Tripper Visit

Now that Mike and I are finally settled in our new place in Maryland, I just now got around to downloading pictures from the summer. And obviously the best pictures are from my visit with Tripper and his new family the Clarks. But before we get to that I should fill you in on our summer.

After moving out of our spacious (free) 4 bedroom house at Salisbury (oh the perks of working at a boarding school!) we moved in with my parents for a couple of months to help save a couple of bucks. While we were very excited to move the bills that come with renting were not so exciting. So we moved in with the rents and pups Riley and Maya.

Most of July was spent playing lacrosse and visiting family and friends. The end of July and beginning of August started a very crazy and eventful month for us. We moved into our new apartment outside of DC. Thankfully we hired movers because unpacking our two Pods and lugging all of out stuff into the house ended up being a six hour job for six strong men. But then the next day Mike and I had to rent a truck and repack all of the stuff that didn't fit into our tiny apartment.


After a week of unpacking and getting settled I was happy for a well placed trip to attend one of my best friend's bridal shower in CT.

 But before spending some well needed time with my UConn girls I got to visit Tripper!!

The  Clark Family was nice enough to host me for the day and let me visit with my favorite Guide Dog. They video taped our hello and it was super cute...he might have made my lip bleed from kissing me too hard...but it was worth it. 

After spending some time in the back yard we went to a local park to let him swim a little. Tripper and I went in my car to spend a little alone time. It was clear that he hasn't been on our kind of car ride in a while.

As soon as Tripper jumped in the car he frantically inhaled all of the smells of his long lost sisters. Then he just sort of sat there not sure what to do.  Until he finally remembered about the window...

and the joy of sticking his head out of it.

I forgot to bring my camera swimmies but needless to say he was pooped after.

It was so great to see my big man. Mike and I are really thankful that he's happy with the Clark Family and they are taking such good care of him. He'll be going in for his training pretty soon and then he'll be on the final stages to becoming a real Guide Dog.

Tripper Update

Tripper is all settled in to his new home in Southington, CT with the Clark Family, including dog siblings, Buddy (the golden) and Panda (the Pom). The Clark Family has been so amazing send us updates and stories about their time with Tripper.

Tripper has really taken to the kids, Amanda (who took all of these great pictures) and Matt, pictured above. They have enjoyed teaching Tripper the game of badmiton, where Tripper tries to steal the birdie! But they have found out that he doesn't like the grass being cut...something we didn't have to do at Salisbury. He saw the grass being cut, but by big riding mowers. The Clarks have a had mower and he tries to bit the tires...so now he has to stay inside when they cut the lawn.

 There hasn't been a class that they've been to yet, but a group walk is coming up soon, so I'll be interested to see how he does. But so far he's been perfect for them...or at least that's what they say! He's probably shedding like crazy now with all of the heat. His new house-mates, Buddy and Panda were sent to the groomers for baths and haircuts...and when they came back Tripper barked at them! He's such   a baby!!

 It sounds like Tripper is doing well with the adjustment. I hope he still misses us because we miss him and talk about him every day. Casey particularly misses him, although Riley has been a good temporary replacement. Rocky...I'm not so sure how she feels. I think she might be happy to have her mommy back to her self.

If you didn't hear this story already...it might make you teary eyed so be prepared...

Last week Casey, Rocky, Mike and I were walking along the Delaware River toe path when we saw a person with a dog coming down the path. Obviously we did not have them on a leash so we needed to call them back to us so they didn't bother the dog if it wasn't friendly. Well as the dog came closer...Casey started crying louder and louder. Now Casey loves other dogs and often cries to play with them...but this was like nothing we had ever heard. As they came within 50 yards of us Mike and I could see that the dog was a Shepard. Mike held the dogs while I approached the man, asking if his dog was friendly, explaining that our dogs are very friendly but I think they think your dog is an old dog of ours...Tripper. When we let Casey go she ran as fast as I've ever seen her run straight up to the dog, before she put her breaks on about 5 yards away (when I'm assuming she saw it wasn't Tripper) she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and came back to us.

It was so sad.

On a bright note, I'm going to be able to see Tripper in August!!! One of my best friends Tori is having her bridal shower in CT so I'm going to go up early and visit with some friends...and Tripper!! I honestly can't wait. But until then I'll continue to look forward to the wonderful updates from the Clark family.

