Welcome Home Ricki!

We filmed the process of raising our guide dog puppy Ricki. After 16 months of making our series Growing Up Guide Pup, Ricki decided she wanted to be with us and was not guide dog material. Well the Nylabone company generously sent Ricki a "welcome home" package of dog toys. Our dogs have always loved Nylabones and they are our dog toy of choice. Thanks Nylabone!

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 64 - Finale

The long journey came to a conclusion this week. Ricki was our 10th dog we have raised for Guide Dogs. Although we have become conditioned for the process of raising pups for working careers, it never gets any easier. I know that the last episode of the season was dramatic, but I felt it was important to let the audience experience exactly what we experience every time we go through the process. I think the series should be liberating for puppy raisers, and used to help raise awareness across all working dog fields. I hope it helps open some eyes to those people out there who are not aware of the emotional ending. This episode is truly the only episode that has a beginning, middle, and end. Hence why I think it is probably the best one for someone to watch. We are so thankful and proud to have been the raisers of Ricki and wish her the best of luck in the future. Hopefully Guide Dogs will find a great alternative career for her in community placement.

Thanks to all for watching and your continual support. Be sure to check out our new website

http://www.growingupguidepup.com for the latest news on Ricki and our next pup coming in the future.

Matt

69 Charger Burnout

So I tested my GoProHD Hero again this week. This time i performed a burnout. Dirt, rubber, and dust was kicked all over the camera, but it performed great.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 63 - Final Decision

You know when we first started this web series we had no expectations. Sure, I hoped Ricki would go on to become a guide dog. Not only would it be cool to raise awareness of the process, but damn; talk about a cool Hollywood ending. This episode really sums up the reality of the guide dog raising world however. Unpredictable twists and turns in the story always result. We wanted Ricki to graduate as a guide dog, but at the same time we wouldn't mind her becoming "career changed" so we might be able to keep her. There is always a lot of ups and downs and it can be crazy.

Now we are faced with a whole new challenge. Ricki has made it clear she wants to keep working. She paces up and down the living room as soon as a day or two go by without her working, or training. If she didn't show this tendency perhaps we would think about keeping her. But we want to give Ricki every chance at doing a job because we feel this will give her a much more fulfilling life based on her personality. She is prepped for something other than guide dog work so lets see what happens.

The future is uncertain as I write this blog. The one thing we hope people have learned from the series is that becoming a guide dog is hard. We strived to raise awareness about this, and hope people have a larger appreciation for the "puppy raisers" involvement in the process too. At the end of the day, if we met these goals, then Ricki has done her job as far as this guy is concerned.

69 Dodge Charger Meets GoProHD

My two favorite things are filmmaking and muscle cars. This video is the first time I have ever made a piece showing the appreciation I have for my 69 Dodge Charger. I mounted my GoPro to 10 different locations all over the car a few days ago. When I went out to shoot it began to rain, but because I was using the GoPro, it didn't hold things up at all. I just shot in the rain. Why the hell not?

Specs:
Shot 1280x720P @ 60 Frames per second
Mpeg4 files converted to quicktime pro res 422 Using Mpeg Streamclip
Conformed frame rate for slow motion with Cinema Tools
Used the H.264 codec for compression for the web using Compressor
Edited the video with Final Cut Pro 4

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 62 - Ricki Point of View

Ricki continues to make baby steps in the right direction. I'm very proud of Ricki and Amie. The progress they have made is very significant. However, it might prove to fall short of what Guide Dogs requires. Ricki has a strong instinctive reaction to squirrels. Who can blame her? She is doing what most dogs would probably do in the same situation. We don't want to force the issue forever. It is up to Ricki to decide her fate. if she ultimately decides she doesn't want to do what it takes to be a guide dog, then that is what fate has decided. We hope that our fans will understand that either way Ricki has done a great job, and should be celebrated for her fantastic contributions to the guide dog community. She has helped bring all of us together, and for that we will always be forever grateful.

Stay tuned to see what happens!

GoProHD Durability Test

I have played with dozens of cameras over the years. I have worked with the Red camera and Varicam which costs thousands of dollars and are great professional cameras. I have also shot with consumer cameras like the Flipcam and various prosumer cameras over the years. But I have never worked with a camera that has more versatility than the GoProHD Hero.

The TV commercials and hype about this cameras are true. It is incredibly versatile, and can handle all kinds of weather conditions, humidity, and temperatures. I'm still experimenting with it because it is just sooooo much fun. What is most important to recognize about this camera is the quality. It shoots a compressed mp4 file, but once you uncompress the image to quicktime, it is absolutely fantastic for the price. I would gladly pay two or three times as much money for this camera.

