I told you I’d show you Jethro’s Halloween costume. While we didn’t take home a prize at the October meeting this year, I’m still pretty proud of his Julius Pee-sar outfit, crafted out of a pillowcase, some fancy napkins and a napkin ring from a discount linen store, and the pure cuteness that is Jethro.
Okay, yes, and the laurel crown was painstakingly made from wire-edged gold ribbon with hand-sewn gold bows. That’s the…crowning glory, I guess.
My tiny emperor:
Posted in Holidays, JETHRO, Traditions
Don’t take that the wrong way…no way on earth will my dogs ever drink coffee. Though I will say I once had an apartment manager who used to give a daily cup of coffee to his already way too hyper Maltese accessory-dog. I promise I am not lying when I say that he told me, with a wild and dismissive flourish of his hand, “We are Columbian. EVERYONE drinks coffee!”
I do, however, love to take my puppies-in-training to the coffee house. It’s a good short outing that gets them used to restaurant-like establishments full of people, smells, music, and uncomfortable table legs. Plus, unlike at a number of restaurants I’ve been to, people at the coffee houses (both employees and patrons) tend to be pretty cool about having a dog there. I’ve even been offered water for the dog. My favorite thing to do is to have a good friend with me there as well. My best friend — known to Truman (and now to Jethro as well) as “His Amy” — joined us that day and was exceedingly helpful, even carrying my coffee to the table while my hands were otherwise full of squirming puppy. One of the many benefits of having another person with you on such an outing? Not looking like you’re sitting at a table talking to yourself.
While Starbucks will do in a pinch (or if I have a friend who prefers to go there, or even better, a gift card), my favorite place is the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. There are no CBTL establishments in Pennsylvania, I am heartbroken to discover. None. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. There’s one in the airport in Singapore, of all places, but not one in the greater Philadelphia area. Criminal, I tell you. Anyway, this means I am determined to haunt my local CBTL as much as I can until I’m forced to wave a bitter and tearful goodbye to my dark chocolate ice-blended mochas and my Moroccan mint lattes.
Here’s the boy on his first trip. I let him bring a blanket and his dinosaur in case he needed to chew on stuff. I believe I may have chewed on stuff as well. Probably something very full of sugary goodness.
He settled in eventually.
Posted in JETHRO, Traditions
Wolf and I took Jethro up to the GDA campus today for his 12-week vaccine and stool sample (too much information? what he passed, passed…it’s all good). Great opportunity for a little photo shoot outside, since it’s safe for him to be on the ground there.
In case you’re wondering why he’s wearing two collars in these shots, it’s because his adorable Halloween-themed collar from the Target $1 aisle is worth about exactly what I paid for it. Little man does NOT enjoy being on tie-down at home when I take Truman downstairs and outside to relieve, and I once returned to find that Jethro had sprung himself out of the collar. If he boings hard enough, it snaps. But I refuse defeat, and put the extra collar on him when I’m walking him somewhere or need to tie him down. Take THAT, dollar aisle.
Posted in JETHRO
Jethro has discovered…the couches.
Sometimes he casually saunters over to one of them, eyeballs it for a second, then jumps up and makes himself comfortable. But usually, it’s in the middle of a frenzied shuffle of pent-up energy, racing around the living room with Truman, that he will all of a sudden spring onto the couch and run/hop BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING back and forth until he either responds to my “NO!” or decides to attack Truman from on high in a flying dive-bomb blur of crazy. One time, he simply used Truman as a springboard so he could make his long jump even longer.
He’s on leash around the house most of the time, but like any self-respecting puppy, Jethro is a sneaky little opportunist. In the 30 seconds it takes me to clean up a mess or pour myself a glass of water in the off-limits kitchen, he’s put on his NaughtyPants and is busily finding something to do that he knows is specifically verboten.
Smart dog. That’s the blessing and the curse of puppy raising, as it turns out.
He’s not a big believer in “NO!” — in fact, most loud noises I’ve attempted to make as a startle-him-into-attention maneuver have had no effect. He’s a pretty confident dog. I’ve tried throwing a toy onto the couch in an effort to “set him up” and correct him when he goes for it; that lasted about two times before he figured out that he’d better behave when he’s on leash. But he knows he won’t be on leash forever…MUWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA….
House manners are hugely important to a future guide dog user, and puppy raisers are the only people who can effectively teach them to the future guide dog. We’re working on it.
Posted in Bad Dog NO, JETHRO
I had to work today, but Wolf was available to take Jethro to his first official public appearance as a representative of GDA — a GDA booth at the Disability Awareness Fair at Honda headquarters here in Torrance.
GDA is always looking for donors and puppy raisers (especially now, in the middle of the Great Puppy Glut of 2010), and the presence of a tiny puppy in his tiny puppy jacket does wonders for recruiting. We live close by, so despite Jethro’s not-yet-fully-vaccinated status, he was allowed to participate because it was a short time period and he was small enough to hang out on top of the table, with the literature.
Seriously, could you say no to this handsome face (or the puppy, for that matter)?
Posted in GDA events, JETHRO, Truman's Humans
The little man is being surprisingly compliant about his ear meds, and even the “gentle flushing” we’ve had to do to clean out his flaps because of this stupid yeast infection. Compliant, yes. Thrilled, no.
Puppies come home from GDA with an adorable little puppy kit — a nice GDA tote bag containing a bowl, a brush, a couple of collars, a nylon leash, a 5-pound bag of dog food, all the puppy paperwork, and my favorite thing: a soft toy for the puppy to snuggle with, which is meant to ease the transition from a snuggly puppy-pile full of littermates to a sometimes lonely first night in a strange place. Jethro LOVES his pink-and-blue hugging teddy bears, and always sleeps in the crate with is head resting on them. If this toy (which stays in his crate so he and Truman don’t tug it into a million formerly-adorable pieces of disembodied fluff) survives Jethro’s puppyhood, and if Jethro makes it to guide work, I’ll probably end up giving it to his new partner, along with the baby blanket I rubbed against all his littermates on puppy pickup day.
And speaking of littermates, we received the coolest thing in the mail from GDA today! GDA is very protective of information about their breeding lines and which puppies come from which dogs in the program, so even puppy raisers aren’t allowed to know that stuff. (They have good reasons; it prevents a lot of unnecessary freak-out on the part of people who might hear something about a dog who was dropped for a medical reason and fear that their related puppy-in-training or guide dog will also have the problem, blah blah blah etc.) But we got a DVD in the mail marked “From Grandma!” It’s full of still photos and video footage of Jethro’s litter in the puppy nursery, set to music like “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof. It must have taken forever to put together, and it’s the sweetest thing….
We don’t know who you are, Grandma, but if you’re out there reading this, thank you! We love it. Your “grandson” Jethro is doing well, and we hope you’ll give his mama-dog a kiss from us.
Posted in Breeders, JETHRO, Littermates, Pick-Up Day
I'm Jenny. You may recognize me as the one with the opposable thumbs.
LabradorRodeo 