Tripper Check In

It's been two weeks since we've said good bye to Tripper. Luckily for us the past two weeks have been full of packing, moving, weddings, conventions and lacrosse tournaments...so there hasn't been too much time to think about how much we miss Trippy.

Thankfully the Clark family has been amazing on keeping us up to date with how he's doing and what they're up to. They had to give away their Fidelco dog Samson, so they understand how hard saying goodbye was. They have two teenage children, Mathew and Amanda who have already bonded with Tripper and introduced them to their own pets...Buddy, a golden, Panda, a Pomeranian and their bird.

We we first met the Clarks Amanda asked me if I thought Tripper would eat the bird. I was hesitant as I know Tripper is very trainable and would never mean to hurt anything...but I said yes, if the bird flew right past him I think he could try and take a chunk out of it. Needless to say they have been introducing the bird slowly. Tripper was afraid at first (shocker) but now is getting better, mostly barking at it. I suggested to Eva (the mom) to feed Tripper near the cage to help get him used to the bird, she says he's been getting better.

Now that school is out everyone is home for the summer...a great time to transition Tripper to a new home. The kids have been playing with him a lot in the back yard...thought no lacrosse, he's been playing soccer and chasing the badminton birdie around like crazy.

He's been doing a good job of leaving Buddy alone...I think he probably likes getting so much attention in his new home. Without Rocky around he probably runs the show over there....although Panda isn't shy to put him in his place either!  

The Clarks say that training wise he's been really good for them. They've taken him so many places already, flea markets, shopping and everywhere else with them. Mike and I are so thankful he's adjusted well and is enjoying his new family.

Even among all the ciaos of the past two weeks, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of him and miss him. Sometimes it's when I wake up and reach my hand down off the bed expecting to receive a kiss, or even when I go to the grocery store dog-less...he was really apart of every second of my day and I truly miss him.

Aside from Tripper we of course miss our family best friends Maya and Tarra. Later this week they will finish packing their bags for the long drive to St. Louis. Though it will be easier to get updates from them, our time in Connecticut would not have been the same without the Rawdon's or Tripper.

Tripper's Last Week

 This post is going to be short and sweet. The McCormick Family has been going nuts for the past two weeks trying to get everything in order before we leave Salisbury. There was Salisbury Graduation (a tearful goodbye to all of the students but especially the seniors) followed by the faculty party where my boss and Mike's boss (who are married and their two cute little girls were the flower girls in our wedding) almost brought me tears on three different occasions...but now there is Reunion (like right now). I've snuck away for a minute to try to wrap up everything here in the office, but got tears in my eyes when I had to break down Tripper's cage.

 Tomorrow we meet up with the Clark family who will take Tripper. We have already met them once, they have two teenage children, an older Golden Retriever and a little dog (Pomeranian I think). Tripper was very nice to the Golden and understood that he was too young to rough house with...and the kids will be a nice addition to playmates.

We asked Tarra to take the pictures above so we could make sure we remembered our last days with Tripper. I'll post more later when I have more time. But I just wanted everything to be thinking about us tomorrow as we make the drive to Winstead, CT and say goodbye to Tripper for the final time. If you're getting teary eyed reading this...know that I started crying when I started typing. I'll miss him so much...and will be waiting patiently for the day he retires as a Guide Dog.

GSD

I've never owed a German Shepard dog before. In my lifetime I've lived with a peak-a-cock-a-poo, mutt (probably lab cocker spaniel mix), beagle, golden retriever, toller, Australian Shepard, lab and border collie. And including all of the family and friends dogs...I've never even known anyone with a GSD.

So I wasn't 100% sure what to expect when we got Tripper. Obviously I read everything I could get my hands on. I knew how smart they were and how loyal and just like boarder collies, when a family fell in love with a GSD they were unlikely to pick another breed.

The other thing you should know is Mike has had plenty of experience with GSD's, his aunt and grandmother had one growing up. In fact he was attacked by both of them. He wasn't hurt but he has been cautious around GSD ever since (can't blame him.)

