Quail goes to Princeton

Our puppy club made its annual pilgrimage to Thomas Sweets in Princeton via the Princeton Dinky. The Princeton Dinky is a train that runs from Princeton Junction to Princeton -- it's a very short five minute ride and a great experience to trains for our pups. We all met at the Princeton Junction station to catch the train into Princeton.



Once on campus, we had to stop for photo ops before heading off to Thomas Sweets where we had lunch at the little cafe nearby followed by ice cream of course!

Lunch and ice cream for the people and milk bones for the pups.

Quail had a great time and fell asleep during the short train ride back.

Just a quick note on my last post about mallomars. Apparently I'm not the only person with a seasonal obsession with mallomars :-) A friend of mine sent me this article...
It’s October and That Means M-m-mallomars!

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It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

And no, I am not getting all commercial and starting to decorate for Christmas BEFORE Halloween -- I'm talking about the time of year when beautiful displays of Mallomars appear in the stores!



Mallomars are not available year round and that is a good thing because I can probably eat an entire box in one day. I'm not even sure when they are available, all I know is that displays just magically appear. I try to show some sort of self-discipline by only buying one box (at a time) and I try to only eat maybe one Mallomar per hour, but oh well, if I have to, I'll just take the dogs for more walks.

This post is in memory of Aunt Anna, who loved Mallomars and gave me my very first one.

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Growing bigger everyday!

I've always thought that puppies grow too fast. But I have to admit that I am happy that Quail no longer fits underneath the sofa.



Years ago we had a cat named Clarence. He was a sweetie but a little bit on the timid side. When we had friends over, he headed for the sofa where he eventually tore out the bottom meshy stuff. Quail keeps getting caught up in it because we never fixed it -- she would get all tangled when I tried to pull her out from under the sofa so as much as I would love her to stay small a little bit longer, at least I'm not losing her under the couch.

Just a little bit o fur...

..by as in Furby the rabbit.

Over Labor Day weekend, Quail met her cousin, Furby. All our puppies get to meet their bunny cousins and amazingly, our pups are fairly well behaved around them. Quail did get a mouthful of fur but Furby has so much, I don't think she noticed.



Socks, the other bunny cousin, was smart and stayed away.

Another note home from Ava...

Last Thursday we received another letter from The Seeing Eye. Ava has already started her training. Wow--they are really moving her quickly through the system! We'd like to think it is because she is exceptional but in reality, I think The Seeing Eye is just trying to speed up the process. In the past, we've received the "hips are okay" postcard around 4-6 weeks and the training letter about a month after that. Ava's "hips are okay" postard arrived about 2 weeks after her return and her training letter arrived a week after that. At this rate, maybe her Town Walk will be in December.

In the meantime, Harley and Quail are enjoying the cooler weather.



This post is dedicated to Matt who apparently reads my blog during lunch and has been looking for an update since last week!

Q is for...

Quail went to her first PuppyPALS meeting last night. She had a blast although walking her on the slippery floors was a challenge -- she made a very good mop :-)

The best part of the meeting was seeing her with her sister, Quote. Quail is on the right and Quote is on the left.


We tried to take a picture of the two of them together but they seemed more interested in playing than posing. We've had black lab puppies before but I never thought Gusto, Harley and Quail looked alike as pups. But Quail and Quote really do look alike. They even had the same bark and cry. Quail is just a little bit bigger but I think it is more puppyfat than actual size.



BTW, we don't name our pups. They come from The Seeing Eye already named and all the pups in the same litter start with the same letter. And The Seeing Eye runs through the whole alphabet and starts all over again. It's always interesting to see what names they come up with especially for the more difficult letters.

Images created using StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 Software featuring the Baby Girl Bright Kit and the Glow feature.

A note home from Ava

One of the first things our pups learn to do when they return to the Seeing Eye is write. Ava's first postcard home arrived yesterday. This is what she had to say...

I'm having fun in The Seeing Eye kennel playing with my new friends.

The veterinarian x-rayed my hips and sent the film to the University of Pennsylvania for review. I'm pleased to let you know that my hips are okay and I'll be assigned to an instructor very soon.

Love, Ava

We're looking forward to more postcards from Ava. In the meantime, I've taken tons of pictures of Quail that I have yet to sort through. I thought I'd share this picture of our trio taken before Ava left.

Why we do what we do...

Besides my blog, I also manage the website for our puppy club -- Puppy PALS -- PALS stands for Puppies Aiding the Less Sighted. You can visit our club website at www.puppypals.weebly.com. Our club also has a blog at www.tsepuppypals.blogspot.com.

On the website, you can see cute pictures of our current club puppies as well as pictures of our graduates -- we are so proud of them!

Whenever I tell people that our dogs are not ours and what it is that we do, they tell us they could never do it. I'm always afraid that their thought is that we don't love our dogs as much as they love theirs because we give ours away. But if you know me and you know how I am with our pups, you know that I love love love these puppies. It is incredibly hard to give them back and I have cried over the return of everyone of them. Every now and again I need a reminder as to why we do what we do.

Ava's scrapbook

When our pups return to the Seeing Eye, I send them back with a tiny scrapbook. Many people with guide dogs can actually see -- they just can't see very well. Some can see well enough to look at pictures of their guide dogs as puppies and of course, I'm always happy to share pictures of our puppies :-)


Here are the first and last pages from Ava's scrapbook.





Here's a link to the whole scrapbook I sent back with Ava incase you would like to see it. I sent her back with a Creative Memories StoryBook. It's a softcover 7x5 album that I made on my computer and sent to Creative Memories to be printed into a StoryBook. It was just the right size to go back with her.

http://www.cmphotocenter.com/photos/share.php?code=hPnxWQucoFb50zBZZonKHUCpnLtmNcfi&share_type=storybook

I asked a friend of mine who works with the blind for some suggestions on what would be the best "design" for the book since I was fairly positive that my love of bright prints and swirly letters would not be the easiest thing to read. Based on her recommendations, Ava's scrapbook is a simple black background with large white text.

Ava's been gone for two weeks now. We love having Quail but we still miss Ava. We're hoping to hear from Ava soon.