Viking Pups Training Adventures

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

We're Back!

THE VIKING PUPS ARE BACK ON CAMPUS!

Well, they have been for a while. Sorry I've been slacking! The past few weeks that the pups have been on campus have been a whirlwind of activity and tons and TONS of stuff has happened for the club!

Our very own prodigy pup, Zorn, just turned a year old! (About 20 days ago, but who's counting? Not the absent mother of this blog...)

What a cutie / handsome young fellow!

We are cracking down on Zorn’s training, and man is he living up to his end of the deal! Zorn’s little girl is very special, and Zorn needs to be in tip top shape for when he gets placed with her. Zorn’s big training goals right now include working on turning lights on and off against a wall:

We practice on these so we don't scratch up our walls!

Holding objects for as long as his handlers would like, as demonstrated by ex-service dog in training Oden:

Jut because he's good at it doesn't mean he has to like it! :D

And doing just about everything that he does with a walking person with a person in a wheelchair. Because his little girl will be in and out of a wheelchair, Zorn has to learn to respond to his tasks, how to respond differently to different commands while in the wheelchair, and even how to navigate differently! Additionally Zorn has started to be introduced to the feel of a bracing harness, which he will wear just like his buddy Bo, to help support his little girl if she wobbles while she walks.

Looking mighty handsome while handler Mary bribes him with treats.

Zorn has also just been neutered! His handlers are going to miss seeing him in class while he takes some well-deserved time off to recover. Get well soon lil man, we miss you!

He does not like the cone of shame.

Miss Emmy is absolutely ruling the roost here at Augie- people see her and they absolutely swoon. Emmy is now almost a whopping 4 months old, and although we love her floppy ear look, we are all SO ready for her ears to point- her handlers are having fits over them flopping back down because she’s teething now!

Rocking the QCCANdana.

Of the crazy Emmy moments we’ve had since back to school, finding out how much Emmy looooooooooves eggs tops the list. Not only does she wait by the refrigerator at dinnertime, she also recognizes the shape of the egg container and the person who gives her the eggs. Emmy also shows off her smarts in a thousand different ways, and all of them mean BIG trouble. In just one day this little gremlin stole her handler’s treat bottle, chewed it up, opened the cap, tilted out a bunch of treats, ate them, and then chewed up the lid so her handler couldn’t close the bottle again!

Success for Emmy, another bottle of treats gone for her handler.

Emmy is showing all of her mobility dog potential, from picking up objects and bringing them to her handlers to learning sit and down with increasing duration and distance, and is already mastering leave it and wait. She’s definitely too smart for her own good.

Sitting like a pro for her handler, look at that German Shepherd focus!

In Viking Pups news, Zorn accompanied our Pres and VP to a discussion about seizure response dogs- one of the goldens we will be receiving in a few short weeks will be exactly this kind of service dogs! Seizure response is unlike any sort of training the Viking Pups have ever done before, and we’re nervous and so excited to be bringing one into our program!

Zorn and Emmy also starred in a new photo shoot by the wonderful and talented Lisa Francescon of the newly titled Francescon Portraiture! These beautiful pictures will be featured in the 2013-2014 Viking Pups calendar and the proceeds of this will be donated to QCCAN and Viking Pups to help us train these wonderful dogs! Lisa also has mentioned us in an incredibly sweet blog post- thanks Lisa! You're amazing.

Here are just a few of many STUNNING pictures Lisa has taken of our babies- they're gorgeous as always!

And in other OTHER news, our wonderful breeder at Iron Hill Retrievers is saving us two wonderful golden retriever puppies, the soon-to-be-picked Carver and Westie! Unfortunately the pup from my previous blog post will not be our Westie, but he will be going to a home to be a beloved pet. Our pups will be picked from one of two litters- we don't know who yet, and the suspense is killing us!

Sophie and Max Pups Zosia and Harry Pups

Just a selection of the cutie patooties we might be getting from Chris! See the Sophie & Max puppies (featured on the left) here and the Zosia & Harry puppies (featured on the right) here.

Carver will be a seizure response dog, paired with the gorgeous little girl featured in the video linked above. From what I’ve heard she’s a total sweetheart and we cannot wait to see how much our very special future boy will help her out. Seizure response is unlike anything the Viking Pups has trained before, and everybody is nervous and excited to see how it goes! Because of just how special this boy will be, he's been assigned to a very small team of just our two top trainers, Mary and Allie, AKA the President and Vice President. We take our jobs seriously here at Viking Pups!

Westie will be a facility dog to a courthouse- as you can tell, both of these babies are going to be a totally different ball game. Westie’s job is going to be to comfort children as they go to testify against other people who might intimidate them- you might recognize this job description from this blog, because originally Cami was going to be placed at this facility. However, our Head Trainers decided that this facility deserved their very own dog, selected for them and trained from puppyhood- Westie is for sure going to be a success here.

This year is already shaping up to be a fantastic year, and all the Viking Pups are ready to get started on some serious training!

A special thanks to:

QCCAN

The Quad Cities Canine Assistant Network is the non-profit organization that makes our program possible. As sister organizations QCCAN is an integral part of the Viking Pups mission, helping us with training, putting us in contact with clients, and most importantly, training service dogs and reaching more people who need the dogs to live better lives.

Iron Hill Retrievers

Christina Clark, our fabulous breeder and owner of Iron Hill Retrievers. All of our Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers have been donated by Christina and they are all spectacular, with wonderful temperaments and absolutely GREAT looks.

