Tashi's Web Photo and Storybook

July 12 -- Well it's hard to believe that it's the 12th of the month already. Stan and I have been busy so time has gone by quickly. The pictures above are from June 29 when Stan and I went with several of the local CCI puppies to ride the NM RailRunner. It was a training outing for the puppies so they could learn how to get on and off a train, as well as hear the whistle and noise of the locomotive up close. One of the puppies was a little afraid of the locomotive and the whistle when it went by the platform as it was stopping to pick us up. She recovered quickly, though, just like a good CCI dog should do. We also wanted to help promote raising puppies for CCI and also promote the golf tournament coming up later this month. One of the local TV stations was there and they put us on the 5:00, 6:00, and 6:30 newscasts that night. At 10:00 they also mentioned us and showed Jibar paying the fare, but the covereage wasn't nearly as long as earlier in the evening. The pictures above are from the train ride. That's Nasira taking a nap while we were riding the train, and of course as I already mentioned Jibar was helping to pay for a train ticket. The RailRunner is a commuter train that runs between Belen and Santa Fe. We ate lunch at a local resturant in Bernalillo before riding the train back to Albuquerque.

This past week Stan and I saw Daisy again. Turns out Stan was wrong about what kind of dog Daisy is. She is a German Short Haired Pointer. Stan was right about her being a puppy -- she is eight months old. She seems to be learning a good deal, even though she is strong enough to drag the boy walking her around, she wasn't doing it that day.

Stan had his birthday a couple of days ago. We actually had to celebrate it a day or two early since Becky wasn't able to be in town on that day. She had to go to Dallas to help her sister take care of their dad who had cancer surgery on that day. Stan and I will be going to Oceanside, CA for the CCI graduate workshop this Saturday. I'm sure I'll have more on that later. Stan heard from Flora's person, Laura, this week. She is going to the workshop. Flora and I were in Team Training together in case you don't remember who she is.

July 16 -- I forgot all about telling you about my shoes. Stan ordered me a set of muttluks for the summer. Since we have to walk around on a lot of asphalt where he works he got them for me to make sure my feet don't get burned on the days when it is really hot outside. With the sun shining on the asphalt it gets hot enough that it's soft, so I'm glad that my shoes help to protect my feet. I'm not thrilled with the process of Stan putting them on me, but after I take a few seconds to adjust to having them on, I like them. When we are walking with them, I wag my tail so hard my whole back end wiggles.

One of our friends, the oldest son in the family, got sick and has been in the hospital this week. They think he has bubonic plauge, but the labs tests haven't come in to confirm it 100%. Yes, that's the same plauge that was referred to as the "black death" about 500 years ago in Europe. It is spread by fleas. But don't worry about me, my vet knows all about the risks for this and knows which of the flea products I need to have for protection against catching it. And, thanks to my vet and Merial Animal Health they gave Stan all the Frontline and Heartgaurd doses I'll need for an entire year. So anyway, back to the story about our friend. He is getting better, and Stan and I went to see him in the pediatric ward at the hospital. All of the nurses just loved me. I also just knew that this was a different kind of place and that most of the people I saw there were stressed, upset, or not feeling well. I maintained my usual good manners, but was very careful to look at people with a happy face and give them a big tail wag. Last night as Stan and I were getting ready to leave, Stan was talking to our friend in the hallway, and another boy saw us and perked up right away. He was so happy to see me and came to the door of his room and asked Stan if he could pet me. Stan said yes and gave me the "go visit" command that we've kind of worked out on our own. I walked over to the boy with my tail just going crazy with the "up and down pump", "round and round helicopter", and "back and forth butt wiggling" motions all at once. The boy gave me lots of pets and a hug. He told Stan I was a wonderful and beautiful dog. Stan said thanks, and when we left I was so proud of myself. I think my short visit with that boy made his whole day.

