RSS Feed

Category Archives: Yaxley

Aullwood farm baby

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Donna Black-Sword

 Saturday, March 14 2011.  A bit rainy last Saturday at the Farm Babies Festival at Aullwood Farm, but if you were wearing sensible shoes and proper rain gear, then you would have got along just fine.

Wish I were one of those kind of people.

But no matter. In the end I didn’t actually sprain my ankle and with enough hairspray in the coif, I was able to repel the rain as if I were wearing a motorcycle helmet. My excuse for forsaking all my scout leader training (Be prepared!)?  Well, this was the day after Micron’s turn-in at CCI and my humble brain was still processing things. Yeah, I’m going with that. It sounds more robust than just another over-40 moment, I think.

Looks like Bullet’s down for a nap.
The energizer puppy, however, is still going strong.

Aullwood stationed our CCI booth in a great spot, under the shelter of a hack berry tree and deliciously downwind of the kettle corn guy.  Yaxley and his fellow fuzzy friends, Bullet, Julee and Bonnie, spent the day giving out free puppy hugs to all who stopped by. 

This was Yaxley’s first big public outing. When we showed up to help out at the CCI info table, I said we would only stay as long as the pup could handle things. At the first sign of the puppy equivalent of a meltdown, I would take the little feller home. The little delicate flower that he is and all.

You’re kinda missing the belly, kid, but this’ll work too

So it seems the first to give out were my poor hapless feet in those idiotic sandals. But the puppy? Still happily building his new fan base.  Then I start to worry about how bad my hair actually looked. A hand drill wouldn’t even break through that hairspray force field now.  So, Yax my love, ready to go?  No. No he’s not. Things to smell, kids to lick, grass to eat.

We lasted right through to late afternoon, that little stinker. We only left when we did, because I was getting nervous about having to walk the half mile back to the car in those flippin’ shoes.  Gettin’ out while the gettin’ is good, you know.

Bring ’em on!  Is that all ya got for me?

Before we left Aullwood, we did take a quick tour of the barn so Yaxley could enjoy a full sensory 3-D experience in odor-rama.  A little horse road apple here, some sheep stuff there. Again, I know this fragile little guy isn’t ready yet for the big time. We’re just shopping for smells, not rubbing noses with anybody here.

Except the pig actually. OK, so we’re rubbing noses with the pig. I didn’t see that fella until he stuck his juicy, quivering snout from the fence slats. Alrighty then, checking Kissed a Pig off the new experience list. 

Apparently, I’ve underestimated the confidence level of this little yeller feller. Yaxley has walked into every situation with tail held high and nose in the air. 

He’s up and ready for the next adventure. Food Lady, he says, I’m so bored. Let’s go do something!

Comparing who smells more delightful when wet.
Dog or alpaca? I say either is an acquired taste, so to speak.
Bullet poses in the herb garden at Aullwood

I kinda like the smell of wet dog in the morning

The lovely Julee takes a much needed break

 

Oh yeah, at the Farm Babies Festival? There were for real
farm babies there too. A pair of adorable eight-week-old kids
that we though were badly bred poodles at first glance.
Trying to get a serious portrait type shot of Bullet.
Realized later that he’s resting his dog bum on that rock.

4 Comments

Posted in Aullwood, fundraising, Yaxley. Bookmark the permalink.

Yaxley’s Four for Four

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Donna Black-Sword

The little Lord Yaxley is now four months old. Let’s celebrate this adorable yeller feller’s milestone with four things about him:

1. Yaxley has a ridge on his muzzle.

Call it a cowlick or a Rhodesian ridge-nose or whatever you want. A little line of fur on top of his nose is growing in a different direction. Went we brought him home from CCI, I spent the first couple of days trying to rub that funny little smudge off before I realized that it was indeed a permanent part of him.

That’s right, it took me two days to figure that out.

Think of the mom spitting into a tissue and rubbing dirt off her kid’s face. It was kinda like that.

 
2. He has three black nails and one clear on each front paw.

Yaxley is a 50-50 lab/golden cross. His mother is the beautiful Keara, a golden retriever, and dad is a black lab, Hickman.  I won’t even try to bluster my way into pretending I understand a thing about canine genetics. Coat color, dudley noses, toenail color and all that.

I’ll just say that black toenails on a pup are not my favorites on grooming day. Dog Toenail Clipping for Dummies is not the book I need to have on hand. I need the one for klutzes.

3. He is from a litter of eleven.

The Yuletide Y Litter was born on December 22, 2010.  Breeder/caretaker Susie Nash is absolutely awesome – in the purest sense of the word.  She whelped this litter and cared for the newborns until they were eight weeks old and ready for their puppy raisers. Yaxley showed up crate trained, responding to his name and following the Sit and Here commands. And much more that is making my part of puppy raising so much easier. And she made this magic with eleven puppies. During the Christmas season.

As a volunteer.

Awesome.
 

Puppy flower
(photo courtesy of Susie Nash)

Each pup in a CCI litter shares the same first letter for their names.

