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Category Archives: Micron

Puparazzi

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Donna Black-Sword
Webster Street Market
Yeah, I’m with the band
Traveling around with Micron is kinda like hanging with a celebrity. I noticed this phenomena with our first CCI dog and it’s the same with this pup.
Walking through public spots with a caped dog by my side I hear whispered remarks. We’re hard wired to notice whispers, I think. Unless someone calls my name, I really don’t hear conversations as I pass by folk. But a shishy shush comment perks the ears. 
Ok, so try this out. Think of a hot rock star; anyone you like. And for each time in the next paragraph you see a reference to “dog”, replace with your rock star’s name . . .

As I’m walking through the Farmers Market with Micron, I overhear things like “did you see that Dog!?” or “a lady with a Dog just walked by”. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone peek around a corner who says “holy cow, you’re right! There is a Dog over there.” It’s like they’re too shy to come up and talk to me and the Dog. 

So it’s pretty great when folk will stop and talk to us instead of about us. I love it when someone asks if it’s ok to pet Micron because it opens the opportunity to talk about what we’re doing for CCI. I think it’s way better than hanging out with Bon Jovi or something. But hey, that’s just me.

Dayton Dragons Baseball
An American werewolf in London
Ok, so he’s closer to a yellow dog in downtown Dayton.
Speaking of out and about, we brought Micron to walk around at the annual Celtic Festival. I wanted to hang a nickname on him that would make him feel like a Scot, but nothing clever came to mind. Mikey doesn’t sound Scottish, Irish, Welsh or anything even close. He’s an all American dog, so we embraced this heritage by hugging a huge baseball. Here’s one proud California blonde.
We did manage a photo op with a fellow who seemed pretty authentic to me. If he’s not a Scot, he sure as heck owns the look anyhow. Here he is working his Celtic charms on Micron. The dog looks rather blissful.

Dayton, Oh is a river city and is partly bordered by the Great Miami River. Before we got all modernized and everything Dayton had canals in the downtown area for commerce. Legend has it they were actually rather nasty and cesspool-ish. But today in the electronic age, we prefer to think of the former canal streets as a quaint old idea. ‘Tis a much happier way of thinking. For a parting shot, here’s Micron posing in front of a beautifully restored canal near Monument Street.
Sorry kid, we’re not going swimming

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Four Dog Night

Posted on July 11, 2010 by Donna Black-Sword

Four Dog Night

Cute photo, right? This was an evening of dog sitting at my place. Not dogs sitting, dog sitting. Like baby sitting, but with more slobber. It’s funny, I shared this pic on my Facebook and found the different reactions interesting. My non-CCI friends were all “how did you get them to sit at the same time? And stay in one spot long enough for a picture?” 
Taken from another perspective, fellow CCI puppy raisers were thinking “only four?”
I know where they’re coming from on that. I’ve seen the photos of seasoned puppy raisers. There will be somewhere between five to eight dogs of various ages sitting side by side. In order of height.
And all wearing birthday party hats.
It brings a sense of awe and wonder to a novice like me. Someday that will be me. Because it’s important to have big goals in life.
So how to get four dogs to sit nice and calm? It’s not so hard, you know. You just start with about 75% of them as CCI dogs; one outlier is ok to add to the mix. See the body language there?  If you always keep your treats in the right front pocket, just moving your hand anywhere in that general area will get the dog’s attention.  The spotted one on the far right is not looking at the camera; he’s locked onto that front pocket using his Jedi mind tricks to get a dog biscuit to levitate out. And see the yellow guy on the right leaning ever so slightly? Because he has faith in the Force.

These well-behaved boys are, from left to right, Kell (a CCI COC/change of career), Micron at 9 months, Karsen at 7 months, and poor hapless Jager, always the odd guy out.
Here’s Karsen and Micron after they’ve chewed through all the toys, including Jager, and now declaring that there’s nothing to do around here. 
Parting shot is Micron showing his love of the USA on the Fourth of July. I tried taking a picture with him sitting proudly while holding the flag in his mouth. Yeah, that didn’t work out. Instead this is him being distracted from chewing on the flag.
It’s not patriotic to eat the stars and stripes, honey.

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Baseball and Hot Dogs

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Donna Black-Sword
Hot time at the Reds game
Micron and I hit a Reds game at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati last month. It was a Bark in the Park event that the Reds, along with Iams and Eukanuba, will sponsor a couple of times a year. Dogs are invited to come with their human partners to watch the game. This was my second time attending one of these events. It really is a blast and Bark in the Park is gaining enough reputation that the dog seating was completely sold out for this game.

