Sorry it took me a while to write you back. Here are some pic’s of Ruby. She is doing great and turning out to be very smart and beautiful. She weighs about 47 lbs now and retreives with ease and style. She is starting to point more consistently.  She is wonderful with our kids and we really enjoy having her as part of our family.  I will keep in touch as to how she is doing.
 
Sincerely,
 
Reed Tenney

Just wanted to give you an update on Astro: He is now 14 months old!  I can’t believe how time flies – it seems like just yesterday we were making arrangements with you to have him flown to PA.  Astro is absolutely the perfect dog – I can’t imagine life without him!  I took him to the vet last week for his yearly check-up and shots.  We were all taking bets on how much he’d weigh – he hasn’t been weighed since he was neutered in Feb.  Well he surprised all of us by weighing in at 91 lbs!  The vet feels that he is a perfect weight – not too heavy or too thin.  I think that he is very tall with a lot of muscle and this makes him weigh more than he appears to be.  He also has the cleanest ears they’ve ever seen.  I don’t have to ever clean his ears and they are always perfect.  With the guide dog we raised – I had to clean his ears at least twice a week and they were always very dirty.  He also had multiple ear infections.  I don’t know if it’s a genetic thing – but Astro has never had an ear infection and I’ve never had to clean his ears.      Any idea how much his siblings now weigh?  (Maybe you can forward this to Oscar’s owners) I need to send you some pictures of him “all grown-up”.  He is enjoying life with us in PA and brings us a lot of joy.  He is plenty busy - attending all of my kid’s baseball, soccer and middle school field hockey games.  He also loves riding with me in the car as I drive my kids to and from different activities.  He especially loves it when my kids have their friends sleep-over – he joins in on the party!   Lately, the joke has been that Astro gets more calls for play dates than my kids.  He has a black lab, a jug, a golden retriever and a golden doodle that all live within walking distance.  The owners will call to see if Astro is available to play with their dogs.     My daughter makes him homemade dog biscuits in shapes of bones and hearts.  They have to bake for a long time - 50 min.  He knows when she is making them, and sits patiently by the oven the whole time waiting for them to come out.   Just wanted to let you know how happy we are with Astro. Donna

Hi there, just thought I would send an update on little Penelope Rose (Penny). As you know I am a student at the Tom Rose School for Dog Trainers and I am plan to use Penny for some of my graduation requirements. The first hurdle was that we had to train a dog using purely positive training for the AKC Canine Good Citizen test. While this test is designed for the average pet dog with a good disposition to pass, teaching an 8 week old puppy from scratch proved to be a challenge. Penny is your typical Lab, easy going and compliant, but she is hard headed and full of energy. So trying to teach sits and down stays, heeling on a loose lead, and sitting still while being groomed was a big task. Again I could not use any training aides other than a flat collar and leash, and I was not allowed to give negative leash corrections either. After a week and a half of training she was tested yesterday, and passed her CGC with flying colors. This will hopefully be the first of many accomplishments for penny as a working dog, and I as a professional dog trainer. Up next is an AKC Novice, Open and Agility. She seems like a very sound dog and is doing well with the agitation work and is biting the tug nicely. So a Sch I title may be in her future, but we will see. I will keep you posted with her success and send some pictures once some technical glitches are resolved. By for now, Adam

 

Michaela:

I was going to wait until we got some pictures off of the camera.   I’ll send those later but this is a close up of him with the phone camera while at the park with my daughter.

His name is Jake unless Nathan decides to change it to Duke and he’s doing great!  Slept all night from the time we brought him home.  Only did his business on the deck the first night as he was unfamiliar to his surroundings.  I’ve been getting up around 5:00 AM to walk him based on your feeding schedule and then Nathan takes him for a walk when he wakes up.  We then take him for a walk around 9:00 PM to wear him out for the evening.  The only wining/barking Jake’s done since he arrived home has been when we took him somewhere in the kennel.

This morning was our first morning strictly on the leash and only need coaxing to heal about 20% of the time.  Has basically stayed close without the leash but I’ve been working him into the leash gradually.   We’ll start the “sit” and “come” commands thing this weekend.  Not to worry he gets plenty of play time, I just like to get the obedience thing started right away to establish the rules.

He may a soccer bud dog, referring to the TV movies.  I took him to Nathan’s soccer practice at 7:30 last night and he played for quite some time with me trying to control the ball.  Told Nathan this would be a good training tool for him.  He can use finesse to keep the ball away from Jake.

Daughter is getting more and more accustom to him.  Likes to play with him as long as he maintains some distance but gets a little nervous when he approaches her and gets a little too close.

Regards

Steve Mahloch

Michaela,
Sorry I didn’t get to call you back this weekend.  Ziggy is doing well.  Eating, drinking, playing, sleeping, barking - all the puppy things.  Days are going very well.  A couple of accidents in the house, but most of the time we make it outside to in time.  Night times are pretty rough right now.  He’s no fan of the crate, and apparently he doesn’t think that we are fans of sleeping at night.  I attached a couple of pictures for you to see.  Did you get rid of all the brothers and sisters this weekend?

