. The only issue he has is some house behaviors. He got up on my bed quite a few times to get to a stuffed animal or my pajama bottoms. So, he got his household freedom privileges taken away. And he likes to play keep-a-way. For those of you who don't know, keep-a-way is a big no no.

Quinn in front of the flower beds in Seaton. Handsome boy.

Think about it. He goes on to be a guide dog and takes his person's socks or shoes and puts them in a different place or takes a piece of paper and won't give it back. Not good behaviors for any dog, but especially bad for guide dogs. He's working on it and I'm sure that he'll do just fine.

He turned a year old on Friday! So, turn in is just around the corner for him. I don't know if he and I will bond like Frankie and I did, but he's a good boy and I definitely like him.

Quinn on his walk near River Don

Another New Puppy

So, we will have another new puppy around here. Not my own puppy as my landlord still isn't allowing a full time puppy, but another puppy that I will help out with. Much like Frankie and now Quinn. Anyway, I have absolutely no idea when the new puppy will arrive nor what breed the little one is. All I know, is the name.

But I'm not going to tell you the name because how much fun would that be? If you have any guesses though and you guess anything correctly I will announce the winner on the blog. I don't promise any winnings or anything except for pride, satisfaction, and kudos. But a guessing game is always fun!

You can guess;

Gender
Breed
Name

Now, I don't really know all of the breeds they use here in the UK, but I can guess that the new little one won't be one of the experimental or rare breeds. So here are a list of breeds that you can guess;

Lab (Black or Yellow)
Lab/Golden Cross (Black or Yellow)
Lab/Shepherd Cross
German Shepherd
Golden Retriever
Shepherd/Golden Cross
Flat Coated Retriever (Liver or Black)

I will let you know when the new pup arrives! I'm pretty excited to have another baby around so soon especially since I got Dulcie at 13 weeks old. This new one will be 6 or 7 weeks old!

The name starts with "M".

Happy Guessing!

Back to Scotland

I've been absent as of late. Mostly because blogger has been in a poopy mood and that has made me frustrated. And I'm not terribly productive when I'm frustrated.

My last two weeks with Dulcie went well, but went by far too quickly for my liking. She really is just a stellar puppy and I know that she is going to go far in her life. Luckily, she is still with Mary and my puppy group back home. I'm very happy that I'll get to go home to my littlest golden girl when I go home during the winter break. Though, I won't say that it wasn't hard to leave her. I do miss my pupperdoodle. And on the 14th she turned 6 months old! She's a whole half a year old now. To celebrate, some pictures! I took these pictures a day or two before before I dropped her off with Mary, so about 2 weeks before her 6 month day.

Dulcie lying in the grass outside with her puppy jacket

Dulcie sitting outside with her jacket

Dulcie sitting outside with her jacket

Dulcie sitting outside with her jacket

Head shot of Dulcie with her jacket

My last 3 weeks with Hilly went by equally too fast. I really love that little black lab and there isn't a day that goes by that I regret my decision to adopt her as my pet...even when her food costs nearly $100 a bag. She has started to feel much better since being on prescription food and medicated ear flushes. Luckily, the last time we went to the doggie dermatologist there was no more bacterial fluid in her ears...just gunk. So she'll have to have flushes for a while and will continue on the prescription food until we can find an over the counter food that she can tolerate. She's allergic to poultry so that might be a challenge since chicken is a cheap protein which you can find in almost every single over the counter food whether it's actual chicken or a byproduct of it.

Hilly outside with her Ambassador scarf

Hilly got a new hedgehog and she loved it

Hilly lying on her back on the couch

Hilly lying on her back in her favorite spot between the fireplace and the writing desk

I definitely miss these two and my old golden girl, Arwen. Hilly and Arwen were definitely unhappy when they saw the suitcase come out. I guess there won't be many more times that I have to take out the suitcase and make them unhappy.

So, new term here in Aberdeen and a couple of new puppies. One of which is an 11 month old yellow lab/golden cross named Quinn. He's a transfer puppy and, from what I've been told, a very sweet boy. I was going to wait until I was fully adjusted to the time zone to take him for a little, but my friends needed to go out of town (they are picking up one of their puppies who has just retired from Guiding) so they are dropping him off tomorrow evening and I'll keep him until Sunday. I'm excited to meet him!

And there will be another puppy too! But I will post on that tomorrow. Just to keep you guessing.