Team Huerta Hof

A huge thank you to the Huerta Hof family for donating our German Shepherd girl Emmy! Team Huerta Hof breeds gorgeous German Shepherds, and their dogs are found everywhere, from family homes to the Schutzhund field. We're sure Emmy will be a huge success!

And last but not least:

Lisa Francescon and Francescon Portraiture!!!

Thanks for taking all of your beautiful pictures, Lisa! They're amazing, and you show off our pups so much better than our grainy phone pictures! You're incredibly talented and deserve every bit of business you get!

To learn more / keep up to date about Viking Pups:

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Back To School Updates!

Hey guys! So, since all of the important members of the club (namely, the pups) will be back on campus in one week, here’s a back to school update just for you!

Our two active pups are still enjoying their last few weeks of summer vacation off with their fosters, Emmy with Mary:

And Zorn with Kat (Hey guys, that’s me!)

I have no good pictures of Zorn and I, so my fluffy pup will do. FOSTER BROS!

Emmy’s growing like a weed. Her ears are already starting to point (they weren’t at all this time last week!), and I swear she’s gotten bigger in just the few weeks since we officially made her a Viking Pup. She’s going to tower over the rest of our dogs, and that isn’t the only difference we’re going to see with our German Shepherd baby. German Shepherds come with a whole package of personality differences from Labs and Goldens, our past service babies. For one, they’re born ten times more vocal. When this baby is upset, she lets you KNOW. For two, they have an insanely high drive, constantly on the go and pushing to do new things and exploring and soooo much energy. Emmy’s foster mom will tell you, this baby keeps her on her feet.

Emmy is already showing off her smarts to the Viking Pups handlers, in good ways (like learning in a week how to alert to the door to go outside, retrieving objects that a mobility dog will be needed to retrieve, and exploring on her own while still keeping an eye on mom) and in troublesome (finding the perfect place in her foster’s house to hide so nobody can grab her, pulling electrical wires out of their sockets, and finding holes in fences). Fortunately whether these smarts get her in trouble or show off her talents, all of them show off her incredible potential to be an amazing service dog! Her foster mom (who’s the President, so I’d say she knows what she’s doing) has in a week had her picked for a mobility dog (an intense kind of work), and we’re all super excited to have another one in the program!

Lil man Zorn is loving his last few weeks of break with his end-of-the-summer-foster Kat, while still training his butt off! Zorn is less than a month away from hitting one year old, and boy does he look it:

Though we’re glad he decided to keep the wrinkles.

Zorn’s working hard on so many tasks it’s unbelievable! Open, close, tug, take it, medicine, phone, nudge, rise up, hold, lights… Speaking as his foster, his training almost makes ME dizzy.

Zorn knocked himself out.

In addition to all of the tasks he’s working on mastering, the not-so-lil man is hard at work developing good habits for the future during his fear period- Zorn man’s going through a time in his life when for absolutely no reason at all, he will develop an irrational fear of something that has never bothered him before. For instance, doorbells, squeaky hinges, barking, cicadas, and footsteps, to name a few of Zorn’s current triggers. He spends ages every day listening to these sounds (thank you, YouTube) and getting treats to turn his ‘negative’ experience into a positive one. This method of training is not only effective, but produces some interesting side effects- like Zorn coming faster to ‘good quiet’ than to ‘come’ (though he responds to both, ha ha) and some serious drooling whenever he hears a dog barking.

On a personal note, we’d like to notify everyone that this handsome boy is officially off the market. Sorry girls, he’s met the one.

Meet Amy, Zorn’s true love.

They share everything together.

Treats.

His waterbowl.

Even Zorn’s special pillow (dubbed his ‘woobie’ by his foster grandma).

(Just so you know, even Zorn’s moms aren’t allowed to touch this pillow. He will nose our hands away)

Amy and Zorn have been together for twelve days now. Though Zorn can be a bit rough in pillow, he never fails to get Amy checked out by her personal physician (me) whenever she squeaks in pain. He has begun to take precautions by carrying her around by her ears, instead of by her sensitive belly. Amy and Zorn look forward to a long and happy life together, despite the seven-odd holes that have already mysteriously appeared on Amy’s head.

They'll be very happy together!

And on a final active puppies note, I would like to introduce WESTIE!

Westie is the next puppy entering our program, and will be enjoying the good life with his new foster sister Emmy in one week when he officially becomes a Viking Pup! Westie is a Golden Retriever donated by the oh so fabulous Christina Clark of Iron Hill Retrievers, and is the first Golden to enter our program since Oden and Tucker. We’re excited to have you, Westie!

Placed Puppies Updates!

So these are going to be the last updates on all of our placed babies for a while unless something comes up in their life or mine (like writer’s block) that warrants talking about them! So say your goodbyes to Cami, Bo, and Oden, because IF I HAD TO SO DO YOU. We’ll miss them on the blog!

Bobo graduated college only to go back to high school with his girl Juls! They started high school on week ago and it looks like they’ll do just fine.

Bo even got his own school ID!

Cami starts at HER new school soon too! Cami is officially at her new and forever home. Her new handler (who just so happens to be named Kamie herself, how cute is that) is so excited to bring Cami into her life and to the lives of the students at Smart Intermediate School. These guys wanted Cami so bad they raised the money for her in one night- you can tell how happy we are with her placement.

Thanks for the beautiful pictures once again, Lisa! You’re amazing!

Oden is being very well loved (and clearly very well embarrassed) by his new family.

Though let’s be honest, he didn’t have much dignity to begin with.

We love all of you and miss you! These are wonderful happily-ever-afters for all of you, and we hope all of our currents babies get to share placements as great as yours!

A special thanks to: