Happy Aloha Friday

Thanks to An Island Life for hosting a Friday blog hop. It's Friday and it's Peeps Show day here at work, so we'll keep this short.

What's your favorite thing to do with Peeps?

Becoming a Delta Society Pet Partners Team

Kendall and I have been a registered Pet Partners team for just over a year now. I don't blog about our volunteer time as a Pet Partners team very much, because it just seems too personal sometimes. Every time we visit, whether it's at a nursing home, an assisted living facility, or at the Read to the Dogs program at the local library, I'm amazed at the response of every person we encounter. People's eyes light up and their faces break into great big smiles at the sight of Kendall coming down the hall proudly wearing her green Delta Society vest. Some of you have asked that I blog about how Kendall and I came to be a Pet Partners team and what goes in to getting registered with the Delta Society.

From the time we picked out Kendall chose us at the breeders I knew that she had a temperament that would lend itself nicely to working with people. She's a happy dog who hasn't met a person she doesn't like. In a gathering of people and dogs, it's the people she'll seek out rather than play with the other dogs. She thinks that every person we meet is going to shower her with attention. We worked hard to socialize her in lots of different environments around lots of different people so that she would not be bothered by things like elevators or men with hats. I once read that your dog should meet 100 different people before they're 100 days old. That can be difficult when you're working with a puppy who really shouldn't be out until the full run of puppy shots are finished, but we were creative. We had people of all ages, including young kids, come over to visit.

The day she chose us

We also spent a lot of time working with her on obedience basics. We went to puppy preschool and worked with her just about every day. She has sit-stay down pat. We're fortunate to have a place where we could take her for supervised small dog play hour. I'm not a big fan of dog parks where you never know what kind of dog (or owner) you're going to encounter.

Kendall and Riley, her brother

There are two things your dog has to have in order to make a good Pet Partners dog - the right temperament and the ability to follow your commands. Your dog has to be under control at all times.

Once Kendall was over 1 year old, I started looking for a program to help move us along the path to allow us to visit in hospitals and nursing homes. I found the AAI program through the Oregon Humane Society. They are an affiliate of the Delta Society. I signed up for their day-long training course and ordered the necessary manual. You have an option of taking the class over the course of a few weeks, taking it in one looooooong day, or taking it as a home-study course if no courses are offered in your area. After we completed the course there was still a lot of work to do.

Every Pet Partners team hopeful needs to go through an extensive evaluation where they evaluate the human and the canine ends of the leash. There's a skills test and an aptitude test. There are even volunteer actors who play the role of clumsy people or people in wheelchairs to see how you and your dog will react. There's no room for error and a kiss from Kendall disqualified us the first time we tested. We were offered the opportunity to retest two months later, so we worked really hard on our skills. We went to the local mall countless times to meet and greet as many people as we could so that we could work on meeting new people without having her jump up on them. I'd like to say that Kendall is good at not jumping 100% of the time, but I'd be lying. I'm just very careful in how I handle her when presented with that situation. We passed the evaluation with no problem the second time around.

Ready to volunteer

The work doesn't stop there, though. I'll blog later about what it takes to get ready for a visit, what happens during our visits, and all of the other wonderful things that go on when volunteering as a Pet Partners team. If you're interested in becoming a team with your dog, you can find out more information on the Delta Society web page.

Before...and After

It's been 8 weeks since Kendall's been to the groomer because our vacation fell during the week of her regularly scheduled visit. She was looking a little bit ragged around the edges even though she's had a number of baths during those eight weeks. Here are her "Before" pictures. The sun was in her eyes, hence the squinting.

Long ears, curly head, and hairy feet

Just look at those curls

And here are her "After" pictures. Of course, she came in the front door and immediately got a drink so her ears are wet. Then, she ran out the back door and around through the bark dust just to add a little dirt to her too clean coat.

Pink bows for the the not-so-girly girl

A little shorter all over

We try to keep her trimmed fairly short so she doesn't pick up all kinds of dirt when we go camping. Do you trim your Cavaliers?

Things We Love to Blog About

I learned of this great tool from Charlie the Cavalier's blog. Isn't this fun? What are you blogging about?

Easter in Oregon Wine Country

We didn't have much planned for Easter, so we decided to take Kendall and drive out through Oregon wine country. We had a Cellar Club shipment to pick up at Sokol Blosser. It was a very showery day, so hanging out at the vineyard and drinking wine wasn't an option today. Here are some pictures from some of our sunnier visits.

Looking out at Archery Summit winery taken last fall

We drove out to Carlton to visit the newly opened tasting room of Noble Pig and J Wrigley Vineyards. It's a great little cottage filled with wine, of course, and lots of wine-related things. I saw a cute wire barrel into which you can put your wine corks. It sure beats putting them all in a basket for the cats to get into and leave all over the house. (Not that that ever happens at our house.)

We came home with a 2008 Noble Pig Pinot Gris, a 2008 Noble Pig Pinot Noir, and two Reidel pinot noir glasses with the Noble Pig logo on them.

Here's Kendall checking out the new tasting room. As you can see, it was pretty wet out.

I'd never been to Carlton before. It has a number of tasting rooms and reminds me a lot of Sonoma, CA from a long time ago. Dundee seems to have dropped the ball and has missed the opportunity to transform into a cute, wine country destination. Carlton looks a lot more promising. If you're ever out here, it's worth the drive to check out the little town and its tasting rooms. I look forward to visiting again when it's not raining so hard. Then we can walk around town a bit.

Cathy, from Noble Pig, also writes a great food blog that's worth following. She comes up with some of the best recipes. One of my favorites is her Reuben Dip.
 
Hope you all had an enjoyable Easter no matter how you chose to spend it.

Keys Dogs - Part 2

After the success of finding dog friendly places during the first couple of days in the Florida Keys, I was feeling pretty good about my decision to pursue pictures of dogs we met in the Keys. However, as the week went on, we found we were leaving the condo complex less and less, which meant fewer dog pictures. Toward the end of the week we did make it down to one of our favorite places, The Lorelei, in Islamorada. There were lots of local Keys dogs hanging out with their owners.

There were dogs in boats.

Hanging out at the bar

I had to throw that last picture in there, because that's what the Florida Keys are all about - sunsets.

It's Read to the Dogs Day

Kendall and I are headed off to the Beaverton Library today for their twice-monthly Read to the Dogs Saturday.

The program at the local libraries in the Portland area are similar to the program started by the Intermountain Therapy Animals group (from where I borrowed this logo).

We have four readers scheduled to read to Kendall today. The kids get to choose their books or they can choose from a box of dog-related books that we set out. If you have kids of reading age and live in the Portland area, check with your local library to get your kids involved. It's fun for the kids and for the dogs.

This is the second time we've done this. The first time was a lot of fun.