France is in class!

France has been matched up with a partner and they are scheduled to graduate on August 25. We will post pictures.

Congratulations, France. What a guy!

Puppy takes on "The Bottle"

Plastic laundry detergent bottles are great puppy toys! They work best when the pups are still pretty young. France was able to demolish them in 30 seconds once his mouth got big enough to wrap around the bottle's mouth. Dan's still small enough to be entertaining --

It helps to have a slick floor, too!

Dan on the 4th of July

Dan's pretty excited by the fireworks. ;-)
Must be some security in sleeping under the piano.

Upside down dog

Dan's an upside down dog. He spends an unusual amount of time of his back - sleeping, basking in the sun, chewing on his toys, getting his tummy rubbed. It's pretty funny.

Dan's Pillow Person (by Jim)

Rarely does Mary Jo get pictures of herself to post to the blog. Here she is, enjoying the company of Dan. Or, is he enjoying the company of Mary Jo? Or, are they both happy?

 Here Dan lounges comfortably on his pillow person, who comfortably snuggles with the puppy.

And I would happily change places with either of them.

Boys will be boys

Jim and Dan having fun after dinner.

Lunch with Dan

Jim and I had lunch at our favorite deli today and Dan, of course, went with us. Here's a picture of Dan at the counter and another of him snoozing under the table. Good boy!

And we toasted Fred, France's brother, who is graduating today in Oregon.

And France, who's in Phase 2.

Late night snuggles

Jim and Dan get in a few late night snuggles. Sweet puppy. Great shirt.

12 week old puppies

I had this picture of France when he was 12 weeks old. That was quite a while ago -- April 2011. 

France is all grown up now and is in Phase 0 of his formal training. He is tall and lanky, just like his Daddy, Ozzie. And France has a sweet, gentle personality. He was fairly timid for most of his puppyhood, but seemed to come into his own just about 5 or 6 weeks before his recall. France is the first of our puppies to actually be recalled. Both Maren and Silky were cc'd at the last minute.

Now for Dan: Here's Dan, who will be 12 weeks old tomorrow. And, just for his birthday, he gets to meet Dr. Vet and get his 12-week puppy shots. Oh, boy!

Dan is settling in. He's been here for nearly 2 weeks. Dan is super cuddly and wants to spend all day on someone's lap. We're working on his oral fixation -- seems to need to have something in his mouth all the time and he doesn't really care if it's a nylabone or one of my fingers. He's never met a leaf he didn't like.

Dan's quite confident, walks pretty well on the leash and is mastering relieving out doors - although that is still a work in progress.

Welcome, Dan.

Here's a picture of Dan, our 4th puppy. His parents are Simon and Tess. His birthday was 3/8/12 - exactly 14 months after France was born.

France @ 1 year

This is France's 1 year old birthday picture. January 8, 2012. Jim took France to the Brickyard Cove Marina and captured our puppy's expression in the late afternoon sun.

Handsome guy!

France's last day at Yoshi's

France has gone with me to Kinuko's hair salon once a month for the past year. He owns the place. Today is his last visit to Kinuko's. France's recall date is May 21 (although it still needs to be confirmed). We are beginning the period of recording France's "last" visits to all the places he has frequented since March 19, 2011.

He also owns Yoshi, haircutter extraordinaire!

 And Yoshi's wife, Hitomi. They love France and have loved him since the first time they saw him.

France always enters the salon in his puppy coat. He sleeps in front of the chairs while I am shampooed and shorn. Then I take his puppy coat off and he visits with Yoshi and Hitomi. It's hard to tell who enjoys the puppy rubs more.

France @ Kaiser

France and I went to Kaiser to pick some things up from the pharmacy. We sat down to wait our turn and saw a little boy sitting with his mom just across from us. The boy was shy, his mom said he was afraid whenever he left home. France just kept looking at him; the boy kept looking at France. The attraction was irresistible.

Good boy France!!!!

France at 15 months

I've been totally remiss about posting about our little BLM, France. He's a big boy now and ready for recall. Rumor has it he will be on the list for the May 21 recall. That has to be confirmed, so the actual date may be later. We're making plans, though, for May 21.

