Tandy to visit!

We get Tandy for the long weekend this month! We have moved and are in a new home so it will be different for all of us. I will post pictures and stories after that weekend! So excited to see him again and see how he will react to seeing us again!! We pick him up on the 18th!

See ya later buddy.

Well dropping of Tandy was not the worst part of it and i even maintained to be tearless for that part. Its being home now, looking around and having no friend following me! When that passes i will be so excited to hear how he is progressing and in a few months i can meet him again and his forever family, oh how proud i will be!

Farwell my puppy :(

Well it looks as though this will be the end of project puppy raising blog, our year of puppy raising is up and Tandy goes back in two days. All in all the project has accomplished all our goals and much more. The children are no longer afraid of dogs, we all understand animal behaviour better and well we fell in love with a hairy gentle beast named Tandy.

The year has been fun and exciting and at times challenging but i would not change or give it up for a second. We learned the ways of dog behaviour, met a lot of awesome people while out with him and through NSD and had the companionship and love of Tandy through it all. While a year is not long and we have lived all of our lives without the company of a dog it will be a strange and sad adjustment living without a silent and beautiful companion whose only basic requirements from us have been food, love and walks. Which in return have been totally easy to give. So I write this with tears streaming down my face knowing that Tandy will soon be with his forever family who will love and need him far more than we ever will and know that in my heart we as a family have done a great and selfless thing for someone else. ♥ Farewell my puppy!

Happy New Year!

So its a new year and Tandy was supposed to go back to the kennel tomorrow, but it has been delayed a few weeks. So now we have him for a couple more weeks til there is room for him. Nice that we have a few more days with him, but now we don't really know when the day will be. We had a nice new years party and Tandy was well loved by everyone here. Last year we had a party and had only had Tandy for three days! How far we have come!

2 weeks to go

Nothing new around here, we put up our xmas tree and Tandy does not bother with it. Ha, i was a bit worried what he would do but he is great so he does nothing to it. He has been having fun running around the yard like a maniac in the snow. I refuse to go to the dog park anymore since my daughter and i got bit there and since it is slippery and the last thing i need is to get slammed over by a dog.

We have 2weeks and 3days left with this lovely dog, just trying to enjoy every last second♥

A blanket of his own

One thing that we were told would be nice for Tandy to have at the kennel is his own blanket that can be consistant for him when he goes away on weekends during training with his own smells etc, and since Tandy chewed apart his blankets that he had before (he was good til about 9months and he started chewing them!) i thought i would buy one at the thrift store and applique his name on it!

Festive dog!

Last month with Tandy boy!

We are enjoying our last month here with Tandy. Still continuing on with daily training. But mostly loving him and taking him on really long walks, enjoying our last days with a dog in the house.

Last week we took a trip to the kennel at NSD where he will be going back for advanced training. We met all his kennel mates that he will be living with and learned about his new routine there. He got to explore his new sleeping area and play in the run with the others, Tandy is the youngest one to go back, but just as ready as the rest of them. He is still exceptional in training and with real trainers taking him in and helping him he will go even further.

We are not going to get another puppy any time soon, we have a big move coming up and once that is all done we will see how life really is without a dog in it. We may do it again or we may just puppy sit for other NSD dogs, but that is not for a while. No decisions being made now.

I have no idea what the day will be like that we bring him back but will for sure blog about it as part of the project, i want to remember that too. Until then, we are taking lots of photos, hugging him lots and treating him like the king he is!

Some radomness from Tandy's life here with us. His time to go to the kennel is quickly approaching and i am reminicing all the times and things we have done here with him. 1 year ago this time we were gearing up for a new puppy to come occupy our home and getting so excited for it. How can a year go so fast? How can a puppy grow so much in that time? Its amazing what he has accomplished in the last 11 months here, and i can't even imagine the life ahead of him, this is only the beginning of his life. Wow they are going to be a lucky bunch of people, the family who receives Tandy. I hope there is a way to keep in touch when he goes to live with his forever family. What a happy and sad thing this all is. Oh my little Tandy!

(pic #1 the kids love to let him lick their feet over and over! pic #2 Tandy just hanging out amungst the mess of our lives pic #3 "the visit")

Birthday dog!

Tomorrow is Tandy's 1st birthday! Wow, how he has grown! While he has no clue the kids are very excited for him, to give him special treats! He has been doing great here, we have been back into the swing of things, bringing him to our sports program on Tuesdays and going to the dog park a lot.

Also i got the call/email a few days ago stating when Tandy is due back for his advanced training! January 3rd is the big day, so soon! It is great timing too as we have some life changing things coming up that would make it more difficult to train him. So a couple more months and our project is officially over, how can time go so fast? I have confidence in him and can' t wait to see what he amounts to. In the meantime, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST PUPPY EVER!!!!

