The Thinking Dog Blog

Mall Pup

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White pup Dotty holds a plastic tube. She's wearing a blue service dog cape.
Dotty got used to wearing her new cape by practicing a few retrieves while wearing it at home.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Dotty met up with her sisters at the mall. A friend joined them as they hung out in the mall, greeting people who were shopping or also hanging out. The pack then visited Scheel’s for some light shopping and, it must be said, sightseeing.

(The Missoula Scheel’s has both a country fair-style shooting gallery and a 2-lane bowling alley, ensuring mobs of kids on a Saturday afternoon. And dogs. So many dogs.)

That Dotty and her sisters are 4-month-old golden retrievers and their friend Geo is a doodle is what makes this outing unusual. The girls are in training to become mobility-assistance service dogs, and learning to be calm, confident, and competent in public settings is an important part of their preparation.

This outing was a doozy. So many people, dogs, noises, smells, and experiences. We did spend much of the time in a quiet(er) meeting room, but navigating the store, which allows pet dogs, with its interesting features, was a challenging first public visit.

Dotty did amazingly well, calming down to watch people walking by in the mall, appropriately greeting people (sitting quietly) when given permission, walking confidently next to me through the gauntlet of people, dogs, and noises.

She did start to show some nervousness as we walked out. At this point, it was just the two of us, each sister-and-human pair having headed out separately. Near the bowling alley, a couple of girls asked if they could pet her, and I paused. So far, so good. But then a bunch of their friends came over at the same time that someone started bowling… and it was too much.

Dotty’s tail went down. I immediately apologized to the kids and headed out. Dotty recovered quickly and bounded happily to the car.

We’ve since had one additional outing: We visited the best pet store in Missoula. Dotty got to try out her new superdog cape, get treats, and explore a very exciting (from a puppy’s perspective) new place.

Dotty's cape is blue with patches that identify her as a service dog-in-training.The ADA, a federal law, allows people with service and guide dogs to take their dogs into public spaces that usually bar dogs. The ADA does not include access for people training service dogs, however. Montana is among the states that allows service dog trainers the same public access with dogs in training that a person who works with a service or guide dog has, with the stipulation that the dog in training wear an identifying cape or vest. So Dotty’s “superdog cape” grants her the super power of going where other dogs cannot. Much to Orly’s dismay.

 

 

 

 

We All Scream for Ice Cream!

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Golden retriever puppies Orly and Dotty eat vanilla ice cream conesVisits to the Big Dipper, our neighborhood ice cream stand (and a Missoula icon) are an important summertime ritual. A less frequent, but no less important, spring, fall, and winter ritual as well …

Naturally, Orly and I looked forward to Dotty’s first ice cream! The momentous occasion finally arrived on a hot evening when I had a handy pair of helping hands. My friend Ken, a digital nomad who makes frequent stops in Missoula, was my capable dog-wrangling assistant and documentarian. (All of the photos are stills from the video he shot.)

Golden pup Orly removes the entire blob of ice cream from her cone in one biteOrly is a gobbler. Her ice cream disappears in nanoseconds. (Cali was also a gobbler, except on her birthday, when she got an entire kid-size scoop and took the time to enjoy it…)

Dotty seems to be a licker.

Golden pups Orly and Dotty both lick Dotty's ice cream coneOnce Orly realized that Dotty had ice cream while she did not … Orly quickly adapted. And became a co-licker. Luckily, Dotty was amenable to sharing.

Close up of the pups sharing an ice cream cone

 

 

 

 

Update …

White golden retriever pup Dotty wears a yellow mustache from her vanilla ice creamBefore digital nomad Ken hit the road again, we had a second ice cream outing.

Orly was onto Dotty’s “licker” approach and, under the guise of licking alongside her, tried to gobble Dotty’s ice cream. No, Orly, No!

Mom had to intervene and rescue Dotty’s ice cream. At that point, taking no chances, Dotty instantly converted to a gobbler and swallowed her ice cream. Well, most of it …

She did leave behind enough for the cutest ice-cream mustache!