Nathan

  She hates the crate.  But other than than she is a super pup.  No mistakes in the house.  Gets along great with the other dogs.  Dylan loves her!  She walked over and stuck her head in his dinner bowl tonight and he just moved over and let her eat.  She doesn’t seem to want to eat by herself so we are feeding her beside the others and she does better.  She is very photogenic!  I love taking pictures of non-black dogs.  Sending a couple of pics I took last night after we got home.  She helped me water flowers and had lots of fun in the water and then relaxed in the wet spot on the deck and pavers.  She is a great pup and we are enjoying her a lot. Thanks again….she will make you very proud……. Marcia

Hey Michaela,
 
Nelli has settled in beautifully. She loves Tucker and he has really taken to her. She has not had one accident in the house. I can’t believe she’s housebroken at 8 wks. old. She’s been sleeping in the bed with us. She sleeps all night. Tell Titan that his favorite pup is doing great! We couldn’t have asked for better. I thought I’d send you some pictures. I’ve been taking lots. She’s so darn adorable I can’t help myself.
 
Thanks so much for everything.
 
Jodi and the Gang

Michaela,Our family just wanted to thank you again for our little one…. We named her Canon…. So now we have our Kodak & Canon… she is so cute all her bad puppy habits and all LOL, Attached are some pics of her and her new Brother ..

..Hi - We made it home with one potty stop last night. For the first 30 minutes Sam stuck her nose up in the air and howled at the top of her lungs. Abby joined in for the chorus. When we got home, we left the door to the crate open with the blanket and toy that they had at your place inside while we played for an hour in the bedroom and they went in and out ad lib. When we finally shut the door, they cried for a little while but I think they were exhausted. Out at 2 and up at 5. Put them in the crate when I had to leave for 2 hours this morning and they were sleeping soundly when I got home.Bought a $7 plastic swimming pool for the yard. Lifted each of them into the pool one time and since then they’ve been in and out and in and out and in and out … Sam loves to lie down in the water and I’m sure Abby will start following her lead.  I’ll take pics tonight when Gary gets home. Also discovered that both love ice cubes. Both prefer to sleep on the tile or wood floors instead of the beds — Sam chooses to lie on a floor AC vent if one is available. A couple of neighbor kids (2 - 8 years old) came to play this afternoon and then they had a good nap.Abby discovered mirrors — barked and pawed at the “other dog”. Laid back Sam looked and then ignored it. What a difference in personalities.My home office is up 13 stairs (last 3 pics). Neither wanted to come up on their own this morning but Sam is already up and down by herself. Abby will go up about 3 and start to cry and she’ll go down 3 to the landing but not the rest of the way.Needless to say, we are in love with them. I’m sure there will be days when we wonder what the heck we were thinking by taking one, much less two, puppies but I am so glad to have dogs in the house with me again. Thank you, John and Titan (and Issy of course) did such a great job giving them a good start. No words can ever say how grateful we are.

Good luck with your father. We’ll keep him in our thoughts and prayers.

Janet and Gary

Hey Michaela,
 
We made it back from our evacuation. We ended up in a little small town called Iuka, MS. It was beautiful there. We rented a cabin for a week with my mom and dad. Nelli and Tuck both made the trip like troopers. Nelli was awesome. It took us over 10 hours with the stops and the traffic, but considering that some people sat in traffic for 5 hours to move 4 miles, we were lucky. We took a few back roads. We did not, by the grace of God, suffer much damage at all. We were very lucky and all of our levees here held up. With prayers and miracles we escaped Gustav’s wrath.
 
Nelli absolutely loved the cabin. There was a small marina there with a warf. Not only is Nelli swimming, but she’s retrieving in the water. I was almost tearing up. Our baby is growing up. I wish they could stay babies forever, but like our children, you blink and then they’re little adults. Nelli is part fish, I’m sure of it! I can’t get over how much Nelli and Ziggy look alike. They are twins for sure! She also weighed 23 lbs. at her vet visit right before we left for the hurricane. I took some pictures of her and Tuck at the cabin, but I can’t download them right now. I’m working from our laptop and it won’t recognize my camera. We still don’t have electricity yet here. I’m using a generator to write to you. I just wanted to let you know that everything went ok and how Nelli is doing. She’s on my back right now chewing the scrunchie out of my hair. LOL She’s so funny. She kept us laughing the whole week we were gone from here. Having the two of them was the silver lining to a giant rain cloud. Oh yeah….and they got EXTRA spoiled!
 
Thanks Micheala,
 
I’ll email you with the new pictures soon.
 
Jodi

Rowdy is doing great and really is growing fast, as soon as I can get my daughter to down load the pictures I will forward one to you.

We go to puppy class together on Thursday nights at the local vet clinic, and I would have to say he is about the easiest puppy there. He is a little shy when it is play time, but he starting to come out of that.

He is catching on fast to everything we show him and duck season started last weekend so when the other dog came home with her trophies he was able to pick one up and carry it to my husband. (which made him proud in front of the other guys)

I do have to tell you that last weekend Rowdy and I went down to watch the girls softball game and a older gentleman told me that he was the nicest looking lab pup he had seen in a long time. I thought you would like to hear that, as I was really proud!!

Thanks for the great pup and we are all loving him.

Chris, Tom, Jess and Rowdy

Hi Michaela,So good to hear from you –as always!  Thanks for sending the picture along.  It is amazing how quickly the two years have gone by!!  Bogey is doing great.  He went hunting over Labor Day weekend and did well retrieving the birds.  We definitely need to send you some recent pictures.  He is 98 pounds and continues to get compliments everywhere we go.  His new trick is “hunting” for food from beneath our daughter’s, Adeline’s, highchair.  Adeline loves Bogey so much that he was her first word.  It comes out more like “Bo Bo” and he is the first thing she looks for in the morning.  People joke that Adeline could ride Bogey like a horse because of his size, but he is so gentle with her…which we think comes from all the TLC he got from Titan!!Hope all is well with you and your family.  Again, thank you for all that you do!Sincerely,The Mosleys