Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 28 - Fire Station

This week is my favorite episode thus far. We combined two important elements this week at the Mountain View Fire Station. We made available some training for Ricki, and the exposure of a cool location. Whenever a day can hit two birds with one stone, it is cause for celebration because they always make for an interesting watch. The results of this weeks shoot seemed to work better than I thought possible.

We got to show a cast of different dogs all amongst a setting of different distractions. My favorite had to be guide pup Cash and his hilarious reaction to the fireman when it tried to get close to him. Check out our web series if you are a fan of service dogs or dogs in general.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 25 - Guide Dog Fun Day

This week represents the premiere of several important steps in the evolution of our series. Number 1, it is the first time we filmed at the campus for Guide Dogs for the Blind. And two, we revealed the upgraded format of our show. I am really excited to see where this Ricki journey will take us, and don't see us slowing down.

When we first started this series, we were not sure if anyone would even be interested in watching. It was our way of keeping a video diary of the weeks events more than anything. I can't believe we now are into our sixth month with this thing and it is only getting better.

Special thanks to Guide Dogs for the Blind, Rendezvous, and Template Digital with their generous collaboration in helping make the series the best it can be.

Our latest episode is below.
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 24 - Jelly Belly

This week I had the opportunity to take Ricki and Amie to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, Ca. We have always known about the Jelly Belly Factory, but have never had the chance to visit. It is a really cool place. They were totally guide dog friendly, and even had a designated area for the dogs to go to the bathroom. How many places have a designated fire hydrant for the dogs? Special thanks to Jelly Belly and the Solano County Puppy Raising Group for setting up a great event. if you enjoy our webisodes, please don't forget to help support us by subscribing on youtube and telling your friends and family about us.

Cheers,
Matt

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 19 - County Fair

Amie and I have been taking the dogs to the county fair ever since we first started raising guide dogs. It is a great place to get out and take the animals. Their are a million different things for a dog to experience, and we never see the same thing twice. This year was no exception and Ricki performed like a champ. She has still yet to have an accident on a outing. Fingers crossed on that one. Hit that subscribe button on youtube and participate in our comments section. Here is our latest installment.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 18 - Ricki's Mom

We have been raising guide dogs for the blind for a long time. In fact, we will be hitting 10 years in not too long. In all that time, we have never had the privilege of reuniting our pups with their mothers. This week was our first. The popularity of our web show is starting to grow and Ricki's owners heard about what we were doing through word of mouth. They contacted us and wanted to know if we would like to meet. Well of course we said yes!

Check out our new episode. Please subscribe to guidedogmaniac on youtube. Leave comments on the videos and get involved with our online discussions.

Matt (Chappy)

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 17 - Swimming Pool

This week was bittersweet. My parents are selling their house in Foster City. The harsh economy and overwhelming bills have become too much for my parents and they had to make this unfortunate move. It's the house i spent most of my childhood in. We bought the house when i was nine years old and I am 34 years old now. Needless to say, this has been the rooted homestead of my family for most of my life. They got an offer a week ago and decided to accept it.

So Amie and I decided what better way to say goodbye to the house than to give Ricki her first swimming experience there. She continues to amaze with her ability to adapt to new situations and excel. She fell in the pool three times on accident and didn't let that get in her way. She possesses a steadfast determination to learn to swim this week and it shows in the video.

Goodbye to my childhood home and hello to a new world of water for Ricki.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 13 - Bad Dog Eli

Eli got into trouble once again. We filmed at in the in-laws house which included letting the dogs roam around in the garden. We actually caught him wanting to eat cilantro on camera. He also ate all the ripe strawberries, and ate something that made him ill this week. Amie thinks that it was fertilizer.

Be sure to tune in next week cause we are in LA right now. Our next episode should be fun.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 12 - Nylabones

This episode snuck up on us. We had no time to shoot and prep. Luckily we were able to address some questions from last week which gave us something to work with. We really appreciate questions and urge everyone to keep them coming on youtube.

Our channel on youtube: GuideDogManiac
Subscribe to us, comment on the vids.

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 8 - Macklin Reunion

This week we had a very special guest; our first puppy Macklin. Macklin has been a guide for almost six years now living with his partner Jeannie. We are very fortunate in that we have stayed in contact with Jeannie, and jumped at the opportunity to babysit Macklin for two weeks while she is in Europe.

Raising guide dogs can be very straining emotionally, and having Macklin back stirred up feelings that have been hibernating for a long time. Please forgive us for breaking our regular show format. It was very had for us to film this week, but i am very happy with our candid motif that resulted.

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

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 3 - Potty Training

Our adventures with our new guide dog pup Ricki continue. After a couple of weeks of simple filming and working out the vlog format, we decided to start getting more serious. This week we talked about how to potty train a guide dog puppy, and how to train them to chew on approved toys. Filming was crazy as usual, and we got some candid moments in there. If you like the web show, please rate, favorite, and comment on youtube. Feel free to subscribe on there too. We plan on doing this vlog until Ricki either graduates as a guide dog, or she is career changed.

Growing Up Guide Pup- Week 2 - Adjustments

We survived another week with our new guide dog puppy Ricki. She is starting to learn how to sleep throughout the night and adjusting well to living with us. Our other dog Eli on the other hand had a bit of a struggle this week. He acted out and ate half of a cake Amie was making for valentines day. 24 hours later he was at the ER clinic.....crazy Eli.

Here is week 2 of our web show. Enjoy!

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 1 - Premiere Episode

My wife Amie and I have been raising Guide Dogs for the Blind for eight years. We just picked up our tenth dog and the cycle starts all over again. Our new dog is a Golden Retriever and Labrador cross named Ricki. She is 8 weeks old and very cute.

If you have watched any of my videos, the one thing you might find is that they are all over the place. No genre is safe with me, but the problem with that is my audience is very undefined.

In a effort to hit two birds with one stone we have decided to make a Web Show about our Guide Dog Puppy. A show where I can practice working a video series format, and a show where Amie can share what guide dog puppy raising is all about.

Please check out our new series below. If you like it, please show it some love by telling your friends and family all about it. We will be putting a new episode up once a week for the next 16 months so it should be interesting.