Visiting Dog

We have friends who helped socialize and train a puppy to become a seeing eye dog.  We loved Brandy as a puppy, back before Ellie was born.

Brandy went off to learn to serve a person with a visual impairment.  The trainers found that she was too obedient.  She could not bring herself to refuse a command, such as when her handler wished to cross a street, but it wasn’t safe to do so.

She moved on to training in other fields, but was too skittish for those jobs too.  At that point, our friends were asked if they would like to have her back.  With great joy, they said yes.

Fast forward many years, and a year of working from home later, they teased the kids that they should just take her home one week...  so we did.

Brandy came home on Sunday evening, to Lucy’s great excitement and frustration (Brandy got to go to Katie’s room to sleep, since she isn’t kenneled at night).  The next morning, I thought I had made a horrible decision.  Lucy was so excited and so loud.  

But then, we worked on the, “Quiet,” command, which we haven’t used much before.

They played, they went for walks, and they slept.  On repeat for a few days.

We took Brandy back today, but we think she had a good time!

Puppy Pictures

So Lucy is settling in.  She is sleeping through the night.  She almost completely day time potty trained, so long as we are paying attention.  She is still working on keeping her teeth to herself some, so we have lots of chew toys!

The Past Week

 

Waiting in the sunshine on a super hot afternoon.

Ready for a drive in registration night for AHG.  Gabby was there to pass out the badges everyone earned that she helped plan and assemble.

Lucy’s first pup cup, trying to convince her we go places other than the vet.

Our new AHG handbooks arrived, so the older two began working on the Graphic Design Badge, which is new.

Our not spoiled dog

Picked up a pack of rubber bands from the orthodontist because Katie ran out.  She is using six at a time, trying to finish up the work on her bite.  Hopefully she’ll get her end date next week at her appointment!

Puppy

 I look at training a puppy much the way I think of training up a child.  It is a lot of work in the beginning to get the payoff in the end.

Her favorite spot in on or between my feet.

Lucy came to us mostly piddle pad trained for urine.  We had started to get the other down, but we had regression after her shots yesterday, which is not too surprising.

She is very socially motivated.  She likes to have her people close.  We generally are keeping her in our eat in kitchen until potty training is a bit better in hand, with leashed visits to the rest of downstairs.

She loves to chew, so we got her plenty of toys for that to sub in for us. 🙂

She doesn’t love the collar, but she loves to go out on walks.  We’ve taken her to Sonic and the vet.

Everyone Loves Lucy

The kids have been asking for a dog for a very long time.

Yesterday we met this girl.

She likes to nap, but has to adjust to sleeping at night here.

She loves to cuddle.

She loves the kids.  They got her to chase them in the yard today, after they convinced her grass was okay.