We had signed up to volunteer at the Iams booth; handing out dog food samples and such. I’m not really the outdoorsy type and I do tend to avoid hot, humid weather because it causes me to whine about my hair. But I did sign up thinking, hey it’s mid-May. It’s bound to be beautiful weather. A pleasant evening to be sure.

Yeah, so it sounded plausible for Ohio weather. It was, of course, a hot and muggy evening. Micron was his usual good sport about it all.  And we did have it better in the Iams booth than the ladies handing out the Iams bandannas under the unforgiving Cincinnati sun. By the end of the evening though, we were all feeling not so fresh, humans and dogs alike.

I didn’t get any photos of Micron in a position that resembles a state of consciousness. He looks like he’s heavily dosed on Benadryl in all my shots from the evening.

Which, by the way, is not something I would ever endorse. Don’t even think about calming your puppy with an antihistamine.
Save that idea for those long road trips with your kids.
  
Visions of hot dogs
There’s a hot dog place near our house called Dreamy Weenie. I’ve refused to go there based on the name alone. Just something about that name . . . Dreamy Weenie. Just don’t sound right to me.
Anyway, since we’re completely remodeling our insanely outdated kitchen, we’ve hit every fast food joint in town this past week. Nothing left to hit but the weiner place. Ok, ok, I’ll go. But I’m taking the dog.
They say it’s good to reach outside your comfort zone. That’s how you grow and truly enrich your life. And consuming anything labeled a dreamy weenie was, believe me, way outside my comfort level.
But dang it, this turned out to be pretty good stuff. I got a Reuben all-beef dog, with saurkraut and thousand island dressing. And fresh cut fries. Real iced tea, too.  It was all pretty yum, I gotta admit.
But back to the dog. The real dog, not the weiner in a bun dog. Micron showed off his outstanding restaurant manners by turning invisible under the table. Perfect. Before we left, I did get a shot of him dreaming of, well, a weenie of his own. 
The place is wonderfully graffiti friendly. We grabbed a purple marker and struggled to find a place to fit his name on the wall.  And here it is for posterity. If you happen by the Dreamy Weenie in Englewood, Ohio and need to use the restroom, check the wall on the right. Around the height of a dog’s head. Micron’s left his mark.
In a good way. Not the lift his leg way. Let’s try to keep all this weenie talk G-rated shall we?

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Oxymorons and other oddities

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Donna Black-Sword

There was some buzz this past week in one of the CCI social networks about the logic behind puppy naming. Since the moose I’m raising is tagged with the moniker of Micron (irony, anyone?), I found this a pretty interesting conversation string.  Some highlights I think worth sharing . . .

Each litter from Canine Companions for Independence’s exceptional breeding program is assigned an alphabetic letter. Micron is from the “M” litter of nine pups: Mars, Madden, Marlena, Marco, Madias, Miwa, Meryl, Molina. Because of the number of successful litters, it can present a challenge to come up with unique names. Our last pup, Inga, is is fourth pup to be named such, making her official CCI name Inga IV.

Name suggestions are submitted by puppy raisers, breeder caretakers, donors and others within the CCI community. Some lucky folk are honored by having a dog named after them. Micron’s brother Madias is named after the breeder caretaker of their litter. Of course I think it would be amazing to have a super intelligent service dog strutting around with my name, but I do admit to mixed emotions on that one. I kinda cringe at the thought of my name associated with a puppy puddle on the kitchen floor, you know?  Oh, Donna. Baaad girl . . .

We’ve all heard this bit of advice: before naming your baby, try yelling the name out the back door a few times. A name might look good on paper, but maybe not as great when screaming at your kid to “get your butt outta the neighbor’s tree, Kal-el!” (Earth calling Nicholas Cage. Time to come back from Kryton and name your kids something that won’t get them beat up in middle school.)

Ok, reality check. We’re not talking about naming kids something hippy dippy like a comic book character. These are future service dogs; professionally trained and highly skilled. Not only is it ok to tag them with unique names, it’s appropriate. These dogs stand levels above the average pet; their names should reflect this as well. 

Some of the CCI pups I’ve encountered in my circle of activity have been Wallaby, Kel, Naoko, Dreamer, Yahtzee, Karsen, Harvey, Yaz, Inez and the newest one I’ll be meeting in a couple of weeks – a little black pup named Red.