 

 

Summer Fun!

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After a cold, wet spring, summer has arrived with a furnace blast of 90-plus days.

Dotty and Orly know just how to keep cool!

They have a pool! And a splash pad! (Thanks, Aunties Maren and Christina!)

White puppy Dotty splashed with her front paws in a silver water bowlAs a pup who loves to paddle in her water bowl, Dotty took to her water toys like, well, a golden retriever to water.

Her favorite activity is rolling around to get thoroughly soaked, then finding a nice patch of backyard to dig up. Mmmmm, that dirt-and-wet-dog combination. Mom loves that … not at all.

They’re very eager to swim in the river, but we haven’t tried that yet. Maybe next week!

Early-Onset Adolescence

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23-pound white golden retriever puppy Dotty uses a blue towel as a pillow for her napDotty is just over three months old as I write this. Yet she seems to have become an adolescent, a pleasure that I should not be forced to endure until she’s at least six months old.
Where’s my sweet little puppy?

She’s still got her baby fuzz and a very puppyish, sweet face. (She’s not little, though; she topped 23 pounds at her 12-week checkup!)

But her attitude! Her attitude is 100% teenager!

She demands her “rights” in a loud, entitled voice. She protests the unfairness of, well, pretty much everything. She grabs at treats and gobbles her food, never saying “Thanks.”

She sleeps a lot.

She’s also adventurous and curious. Eager to meet every new person. Jaded and so over spending time with Mom, though.

She still adores her big sister Orly and wants to do, see, feel, taste everything that Orly does.

White golden retriever puppy Dotty paws at a purple, bottle shaped toy, trying to get the food out
This treat toy has Dotty stumped (for now)

She’s learning new things every day: Leash manners; retrieving all sorts of things; digging and using her nose to find buried treasures; taking treats politely; figuring out a wide variety of treat toys; deconstructing soft toys and rugs; digging and making huge holes in the yard; extracting the water from her water bowl using all of the tools at her disposal (mouth and front paws); pouncing on the spray in her splash pad; soaking up all the muddy water from a puddle … the challenges are endless, varied, and all, in Dotty’s opinion, fabulous.

But the teenageriness. The not wanting to come when called. The hiding stuff and sneaking off behind the garden shed to engage in forbidden activities (digging, mostly). The “too busy/important to pay attention to you” dismissals…

They grow up so fast.

Golden retriever puppies Dotty and Orly dig in a sand pit designed as a dog digging pit
Looking for buried treasure!

A BIG GIRL Bed

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Dotty is growing up! She no longer has to sleep in a crate.

When she was reliably sleeping through the night and asking clearly to go out, I decided that she was ready. I waited for a long weekend. I set up a second dog bed in the bedroom.

White golden retriever pup Dotty lies under a wooden bed with a beige cover. Golden Orly lies nearby. Both are on their sides.Finally, it was time: We did our evening routine of last call and tooth-brushing. But, instead of calling her to “kennel,” I propped open the crate door and placed a pet gate at the bedroom entrance.

Dotty watched with great interest from her perch on Orly’s dog bed (or, more accurately, on Orly). When I settled in to read — also part of the going-to-bed routine — she knew things were Different.

And she celebrated. Loudly and enthusiastically.

She leapt up and began racing around the room, looping under the bed in a way only she can (and probably only for a few more weeks). Puppy zoomies on sterioids! With barking! And the squeaking of toys!

On and on it went.

After a couple of minutes of this celebration, I looked at her sternly and in my best Mom Voice, said, “If you don’t settle down by the time I finish this chapter, I am putting you into  your crate.”

Well.

Her English comprehension clearly rivals that of Chaser (and a new favorite fictional dog, Six-Thirty from Lessons in Chemistry). She looked at me, dropped to the floor, and instantly fell fast asleep. Under the bed.

Subsequent nights were less celebratory. She has asked to go out a couple of times, but she mostly just sleeps, on the floor or on one of the dog beds. Just like the big, grown-up girl that she is … not. Yet.

