Tashi's Web Photo and Storybook

December 10 -- Stan has been busy with a lot of things, but updating my website hasn't been one of them. There hasn't been a lot of new stuff happening, though. We all seem to have settled into a normal routine. The picture at the top of this page is me in the yard after one of the snowfalls we have had this year. I'm hunting for that rabbit that keeps sleeping in different places in the yard. This time he had been under the honeysuckle bushes and Stan took my picture while I was following his trail with my nose. We had about two inches of snow yesterday. There are two things I like about the snow. One is running in it. I love to play zoom-butt when there is snow on the ground. The other thing I like is eating the snow. I like pushing my nose through it and then grabbing a big mouthful. Stan says when we get more snow and it's deeper on the ground he will get a picture to show you with snow all over my face.

I always let Stan know about people knocking on his door at work. And at home I tell him about the phone ringing, my timer when it goes off, and when Becky wants him. The other day Becky thought I might be comfortable enough with the "Go Get Stan" game that she told me to go get him when she came home from the grocery store. Of course, I went straight to Stan, alerted him, and brought him to Becky. Stan says sometime soon he is going to teach me a new sound. He says it will be an alarm sound from his cell phone. Becky doesn't like Stan's alarm clock. She says it could wake up dead people. It is a loud low-frequency noise, that's for sure. But Stan says alarm clocks like everyone else would use aren't loud enough to wake him up in the morning and when I learn the new sound it will become my job to wake him. It's hard to believe I've only lived with Stan for two months. Team training when I was introduced to and matched with Stan seems like so long ago.

The two pictures above are of me playing zoom-butt in the snow. When Stan took these pictures, we only had about two inches of snow. This morning, the total was closer to 8 inches. Stan had to get out this noisy machine he calls a snow thrower to clear the driveway and some walkways.

This is a picture of me with snow on my face after I scooped up a big mouthful of it. The camera doesn't show my whole face very well, but I'm happy let me tell you!!!

December 30 -- Well the year is almost over, and I really like hanging out with Stan. Stan tells me that he knows that I've changed his life in many ways, but the most obvious is that while he can still remember what it was like before I came along he can't imagine going back to that. I help him so much with the sounds in his house that I've learned so far, the timer, when Becky wants him and they are in different rooms, the phone, and most recently I've been learning to wake Stan up every morning. Stan and I have lots of fun together, but I'm always listening for those sounds he's taught me because you never know when one of them will happen. Sometimes I'm sleeping on my bed or in my kennel and I have to go find where Stan is at in the house. Technically, I'm always at work listening for things for Stan, but it doesn't seem like hard work to me. Sometimes when some unusual sound happens around Stan I'm naturally curious about it and just my simply being interested in it and looking in the direction it came from helps Stan to know what is going on around him.

I hope all of you have a happy 2009, I know I'm looking forward to it. 2008 was quite an eventful year for me. But, it actually all started toward the end of 2007 when I was 1-1/2 and Cindy and Jenny took me back to CCI in November. They taught me so much as I grew up, and CCI used what they taught me as I lived in the kennel and worked with the trainers there through most of this year (2008). Then, the CCI trainers rotated me through what they called team training, but I wasn't the best match for the people who were there at that time. The CCI trainers kept working with me, and then there was another team training. During that team training, CCI decided that Stan and I would be a good match. I think they did an excellent job figuring that out. So, in October I got to see Cindy and Jenny again, and I moved for the second time in less than a year to come be with Stan.