Vesta's progress...

Hi everyone!

We decided to name the new girl "Vesta" as it was our favorite here, and her new partner liked that best. *AND* she responds quite well to it...like she's known that name all of her life.

I realized that we never added any info about where she came from, and what's going on with her...so here ya go!

Mom got an email a little while ago, from a reader of this blog...seems that she lives in the same area, and was looking for a SD for her son. She got turned away at the local SD group, because her son has multiple disabilities. Mom thought she was equal to the task, and we met up with them a few weeks ago. We discussed dogs and what they could do to help him. Xander and I were delighted, because as the humans talked, they all threw tennis balls for us! Xander and I told mom that we had to help them!

Mom put out a plea for a dog on her Facebook profile, and received many responses with dogs for adoption. She chose a likely candidate from a rescue that we work with, based in Northern VA: Odessa Rescue and Rehabilitation. We arranged a transport, sight-unseen from her foster home in the Virginia Beach area, up to us...here in the Baltimore area. Thanks again to everyone at Odessa Rescue!

So Miss golden girl arrived last Wednesday, right in the middle of the Thanksgiving holiday...which is why there were no updates last week! She's handled everything in stride...a very good girl indeed.

She's a tall girl, which we needed, as she's going to be a balance dog. She's calm in the crate and in the house. She leaves the cats alone, and likes to play with the other dogs...her only big problem right now is that she'll moan and groan when she sees people that might just pet her...she moans at John when she first sees him...every day! (we got into a bit of a scuffle yesterday, as she was trying to climb on the couch to see him...WHILE I WAS LYING THERE!) Nothing much phases her...even John's scooter moving doesn't spook her. She went on a trip to Petco yesterday, with mom and after some intial excitement, she calmed down and walked quietly with her.

From mom: "She's a lovely girl, and I'm looking forward to her training. I'm not a golden retriever fan, but honestly...if I were to get one, she'd be the type."

~SDS

The New Girl

Here she is!!!



We're still working on a new name for this beautiful blonde bombshell...we're taking suggestions!

Going with a mythology theme...here are the ideas we've had.

Vesta (Roman goddess of Hearth and Home)
Juno (queen of the gods)
Pax (goddess of peace)
Freya (Norse goddess of love)
Athena (goddess of wisdom)
Amica (Ah-mee-ka)(Latin for friend)
Aine (Ahn-yah)(Irish goddess of love, summer, wealth)

She's a wonderful girl, but is going to need a lot of work...she needs basic manners training so far! But she's picking it all up very quickly! I'll post more about her later this week!

~SDS

A new SDiT!

It's been a while since we've have new SDiT news! Mom is going to be training a SD for a young man with CP. It's been a while since she's trained any SD skills...hopefully she's not too rusty. I'll have to revert back to my old, untrained ways to help her along!

The dog is already picked out...a young, female golden retriever from a rescue group in VA...more info to come...along with lots of pics, of course!

She'll be staying with us for the intial training and socializing, and then when she's ready, she'll head to her new home. We're very excited about this...and we'll definitely keep everyone posted!

~SDS...off to get into mischief, to keep mom on her toes...

Tired feet

~SDS

How hard is this job?

Check out this great video...would you be able to do my job?



Cheers!
~Service Dog Sawyer