July 20 -- Friday morning Stan and I got up early and after Stan did several of the usual things he does in the morning, like taking me outside to "hurry" and feeding me breakfast (YUM!!!!) he put my vest on and we got in the car. And, boy, did we ever ride and ride and ride in the car!! Stan said we were going to the CCI Southwest Region Graduate Workshop, and that I would get to see the Southwest Region Campus, the Southwest Region CCI trainers, and lots of other CCI graduate dogs including Laura and Flora that graduated in the same TT class Stan and I did. We were in the car for 13 hours. I didn't mind, though, Stan made sure he stopped and let me "hurry" when I needed to and gave me plenty of chances to drink water. When we got to the hotel that night, I was naturally curious about the room. I was walking around exploring and sniffing everything. After we had only been there a couple of minutes, Stan noticed that I suddenly changed my body language. I went from curiously sniffing everything to alert and looking for a familiar sound I was hearing. I recognized it as an important sound that Stan has taught me that he doesn't hear. It wasn't one of the emergency alarms that he has taught me, and it didn't last very long. I was trying to find it and managed to locate the general area where I thought it was coming from. I then ran across the room and alerted Stan just like I'm supposed to do. By the time I did that and got back across the room the sound stopped. I led Stan to the area where I thought I had found it. He gave me a reward for doing that. Stan isn't sure what sound I heard, but he was glad that I knew I still had a job to do and would do it even in this place we had never been at before. Later that night we practiced with Stan's alarm clock, and I actually did a better job letting him know about that than I do at home. Stan says now that he knows that he's going to expect me to do that well at home, too.

On Saturday morning, after I woke Stan up when the alarm went off we got in the car again and drove another hour and several minutes to the CCI Southwest Region campus. There were lots of dogs and their handlers that showed up, and I was excited about getting to see other dogs. Not just any dogs, but fellow Labradors that I just knew I would have a good time playing with. Stan said we would have time to meet and play later. He said inside the CCI training room, offices, and gift shop was not the right place for Labrador games. I was so excited that it was hard to hold onto my good manners. Stan corrected me with my leash a few times so I never forgot for very long. I had finally gotten used to seeing all the other dogs around and was being very good and calm like I was supposed to when Stan suddenly said let's go and we took off across the room. He was excited to see Laura, who brought along my former kennel-mate and TT classmate, Flora. Flora remembered me, too and we were so excited to see each other. We both wanted to go outside and play right then. We did get a chance to play later in CCI's play yard while Stan and Laura ate lunch. I ran around and played so much that I slept through all the afternoon sessions.

After the day was over, Stan fed me dinner and then said we were going to go to a resturant so he could eat with Laura and two other hearing teams he had met that day. Since I had been around the other dogs and had a chance to play earlier, it wasn't hard to be on my professional manners in the resturant. Stan, Laura, and the other two teams had a good time eating and talking with each other. There wasn't much to listen to, though, the conversation for the whole evening was in ASL!! I don't understand people talk very much to begin with, but I understand that even less! Stan said he enjoyed the evening and it was good for him the entire day to have to use his ASL to talk with Laura and a couple of the other teams. Me and the other dogs just laid there under the table looking at each other while our persons were eating and doing their thing. I think we were there for two and a half or three hours.

Then yesterday it was back in the car for the ride home. We did a little better coming back since Stan and I are figuring out how to take long car trips together. On Friday of this week, Stan says we will have another long day at the CCI golf tournament.

July 26 -- When Stan said we would have a long day on Friday he wasn't kidding. It started at 4:00 when his alarm went off, then after breakfast we got in the car and drove for an hour to get to where the golf course was. After Stan helped out some with hanging up banners, and putting up some signs, it was time to hang out and talk with the people who were coming out to play golf. We did that for a while then it was out onto the golf course to our assigned hole. We stayed there all morning long under the shade of a big sycamore tree. It was Stan's job to tell the golfers about the contest on our hole and the one after ours. Our hole was the straightest drive contest and the next one was the closest to the pin contest. There was a rope on the ground down the center line of the fairway of our hole. The golfer whose ball landed the closest to that rope on their first shot would win the contest. It was my job to greet all the golfers and let them pat me on the head, scratch my ears, or whatever they wanted before they hit the ball. One young man that looked like he might still be in high schoolor maybe college told us he had decided he wanted to raise a CCI puppy and he had talked with some of the other people that had puppies at their golf holes. As soon as his golf cart stopped, he jumped out and came and laid down on the ground in front of me while he was asking Stan what my name was. He spent several minutes petting me. He was very happy to find out that I was a graduate dog and that's when he told Stan he wanted to raise a CCI puppy and had talked to someone about it already. Several of the other golfers were really fascinated with me and the job I do for Stan and they asked Stan some questions about it.