So this week I wanted to test the durability of the GoProHD. This video was totally spontaneous, and I don't recommend people trying doing the same thing. This video is for demonstration purposes only; so please don't try this yourself.

GoProHD Slow Motion Test

I have been seeing GoPro commercials on television. I have also seen some of their cool viral videos on youtube. I just couldn't wait any longer and went out and got one for myself. My web series Growing Up Guide Pup requires that I put out a new episode every week, and I am always looking for new tools for my filmmaking bag of tricks. I'm always striving to make the show better and it's visual style is very important to me. The GoProHD Hero shoots 60 fps at 1280x720p. It also is designed for hardcore shooting, including underwater. Since we were planning on shooting our dogs in the pool, it seemed a perfect opportunity to put this thing to work. The workflow required a learning curve as well as the camera itself. It kinda reminded me of learning how to program my watch for the first time. Only two buttons on the body of the camera, and yet their is a ton of programmable functions on the camera.

I put the workflow specs below and the first video I did shooting slow motion.

Specs:
Shot 1280x720P @ 60 Frames per second
Mpeg4 files converted to quicktime pro res 422 Using Mpeg Streamclip
Conformed frame rate for slow motion with Cinema Tools
Used the H.264 codec for compression for the web using Compressor
Edited the video with Final Cut Pro 4

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 61 - Aqua Dogs

This week Ricki has made huge progress. She is able to walk alongside a group of pigeons without going crazy. She can handle looking at one or two at the same time with no problem especially. This is a dramatic change from how she reacted when she saw pigeons for the first time in Week 29. Seth and Bamboo demonstrated how it's done, while Ricki was totally crazy.

Ricki has also made big improvements with her squirrel distractions as well. She is able to walk by the toy squirrel without pulling on the leash and trying to chase it. However, if you squeek the toy or throw it in front of her, this is a different story. This is an area we are going to continue to work on by not jumping ahead of ourselves. We probably went a little too aggressive this week.

The last thing we wanted to show is that a working dog needs to have fun too. We took Ricki swimming with her mom Tulin again. I had fun playing with my new GOProHD Hero camera that can shoot underwater. The footage is totally cool. Check it out!

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 60 - Toy Squirrel

This squirrel distraction thing is so much work. We have been training Ricki everyday with it. She has made huge progress in the past week, and we hope it makes a difference. We will be getting another evaluation from our community field representative soon. We don't know if Ricki will have made enough progress, but we won't have her fail for lack of trying. It's frustrating because Ricki has so many other things going good for her, and yet her distraction issues could end it all. She has had the best relieving habits of any dog we have ever had. She is incredibly patient and rarely gets uneasy or bored. She strives to please and really enjoys working. These things mentioned are equally hard to get a dog to perform well at. Eli could care less about the birds and squirrels when he was training. He ignored them like a champ, and yet he couldn't handle the simple things like actually doing what he was told. Anyways, I'm just venting off the top of my head. Stay tuned and we will see where this adventure takes us next.

Mckenna Faith - Lost

This video marks the third of a series of videos that I shot with Mckenna Faith. She is a up and coming country artist, and really talented. I'm happy that our families have become friends, and working together was awesome. This particular song is one of my favorites, and I'm really excited to have it in the line up "guerilla unplugged" style of videos I did with Mckenna. Two other Mckenna videos are already done called "He Doesn't Even Know it Yet", and "Sugar and Spice".

If i told people that I pushed aside my regular gear and opted for low budget alternatives, they may say "you are crazy". But that is exactly what i did. Mckenna and her mom were very gracious with my experiments and they ended up working really good. A majority of this video was shot on the Flip Cam Ultra HD which only costs a few hundred dollars. Of course I used many of them, and also had a myriad of other equipment as well as some other professional cameras in the final cut, but never-the-less, the flip cam image is dominant. I also left my professional lighting equipment in their bags, and performed all the lighting for this video using work lights I got at Home Depot for $60. Last, this particular video has audio only from an iphone. I used an app called Recorder Pro as an experiment. See the results for yourself.

Recorder Pro iphone App

As most people know, I'm constantly looking for ways to save money as a filmmaker. Guerilla filmmaking is a evolving trend I like to explore, and the iphone just so happens to provide cheap solutions for the everyday video creator. Now I am not going to pledge the undoing of conventional audio acquisition by any means. But I am going to add this iphone app to my filmmaking bag of tricks.

