My summer vacation: a trip to Oceanside, California

I can't tell you anything about how "college" is going for me at the Canine Companions for Independence Advanced Training campus because that is classified information until Mom hears from my trainers in October. Top Secret. But I can tell you about my trip here.

THIS IS MOM WITH MY BROTHER, GANGEE. Before the turn-in ceremony, Mom was wandering around puppy-less, (because I was kenneled early since I went into heat that morning). She was watching the other puppy raisers getting their picture: taken and hugging their puppies.

So she looked for one of my litter mates. CCI names all the puppies in one litter starting with the same letter and sure enough, my brother, Gangee, was there! His puppy raisers were real excited to meet Mom and talk about me and my brother. Gangee is small like me, but is a blockhead. I mean, he has a blocky head. But I don't. I have a round, small, cute, irresistible head with big, sweet eyes.

THIS IS ME WITH BOB THE BUILDER. (I'm the one on the left.) The puppy raisers were given free tickets to Legoland to thank them for raising us puppies. Mom said it wasn't entirely free because parking cost $12! She said it was interesting, but she would have had more fun going with a kid rather than a dog. What I liked best was that I saw two other CCI puppies there! One of the puppies, raised in Denver, went on a boat ride with his puppy raisers. So Mom decided to take me, too. But I didn't want to get in the boat even though Mom kept telling me it was like a bathtub. I love bathtubs. But a bathtub has water in it, not around it. I got in against my will and it was good I did because the little girl in front of us was screaming and she settled down when she got to pet the puppy (me).

THIS IS ME AND DOC IV. Doc is the first puppy Mom raised .for CCi. He's 12 now. He's old. Older than dirt. Mom hadn't seen Doc since she turned him in when he was my age. He was released from CCI because he liked chasing animals too much. So then he went to train with Customs to be a drug dog. But after a few months, he was released from Customs and adopted by a nice family in San Diego. He gets foot massages and has a bed with his name on it. He and I played some, and then when he got tired, I ran through his house and found all his toys. He has a squeaky duck I loved. I loved it so much I chewed a wing off! Mom liked meeting Doc's family and seeing him again. They said he barked at the door before we drove up and that he never does that. Mom thinks just maybe he knew she had been thinking about him and that he remembered her.

More Stories About Doggie College

While Mom was here, we toured my new school. We saw a kennel with my name on it! And one with Kelda's. I have a kennel mate named Mari. There are places to play and a room for training. They even have a swimming pool for when it gets hot.

In the grooming room, the bathtubs are up so high that we puppies have to climb steps to get in. Then they have a big hose that blows air to dry us off. They have a cabinet with glass doors that is a "doggie drier." The man giving us the tour said they take it off "tumble" before we get in. Ha, ha. The air blows around and dries us off more before we go back to our kennels.

THIS IS BOB THE CAT.
Do you remember me telling you about Kelda's cats and how her mom warned me about "Bob"at the CCI training center? Well, this is Bob. His job is to try to distract us puppies. As you can tell, it worked with me! He, however, didn't give me the time of day. Some tough cat.

THIS IS KELDA AT OUR NEW HOME. She is wearing a blue cape. AII of us puppies got blue capes, new Gentle Leaders (yuck) and leashes when we were turned in. I think it was to make us feel (and act) more grown up. The campus is named after Trixie, a canine author like me. Trixie wrote books before she died and raised lots of money for CCI, so she got a school named after her.

My first report card is out: I' m still in the program

Mom got her first report on how I'm doing at college. With that, the Code of Silence has lifted and I can now tell you some things about college life at the Canine Companions for Independence campus in Oceanside. Calif.

I am making a lot of new friends. I have a kennelmate named Mari. The food is good, the training is a lot of fun, but playtime is my favorite activity! We even have a pool to play in when it's hot.
The people here are really nice. There is one especially nice person I see every day. Her name is Becca Gordon and she is my trainer.

For the first few weeks of advanced training, I had temperament and medical evaluations. I (and all my classmates) had a temperament test on campus and then two off-campus evaluations at PETCO.
Of course, what puppy wouldn't want to go to PETCO, even if it is for a test? They wanted to see how we did with "environmental stimuli" i.e., prey (those cute little squeaky animals that people buy), other dogs, people, toys, sounds and new things.

We also went to Lowe's. I did good! My puppy report said I -was "calm, responsive and easy to manage." See? All the places I went to in BV helped me get a good report this month in "stores." Thanks!

