Harry Potter Film Festival

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley is pictured above taking it easy at the Harry Potter Film Festival held last Friday in the Jean Ann Cone Library at my school. It went from 4 pm until 10 pm and we were able to watch HP 4, play some trivia, have a spell casting session, get sorted into our houses, and have a costume contest before ending with HP 6. We also had plenty of food! HRH had no problem with the costumes as you can see. Her main problem was not eating the food on the floor!

Where I was when I first heard about our SEGDI guide dog puppy!

On Thursday at 2:45 pm at Bok Gardens and Tower in Lake Wales I saw that I had a voice mail message, so I listened to it while I was waiting for our 3 pm tour of the Pinehurst Estate, a lovely Spanish-style house from the early 1930s that is also part of the Bok Gardens. It was from Chuck Heitala, the SEGDI area coordinator for Pinellas county, who had left a very casual message asking that I call him back. I thought he might need a puppy sitter and since we had my parents visiting and were already sitting a friend's pug (Kaia, see earlier post) I thought briefly about not returning the message since we couldn't puppysit, but then realized that wouldn't be polite. So I called him back.

When I got him on the phone he got right to the point and wondered if I might be interested in taking home a male, black lab puppy! OH MY! He said that he would be ready for us to pick up on July 21st if we were interested! WOOT! Talk about doing a happy dance out in public. That was me. In the Bok gardens, in front of Pinehurst, doing a happy dance.

So the next step is to call SEGDI and to set up an appointment to sign the papers. Once we sign the papers, we can start visiting our puppy for private puppy hugging sessions. Yep, that's the ticket! Earlier this week I went with mom and dad on a secret puppy scouting mission to see what kind of puppies they had and to hug some of the puppies, but was bitterly disappointed by the puppy hugging: see photo at right. There were four puppies and about 30 people in a circle all vying for puppy time. It was awful. I felt really bad trying to get a puppy's attention from a child. I mean, what kind of person does that? So, I didn't. One of the volunteers, brought a puppy down to our end and gave one of the black labs to the lady next to me (could it have been my black lab? Perhaps?! ;-). She kindly passed him to me for a cuddle. I passed him to the person next to me. Then stood up and looked in the kennels and told mom and dad we were leaving. I really just wanted to find out the types of puppies that they had: mostly labs and goldadors and one litter of collies. So I just crossed my fingers and hoped for a lab or goldadore as that is the kind we have the most experience with and lo and behold that is what we got! And a black lab at that! The kind we love the most! How fabulous.

Buddha and Thud and Matt and Bear would be so happy.

Our First Guidedog Meeting at St. Pete Market

We went to our first meeting of the Suncoast Puppy Raisers yesterday. It was held at the St. Pete Farmer's Market. It was great.

We got to see Jean again! Here she is on the left with her puppy raiser mom, Donna. Donna and her husband Don (see next photo) are also the North Pinellas area coordinators for Suncoast Puppy Raisers. We are in their group. Jean remembered us! That was nice, because we really liked her and thought she had a pretty good time at our house. 8-)

You might notice that there are lots of light green shirts in this photograph. The green shirt is the official puppy raiser volunteer shirt, with official embroidery and everything. I'm not sure when you get a shirt (perhaps only when you get a puppy?), but boy do we want one!




I took this photo for a couple of reasons:

1. Don is holding Cool Beans who is Jean's sister and a Vizsla
2. You can see in the background several other kinds of dogs, a smooth coated collie, a labrador retriever

The guide dogs come in many flavors: labrador, goldadore, smooth coated collie, australian shepherd, vizsla.

During this part of the meeting, everyone was in a circle and we were given news about the dogs. At one year, the school would like for the puppies to start wearing the harness with out the handle for 15 minutes at a time to get used to the weight and feel of it. This is pretty important. If the dog can't get used to the harness, it will wash out as a guidedog for the blind. When we took a tour, our volunteer tourguide and puppy raiser said that her puppy had been washed outbecause she literally couldn't bear the harness, it rubbed her the wrong way. 8-)

So it is crucial that the dogs begin to like the harness and associate wearing it with fun times.

I like this shot because you can see all of the dogs doing a practice obedience session. You have older dogs, puppies, and everything in between and they are all doing a great job! There are moms, teachers, teens, business people, retirees, anyone you can think of has the ability to be a puppy raiser. You can see the variety of dogs and puppy raisers.

It was a great day. We met some very nice people and even shopped a bit for fresh veggies.

Approval Is Good

We had a good day Saturday. It was the day we were approved to be puppy raisers for Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc. (SEGDI). They even have a blog for puppy raisers at The Blue Coat Journal. Each area has an area coordinator and we are part of the Suncoast Puppy Raiser group. Now that we have had our house visit and have been approved, gone over the checklist and have a copy of the puppy manual (165 pages!), we will wait 3-6 months for a puppy. We could get a Vizsla, Australian Shepherd, Smooth Coated Collie, Goldadore or Labrador. We said we would take whatever was available.

Even better news was that my headmaster is in favor of the idea and will let me bring my dog to work! Woot! We'll bring the puppy over the summer to introduce him/her to the school and meet her many soon to be fans. Then we will have a convocation for each division explaining the rules of interacting with a guide dog and what a guide dog's job is and how they are raised/trained. There is a really great short video for the kids to watch and then I'll bring out the puppy. That will be totally cool.

I'm hoping that our puppy will be that community building element that helps our three separate divisions come together. I'm also hoping that when the dog is on campus that it serves as a persistent reminder about disabilities so that the disabled are not forgotten. Our kids are great and I expect them to rise to the challenge: not being able to pet the puppy when he's working! 8-)

I've spoken with two of my directors and they are on board. I meet with the third tomorrow. We will be puppy sitting a 1.5 year old Vizsla guide dog in training this weekend. So the experience starts tomorrow!

If you are interested in SEGDI, they are having an open house this Saturday from 9 am to noon. If you come, you will see us and possibly meet Jean, the Vizsla we are puppy sitting. I was really touched that her name is Jean. It seemed a good sign that our first puppy had Fred's mom's name, sort of a Jean seal of approval!