After all the golfers were done with the tournament, it was time for another golf cart ride back to the clubhouse for lunch. I think it was almost 1:00 in the afternoon by this time. During the program after eveyone was done eating lunch, they handed out prizes for the various contests, and for the overall first and second place teams in the tournament. Then it was time in the program to tell everyone a little more about CCI. Pat, the tournament director, told everyone there were four kinds of placements that CCI made for us dogs. She started with the skilled companion team and showed a video about Cole and Ilia. Then she talked about service dogs and called Buddy and Ellie up to tell more and do a demonstration for everybody of what service dogs can do.

Then Pat told the people about CCI's hearing dog program and was time for Stan to tell them more about hearing dogs. Stan explained to everyone how he used to have to watch the timer on the stove so he would know when the time was up for whatever was going on that needed a timer. Then he told them he didn't have to do that anymore because of me. He could set my timer (and wouldn't you know he just happend to have it with him) and when it went off........(he stopped talking for a couple of seconds)......then I heard it..........that familiar chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp from my timer......while everyone was watching me my ears perked up and I looked for where Stan had put my timer. I found it and turned around alerted Stan, who like always, asked me "what" and I went to where I had found the timer. I got my treats and the whole room clapped for me.

Stan then went on to explain that sometimes when his dinner was ready he would be in a different room in the house besides the kitchen. He asked how many people there would leave the kitchen and go look through the house to find where the other person was so they could tell them it was time to come get dinner. Seemed like noone did it that way. Stan told them he could tell they weren't used to living with deaf or hard of hearing people. But, he told them because of me Becky didn't have to do that anymore. he then told them he had asked one of the puppy raisers to help him demonstrate how that situation might look around our house now that I live with Stan. Just then, Karen started calling me and she seemed like she really wanted to see me so I went over to her. She told me I was a good girl for coming to her then she said my favorite command of all time "go get Stan" OH!!! I got sooooooooo EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!! I just love it when someone tells me that command!!! I turned around and covered the 15 or so feet from Karen to Stan in just three full speed hops. Stan wasn't talking, he was just looking around at the audience and I launched my nose toward his leg......and missed! I jumped and tried again, but I forgot to jump forward so again I didn't make contact. I thought surely Stan must have noticed me and was going to ask "what" any second now. I started back toward Karen and after the first hop I looked back toward Stan. I still hadn't heard him ask "what" and it was because he was still looking at the audience. DANG!!!! I had messed up and still didn't have Stan's attention. If I don't have his attention I won't get a treat and this is my favorite command. I turned around again and launched my nose toward his leg again and made full contact. Stan immediately looked at me and asked "what". I turned around and started running toward Karen and this time when I looked over my shoulder at Stan he was following so I went straight to Karen. More applause and treats. Stan then told the people that he like a lot of others with hearing loss can no longer hear fire alarms and because of their support of CCI and dogs like me the potential exists for me or another one of CCI's hearing dogs to save someone's life.

After we were done with our part of the program, Pat called Mary Aynn and Jibar up to tell everyone about how facility dogs help people. After that the program was over and it was time to talk with anyone that wanted to. Stan and I hoped that our presentation was able to connect with people and help them understand hearing dogs. Several people told Stan they liked what we did so we think that the presentation went well. After everyone left it was time for Stan to help clean up and pack stuff and carry it out to cars. Also as a thank you for the time spent on the planning committee Stan got a copy of the book "Love Heels" and a "CCI Salutes Independence" T-shirt which is a shirt designed for a Veterans outreach program. Stan also got a small framed picture of me that was one of the ones taken for the tournament. It was the same picture that was used on some of the signs at the tournament. When all of the breakdown and packing up was done, Stan and the other golf committee members went to the lounge to sit down and relax for a few minutes and have something cold to drink. We finally left the golf course about 4:45 and I was a very tired dog.

In other news, Stan's cell phone had a button that stopped working so he had to replace it. The new phone makes different sounds than his old one did, so I am having to learn the sound of the new phone so I won't be able to wake Stan up in the morning until I learn the new sound. I actually have learned the sound, I just need to practice with Stan in different locations and different positions so it shouldn't take too long.