It's called Recorder Pro, and it only cost .99 cents. The audio quality that i recorded was 44.1 kilohertz and 16 bit. It can acquire the audio in the .wav or .aiff file format too. The sound quality is fair when working with an iphone. I can't say that I have had the same results using a audio app for my wife's Samsung Moment. The audio recording tests revealed a big difference and i think this says something more about the phone than the app, but I can't be certain without more tests which I could come back to someday.

Next week I'm going to post another Mckenna Faith music video where all the audio was acquired with a iphone and the Recorder Pro app. Stay tuned.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 59 - Pigeon Progress

Amie and Ricki have been working everyday on her bird distraction issues. Pigeons are the worse of Ricki's bird distractions so this is where most of the focus has been lately. Ricki has been making big improvements because we have taken a few steps back and started rewarding her for the small things. One of the most effective training tips we got is requiring Ricki to Watch Amie, and ignore the pigeons by constantly redirecting Ricki's focus. Amie walks Ricki away from the distraction and rewards her with a treat. It seems to be making a difference, and I look forward to seeing how our community field rep judges Ricki's progress in a few weeks.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 58 - Ricki Evaluation

We have reached a crucial point in Ricki's training. Her future as a guide dog is in question. Amie met with our community field representative where a myriad of issues were discussed. I wanted to film the meeting, but they decided it would be best if we didn't. We were told we have a few more weeks to get Ricki past her distraction issues. Amie has a few new techniques to incorporate with her food reward protocal, and we are rewarding for smaller things now. We are also taking Ricki out for training everyday at this crucial point in her development. Stay tuned!

EZ Mount Monfrotto Mod

I don't use my EZ mount without this setup. People have been asking how it is made so I made this video. Monfrotto ball heads are awesome and there are a ton of different options out there. If you like this video. Check out all my reviews, builds, tips, and tricks.

Chappy

Flip Cam Giveaway Winner

My Flip Cam Giveaway contest had ended. There were 450 suggestions sent to me, and it was not easy picking one as the winner. This contest was subjective, and there were other things equally creative and unique. So to all those haters and trolls out there who are mad about my decision, I'm sorry but it's my contest. The winner is a college student from Texas who said. "I'm going to attach it to a helium-filled object and sent it above the Earth's atmosphere, and get a shot of the planet's horizon." I picked this idea because this is still a relatively new concept, and it's really cool. It's possible to get footage in outer space now, and more and more people are doing it everyday using a weather balloon. Two students from MIT were the first to do this, and they started a website describing what they did. Since then, several have replicated and surpassed the original video in quality. But proper respect should be given to the MIT students for being the originators of this idea. I am thinking about doing this idea someday so I can teach people step by step on how it's done.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 57 - Dog Distractions

Amie said a great thing to Seth and I months back that I really love. She said that guide dogs are the "navy seals" of the working dog industry. The more we shoot the show, the more it makes sense to me. I mean everywhere you take these dogs poses a myriad of distractions. Whether it be other dogs, food, cats, small animals, birds, kids, balls, sounds, water, etc. It is amazing that any of them graduate. To turn off a dogs natural instinct which is to be curious about things around him/her is a huge challenge. We strive to do this with Ricki constantly, and it is amazing how the same training can be utilized in so many different locations. Ricki continues to make baby steps as we crawl closer to her recall date. We have high hopes that she will do well, but ultimately this will be up to her. We know she has the work drive as well as the drive to please. Only time will tell if that will be enough.

Dog Playing Piano

My dog just started playing Canon in D Major out of the blue. I captured it on video because it's so awesome.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 56 - Off Duty Ricki

This week we won Outstanding Reality Series at LAWEBFEST. It felt really good to get recognition from the filmmaking community for our endeavors . It was also nice to see that our uninspiring viewership doesn't reflect it's content. LAWEBFEST is the only film festival in the world for web shows currently so we feel like mavericks exploring a new world. Our format is one of a kind, and I'm so proud that we make the show format easy to follow for the visually impaired. It's very descriptive and we don't take for granted anything that is going on. We describe everything. Big thanks to everyone for supporting our series and keep watching because it could get interesting from here.

Mckenna Faith - Sugar and Spice

This video marks the second of a series of videos that I shot with Mckenna Faith. She is a up and coming artist, and really talented. I'm happy that our families have become friends, and working together was awesome. This particular song is my favorite, and I'm really excited to have it in the line up "guerilla unplugged" style of videos I did with Mckenna. If you like this, there are two more coming. One other already done called "He Doesn't Even Know it Yet".

