Laurel and I spent last weekend at an APDT Rally trial. It was a success since Laurel returned with her ARCH (APDT Rally Championship) and her RL1X2 (2nd Level 1 Championship). I also spent time talking to a friend, Ann (who has a wonderful yellow Lab) about her dog's breeder. Ann just sent me an email telling me that she had talked to the breeder who is expecting a yellow litter in a couple weeks. I just spoke to the breeder and explained that Sue was coming to look at one litter at the beginning of June. If she didn't find a puppy in that litter, she could return at the beginning of July to look at her puppies. Donna should have more puppies to look at by then also.
Of course, just as we worry about how our older children are going to feel about having a new baby in the family, I was hoping that Laurel would welcome a puppy instead of feeling like she was being replaced by it. In March, we had our "grandpuppy", Soapy (my daughter and her boyfriend's Pointer puppy) visited. I knew that Laurel had really enjoyed having him around and seemed to miss him when they all left for Alaska. I hoped that she would welcome her own puppy in the same way. A good friend of mine who does Laurel's nails for me (since I don't have the strength and I'm too spastic to risk doing them myself) and who does some animal communication, told me that she had asked Laurel how she felt about getting a puppy and that Laurel indicated she was excited because she really missed Soapy. She also didn't care whether it was a boy or a girl, it just needed to be the right puppy.
Sue has also offered that Laurel, I and the puppy (if we find one) could come up to Guelph, Ontario to stay and do training with them. It's difficult to make plans for the summer without knowing whether I will have a puppy or not. Since Sue is planning to test all the litters when they are 6 1/2 weeks old, we'll have about 10 days once we find one to get ready for the puppy and make all our plans. Then I have a couple medical procedures and commitments through my service dog club, Lake Erie Assistance Dogs, this summer to work around.
I've made Sue's flight reservations so she will be here Thursday, June 3rd through Saturday, June 5th at about 6:00 pm. On Friday, she'll give some private sessions at Canine Affair and she'll look at puppies on Saturday.
Now, I'm just waiting and keeping busy working with Laurel; reading through some puppy books again; looking through The Ultimate Puppy Kit and working on my training plan for the puppy.
Welcome to my blog, From Puppy to Public Access. Selecting and preparing a puppy to train as a service dog - the most important time in a service dog’s training happens long before the dog is ever ready to learn his job; it is the stage commonly known as “puppy raising”. Join me as I journey from finding a puppy through raising that puppy in the hope that he will become my next service dog. (Photo credit - Jack Powers)