I had heart and eye exams, hip and elbow X-rays. They can look right through me! Lots of us big dogs sometimes have hip and elbow problems, but not me! I'm healthy! I've been groomed, washed and dried.
They watch us for appropriate kennel and play-yard manners. Get a life. Anything goes, I say.

Well, I say that because my only bad marks on my report card were for not playing well with others. Well, more specifically, they told Mom that I am "OK in the kennels except that I bark waiting for my turn in the play yard. Now I ask you-is that inappropriate?

Then they said I have had a few mild incidents of toy possessiveness. They noticed that I hackled, growled and whirled away when another dog tried to take my toy.

What's a puppy to do? OK, let's focus on the words "few" and "mild." I'll try to get better at sharing.
Then they told Mom that sometimes I am difficult to motivate and my response to stressful work situations is to withdraw or become immobile. Mom and I had a routine of napping after she got home from work every day. Is that immobile or what?

Well, the good news is that I'm still in the program! I know people are rooting for me to "make it" so I will try. But gee - what's wrong with an afternoon nap?

THIS IS MY BROTHER, GANGEE, with his puppy raisers. He is in his college cape. I don't know how he is doing in school.

THIS ISTHE PLAY YARD AT MY SCHOOL This is where the toy police caught me being a bit possessive of my toys.

My second report card is pretty good

Note from Mary Lee Bensman: I looked back over Gamay's last columns and discovered that ever since she has gone away to "college" she has ceased to write as "guest columnist" and seems to be claiming the column for herself. My column. And so, lest my column "go to the dogs," she is being reinstated to the position of Guest Columnist.

by Gamay III
Guest Columnist (good grief)

People sometimes ask Mom why Canine Companions for Independence wanted her to keep me "intact." That's because once CCI gets us puppies back from our raisers, they want to pick the cream of the crop to be breeders. As Uncle Stu (the boss at my college) says, "When we see a puppy and say, ‘I want 120 more just like that,' those become potential breeders."
Well, that's not in the cards for me anymore–I have been spayed. I'm not taking it personally. And Mom hopes that helps me quit barking for attention and helps me share my toys with others. Those are two behaviors I keep getting low marks in on my monthly report card from my trainer, Becca.

However, in my own defense, here are some of the behaviors I don't show: aggression, biting, fighting with other dogs, forging on my leash, jumping, licking, mouthing, prey drive, rough play with other dogs, submissive, whining and about 20 other things they don't want us to do. I think that's pretty good!

I'm having a little problem with excitable greetings, so Becca, told Mom that we are working on "impulse control for greetings and during sit and downs stays."

Last month, we went on some more field trips. I missed going to the mall because I was recovering from surgery. But I went to Ralphs, Harbor and Target. On my report card, Becca, said that in Ralphs I showed some anxiety by lip licking and stress yawning. Stress yawning. That's sounds like a contradiction of terms. Bored yawning, maybe. Sleepy yawning, maybe. On my other field trips, Becca said I "seemed confident and was easy to manage and performed her skills well." So what's a little yawning?

And I got good marks in all of the behaviors CCI wants to see: Accepts physical handling/grooming, accepts cradling (that's when I get on my back and let people rub my tummy, feet and ears), attentive to handler, calm, interacts appropriately with dogs, interacts appropriately with people, seeks direction from handler, walks nicely on leash, willing.

So Mom and I think that's a pretty good report card.

By the way, my friend Kelda also will not be having any puppies. And she is very excitable off leash. And has an attitude! But maybe we'll both straighten up. For now at least, we're still in the program!

When I lived in BV, Mom and I sometimes when to agility classes. This is me doing a perfect run around the obstacle course.

All about my brother, Gangee

by Gangee
guest columnist

Hi, I'm Gangee, Gamay's brother. I was raised in Glendale, Ariz. by the Marshall family,Carly, Robin and Cordell. Carly is the one who instigated the whole puppy raising thing. She needed some service hours for high school. She was a volunteer for "Noah's Ark,"an animal rescue organization that adopts out pets at Petsmart. But her service hours had to benefit humans not animals. So when she saw someone at her church raising a CCI puppy, she realized she could help humans and still get to work with us animals. She was really excited and checked out the cci.org and applied. Since she was only 17, her mom (Grandma Robin, to me) agreed to help. Within just a few weeks, she was scheduled for her phone interview and home inspection. See, our puppy raisers have to pass inspection to get us puppies.

