Good luck Kashi!

Kelsa's sister Kashi was recalled last weekend, but before she left I got to do a photo shoot with her and Kelsa got to have one last play date.

Kashi

Kashi (L) and Kelsa (R)

Kashi (L), Kelsa (R)

Now Kelsa is chasing Kashi

Kelsa pause to be photogenic

Love those ears. Kelsa coming down the deck stairs.

"Let's go visit the camera"

"Play with me!" -Kashi (L)

Kashi's good at soccer

and looking like a gargoyle

Kashi thinks Kelsa has no stamina

"Why aren't we inside?" Note that no matter where she goes Kelsa will always find a bone.

KELSA!! Oh, and maybe some other puppies and a bus outing.

My puppy raising club joined another puppy club, Sightmasters South, for an outing yesterday. Miss Kelsa  is now in Sightmasters South so of course I had to go! Sightmasters South has two more transfers from us, Jethro and Bonnie. All our puppies over 4 months were supposed to go, but Karma was getting spayed, Kashi is in heat, and there would be too much walking for Lowell to go because of his sore leg. I'm not sure why Mia wasn't there, but Ozark and Elvis did come.
It was so great to see my girl! She seems so much bigger than the last time I saw her! I don't know whether that's because she really is bigger or if I've just gotten used to how small Valkyrie is.
It was wonderful to meet her new raisers. They are great people, I liked them a lot!
 I got to take her for the outing. We did more walking than I would have been comfortable doing with her 6 weeks ago and she was great! She's getting better! She was a little stressed if we weren't with her current raisers. She was confused about who she was supposed to be with, so she wanted to be with all of us just to be sure. She finally settled in to me handling her at the end of the outing when it was time for her to go back.
I can't tell you just how wonderful it was to see her and how much I miss her now!

Bonnie

Jethro

The whole gang

Jethro

Kelsa!

Bonnie sleeping on Millie

Close up of Bonnie sleeping on Millie

Kelsa

Kelsa

Together again!

Club Puppies

I've been trying to fulfill my role as my puppy raising club's unofficial photography better recently. Its a bit hard to take pictures while holding on to a squirmy puppy, but I enjoy the challenge.

Here are some of my recent pictures.

Lowell - 9 months

Ginger - 9 weeks

Puppy wrinkles!!!
 Sapphire - 11 weeks

Karma (Kelsa's sister) - 10 months

Karma

Ginger playing with Valkyie

Ginger - 9 weeks

Elvis - 8 months

Also, I thought I put up pictures of Kashi's puppysit in August already, but I was wrong. So, here they are. It was weird to puppysit Kelsa's sister a week after she left. We had a ton of fun together!

Fun Day

Every year Guide Dogs puts on a party to thanks to the puppy raisers and it's called Fun Day. Fun Day is actually two parties, one at the California campus and one at the Oregon campus. Fun Day is an apt name as it is always so much fun! It also has a theme for each year, last year was western, this year was 50's. It really hard to find 50's style dog costumes so I had to get creative. Some people managed to find one though as I saw a couple walking around. Vona was one of them! I was so happy to see Vona, she was transferred from my club 5 or 6 months ago. At first I didn't recognize her, but as soon as I said hi she recognized me. I just love getting rapturous greetings!

Speaking of seeing a puppy that I hadn't seen in a while, Jill, Tabetha's raiser got to spend the day with Tabetha and by proxy I got to spend the day with Tabetha. Tabetha went back for formal training at the beginning of July (I think) and is probably going to be a breeder. She is getting the final health and temperament testing in California now. She's as sweet and funny as always and she was very happy to play with her best friend Zuni. Zuni and Tabetha are the same age and very close in color so I keep mistaking them for siblings.

Tabetha put herself in the crate for some reason

Still as cute as the day she arrived

Play time! Shh, don't tell.

So cute!

Hey Zuni...

Look in the same direction? No thanks.

Goofy, and adoreable Zuni

We're done with pictures; it's playtime again!

Kelsa was not impressed with having to sit on the side lines.

Tabetha

Tabetha cuddling with her raiser

This would have been so cute if only Tabetha hadn't just finished licking her lips!

Zuni also had to stay at campus because it was his recall day. He is going to make a fabulous guide. I got the privilege of taking a family portrait before he left.

We had a poster of all our current puppies up at our booth, I'm so proud that 5 out of the 9 pictures are ones I took! I can't say just how grateful I feel that people think my pictures are that good, good enough to hang in public and put in their scrap books!

The middle picture on the top row, the entire second row, and the middle picture on the bottom row are mine.

I also got to meet one of Kelsa's littermates, Kai, who is being raised in the area and I know his raiser. He's a very handsome boy. He looks most like Kashi and any of the other puppies I know.

Kai on the left and Kelsa on the right.

It was a great day! I got to see and talk about puppies all day.