If i told people that I pushed aside my regular gear and opted for low budget alternatives, they may say "you are crazy". But that is exactly what i did. Mckenna and her mom were very gracious with my experiments and they ended up working really good. A majority of this video was shot on the Flip Cam Ultra HD which only costs a few hundred dollars. Of course I used many of them, and also had a myriad of other equipment as well as some other professional cameras in the final cut, but never-the-less, the flip cam image is dominant. I also left my professional lighting equipment in their bags, and performed all the lighting for this video using work lights I got at Home Depot for $60. See the results for yourself.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 55 - Farm Animals

This week was cool because we were able to review all of Ricki's main issues. Her small animal distractions, bird distractions, ball distractions, and dog distractions. We are constantly exposing Ricki to the things that could cause her to fail puppy college. It is the only thing we can do before her formal training. Will it be enough for her to graduate? Only time will tell and everyone will have to continue to tune it and find out.

Low Budget Film Lighting

I few of my producer friends over the last six months have been asking me if I could come up with a way to do lighting on a low budget. My answer was to go to home depot and buy some work lights. This was a test and I didn't know what the results were going to be until after the edit. Well after it is all said and done my thoughts are i'm going to keep them in my filmmaking bag of tricks. They really do work. All one has to do is get a little more creative in figuring out a way to mount them. Also keep in mind that the 500 watt lights get pretty hot. One of my fans sent me a message that the 1,000 watt lights even have a fire warning on them with most manufactures. So I would really be careful with all of these lights. Keep a fire extinguisher close by and treat this process with respect. So anyway, have fun and here is my latest episode.



Here is my guerilla unplugged video showing the lights in action.
The artist is Mckenna Faith
Song is "He Doesn't Even Know It Yet"

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 54 - Nylabone

This week marks an important step for us. It's the first time a company has worked with us in any form. Nylabone donated toys for our puppy raising group, as well as donated a bunch of items for a youtube contest. This might not seem like that big of a deal, but for us it is. We feel like the only way we will be able to sustain what we are doing in a long term vision, is to find a way to help make a living with the series. Making a living might mean picking up a sponsor who can burden the bills of creation. We have taken on the burden so far on our own, and will continue as long as possible. But this was a really cool step in the right direction for us.

Nylabone will always rock in our book, and we have nothing but great things to say about them.

If you are interested in winning our giveaway package. Thumb up, comment, and favorite this episode on youtube. Make sure you subscribe if you have not already.

Chappy

Flip Cam Ultra HD Test Bench

Ok, so this is the first time I have talked about a camera. As I explore low budget filmmaking ideas I find myself going beyond just building things. There is so much out there to explore. The reason I chose this camera is because I acquired seven of them from a tv pilot shoot. It also is the camera that I am giving away in my contest, so it really only makes sense.

I wanted to do a review in a interesting way. Not just simply shoot some lame random footage and talk about it. This is what other people do. No, i shot a series of music videos giving valuable video real estate to the Flip Cam. This was a real project with real people. This provides a real world example without hypotheticals. I mean what is the point, unless the camera is really used to see results? C'mon people:D

So all in all this camera is pretty good if you know the rules and stay within them. Some of the rules that I have found to keep in mind.

1) Don't shoot handheld
This camera sucks when shooting handheld. It is very sensitive to movement and can look very shaky.

2) Keep it locked down and the results will be much better.
This camera has a camera mount thread on the bottom. The universal 1/4" 20 pitch that is found on most tripods, and various mounting adaptations. Utilize this fact and this camera gives amazing options because of it's size.

3) Surround the Fiip Cam with good lighting or suffer the consequences.
The exposure is all automatic so you will find yourself at the mercy of the Flip gods. It will expose itself very well most of the time if the lighting is consistent and bright. This will make the HD resolution shine.

So hope these tips help. Check out my video below to get more information. If you like my videos, do me a favor and subscribe on youtube. Thanks

Mckenna Faith - He Doesn't Even Know it Yet

This video marks the first of a series of videos that I shot with Mckenna Faith. She is a up and coming artist, and really talented. I'm happy that our families have become friends, and working together was awesome. This particular song is one of my favorites, and I'm really excited to have it kick off the premiere of my "guerilla unplugged" style of videos I did with Mckenna. If you like this, there are three more coming.

