Learning pace quickens...

Mia is learning faster all the time.  We have taught her to bring her gentle leader and pack from a small stool with a compartment in the bottom at the beginning of each training session.  She has more new commands: under, my lap, rest your head, heel.  We continue to work on the old commands.  

For field trips the favorite so far is the local barber shop.  The whole class went to Mennards to practice and get more tips from the teachers.  

Helping Paws has many new puppies on the way and is recruiting more families, so if you are thinking about it please let them know.  It is lots of work, but pretty amazing!

 

Another fun thing we want to tell you about is what Mia does when George goes to work.  She asks for attention from me, like she wants to go out.  But what she wants is to find George after he has already left.  I take her to the garage door and show her his car is gone.  That's all it takes and she is satisfied and knows he is gone.  She sure likes that guy.

Saturday we went to the Mall of America for a volunteer event.  Mia was on Channel 9 Fox morning TV for just a few minutes along with Maeve...and Brenda Hawley.  It was great to see all the people who give to our community.

Can't wait for spring!

Sisters swap families...

Mia just returned from a week with Keona's family and Keona has had a great week with us.  As part of the program the training families exchange dogs to help with their preparation to be a service dog, and of course the trainers learn a lot at the same time.  So Keona came to our house for a week and Mia went to Shannon's.  Sort of like sending your kid on a foreign exchange program...

Keona is the smallest dog in the litter, and she is totally sweet.  She was only nervous for a few minutes when she arrived.  She brought her toys to us when she wanted to play, and not once did she counter surf (Mia did you hear that?)  We worked on "over" 'til she was having fun with it, and she really liked Mia's two new bones pictured above.  Of course we called her Mia a few times.  Still, it was nice to have Mia back.

This week we are working on "under" and "take it" silently first, and later we will add the cues (the words that automatically trigger the response.)  And we'll have some fun field trips to Glen Lake strip mall small places like the dry cleaner and flower shop.  Happy Valentine's Day! 

Shhhh...it's me, Mia, posting this time...

OK folks, finally you get to hear from me, Mia, about how things are going.  This family thinks they are training me.  Boy have I got them fooled.  I am really training them.  For example, every time I shimmy they say "Shimmy" just like I want them to.  Later when I want to eat frozen crabapples from the snow under the tree, I bark just like I have to go outside to take a potty break.  When I want to see them laugh I fling my bowl some more, or chase my tail.  

I played hard to get over the holidays so I would get extra love like you see in these pictures.  My first Christmas was a nice family time.  Santa brought me some new bones.  Even though they were very tough plastic one of them was easily destroyed by my strong healthy teeth.  Did I mention how much I like to get my teeth brushed?  My family seems to like it when I smell good, like mint toothpaste!

Today I ran in the snow.  I can still smell little mice and stuff under the snow and like to poke around in it.  I ran so much that tonight I am very tired, so good night for now.

Happy Holidays from Mia...

Mia is having a nice holiday season with her family. 

Sarah is home and giving her lots of attention.  There are good smells in the house and fresh snow for frolicking. 

  

Catching Mia wearing Santa's hat was a trick.  She wanted to eat the hat or run off with it.

Mia is learning to take off gloves and socks. We are also working on "stand", "front" and "side".  It can get pretty confusing, even to us.

Mia and her family wish you 

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and 

Happy New Year 2009!  

  

Mia has begun collecting items of personal interest...

Mia has developed a bit of kleptomania.  She is pretty good as long as we are in the room with her, but if we leave for a moment we can't trust what she will do.  She likes to find things from the counter or other places like closets and baskets.  She is very quiet when she does this and often we come back after just a few seconds and she has some prize or another.  Usually she doesn't chew things, but there have been exceptions like George's eyeglass case or anything paper.  Here she is with one of her latest prizes!

We are working on the command "leave it" and she is getting that pretty fast.  Also she in learning to go to her bed when someone knocks on the door.  The hardest thing lately is the command "shimmy" which we have to catch her doing.  Some of her classmates are doing this already.  The class handout says it could take 1000 times to learn this.  Yikes!

The continuing saga of Mia...

Mia is learning to like the snow and cold.  She is obsessed with the wood chips in our yard and likes to eat them, even though they are not good for her.  If we don't catch her eating them eventually she will throw them up.  We learned "leave it" in class tonight and cannot wait for her to learn that command so we can use it for the wood chips.

Our cleaning ladies are getting to know Mia.  Mia waits quietly in her kennel while they clean.  We showed them what Mia is learning and how I brush her teeth.  They want to know if next month when they come whether Mia will have learned to brush her own teeth!   :-)

Mia now weighs 39.6 pounds.  She is still not very big for a lab and we are curious how big she will be when she is fully grown.  In two weeks she will get her hips checked and we hope they are good, so she can be a service dog.  Dogs with hip problems have to find new careers as demonstration dogs, pets, or therapy dogs.  We'll let you know how it turns out.

What's new with Mia?

For those of you following the story of Mia here is an update.  She graduated from puppy class and now is an awesome adolescent.  Many of you readers know something about adolescence, your own or your children's.  We have found the best thing is to make sure she gets lots of activity, after which she is a good dog.  

Her sister Rosie came to visit and we could see Rosie was the dominant of the two.  Eventually they worked it out and could have some fun together.

We are having fun thinking of new things to teach Mia.  George has combined watch and kiss for a trick that will make you smile. (He never could teach me that one.)  I have her carry the newspaper from the bottom of the driveway.  She gets very excited as soon as we step out the door in the morning and trots up the hill with the paper in her mouth like it was a fantastic prize.  

This week she was allowed to go a few more places. We visited the dry cleaner's, the barbershop and Kraemer's hardware store.  She was very well behaved.