Snuffle Monster

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10-week-old white golden puppy sniffs a snuffle mat made of strips of fleeceI’ve created a monster. Think ‘Cookie Monster’ — not ‘JAWS.’

I introduced little Dotty to our little snuffle mat. Adorable in every possible way. She figured it out pretty much instantly. There is nothing wrong with her nose, and, true to her breed, she loves a good snack.

[A snuffle mat is a nest of fleece strips. The human servant hides yummy treats among these strips, and the dog sniffs them out and devours them. It’s a chance to let dogs use their noses and enjoy some mental stimulation. And a snack.)

I generally give Orly a snuffle mat after she hikes, and sometimes we do it after (my) lunch even on days that Orly doesn’t hike. She sometimes asks for it, but is generally happy to get the offer but not insistent.

Dotty is different.

After two — two — snuffle mat sessions, she started walking over to the shelf and trying to pull hers down. She resorted to barking at it when she couldn’t free it from the shelf.

She goes over to the snuffle mats and demands (often quite loudly) that I prepare one for her.

I ignore that, but when I am preparing the snuffle mats, she barks instructions, wriggles, tugs at the corner, pops up to watch where I am putting the treats (or is she counting to be sure that she gets as many as, or more than, Orly?!). She dives for Orly’s as I move to set it down. She impatiently sits, wriggling and sometimes barking, as I give Orly her mat and turn to give Dotty hers.

Once she’s finished clearing the treats from hers — and has thoroughly examined Orly’s mat to ensure that nothing was left behind (as if!) — she has taken to dragging one — usually Orly’s larger mat — around the room.

Snuffle Monster.

Never Too Young for Good Dental Habits!

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Dotty wants to be just like big sister Orly. Which is (sometimes) great!

For instance, Orly loves to brush her teeth!

So, a few days after Dotty came home, I introduced her to the toothbrush. The first time, she got to sniff and lick it, Honestly, she wasn’t that interested.

She did watch closely as Orly got her teeth brushed — and got rewarded with a cookie.

The next day, Dotty was eager to try out the toothbrush, and she licked it a little.

Over the next few days, I slowly started to put the brush in her mouth, very gently touching her teeth.

Now she’s a pro. She sits calmly, little tail wagging, while I gently brush her tiny, needle-sharp puppy teeth.

And of course she eagerly accepts her cookie when I am done.

What Goes Up …

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What, or who, goes up … doesn’t always come down.

Stairs.

Orly learned how to go up and down stairs well before I met her, and never had any issue with the (many) stairs in our house.

Dotty had not encountered a tall staircase, and found the steep mountains in front of her a little scary.

She did quickly master the short 2-3 steps to the back, and then the front yards. Down first. Up took a little longer, but she got that too.

Next up — the house stairs.

My old-school attempts to lure her, one or two stairs at a time failed. I started with the stairs to the office, thinking the rubber runners would give her a good grip and ease her fears. She was willing to stretch enough to reach the treats on the edge of one step … but not move her paws so she could reach farther.

We tried the carpeted basement stairs, with a non-slip mat at the bottom. No luck.

Hm.

Stumped, I asked the expert (Glenn, who runs Dotty’s service dog school).

He said that going down would be less scary than up. Dotty is clearly not related to me. My (mild … ish) fear of heights makes going down far more uncomfortable.

Anyhow. He suggested sitting with her a few steps up from the bottom and letting her think about it for a while. We did that, then I let her walk down 3 steps. Success.

Golden pup Dotty looks up a tall flight of carpeted stairsWe did that a bunch of times, slowly adding a step or two.

I also worked in the other direction, carrying her most of the way up, then letting her tackle the top 2-3 steps.

We practiced all of this over a couple of days, also working on what Glenn calls the “follow me” routine. This encourages the puppy to go wherever I go, which she is naturally inclined to do anyhow.

