Friday, July 15, 2011

service puppy nite



Another service puppy training night... here's a great photo of the puppy chapter folks... because is was such a pretty night, and the training room we use was "under construction" our friend Jeanne, offered her out door fenced area to work in. It was great.









Arika joined us, I loved to watch this "team" work and it's always a reminder to me of "where" our dogs are headed. These two have really bonded and I think sometimes they read each other's minds....





Course, you know that Camille must come and supervise the whole event.





I had a couple of "theme's" for this month. Because Jeanne has some agility equipment, we were able to play with that. This builds trust on the part of the puppies, and it's so fun to watch them conquer each thing. We have been using the tunnel for sometime and now the puppies just run thru it for fun....








Another theme was "surfaces", I brought all sorts of silly things for the puppies to play with. A couple of table laying on the ground, and then later we covered them with plastic. Some baby gates and an ex-pen, that we laid down and had them walk across...









But, the main challenge came from Dave. Teach the dogs to lay in a laundry basket. Talk about a challenge, you really have to show them how to "curl" up in a tight ball for this one. Which of course, is great because who knows when they might need to fit under a small table, under the seat on a bus... or any other tight place. Course, Arika made this look easy....






Ok, so Ginger and I had been practicing, we couldn't go to puppy night and offer this challenge without having done it ourselves!!!!












Leo tried next, he's a big dog (bigger than Ginger).. so he wasn't so sure he could fit. But, he gave it a good attempt with a sit....














Otis snuggled right in...















it was "getting him out" that proved to be more challenging!!!!!














and then of course, a photo opt of the whole group that came. People are getting really excited about our little service group, it's growing...












and you just know we had to take advantage of that wonderful big, fenced yard..











and let the puppies go for a good ol fashion romp. Who says service dogs don't know how to party!!!!