If i told people that I pushed aside my regular gear and opted for low budget alternatives, they may say "you are crazy". But that is exactly what i did. Mckenna and her mom were very gracious with my experiments and they ended up working really good. A majority of this video was shot on the Flip Cam Ultra HD which only costs a few hundred dollars. Of course I used many of them, and also had a myriad of other equipment as well as some other professional cameras in the final cut, but never-the-less, the flip cam image is dominant.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 53 - Vet Conference

Well here i am talking about our second video we shot while in Vegas. The whole reason for our being in Vegas in the first place was so Amie could attend the WVC conference. We just have learned to adapt our lives to making a series and taking opportunities to train Ricki when then pop up. This episode was probably one of my least favorites that I have made in awhile. 100 percent of the footage was shot with a flip cam, and most of the footage was indoors providing a pretty unprofessional result. The camera does everything automatically including exposure control and it's low light capabilities are ok at best.

Despite my own reservations this episode seems to be received well. It just goes to show that story takes precedence over everything else. Amie and I have learned a lot about our audience from this episode, and the value of showing other working teams holds high. Marlis and Gable were a pleasure to have breakfast with, and provided some great insight to their world. A big thanks to them, and to all our fans for your continual support.

Flip Cam Contest

I acquired a ton of equipment on a recent project. I don't need all of this stuff and thought why not give some of it away to my viewers. I like helping aspiring video creators, and low budget filmmakers. This has kinds become my new angle with my videos that come out every week.

If you interested in this contest. Hit me up on youtube with a comment on the video below and don't forget to subscribe.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 52 - Las Vegas

So we just got back from Las Vegas, and had a great time. We acquired so much material that we decided to break it down into two weeks and two episodes. This is the second time we have done this. We also did this last year when we took Ricki to Los Angeles. I know that it makes our weekly progress a little jaded, but we think it's a good sacrifice when there is a lot to show. Las Vegas was probably Ricki's best trip to date. She did really, really awesome. In fact, since we have gotten back she has been pacing around the couch as if to say "hey, why can't we be busy doing all kinds of stuff like when we were in Vegas?". She seems to have that work drive that working dogs have. So here is to another great trip for Ricki, and Amie and I really like using our series as a great excuse for traveling all over the place. We could get used to this.

Thanks for everyones support. We think it will only get better from here. There is a lot of exciting stuff coming in the near future.

EZ Mount Test Bench

This episode is all about testing the EZ mount. I really like this thing, and it is really effective. It could cost anywhere from like $20 to $200 to buy a special cardellini clamp, or mafer clamp to do the same job. Seriously, check it out yourself. Everything I show in this episode is real footage shot with a flip cam mounted on the EZ mount in different situations. I think this is a great tool for a any filmmakers bag of tricks.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 51 - Rain

It rained a lot when we filmed this episode. If we can't beat em, join em was our motto. Plus, we thought it would be cool to focus on an episode where the weather was a big factor, and we could give our audience some things we have to think about during a storm. Ricki handled it all so well. She was soaking wet when we got back to the car, but looked like she could have filmed in the rain for another hour. She is really impressing me lately. Nothing seems to phase her, and she handles new things very well. Keep it up Ricki, we are rooting for ya!

Make a Cam EZ Mount

After the launch of this video I feel like I am officially back. I have been so busy with Growing Up Guide Pup and other projects. But that is a good thing I suppose. This mount really does work and I am excited to put it out there to help other video creators. Next week I'm going to show how I have used it myself.... so be sure to check in on wednesday.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 50 - One Year Anniversary

Well it's official. Our first year of the series has been completed. We did it. It's been a big challenge banging out a episode every week, but very fun. Although there are 52 weeks in a year, we have 50 episodes. But I guess if you count the two birthday special episodes we are right on track.

Our series has premiered at the New Media Festival, and was recently accepted into the LAWEBFEST. We did our first radio interview for Working Like Dogs on Petliferadio, and recently were told Nylabone is going to sponsor us, and give us a bunch of products for free. We are going to do a Youtube contest with some of the products, and also give a bunch of toys to our fellow puppy raisers in our group. So it seems we are doing pretty good, and the future looks good.

Ricki is well on her way to becoming a guide dog. She is our tenth dog, and one of the best prospects we have had so far. We think she has a really good chance of making it so stay tuned to see how it all goes.

Thanks for watching, subscribing on youtube, becoming a fan on facebook, telling your friends and family about our series, and your continual support.