Once she got me, Carly (Mom) took me to puppy classes and the all the other things that we did during the year and 2 months I stayed with her. Well, the whole family helped, of course, but Carly was my main Mom. I got to go to school with her and was the star of the show. And I went to Grandma Robin's office, shopping and church. I did a lot of the same stuff Gamay did in BV.

During my puppy years, I could be two different dogs. I could be wild man when I was playing with the other two dogs I lived with, but when I "dressed" in my working outfit, I was an angel. Well, mostly. People are amazed that working dogs learn that the outfit means work and that no outfit means – playtime!

Thanks to me, Carly is going to graduate in May, 2010. Well, she couldn't have graduated without her service hours and that was all about me!

Now, as far as how I'm doing in college, out of the seven pups that matriculated from the Arizona region on the same day as me and Gamay, only two of us remain in the program–me and our half-brother, Yuma. (Gamay and I have lots of half brothers and sisters, I think.). Besides that, recently both Yuma and I were selected by the Guide Dog of America Organization. That means we have left the CCI facility in Oceanside, Calif. and are now at the Guide Dog facility north of L.A. learning to work with blind people. Wouldn't it be cool if Gamay became an assistance dog for someone in a wheelchair and I became a guide dog for a blind person?

How can you give him up?

"Now that we've been through it, we agree that it was the hardest thing we have ever done. We have always had dogs in our home that have all died of old age. To give one up, especially one that
went everywhere with us, was so difficult. We still miss him terribly. However, we just have to look at it knowing that as much as it hurts us to lose him, he is going to give someone the ability to be independent and change their lives for the better. Knowing that we played a part in that makes it all worthwhile. The matriculation/graduation ceremony that we attended the day we turned him in didn't take away the sadness we felt when we handed him back to CCI, but it certainly helped us rationalize the whole experience. When you see and hear the graduates talk about how their dog is going to change their life, you KNOW you are doing the right thing."
–Grandma Robin

Gamay's second semester:

Practicing commands with people in wheelchairs

I've started my second semester at Canine Companions for Independence college.
I'm still barking some and keeping my toys to myself. But my trainer, Becca, is trying to help me share.

During my first semester I (and the other pups) worked on old and new commands with ambulatory people. Ambulatory pups working with ambulatory people. Humans sure like using big words for simple things. Anyway, now I'm also working on my commands with someone in a wheelchair sometimes.

Some of my new commands I've been learning are: push, light, switch and tug/drop. These commands are teaching me to turn a light switch on and off and to open and close doors.
I'll be able to pull on a rope to open a refrigerator door and get myself a midnight snack! (Or, I suppose, get something for my human.) I was born knowing how to push on a door. I used to open Mom's bathroom door and let myself out. Sometimes I could push on it from the outside and it would bounce open. (Mom hasn't washed my nose prints off that door yet.)
Becca said I am progressing well with my commands and "generalizing them well to new environments." I did good on our field trips last month. We went to a farmer's market and I really wanted to play with some other dogs, but I didn't.

Out of nine of us pups that were raised in Colorado and turned in together, only one has been released from the program. Eight of us are still in, including Kelda (who still has an attitude off leash) and my friend Anders II. I met Anders at Legoland. He and I rode the boats there. He was raised in Denver. His puppy raisers said he was a perfect puppy to raise. They are not surprised that he is still in the program (with no black marks on his puppy report, either.) His trainer says that Anders "hangs out well." Who would have thought that "hanging out" would be a desirable skill?

The puppy raisers for my brother, Gangee, said that before he left our Oceanside campus to go train with Guide Dogs for America, he barked in the kennels for attention, just like me. Gee, if they'd just give us the attention we want 24/7, we'd quit barking!
Mom asked her siblings to pray for me to play better with others. (Aunt Nancy said that was no problem because she was already praying for two of her grandkids to play together nicely; throwing me into the prayer mix was no extra work!)

CCI has renamed "Advanced Training" to "Professional Training." I'm not sure owhy they did that, but Mom did "puppy raising," not real "training," so maybe they wanted to make that "more clear. I don't know. Humans do strange things.

So I've been in "Professional" Training now for three months and have three months left. It's not all work, by the way. I'm getting plenty of lovin' and play time!

Puppy Raising Time in Buena Vista, Colo.

Advanced Training in Oceanside, Calif.