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 11 - Snow

Ricki is growing like a weed. I think I can officially say that she is just as much a big dog now as she is a cute little puppy. It happens so fast! This week we took the dogs to Lake Tahoe for a trip to the snow. Spring is quickly approaching and we just decided it would be a great idea. We live in the San Francisco Bay area, so it took us about 3 1/2 hours to get to Tahoe. Not bad, considering the week before we were shooting footage on the sunny beaches of Moss Landing. Only in California!

This video blog is so cool because now we have so much of her locked into video immortality. This show is just as much a video diary for ourselves as it is a show to entertain and educate others out there. I look forward to seeing what adventures Ricki and the show take us on next.

Thanks for watching.
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 10 - Beach

For those who are unaware, or have not tuned into our weekly video diary, my wife and I raise guide dogs for the blind. We have been doing it for a long time now. As I bang away on my mac pro laptop (love this thing), our current dog in training is nuzzled up against my feet. Her name is Ricki and she is now 18 weeks old. Last time we weighed her, she was 28 pounds. But I can bet she passed the 30 pound barrier this week like a sprinter.

This week was my favorite video to produce so far. For many reasons this is my feeling, but mostly because Ricki is now fully vaccinated, and ready to discover the world. Our once quarantined life style, or at least very cautious for Ricki's safety, has been hit with a sledge hammer. Now we can have fun. The opportunities to what we can create with the show our endless, and a lot is to come.

Please check out our show. If you like it, subscribe on youtube, become our friend, leave comments in the video forum below the videos, favorite the videos you like, even send them to your friends.

Thanks,
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup- Week 7 - Basic Commands

Sorry for the late post this week. I have been really buys preparing to release a video on April fools. This has nothing to do with the guide pup show, but everything I do affects everything else. Anyways, this week was a really busy one. I was able to go out with Amie and get a lot of footage. I'm sure a lot of you have noticed that most of the footage we shoot outside of the house is from our cell phone. This has been a pretty interesting experiment for me. Balancing our high quality footage with low quality footage. This is the best way for me to show as much as possible for the vlog without dealing with all the red tape i would get if I brought my professional gear around.

Enjoy week 7,
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup- Week 6 - Head Collar

Ricki didn't put on any weight this week. However, it looks like someone put her in a vice and stretched her legs a few inches. It is pretty weird how this happens. Ricki is already growing up so fast. I can't believe the difference in six weeks.

So this week was a challenging one for Ricki. She and Amie have been training with a head collar. Amie really tries to give all the dogs a chance to work without it, but if the head collar is necessary, she won't hesitate to use it for the dogs benefit. Ricki has shown that she needs it because she is trying to eat everything in sight right now. I know, typical retriever behavior.

Please enjoy our latest episode.

Matt