Awsome Dogs, Awsome program, Guide Dogs puppy meeting, May '09....

They had an awesome Guide Dogs meeting last night. I counted 35 people and probably 25 dogs at the meeting.

The first thing we do is put out chairs in a big circle for the business part of the meeting, people ask questions and they give out the news as to how the older puppies are doing in there training. Each puppy in training goes through 10 formal phases, after they leave the raiser. You also get to hear about puppies raised that now have puppies of their own and what letter the litter got. Each litter is named with the same letter of the alphabet.

There are yellow Labs and black Labs, and sometimes a few Golden/Lab mixes, and last year there was one German Shepard.

This is the club leader Lynne, and her daughter, who is going to take over the club next year when Lynne retires.



Then everyone puts the chairs away and gets down on the floor with their puppy.

They have to be in this position to start.

Luxor watching the goings on.

Then they check, ears, eyes, mouths, feel over the whole body for lumps and bumps.

Check between the toes, and the pads.

Luxor giving Meg, a "look" he is so funny sometimes.

They have to stay laying down and relaxed until the handler tells them they can get up.

Everyone laying down.

And now time to practice walking on the leash.

There were a lot of dogs there!

Luxor got his toenails clipped. The front ones.

And the hind ones.

And back in line for exercises.

This was drop the leash and walk around the room, Luxor is totally focused on Meghan. He is the second one in the line.

Drop the leash and walk around, but stay standing! They started and a lye, and then a sit and then standing. It is pretty hard for some of the little pups.

Luxor kept giving me the "look" too, LOL LOL. I am not helping you bud! LOL

The pups have to learn how to meet and greet other dogs politely, with no jumping or playing. Here Luxor is saying "Hi" to Peso.

And distance work, sit, stay, and walk away a distance, and then call them to you.

Luxor view.

Meghan got to try it with Peso, the first time he ran to his raiser LOL

Luxor was good and stayed with his handler, thats him with the guy in the green shirt, by the Stop sign. The meetings are held at a Church, and this room is a daycare, thus all the toys.

A little contest for the best tail wagger! the prize is a $10 coupon for Science Diet dog food. Which is great, a 40lb bag is $52.99, and they have to eat Adult lamb and rice or large breed lamb and rice, or puppy of the same depending on the age of the dog.

Luxor and Meghan shopping through the toys.

The club gets toys at a discount and sells them to club members.

And time to load up and go, all done for tonight. It was a good meeting.

We seen this cute sign when we stopped here for an ice cream treat.

Luxor gets to go to the window too.

This is one of the oldest Dairy Queens around, it used to be the place to "cruise the gut" when I was a teenager.

I had one of these! yum yum!

It was a good night, Luxor only has one more meeting before he goes back for training. June 12 is his return date, she is going to take him back on the 14th I think, on Sunday so he can walk with her at Graduation on the 13th of June. We will miss him.