Tucker

Emmy & Tucker playing

Emmy has come to work with me several times now for short spurts of time. One day a few weeks ago, there was another special guest at work too...Tucker. Tuck is the son of one of my co-workers and I was his babysitter when I was in college. Tuck loves dogs and just got a huge kick out of running around the office playing with Emmy. The few pictures I got are a little blurry but you can see they both were excited to have someone their own size to play with! Emmy even listened really well when Tucker gave her commands like "sit" and "down". Thanks Tuck!

Puppy Class at the Mall

Emmy at Puppy Class

Some of the other Paws dogs resting after class

Stella and her raiser

Siren- one of the little dogs. Paws is now accepting donations of small breeds for hearing assistance. (Sorry the picture is so blurry)

Tonight Emmy and I went to puppy class at Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids. This was a great outing for the dogs and a chance to work on their skills with LOTS of distractions! Each puppy & raiser team was paired up with another puppy/raiser. Because I'm a new raiser, I was paired up with a veteran raiser and we had a scavenger hunt like list of things to do during class time. We went off in the mall to accomplish tasks such as: sitting in the food court with the dog in a down, having strangers pet the dog (that wasn't a hard one to accomplish!), sitting in the bookstore, standing by the escalator, riding an elevator, walking around the mall without pulling, walking near the children's play area, etc. Emmy did fairly well. She was on overload a little at first with all the commotion, but after a while she relaxed, got a little more tired and settled right in to what she needed to do. It was a great class and I was able to capture some pictures of this great PAWS dog outing...never thought I'd see so many teal and maroon capes in one area!

Emmy's Weekend Adventure

Guest writer: Emmy

Friday afternoon Mom and Dad packed up my things – I was headed to Duke’s house for the weekend. I was surprised when Mom’s words got caught in her throat as she said, “See ya, Emmy, have a good weekend”. What? Was she leaving me? I hung out at the Admissions Office as Duke’s mom finished her workday… I rode home with her and to my surprise I rode “shotgun”. I was so excited I had trouble staying in the seat, but it was a quick ride to Duke’s house. When I arrived, I found he was there to greet me (along with Duke’s dad). He’s a big dog and he made it very clear, as I entered his yard, he’s boss – and I had better remember this or else I was in for a long weekend. I was excited and scared at the same time. This was the infamous PAWS dog that ingested 50 rocks and lived to tell about it. Well, he’s no longer a PAWS dog, so there would be less rules…. so I thought! WRONG! I’ve heard mom and dad tease by calling Duke’s house – “boot camp”. I’m not sure what they meant by this, as I actually had a lot of fun. I got to run around in Duke’s fenced in yard. And boy did I run. I actually can run faster than Duke and although he throws his weight around – I can now take him on. When Duke plays ball he totally ignores me – talk about being ball crazy –he has a major case of it. I don’t have a chance at getting the ball – so I run after Duke instead. I charge him with all my might – but he has a one-track mind. When he’s not playing ball – he’ll play with me - it’s pretty fun. One thing I didn’t like so much is Duke is pretty jealous of me, but he’s realizing that there’s enough love to go around for 2 dogs.

On Saturday, Duke’s mom and dad took me out for breakfast! I got to go and Duke was left behind. I guess it’s one of the advantages of being a PAWS puppy. I showed Duke’s dad all that I have learned. And he was pretty impressed. Mom and Dad would have been very proud of me! All sorts of people wanted to pet me – I liked being the center of attention. Saturday afternoon I took a long nap, as Duke went cross-country skiing. I take more naps because Duke and I play pretty hard when we’re outside. Saturday afternoon got pretty exciting… you see there’s a hot tub there. The routine for Duke is to play fetch by dropping the ball in the hot tub and then he fetches again. He could do this all day long if they let him. I got kind of bored because Duke doesn’t pay attention to me when he’s got the ball – so I turned my attention to the hot tub. I put my paws up on the edge – and the next thing I knew Duke’s dad was lifting me out – I had fallen in…my head and shoulders went under, but he saved me from totally falling in! My time outside was cut short – and Duke’s dad dried me off – and warmed me up. I’m sure grateful for a warm house and dinner at the end of the day.

Sunday we woke up to rain. Ickk! I liked playing in the snow better. Duke and I wrestled inside quite a bit – and he even let me “win” for a while. Duke’s mom got some video of us roughhousing in the living room. I like it when she calls me “wiggles”. I can’t help it I wiggle whenever she comes into the room. Duke’s a pretty good dog. He’s a bit set in his ways – but I think my winsome personality and good looks helped. I left his house no longer intimidated by his formidable reputation, knowing I have a new friend.

Puppy play time!!! (Listen at the end, the way they play will be explained)

Downtown, friends, and a new toy!!!

This week has been fun and exciting for Emmy, Thursday and Friday night we had friends over for dinner, so Emmy had lots of friends to play with and social with. On Friday Emmy spent the afternoon with Amy at work, and after we went to the Outpost downtown who was having their end of winter sale we wanted to check out, and instead of fun things for us, we found a new toy for her!!! You can see her new friend below, which is loves to play with and thrash!!! Emmy has really latched onto this guy, as you can see in her video and pictures. This weekend we started with her first visit to Phelps Cafeteria, which again Emmy is surprising us with how well she watches and stays with us in busy social settings.

Emmy and her new toy!!

I love to chew on his rope hair!!!!!

Show no mercy!!!!

As you can see, this toy is lots of fun, a great way to get some aggression out for her...

So I met this BIG doggie the other day

This weekend Emmy had an opportunity to go and meet Duke!!! Duke is a PAWS dog who had a career change, and is now a house pet. Duke is a 2 1/2 year old golden retriever, and is someone that Emmy is going to spend the weekend with in a few weeks when we are gone on a retreat. Emmy was not sure quite what to do with herself in the spacious yard, being it was her first time off of leash in a yard before. Emmy decided that it would be best to be Duke's shadow most of our time there, just following him around trying to figure him out, and get him to chase her and play with her. Needless to say after about an hour of running frantically in the snow with Duke, Emmy was exhausted and pretty much was groggy and sleeping on and off for the rest of the weekend.

If that was not enough Monday Emmy had lots of socialization. We went to three different offices on campus to visit people, and allow Bill to run some errands, then we went to the bank along with a few other stores. To finish off our voyage Emmy had her first chance to go to Cook cafeteria. Emmy did a great job just following us, and watching the students. Emmy is clearly a social dog, she loved just being able to watch the world go by and see all the fun at the cafeteria.

Amy and Bill with Emmy and Duke

Hmmmm....what do you smell like?

Freedom to roam, what shall I do with myself?

Will you be my friend?

So last night was a HUGE night for Emmy to socialize and make new friends. Amy and Bill hosted a meet and greet event for Emmy in their building, where Emmy got to meet and play with about 25 people!!! Emmy did a great job being very excited. Emmy also loved just sitting on people's laps and being able to get loved and petted by 3-5 people at once!!! I guess Amy and I will be boring after that. Overall it was a great event for Emmy and the residents. It gave us a great chance to share with the residents about how they can help us to raise Emmy better.