The point of this story is that Tripper gave me the biggest surprise this week. When I am dropping him off to Mike so I can go to lax practice, Mike is reporting that he is constantly looking for me and takes a while to settle. Now I know I spend more time with Tripper than I have with the other dogs that I have raised...but it's kind of crazy that he misses me that much when he's with Mike.

Anyway it was super cute and just makes me smile thinking about it. It's going to be SUPER hard to give him up, but knowing he'll love his next owner as much as me and will make that owner smile too...makes it that much easier to think about.

 And just for fun, check out this really cute video of a cat playing with a dolphin. Talk about making you smile!!

February Funk

So I've been in kind of a funk recently. I'm not sure if it is because I'm really not a cold weather person and yet I've been living in Connecticut for the past 8 years and of course this year it snows about every other day?? Or maybe it's because it's the middle of February and football is over and baseball hasn't started...not that I care very much (especially about baseball) but with neither on I find Mike at a loss. Or maybe still because I decided to do the Salisbury Musical (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) which has been fun...but leaving me very little time to do much else.

Whatever the reason I just can't shake the Funk.

Hopefully though my next couple of weeks will just shake the funk right out of me. This past Friday was a good start. Mike and I went on our first date since (now this is a little embarrassing) AUGUST!!! I mean we've have date nights at home...but this was the first time we've been out to eat, just the two of use since we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary. But it was a lovely evening filled with the chili cook off, Salisbury Ski Jumps and dinner at the Woodlands. The evening almost took a turn for the worst when we came home to a panicked student who cut his hand by accident. Luckily no trip to the hospital was necessary as Mike was able to stop the bleeding and settle him down...phew!

This week, aside from being Valentine's Day is my sister's birthday ( the 16th) and Mike's sister's birthday (the 19th). And thanks to a great idea from my mom back in November I'll be able to celebrate my sister's birthday for the first time in 8 years (I'm flying home to Maryland on Thursday!!) Unfortunately that will mean I'll have to miss Ashley's birthday and her first in season play day at Yale (she's a laxer).  And after an exciting trip trip to MD I can start counting down the days until my UConn friends come to visit the following weekend!!

I guess by the end of February there will just be no more room in my life for any funk...and besides March marks the start of lax season!!

On the dog side of my world...I'll be bringing another group of Salisbury kids to Fidelco tomorrow. A smaller group this time (not that there wasn't a ton of boys who wanted to go...we just couldn't get a bigger vehicle) Who knows what we'll be doing or how we'll be helping but I'm sure the boys will love it!

Oh yeah, Tripper has his second class on Friday. I wish I could report that he did better than his first day...but no such luck. The student who had him needed to bring him back to me half way through the class. I asked him what was going on and he said he thought Tripper didn't want to be in class, he was sighing and figitity...maybe nervous. I asked the boy if maybe he was a little nervous to have Tripper in class with him. He admitted that he was.

So I took out some string cheese and had the boy and Tripper do a couple different fun exercises...touches and puppy push-ups (asking the dog to sit then down then sit one right after the other...try it) After they were both feeling much more confident I asked the boy if he wanted to try again and take Tripper back to class. He said he did and off they went.

After the period was over the boy returned Tripper to my office. When I asked how it went this time, he responded by saying...perfect. He explained that he was very nervous and figitity and a little unsure about what to do with Tripper, nervous he was being mean or not stern enough. He concluded on his own that after he did the exercises with me half way through class he felt much more confident and secure and perhaps Tripper could tell.

I agreed with the boy explaining how dogs feed off of our energy and can read us sometimes better than we can read ourselves. I was really happy the boy decided to try again with Tripper, and had a much better experience. It is going to be a slow process but one I think will be really beneficial for Tripper...and the boys.

Just for fun here is an old video of when Rocky was Tripper's age, playing with Mike's parents' dog Trixie. See Rocky use to play nice with dogs. 

Salisbury Seminar Day

 

Salisbury does this pretty cool thing called Salisbury Seminar Day. One Saturday a year (although I'd love to have it twice a year!) the boys don't have to go to their Saturday classes (yes in case you didn't know the boys have regular Saturday classes) instead the faculty volunteer to teach a variety of seminars about different life skills. It could be anything from learning how to iron a shirt, bake bread or drive a stick shift to something like "Iron Chef Salisbury" (that's what Tarra and I did last year). This year I had asked Fidelco if someone would be able to come out with a trained seeing-eye dog and give a seminar.

