It's Sssssshow Time...

 

 Recently, the Houston Puppy Raiser group took our pups on an outing to the Dog Show at Reliant Center.

We got to spend some time walking the pups around the vendor booths. Many people stopped to ask questions about the pups, and, the mission of Southeastern Guide Dogs, Inc. Public venues like this are a great time to spread the word about SEGDI and the puppy raiser program.

The pups got alot of exposure in more ways than one. The Dog show is crowded with lots of kids and a variety of dogs of all shapes and sizes (and manners). All of these things are distractions that a guide-dog-pup-in-training must learn to ignore. These kind of distractions can be intense for our pups, most of whom are under 7 months of age, but all of them did very well.

Our area coordinator, Carol, was nice enough to schedule an appointment with a professional photographer for a group photo of all the pups.

 Okay - time to start lining up.

Texas Star (L), Smokey (C), and Suzette (R)

 The plan was to take a group photo with all 9 pups together. But the booth was too small to accommodate all the pups, their raisers (holding the leashes), and the photographer's assistant. The photographer thought it best to take photos of the pups, 3 at a time; then with a bit of photo shop magic, assemble them into a group photo.  I will post the group photo of our pups when the prints come in.

After the photography session, we headed over to the arenas to watch some of the events.

The agility trials were Smokey's favorite event to watch. Our seats were just feet away from the course. Smokey watched closely as the dogs whizzed by in front of us, running from obstacle to obstacle.

Smokey watched the events for quite a while, but he was soon exhausted from all the excitement.  Within an hour or so, he was finding a comfie place to stretch out and catch some zzzzzzzzzzzzz's.

 Soon it was time to go.

He was one tired puppy when we got home!