02 August 2007

Introducing...

...Puppy number 5. (Ok so I have had her for almost 6 months..O man has it really been 6 months!) Anywho Glacier is a female yellow lab and arrived on February 25th. The G506 litter was born on December 27 to 1st time mom Zola and gorgeous dad Evan. Glacier was the last of 11 puppies born. Their names are Garland/Sadie(released), Gable/Buddy (other school), Ginny (being raised by Zola's raiser), Gage (released), Gretchen(being raised in my region), Gala (other school), Gardenia/Harmony (released), Gem (being raised), Germaine/Genevieve/BrookLynn (other school), and Glacier. So ya I lucked out with names although people always confuse her for a boy because of her name (she has a pink collar now which solved that problem *GRIN*). I overlapped dogs for about 2 weeks. It was interesting. I loved having both puppies. Mork taught her a lot and Glacier taught Mork how to be patient with annoying little creatures who liked to bite his ears and tail. lol. A week before Mork went IFT we took both puppies to get photos done of them. They both well surpassed my expectations and behaved like angels. The photo shoot took all of 10 minutes of actual picture taking and 5 minutes of switching dogs on and off the table. It took me longer to pick out packages then it took to get the photos done. The photographer was amazed at how well behaved both dogs were and that they laid down when not being asked to do something. *yey*.
After Mork left it was difficult. Glacier is pretty much the complete opposite of Mork. She is high energy high drive and that has taken a lot of getting used to. I love this little girl her face with it perpetually sad wrinkles and droopy eyes make it almost impossible to stay angry for very long. Glacier's main problem was she was a crate barker... when I say that I dont mean the occasional barking I mean full blown howl bark whine for hours on end without giving a break to reward and let out. This was very frustrating and I tried EVERYTHING. Towel over the crate, leash to the collar, loud startling noises, ignoring and nothing seemed to work with her. At her first evals in April that is what we worked on the most. We brought kennels for her and Gretchen (who also had the same problem and share some of the other issues that Glacier has as well). Well I thought my puppy was bad...Gretchen had to be moved outside so that we could actually hear what our PE was saying. Glacier it seems didnt mind being quiet if someone else was doing the barking. lol. We worked Glacier with zig zag and off lead work. She was very good at evals.
In May, Glacier became the first one of my dogs that I had to bring to the vet. She had a really gross ear so we went and found out that it was not an infection she seemed to be doing the damage to herself for unknown reasons. So the vet gave us some different ear cleaner that healed the ear up in 5 days. May brought 4-H Animal Crackers held at Cornell University. Animal Crackers is kinda like a get together to learn about different species of animals rotating by year. This year just happened to be dogs and horses. Glacier accompanied me to the workshops and was amazing. We ended up just hanging out with GEB people from the Fingerlakes region who put on a presentation for one of the stations. That was fun I got to show off Glacier and also go to know people from another region. The next week I was invited to do a presentation for the 6th grade class about GEB and helped them with their math project on the cost of having an animal for a year (who better to ask then the girl who only has her dogs for a year. lol.) Glacier was very good but she started to display another of her annoying habits jumping into peoples faces. She would jump at them but wouldnt hit them...grr. May starts dog show season. Glacier became very well traveled as we took our 4-H kids to 4 shows though out May and June. We also did another presentation in June at a dog parade/ meet in the park. She was awesome and didnt really mind all the other dogs around. She went to the dentist with me and was AMAZING. In the waiting room she chilled and chewed on her bone then when we went back to start work on my teeth she went to sleep next to the chair. She trained a few of the hygienists that were there. They learned how to work around a dog in their super small cubbies! The only problem we had was that Glacier decided that the best most comfortable place to lay was on top of the hose for the suction thing and it took a while to maneuver her off of the cord. lol. July was a boring month. We did not do too much. She had 2 home switches. We had county fair which she went to for one day and was good. We walked around and she was only startled once by the pirate ship ride but her recovery was awesome. This brings us to know. My puppy is maturing and becoming a nice little puppy (my 57 lb yellow tornado *smile*). I will write about my trip to GEB last week and our puppy class last night separately.

4 comments:

Emily and the Labradors said...

I'm glad you introduced her! Those photos of her and Mork (and you!) are wonderful! And she does now look a lot like Angel... you're right!

Anonymous said...

yellow tornado sounds bout right for that dog, i miss mork the dork.

Lisa and pups said...

Oh, what a whirlwind. You've been up to a lot lately! Sounds like fun all those things you did - especially that Animal Cracker thing. How neat. Loved the photos of the two of them! What a great opportunity! You did get the best name! That's funny people always think she's a boy (except now with the pink collar). Everyone always though Runza was a girl!

Natalie said...

Aw love the photos of Mork and Glacier :)