The Y’s ready for their health check by the CCI veterinarian.
(photo courtesy of Susie Nash)

The Yuletide Y littermates of Yaxley are:

Yolie
Yalu
Yarrow
Yoda
Young
Yankee
Yukiko
Yves
Yosemite
Yashira

Nine yellows and two blacks. Six male puppies, five female. In the photo above, Yaxley is the pup in the green collar on the far left.


4. Yaxley is not afraid of running with the big dogs.

He is, however, concerned with being run over by the big dogs. During some energetic play sessions, he’ll hang back and use me as his personal bodyguard by sitting between my feet.  Like the kid brother who wants to join the football game, but knows he’ll just get creamed out there.

Now this isn’t a lack of confidence, you know. This fellow can strut through a new situation with his tail held high. Bring it on, World, he says, I’m ready for ya.  It’s more of an awareness of self-preservation. Any ordinary puppy would be right out there joining the melee – and doing gymnastic-style somersaults with every impact. It’s the clever ones that can analyze the situation and know when the odds are not in their favor.

And Yaxley is one smart little puppy.

2 Comments

Posted in birthday, Micron, Yaxley. Bookmark the permalink.

Table for three, please

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Donna Black-Sword

 After I fed the boys their kibble this morning, Micron came up to tell me how much he enjoyed his bowl. Just the right crunch, he says, wagging his plume tail into my coffee mug,  absolutely delicious stuff.

Then he released a full two-second burp in my face. While holding a dirty sock in his mouth. Ah lovely, thanks so much for sharing that spring blossom with me, Micron.

Compliments to the chef and all that. Better out than in, as they say.

The boys watching dinner prep like it’s a sushi bar or something.

As puppy raisers, CCI tasks us with introducing thirty commands and behaviors to these pups. We work towards proficiency of the basics any well-trained dog would know – sit, down, wait.  Then some higher end behaviors like being comfortable walking by the handler’s side on either the right or left. And Under, which we use to tell the pup to go under a restaurant table and lie down.

Now these are labs, goldens or a cross between the two breeds.  Chow hounds, all of them.  (Well, most of them.  I’ve heard of the occasional pup that is a picky eater, but those stories do tend to lean towards the anecdotal.) A food motivated dog is a dog that is easy to work with. And with kibble eaters like these, you learn behaviors, too.  Like spelling out the words hungry and eat while making dinner plans with a fellow human bean.

So while we don’t really have a command to Eat Kibble, we do ask the dogs to maintain a level of self-control at mealtime. To help prepare them for their service dog careers, it’s important that they know how to sit quietly with a full bowl of kibble in front of them and wait for the release command from their handler.

crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch [burp] crunch

Ok, I will admit that in my youth I had no idea this was even possible. Mealtime with the pet dogs involved a quick finger count after the bowl was set on the floor. What a difference a Wait command can make.

And if you need convincing that dogs can indeed tell time, just put them on a strict feeding schedule. And their doggy circadian rhythm takes over. These boys get fed at seven o’clock in the morning and again at seven o’clock at night. The new guy, Yaxley, gets a noon meal as well, until he gets a little more room in his adorable puppy gut to move the kibble through. Not that that blows the minds of the older dogs or anything.

‘Scuse me, Food Lady?  I asked for a private table.

So indeed, whatever I may be doing in the evenings, I’m never alone. Every room I enter, twelve paws are echoing my steps. These are my bestest buddies. Until chow time, of course.  After the kibble goes down the gullet, they’re like uncles at Thanksgiving looking for a comfy spot to loosen the belt and take a nap.

Sleeping off the kibble.

At a recent CCI presentation, I was asked about any tips for housebreaking a pup. My advice? Portion control feedings on a tight schedule – never free feed. If you know what’s going in and when, well then it’s just a matter of time until it makes its way on out. Easy nuff, logically speaking, to forecast your pup’s recycling schedule.

Hey Food Laaady!  It’s seven o’clock!

It’s good to have a household of chow hounds. Never a complaint about what’s set in front of them. Always appreciative and more than willing to compliment the chef in their special doggy way. And of course, that’s just fine with me.
Ya know, the sooner we get these groceries put away, the sooner we can E-A-T.
They call me Chicken Legs.  Dunno why.

1 Comment

Posted in CCI, kibble, Micron, Yaxley. Bookmark the permalink.

Blogosphere dogoschmere

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Donna Black-Sword

I’m excited to share with y’all that I am the humble recipient of the Stylish Blogger Award this past week as awarded by fellow blogger and CCI puppy raiser Elijah.

Elijah joined the blogosphere about a year ago to share his experiences while raising his first CCI pup, Dembre, on his website Miraculous Journey.  It’s always wonderful to receive recognition and I do so appreciate receiving this award.  Be sure to check out Miraculous Journey to get the latest acts of derring-do by the amazing Dembre.