Jan Adams from Fidelco was nice enough to make the hour plus drive to the Hilltop and bring with her Yuki a two year old almost graduated seeing-eye dog. Jan explained to the boys everything that happens with Fidelco dogs from the moment they are born all the way up to when they retire. It was great for everyone to hear how the fosters (that's us) fit into everything and how important our job is.

Everyone was able to ask questions, like what happens if the dog doesn't make it as a seeing-eye dog (answer...sometimes the dogs will have career changes like going to work with the CT Police Department and become a search and rescue dog, a bomb or drug dog or sometimes the foster family is asked if they would like to make the dog a family pet. Either way there is a long line of people who would be happy to take a Fidelco dog) other questions were mostly about the training process and the things a trained dog could do, like read traffic, judge how tall a person was and be able to make decisions to keep the handler safe.

Jan told us a story about a dog named Nemo...this particular dog had needed some additional training as sometimes it wasn't the best listener, but his handler loved him and he did work really hard most of the time so they were a great match and worked well with each other. Anyway one day (after a big storm) the handler went out for a walk and had to cross two sets of streets. The pair had walked this route before and was very familiar with everything.

 However after they crossed the first street Nemo stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and refused to go forward. No mater what the handler tried Nemo would not move forward. Now it would have been easy for the handler to have just walked forward, but she remembered something her Fidelco trainer had told her...there will come a time although you may not know what your dog is doing or why, you're going to have to trust your dog. So after asking Nemo to go forward without any luck the handler finally gave another command..find the way.

Nemo immediately made a right turn and lead the woman into the street. Once in the street they made a left turn and started to walk in the street very close to the sidewalk. Then finally Nemo made another left turn and lead the women up onto the sidewalk. They then crossed the second street like normal until they reached the other side. A man came rushing up the women asking if she was OK, the women replied yes I'm fine. The man went on your dog...your dog is amazing! The women was confused she had no idea why Nemo was not listening and why he took her into the street.

The man replied that there was a live telephone wire hanging at neck level. Nemo had recognized the danger and refused to continue forward on the dangerous path and instead lead the woman around the danger. Talk about incredible....for a dog to gauge how tall a person is and refuse a command that would put his person in danger...incredible.  Nemo won Fidelco dog of the year btw.

Hopefully when Tripper grows up he can proudly wear a Fidelco harness and do for someone what Nemo did or what any of the other Fidelco dogs.

Tripper Visits the Extras

A while back...when I was being a terrible blogger, Tripper and a group of students visited the Extras program here in town. Extras is like an after school program for kids in kindergarten to 5th grade to play and learn until their parents can pick them up. There are a couple faculty kids who go to Extras so we used our connections and got Tripper an invitation.

Three boys volunteered to come with us and lead a discussion about Tripper and what we're doing at Salisbury as Fosters. Volunteers Alex Pepper '11, Chris Silvey '11 and Ryan Pappalardo '11 have spent a lot of time with Tripper both by being part of the Undefeated Western New England Thirds Soccer Championship Team and of course Tripper Training Class.

We brought the Extras class outside, had them run around for a while...both so Tripper could see what a large group of screaming children look like...and to make sure they were a little tired before sitting and listening as we discussed Tripper. After their invigorating game of partner tag the group circled up while the Salisbury boys spoke about our Tripper program. After doing what I thought was a very good and thorough job of explaining everything we opened it up to questions...big mistake.

Here are some sample questions...or at least what we got when we asked for questions:

• "I play hockey at Salisbury" 
• "Can the dog help dress someone who can't see?"
• "My mom works at Salisbury"
• "Can the dog feed someone?"
• "I've already met Tripper at the football game."

And they best question... "Can Tripper see the colors of the traffic lights, and if not how does he know how to cross the street. " Clearly this question was asked by a 5th grader.

So after Tripper went around so everyone could pet him, the boys taught the kids how to have Tripper sit and do hand touches. And I was pretty impressed with the boys ability to help control 20 little kids and how well those kids did training Tripper!

It was pretty awesome to see the boys using what they had learned in Tripper Training class to teach other little kids not just about dogs, but seeing-eye dogs and Fidelco. Great work Chris, Alex and Ryan!