Here is France on his 15 month birthday. He's very long, tall and weighs 70 pounds. He's by far the largest puppy from his litter. His brother, Fred, went to Oregon with the April 19 recall. Their sister, Filly, is in San Rafael at breeder evaluation. Their other sister, Fiona, was career-changed.

I hope to post some pictures to "fill in" many of these past months. France has been a delight to live with -- he's a soft dog with a sweet personality.

Puppy club outing at the Hamilton Fire Station

 Our puppy club visited the Hamilton Fire Station in Novato. The folks there were great -- they led the puppy parade through the station, started engines, blew sirens, opened up the ambulance for the puppies to walk through and showed us all their gear. We had a great time!

 Lovely group photo. For more pictures of the outing, click on this link:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/112987909984668507901/albums/5682127833676116113
It will take you to a Google+ photo album.

I'll try and upload all the pictures from there to this blog later this weekend.

France and Half Dome

Here's a picture of France and me in front of Half Dome. It was pretty cold -- for us coastal folks. France did really well on his first trip to the mountains. More later.

Silky's 2 today!

Happy Birthday, Silky. Remember our trip to LA and how much fun you had with Dylan in Santa Monica? That trip was in January '11 -- not quite a year ago. Seems like a lot has happened since then -- especially after returning Silky to GDB in March and raising France since then. Best wishes, Silky, for a happy year and lots of kongs.

Big improvement

France is much better! Hooray!

His tests came back negative for parasites, so his digestive upset must have been caused by something he ate. I wonder about that little spider he snarfed up on one of our walks. Or gnats - he loves to grab gnats and little flies. I suspect we'll never know.

The combination of Flagyl and ID dog food/bland diet have worked their magic. France has given us a normal looking stool and we're back to work today.

Handsome boy -- hard at work!

Poopy puppy

France has diarrhea. Yuck. Poor guy. He woke us up at 3:30 Sunday morning, whining in his crate. He'd pooped in there and was super contrite. Needless to say, this started about 12 hours of mad dashes for the relieve area outside - usually about every hour or so.

We went right to the bland diet protocol, cooked up tons of rice, bought out the local grocery store's stock of cottage cheese. We started France on Pepto Bismol, which seemed to put a stopper in the pup. No more diarrhea for the next day and half so we stopped the Pepto. Guess what returned? Big time.

Today, we took a trip to the vet. They'll run a couple of tests to see if they can find a cause. And France and I came home with Flagyl and some ID dog food.

So what did he eat? Leaves? Sticks? Rocks? He's never off leash -- even to relieve. We live in a condo so we don't have a yard. It's a mystery. Whatever it was, it certainly upset his digestive system. Hopefully, the Flagyl and ID will calm it down and France will recover quickly. After all, we have an outing on Saturday at the Jelly Belly factory in Vacaville.

If you've had similar experiences with your pup and/or have a good remedy, let me know. France, especially, will appreciate it.

Puppies and ponies

Our puppy club was invited to visit the Sonoma Horse Park in Petaluma. We went last summer, too, so this was our 2nd annual outing. The manager, Ashley Herman Griffin, took a minute to hang out with France.

Apparently, France thought Ashley had been working too hard and needed a puppy pick-me-up.

Here are the puppies and raisers who were able to make the outing. Elizabeth (4th from right) is with her new breeder, Jaika. The black lab next to Jaika is Zia, a new transfer puppy. Welcome to both the new BLFs!

The horse park was busy. This is a young rider in the hunter competition. France enjoyed watching them in action . . . from a distance.

Here Ava and Canasta (puppies L and R) are walking with Nancy and Carol (humans). There were lots of horses and ponies, and lots of puppies and pet dogs.

Elizabeth taught us the right way to feed apples and carrots to the horses. Keep those fingers flat! Just like giving a piece of kibble to an excited pup who is on food protocol. France politely uses his lips to get the kibble.

We walked down the line of stables to meet more horses and see them in their stalls. Who's more interested here? The horse or Joe, Sharon and Bill's career change lab.

Three black labbies hanging out in a bit of shade. They are Zia, Jaika and France (left to right).

Great carrots!

France passed out as soon as he got into the car for the ride home. It was a big day for a little puppy.