Recipients of the Stylish Blogger Award are tasked with two important requirements. First, to pay it forward and recognize a fellow blogger that deserves the honor.  I’m passing this award on to Vickie at LovesTailWags, who is a kindred spirit in this puppy raising stuff. Her website is a colorful photo journal that takes you into the life of a puppy raiser. Just check out how she tells her story.
The second requirement is to list seven things about the subject of your blog. I’m thinking instead of talking about the dogs this time around, let’s bullet-point a few things I’ve discovered about the puppy raising experience over these past couple of years.

7 things about being a volunteer puppy raiser for Canine Companions for Independence

  1. I smell like dog biscuits. All the time.
  2. Once I called the kid by one of the dogs’ names.
  3. Maybe it was more than once.
  4. Never take the pup into the grocery with you if you’re short on time.
  5. The folk at the library still ask about Inga, the first CCI pup we raised. But they don’t remember my name.
  6. People ask us all the time for dog behavior advice like we know what we’re doing or something. These CCI pups are just that good.
  7. I love this job so much, I’d do it for free. Which, of course, is how this volunteer stuff works, you know.
Gotcher back, kid

And more news to share . . .

We hit a rather cool milestone this week with the dog blog. An incredible 5,000 page hits since I started writing this a few months ago. Wow and thanks to everyone who takes the time to read about our puppy raising experiences. I’d like to think that I’ve met our purpose of  helping to raise awareness of Canine Companions for Independence and that we have this job of volunteer puppy raising looking like the party that it is. (Sure, most of those web hits are my mom, but I’m willing to take what I can get.)

You ever get the feeling you’re being watched?

Raising a Super Dog is linked to other service dog related websites, which is what we refer to in the corporate world as networking. We might also call it synergy or a win-win or some other over-used buzzy word. But it’s through this family of shared interests that our blog has found regular readers across the US, as well as Australia, India, Canada, and even the Netherlands. And here’s a special shout out to that reader in Bangor, Maine that I like to fantasize in Stephen King.

Micron’s littermate, Mars, has a dog blog as well. He writes his in the first person on the Denver Channel  Mars’ Dogblog.  Some very entertaining thoughts as they come from this four legged furball.  As an example of this networking stuff, Mars recently shared a posting I put out last December about how the comparison of puppy raising to Rambam’s Ladder of Charity. Yeah, so it’s more of a thousand word essay than a succinct blog posting, so you’ll want to grab a Diet Coke before you sit down to read it.

Ya think you could tone it down just a notch?

I’m taking an educated guess that if you’re here, you’re a dog lover of sorts. An appreciator of all things canine and perhaps especially impressed by the incredible ways that an assistance dog can impact a life. In the blog roll in the right hand panel are other folk, just like us, sharing their unique points of view. Some as puppy raisers, others as service dog teams. There’s even one written by a mom who is on the waiting list for an assistance dog for her son. Every time I check out a new post on these sites, my world gets a little bigger. Just amazing stuff all around.

Struttin’ da stuff
Um, a little help here?

.

Don’t you have any plum sauce for this?

Leave a comment

Posted in CCI, Micron, Yaxley. Bookmark the permalink.

I has a stick. It’s gonna be a good day.

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Donna Black-Sword

March 19, 2011 was a day of celebration. Well, for me and the dogs it sure was. According to our Gregorian calendar, this is the last day of winter. Glorious news indeed. And we had a gorgeous day to usher out those winter memories.

Now this is Ohio weather, so we’ve had an Easter Sunday once when I’ve slushed through fresh snow into church sporting open toe high heels. And plenty of Halloweens when the kid had to wear his winter coat over his costume. And then there’s been times in February when the temperate weather has you thinking about firing up the charcoal grill.  It’s befitting, I think, that winter’s long awaited exit brought us a truly warm spring day. And as a double bonus, it’s not raining for once.

The dogs are restless; we haven’t had much running around time in the backyard due to the mushy ground.  Some days I honestly just don’t have the energy it takes to wipe off twelve dog paws and three dripping furry bellies. But today we’re gonna celebrate, we are.

Hey Micron, wanna play Frisbee? HEY LOOK A STICK!

I admit, a tree branch is not an approved dog toy and never my first choice for playtime. I must have a hundred dollars worth of dog toys in various states of disrepair about the house and yard. But darn it, a stick on the ground is more attractive to these guys. The smell of the thing, the mouth feel – nothing can compete.

Yup, it’s shaping up to be a good day.
MICRON!  Gimme da stick!

 
  
Remember the previous post with the mud photos (The dark side of snow)? Well, that little geographical wonder of an Ohio LaBrea tar pit still lurks in the northwest corner of the yard.  And Micron was drawn to it like a moth to flame (it’s so beautiful!). But to my good fortune, he reacted every time I squealed like a loose fan belt. So woo hoo and all that. Big yellow dog did not submerge himself or even try digging for wooly mammoth bones.
He did, however, run through it at the speed of doggy sound a couple o’times. Silly water dog.
Psst, hey Micron, let’s bury the Frisbee in the tar pit

3 Comments

Posted in Micron, Yaxley. Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
Newer Posts →