Matt

Fire by my house

There was a fire by my house yesterday. The first thing I did was call 911. Then I grabbed the garden hose and tried to put out the fire with no luck. So i decided to grab the flip cam and document what happened. Everything was spontaneous and real. I experimented with the Les Stroud approach of creating video because i thought it was the most appropriate way of making the video.

Filmmaking builds, tips, and tricks.

I'm sure many of you know I make videos showing low cost alternative filmmaking solutions. Well, I decided to take it to the next level and start putting out a new video once a week. I enjoy helping people save money and empowering the average video creator. Some of the ideas I show are things I have used myself in video production, while others are completely fresh, and never tested other than for making the videos.

If you like these type of videos, I am asking for your support. Watch my videos, rate and comment them on youtube. It helps me stay motivated to continue, and puts a few pennies in my pocket at the same time.

Cheers,
Chappy

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 49 - Giants Fan Fest

Amie and I are big Giants fans. Since they won the world series, it only made sense to attend fan fest for this weeks episode. We decided to take the train to the park so we could add some training for Ricki into the mix. She has been on the train a few times, but never with this many people. The ride there was really packed, and almost completely full with fellow Giants fans. Ricki did a great job this week on the train, and she did an even better job at the ball park. We were very impressed with her ability to stay calm despite her being surrounded by wall to wall people. The attendance was crazy. The doors for general admission opened at 11:00am, and by 11:10am they were already telling people on KNBR to stay home because it filled up so quickly. I heard that more than 50,000 people attended which is funny because the park doesn't even sit that many people. Another job well done by Ricki and I can't wait to see where are adventures take us next.

Growing Up guide Pup - Week 48 - Seth and Bamboo

This week was very difficult for us. We battled back and forth on what we should do. Would talking about this publicly be a good idea? We contacted Seth's parents as well as got advice from my family about if doing a video tribute for Seth would be a tasteful thing to do. We got overwhelming support that we should move forward with the idea. We thought it would be appropriate to do a hike at Mt Tam. Seth had expressed on a few occasions, and even left a comment on our youtube page about how awesome it would be. We really enjoyed celebrating his life in our own special way and it really helped us feel better doing the walk.

We were shocked when we found out Seth had passed away last week. Seth was so supportive of what we were doing and really helped validate our series. His opinion meant a lot to us, and he always chimed in. He participated on all of our videos on youtube leaving funny, and quirky comments. He also was a regular participant on our facebook fan page. He was known to help with great info, and even answered questions from time to time. We had big plans for the future, and his continual involvement in the show was something we had discussed a lot. We were deeply affected by his untimely passing, and will forever be inspired to continue raising awareness about guide dogs in his honor.

Seth was a super star in our guide dog world. It will be difficult without him, but we must push on. We know this is what he would have wanted for us.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 47 - Puppy Handling

Amie and I enjoy the challenge of making new episodes with content that is refreshing and new. Although this week lacked the sizzle of a spectacular outing, it has performed good compared to most of our first week numbers. We will certainly keep this lesson in mind for the future. There is plenty of stuff we can do in the house that focuses on our training with Ricki at home.

I am also excited that we were able to unveil a little clue of the entire other world Amie is involved with as a vet tech. That's right, not only is she a puppy raiser, she is also a licensed vet technician at a ER for pets south of San Francisco.

Thanks to everyone for their support.
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 46 - Museum

Amie and I have really gotten into a groove with the series. It has become second nature to bang out a episode every week. I don't worry about pulling it off anymore. When we first started I used to wonder if we really would be able to do this for a year and a half. That is no longer a concern. Now it is more of a question of what are we not going to be able to get around to showing before Ricki goes back? What should we save for a second season? Haha

Ricki is showing constant improvements every week. However, she constantly needs to be reminded of the rules in place and is not the fastest learner. We think that it will all sink in with time. She has the most important personality trait. She wants to please us and that is awesome.

We are only a few dozen subscribers away from 1,000 on youtube. Please show your support by subscribing if you like what we are doing.

Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=guidedogmaniac

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 45 - Fundraiser

We own a ton of thanks to Guide Dogs For the Blind this week. They generously sponsored us to attend the fundraiser so we could make this episode. This really means a lot to us and we consider it a sort of right of passage for our series. Otherwise we could not afford to attend. We really enjoy raising awareness about this organization and hope to expand our series continually beyond the scope of puppy raising. After all, what we do is only part of the equation. I think this episode brings us all closer together and executes continual awesomeness for the future.

Become a fan on facebook:
Growing Up Guide Pup fan page

Subscribe on Youtube:
Guidedogmaniac (profile name)