HOMEWARD BOUND

I suppose journeys often start both emotionally and mentally well before the physical one, and this was no different.  DeeAnn and I often discussed the similarity of a new puppy to bringing home your first baby from the hospital.  Inexperience rumbles through our heads as we consider each action as brand new and without precedent.  How will he know if he has to relieve himself?  What if he gets sick?  When do we feed him?  And the list of first time unknowns continues to mount.

In reality he snoozed most the time coming home.

The biggest concern we had was the the process of relieving at each stop along the way - Dean did well.  

The trip down to San Rafael took us about 5 1/2 hours but going up it was closer to 8 1/2 hours including dinner.  Puppy Dean is not as well trained as my boys who can do their business in under 5 minutes on road trips!  We will work on that.

So what is Dean like?  Well so far he appears fairly laid back and unfazed by most noises and things about him.  In fact there was a few times that due to a curve in the road and a slippery coat of fur, puppy Dean slid right off his bed and onto the floorboard of the car.  Imagine a dark night on a curvy freeway with a black puppy on a black carpet. After each time we assumed the little guy would be in some state of shock or panic, but instead he remained asleep!

At dinner he laid in Ethan’s lap and alternated between sleep and lazy observation, sprinkled with a bout of hiccups.  The singular time he appeared concerned was the passing of a loud motorcycle.

Over the last few months DeeAnn and Ethan have learned alot about what it takes to create a highly trained guide dog and that translates into addressing and encouraging behaviors as puppies.  There is a gentle balance to exposing puppies to sights, sounds, and smells without inducing fear or introducing problem distractions.  

GDB has recently been breeding puppies to be “softer” which may or may not help us first time raisers. 

So all that to say we are watching each movement and behavior so we can identify areas to work on or praise.  

Physically Dean has some fairly large paws, apparently his sire “Upton” was a larger black lab.  His dam was a yellow lab.  When you look at Dean’s face you see a puppy with a bit more skin draping than a traditional lab, look up Shar-Pei.  The funny thing is that his rear paws are much smaller than the front and when he drinks or eats it is not uncommon to see his front end which is much stronger causing his back end to wobble and fling about like a drunk sailor.  Other times he simply sits his rear suspension down for a rest even though drinking and eating are far more difficult. 

GDB also has a system for identifying the largest puppy in each litter. Dean had a shave on his left shoulder.

Special thanks to Kathleen Fischer, GDB Staff.

After the entire litter is born, we separate males from females. If it is a litter with both black and yellow pups, the black ones go first (it’s the dominant gene). How ever many black males there are, they will get weighed with the heaviest one receiving RS then LS, RH … (Even if there is 1 black pup who is a DOA and 4 yellow healthy pups, the black pup will still receive the RS shave mark with the yellow ones following). Once all black males are clipped, then the yellow males get weighed with the heaviest yellow one receiving the next shave mark. (If there were 4 black males, then the heaviest yellow male would be a DS {double shoulder}). Then we do the same with the girls.
Here’s the shave order:
RS – right shoulder
LS – left shoulder
RH -right hip
LH – left hip
DS – double shoulder
DH – double hip
RSRH – right shoulder right hip
LSLH – left shoulder left hip
DSRH – double shoulder right hip
DSLH – double shoulder left hip
RSDH – right shoulder double hip
LSDH – left shoulder double hip