 

Dotty progresses up the carpeted stairsAfter a few days of steady success with small numbers of stairs, I took a leap of faith. She seemed more confident on “up,” so I headed up the stairs with my hands full of stuff, and called out “Come on girls, follow me.”

Not surprisingly, Orly trotted up the stairs. Dotty hesitated. Whimpered once. Then she got a determined look on her fluffy little face and … followed me all the way up!

Dotty reaches the top of the stairsProud of herself, she did a little dance at the top. And eagerly accepted her reward — lots of praise and petting as well as a cookie.

She also soon figured out that she could get herself up the stairs any time she wanted. Only problem is … we’re still working on down the stairs. She’s gotten herself upstairs several times now, realized she was alone, and, yep, next thing you know, I’m running up the stairs to rescue 18 pounds of wriggly puppy who has instantly transformed from despairing to delighted.

A “Little Sponge” Indeed

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White golden puppy Dotty jumps on big sister Orly, a blond golden retriever As I said in the little news story on Dotty’s service dog program, Dotty is a “little sponge” soaking up, well, everything. (That includes what Orly is teaching her …)

However, on the positive side, she:

  • Learned how to go down the 3 steps from the deck into the back yard
  • Learned how to go back up those 3 stairs
  • Discovered the wonders of string cheese as a training treat
  • Figured out how to get food out of multiple types of food toys
  • Encountered & conquered an ice cube
  • Mastered the snuffle mat
  • “Paddled” in her water dish
  • 10-week-old white golden puppy sniffs a snuffle mat made of strips of fleeceTaught Orly to snuggle with her
  • Helped me mow the lawn and pull dandelions
  • Had a bath and pawdicure
  • Stole the hearts of dozens of Missoulians and countless email and text friends

… All in her first two days.

She’s learning how to go up and down larger flights of stairs, brush her teeth, walk on a leash, and more. In between her many short training, learning, and exploring sessions, she sleeps. A lot. She settles down nicely in a large crate or pen, but prefers to lounge in the grass or on a huge dog bed. She loves toys, especially ducks and the small chirpy chick that was one of Orly’s baby toys. And anything that makes a crinkly sound.

Orly is teaching her to eat grass, try to break into the newly reinforced raspberry patch, stare down squirrels, chase her tail, wrestle, and collect her fair share of the egg tax.

 

 

WHAT Have I Gotten Myself Into?!

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Golden retriever Orly, standing on grass, play bowsSeveral years ago, I trained service dog puppies. I also taught at a school for service dog trainers. I worked with dozens of volunteers, including many puppy raisers. But, until now, I had never been a puppy raiser.

Missoula used to have a mobility service dog program called Pawsibilities, run by Glenn Martyn. Glenn also was one of my teachers; he’s an outstanding dog trainer with deep and varied experience. And he’s working on re-establishing his service dog organization.

Through a series of events that could only happen in a place like Missoula, where all the dog people know each other, Orly’s dog hiker met Glenn because Glenn was training my friend/neighbor’s puppy (who hikes with her because I made the match …). They seemingly cooked up this idea during a training session. Orly was on board too.

So, by the time Glenn asked whether I would be interested in puppy raising … well … I am not sure that “no” was an option.

9-week-old golden pup Dotty runs with hears flying out to the sides
Photo by Christina Phelps

So here we are.

Dotty, named for my late grandmother, came home last night. Orly immediately invited her to play. Despite tumbling Dotty over a couple of times, Orly showed exceptional manners and is already a great big sister.

Dotty has learned to use the steps from the back deck to the grass — she went down last night and figured out “up” this morning. She’s also been introduced to food-filled chew toys, string cheese, and a water bowl (almost) big enough to swim in. She is learning to sit for meal prep. She already knows to ask to go outside and has not (yet) had an accident in the house. She seems to know about the magic sit, in fact, and takes treats very gently. She had a bath and had her very sharp little nails trimmed this morning, and behaved perfectly throughout.

We’ll follow her adventures over the next several months, as she learns all the skills she needs to be a great service dog!

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