Some other notable names of recent pups are Beatrix, Pavlov (got drool?), Patina, Fonzi, Jango, Bliss, Wasabi, Truman, and Bogie. As a long-time owner of labs, I love the pup names of Hoover and Chewy.
To paraphrase a CCI graduate, it doesn’t matter to her what her dog’s name is. She loves the dog and he loves her. She would proudly call the dog Doo Doo if that were his given name. And after meeting her service dog, people would want to name their own dogs Doo Too. Along that same line of thinking, another fellow said if his dog were named Poophead, he would call him Poopy or Heddy with apologies to no one. Sounds like a healthy attitude to me.

What’s that old one-liner — I don’t care what you call me, so long as you don’t call me late for dinner? Yeah, that’s pretty much the take on puppy names. Guess what the dog really cares about. A clue? It ain’t that their name might sound like a body function. (Enunciate now when you say Wizzard.)
___________________________________
I’m including a handful of photos of Micron’s busy week. The top shot is when he went with me to the polls on Tuesday to vote on our local issues. Micron was so well-behaved and impressive that a helpful lady thought he was my service dog and asked if I wanted to use the large screen voting monitor. She would even have one of the workers escort me. Micron must have been looking pretty darn good and I probably should have had that third cup of coffee before I left the house.

Lunch hour on Wednesday was a trip to the scrapbook store with my croppin’ buddy, Renee.  Here’s Micron doing a wonderful down-stay while we shopped. No, I don’t think he looks depressed about being there. 
This next shot is Micron trying to get his head around why that box is making such a racket. It’s a box o’chicks. Fifty chicks, so I was told. Noisy little buggers. 
Last couple of photos are from Saturday’s Furry Skurry in Dayton,OH. Micron was the spokesdog at the Iams booth. He did a fine job showing off his healthy Eukanuba skin and coat.

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It’s a family affair

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Donna Black-Sword
The mighty Mr. Micron comes from a litter of nine pups; all stinkin’ adorable. Now that these nine cuties have celebrated their seventh month birthday, it seems a good time to take a look at how a couple of them are doing.
The dad, Blaze, is a full golden retriever and mom, Nyrobi, is a lab/golden cross with a black coat. Some of pups sport a fluffy coat and the rest are smooth coated. Some black, some yellow and some, well . . . a little of both. 
Madden
Hey, I’m no geneticist, but I really thought labradors came in just the basic solid colors. Black crossed with yellow makes either black or yellow, you know? I’m glad to be wrong, cuz check out the stunningly handsome Madden.  Is that coat just amazing or what? And as a bonus, his puppy raisers Regina and Dave say he is a wonderful pup to raise. They took this photo on Easter Sunday and noted that he didn’t need any bunny ears to dress up; his gorgeous coat and markings need no adornment.
I would agree.
Marco
Littermate Marco is being raised in Ohio and within driving distance for us. Marco is another black, fluffy coated pup. We met up last month for a CCI puppy raiser event and the two boys made time for a play date. Marco has a bit of brindling in his black fur as well. Yeah, I know he has his eyes closed in this shot on the right. Sincere apologies to puppy raiser Roxanne, but I really liked the wind-in-his-hair look that Micron is sporting.
And here we have Micron offering knot tying advice to puppy Yahtzee as he attempts to hog-tie Marco with the leashes.
Cute puppy alert
It wouldn’t be right to fawn all over the successful M litter without giving heart-felt praise to Marti Madias. Marti cared for the pups from birth until eight weeks. By the time I received Micron to raise, he had been introduced to crate training, early socialization and had learned some fundamental skills. All thanks to Marti. This is cool enough, but realize she did this with nine puppies over two months–as a volunteer for CCI. Talk about a labor of love. Awesome work. 
The young puppy photos are courtesy of Marti. Above we have a newborn Micron ready to be weighed and measured. The shot at the very top of the post is Micron before Marti sent him off to our CCI regional center. Before being named, the puppies are assigned a color to avoid any mixups of who is who. You see that Micron is “neon green.”
This is good to know because now we can identify him in the feeding frenzy below. And there he is bottom center with the neon green spot on his adorable butt. Check out the real estate that body stance is taking up. I’m told he was the biggest of the litter. Kinda makes sense after seeing this.
Here’s a pair of fluffy yellows taking advantage of the California sun.
I’m not sure if this is Micron or not, but based on what’s going on here, I’m willing to make an educated guess.
And how is the mighty Mr. Micron doing these days?  He’s doing great, thanks. Except for when he’s getting the snot beat out of him by smaller puppies.

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