10 months and counting...

I can't believe my boy turns 1 in a little over a month. There's a lot of exciting things in the works over here, but its always a little sad to think that I've spent more time with my boy than I have left.

I love how he still wiggles his way under my bed even though he should be too big.

I love he sleeps on piles of laundry/any blanket.

I love that he chooses to curl up on the smaller side of the floor in the car.

I love when his ears go back to show me how hard he's trying to be good.

I love how he wiggles around me in circles, making sure he gets petted as much as possible.

I love his face on my bed in the morning.

I love his beautiful, sleek coat and golden brown eyes.

I love how he knows what I mean when I say "we're going to see Shayna and David"

I love that he has flawless house manners.

I love playing "where's your toy?"

I love sitting on the floor with a huge cuddle bug, or how he snuggles right in when I lay on the floor with him.

I love this dog, and love the past 8 months.

Fun Day approaches!!

I know I haven't been on here in a long time....and a lot has changed. Vicente is 10 months old, neutered, and no longer being co-raised. He's a great boy. 

We're curious: how many of our online friends are going to the Oregon Fun Day?? 

It takes a club...

You know the cliche saying about "it takes a club to raise a puppy"? In our case that's totally true. There's no way I would be able to be raising Mr. Vicente without my club.

Today my co-raiser is out of town (I have to work during meeting times which is why I have to co-raise) so one of my leaders is taking V to the outing and will have him for the next day and a half also. When he did his first puppy trade with her, she noticed that he is really whiney on tie-down (probably because they have 2 other dogs and I don't have any, so he wanted to play) and he had a difficult time settling in a work environment. Since he'll possibly be going to work with my co- raiser, it's important that he gets this down. So my awesome leader will have her own pet dogs, her own PIT, AND my PIT. She's going to try to work on his annoying whining and teaching him to settle down at work for a day.

Not to mention that I've had to set up special meetings with our leaders because sometimes meeting in person to work on an issue is worth 2,000 emails. My leaders are awesome.

AND we have really great club members. My co-raiser told me that V is really out of control and dog distracted at the meetings. So I've been meeting up with club members outside of normal times to work on dog distraction and just get some good training in. Everyone has been awesome.

So that's really it today. Just a shout out to Puppy Guides and the wonderful people who are helping me turn Vicente into the best possible dog.

Long time

Sorry it's been a while...Vicente is his normal little self. He's always been laid-back but recently there have been some struggles. Like he doesn't like traffic. Or didn't. I'm not sure if it's totally past yet. We've been working really hard on it, and my leader had him and said he was good with it. We started introducing him to the bus very slowly because of his fear of loud cars. So far he's been on it twice, once with his best friend in training Argo. I only took him once, my co-raiser and leader took him the other time, and while he showed some signs of stress, he did very well. I'm thinking of adding little bus rides to our weekly training.

BUT, even though there are some tough days, with either mischievous Vicente or timid Vicente, I'm really hopeful for his future. I just sent this e-mail to my leaders:

I know we tell you all our problems, so I wanted up tell you a happy story. My little 12 year old brother helped me with my first 3 dogs and is so excited to get his own puppy in 2 years. Today we went to watch his middle school team wrestling meet, but he was injured so I let him have Vicente since we were going to be sitting together. Vicente was amazing. He walked on a perfect loose leash, navigated bleachers that didn't have stairs, and even saw a working service dog come in to the meet. He was interested, but maintained a perfect sit. During the yelling and whistle blowing and clapping and buzzer sounding of the meet, he just watched the people and eventually curled up on the bleacher floor. Walking out was the same....perfect "let's go" as he navigated a couple sets of stairs and a couple little crowded areas. I'm so proud of this puppy. Even with his bad days, he's such a wonderful dog, and just wanted to share with you :)

They all have their personalities and problems, but when it comes down to it, I'm so honored to be raising such a wonderful little guy.

The V's

We got to meet all the V puppies yesterday. So much fun! Vicente is like all of them in various ways. The boys all look identical, and the girls are pretty similar, too! Funny thing is Vicente was the smallest boy when he was born, but now he's much bigger than any of the other pups! He's probably twice the size of Valora and Vicky. But it was a great time and I'm so glad I got to meet them and their people.

18 weeks

My beautiful boy got to meet the ocean and have a play date with Argo this week. He's turning into a great little guy....only real problems are diarrhea, highly disliking the head collar, and teething. Other than that, he's laid back, very obedient, smart, able to focus around distractions, and still a cuddle bug.

Yesterday we were doing a training walk around the neighborhood and a lady stopped me to tell me the flat collars cause neck injuries from pulling. My thought was "do you SEE how loose this leash is? Not even the tiniest bit of tension. But thank you for your concern." Instead I smiled and explained he'll be wearing a harness when he starts his career as a service dog.