Thanksgiving

I have been searching lately for some new and different outings with Tandy. I am getting bored of malls and stores and libraries! So this weekend we took him to the pumpkin patch, our annual thanksgiving outing to pick out pumpkins and walk through the corn maze! I have never taken him out as a working dog in his coat on grass, i was curious as he is not to "eliminate" while wearing it but whenever i walk him and there is grass he is used to do doing so. Anyway, he was fine, i think he knows now when he has his coat on what is expected of him.

His birthday is coming up, he will be officially 1 year old on the 29th of this month, the kids want to give him a big peanut butter ball with dog food in it and sing to him, maybe buy him a new toy!

Crate kids!

My daughter was having fun in Tandy's crate the other day, then he wanted in too! Just thought the pictures were cute of the two of them. She informed me again that her best friend is Tandy! (PS, she was not in there for long, nor did she actually sleep in it!)

Wordless Wednesday!

A walk in the park..

So tonight we had puppy class in our local park that houses all sorts of animals, chickens, llamas, deer, ducks, goats, ponies, turkeys etc. The class intention was to get the dogs to remain calm and focused while acknowledging their presence but not zoning in on them (the animals). Except for one moment where Tandy sorta dodged at the turkey he did pretty good. The goose poop was quite hard for him to resist as well. As always it was fun to watch all the various puppies reactions and see how much they have instinctive behavior. Tandy has a thing for squirrels and its constant work on walks to get him to "leave it", he is doing better, but off leash if he see's a squirrel he will chase it for miles and nothing else can enter his mind during that. Funny and annoying, i am sure we can all imagine! I live like a 15min walk from that park so i will be able to try the techniques out we learned.
It was refreshing to do some different training with him, and apparently from now on we will just be meeting in public settings like this.

We are getting closer to our final days together, Tandy and I, he has been in our home a little over 8 months and has grown and learned so much (so have I) when the winter comes back it will feel so weird, we got Tandy in the dead of winter all cute and tiny, and we will see him off this winter all grown up and ready for advanced training. Its amazing how fast a year can go! ♥

Rainy day

Sitting on the porch watching the rain storm, getting a little bit wet, being the good boy he is!

Just another day.

Not much new or exciting going on around here lately. Tandy has been visiting a lot of different puppy sitters as we have been camping a lot. He has been doing great at the sitters and they all tell me how wonderful Tandy is, of course we know that but it is good to know he is well behaved and awesome for others as well.

So another heat wave is here, and Tandy has been relaxing under the fan not asking for much. Walks are minimal as it is so damn hot, we wait til the evenings and even then he walks so slow taking care not to over heat, poor furry guy.

Hanging in the yard!

Training dog

(playing with his bone, even without thumbs!)

We had puppy class last night, first one in a month or so. I guess things are all messed up with summer vacations etc. I have to admit i was a little worried at how Tandy would be, as we have not been training too much here, a bit for sure here and there but now as much as i should be! Summer seems to have added a different touch to training. Either way, Tandy amazed me once again and i felt confident in my training after it was over. Whew! I always feel a little funny at puppy class, cause while Tandy will never be "mine" i know him so well and feel sometimes as though i can read his mind and communicate with him in other ways then just giving him commands. Not unlike the way a mother and child communicate with one another when the infant does not speak. Its funny and i often find myself laughing at/with Tandy during class and talking to him so softly about what he is doing. (this may sound so strange, but whatever!)

Its fun to watch all of his siblings, now almost 10 months old doing so well and listening and obeying so wonderfully (Titan, Tawny, Tali, Tootsie). We did the "visit" with the trainer back and forth calling him from me to him to visit and i felt worried and shy for Tandy going to him and listening to him, even though that is exactly what he should be doing and he did well with it. I guess i have been thinking of Tandy more as my pet or my companion of sorts and doing this exercise reminded me that some day he will be working with trainers and doing an awesome job with them, because i was able to raise him to do so.

Tandy is feeling much better now that his "hot spots' have cleared up and i only had to put the cone on him once at night and never again. It was good for a photo op!

Space dog!

Camping puppy!

Tandy came camping with us this week, first time i have ever camped with a dog and first time he has ever camped! He had a blast on the beach, swimming and digging. My friend brought her retriever as well Daisy, who was not interested in Tandy at all but he kept trying to play with her. Unfortunately Tandy developed some "hot spots" and a bit of a sore ear while there, he is now on antibiotics and looks rather worn out. I think he might just sleep the next couple of days to recover from all the fun he had. I had bought him a tent to sleep in, to replace his crate but he was not too happy in there so he ended up in our tent, sleeping beside the kids. Made for a more relaxing sleep for both him and i sleeping together keeping an eye out for one another.