A Day in the Life of Dash

Did you ever wonder what a day in the life of a service puppy is like? It’s a busy day. It’s really hard to get all those naps in!

When I wake up, it’s 6 am, and I REALLY have to pee. When I come in, I can relax again and get back to sleep until Dad is finished with his shower, around 6:30. Then Dad feeds me ½ c of kibble and I watch him read the news on the computer. Sometimes he has cool pictures to show me, but I’m still pretty tired. Before he goes to work, he puts me back to bed and I sleep until 8:30 or so.

I let Charis have her breakfast and get ready for school, but then it’s time for her to play with me. I get kibble for ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘down’ (lie down), ‘raise’, ‘off’, ‘stay’, ‘get the keys’, ‘get the coins’, ‘get the ball’, ‘get the toy’, ‘leave it’, ‘shake,’ and ‘push’. By then, I’m so worn out, I need a nap. After a couple hours of sleep, I’m ready for lunch. After lunch I’ll play with my toys, a bone, my stuffies, and that wears me out too, so I have another nap. Most days, I have to go do something, like go to the mall, or the park, or the library, but don’t worry, if I miss my late afternoon nap, I’ll just make up for it later!  And I like to sleep in the car anyway. If we are at home in the afternoon, I normally get another training session and play lots of games like Hide-and-go-call, fetch, off leash walking in the house/backyard, and other games. Fetch is my favorite

In the evening, I like to watch TV and snooze in front of the fire. I like being nice and cozy warm and am a wimp outside and play the three-legged dog when it’s cold. They like to keep me awake during the evening so I will sleep at night by either taking me for a walk. Usually I don’t have trouble sleeping at night, as long as I have a play session around 8:30 or 9:30. I usually go to bed at 10pm. Occasionally I get up and down during the night, but it’s really unusual for me to need to go out to the bathroom.



For food, I get 3 cups of kibble during the day, and sometimes, another ½ c at bedtime. At meals, I get ½ cup and the other ½ is saved for training, games, and going out. I get cheese at the off leash park, to make sure I come! Any kind works best - I’m a pretty hungry pup!

To be fed, my food is laid out while I ‘sit’ and ‘wait’. Then Charis gets me fresh water, while I keep waiting. Then when it’s ready, I’m told to ‘eat up’. It takes a lot longer to wait than to eat up!

Playing at the Office

This morning my girl took me to the Dogs With Wings office to play with the other big dogs and to get a new halti, my old one was getting small and hurting my nose. I had fun playing with Everest and Capper. After we where done playing we went to Home Depot to walk around. I was very good with walking beside my girl and leaving Everest alone. We worked a little on stay but mostly just walking.

Here I am, sitting side by side with Everest while my girl flashed the thing she calls a phone at our faces. He's just a little bigger than me!

At Wal-Mart With Pilot!

Yesterday, my girl took me to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and to meet up with my brother Pilot (He's wearing the orange halti and the blue lead, I'm wearing red)! I didn't know that I was going to meet him. I was very happy to see him but I knew I couldn't play as we both had our service jackets on. After a few sniffs, both of our girls had us practicing loose leash walking (walking beside you without pulling on the leash). Pilot did a sit-stay which sparked an idea in my girl's mind. Play a game of “Doggie in the Middle” where one puppy is in a sit-stay while the other dog practices loose leash walking around them as a distraction. It worked well, it was hard not to look at my brother walking all the way around me but I was very good and looked at my girl instead.

After playing a number of sit-stay and down-stay games and practicing a lot of loose leash walking my girl got the courage to drop the leash while we where walking right beside Pilot.

If I did run away (which I didn’t!!) she knew that I would go to the other side of her to visit Pilot. After Wal-Mart my girl took me to another store where she didn’t use the leash (she had it in her belt loop) the whole time. This afternoon is puppy class at the mall and Charis hopes I will do as well in the puppy class.

Look at us, two little aisle guard dogs.






After that entire excursion, I was so tired all I wanted to do was to play with my bull and sleeeeeeeep!

Sick Day

Last night I got very sick, I think I ate to much bark at the park. I woke Charis and her parents up five times last night. Now they are giving me a new thing for supper, rice. It's very sticky and it can get a little difficult to eat unless Charis puts some water in it.

Everyone will admit the nicest thing to do when you're sick is lie in bed and relax. Sometimes if feels so good to just roll up in a little cocoon and get all warm. My girl thinks this picture is very funny and calls me a "Hot Dog" (I don't know what that is but it doesn't sound good!). She wrapped me up in my bed to carry me to the living room.

A VERY Long Day

Wow, I'm SO tired right now, I'm half asleep already! This morning, my girl took to to Terwilligar Off Leash park to play with Pilot and Sierra. I had such a good time and I wasn't as hyper as I normally am, even when we first came. After the long walk, they took me to Wendy's and then Shaw Conference Center for Missions Fest (to see the balloons we made and to walk around and visit some of the booths). There was quite a few kids to meet, two were especially noteworthy and they said they would pay money to have videos of them! One was a little toddler in a big fluffy pink snow suit who was petting me very gently on the ear with her little hand. I greeted her which resulted in a little squeal of delight and more petting. Then she and her mom walked on a little ways, but the little girl look back at me and came back for another round of petting. This happened three times and the last time she waddled sideways away to her mother. By then we had a little crowd all giggling.

After walking outside a set of doors from the little girl, we found a little boy who was about one and a half years old who wanted to pet me too. He held out his hand for me to lick just like Charis had showed him and after a little kiss he did a jumpy dance and a happy scream. After that happened many times his father told him to give me a hug so they could go. To this little boy giving a hug meant sticking his head out (which I licked followed by more screams of delight). Then we all had to go... *sigh*

We met another service dog from PADS (Pacific Assistance Dog Society) with his partner. I was sleeping soundly so Charis went and talked with the lady for a few minutes. She had just gotten this dog because her other service dog had retired. I woke up very suddenly and gave one little woof to announce that there was another dog in the vicinity. After that I was too tired to bother trying to play and went right to sleep. Lots of people petted me while I slept, which felt great. On the way home, Charis introduced me to another new thing, the Bus. Big thing, very noisy and wiggly, but I just slept. Mom was wondering if she would have to carry me home from the bus stop! As soon as I realized this was our block my tail shot up in a happy little perky way and we pranced all the way home very happily. I'm going to sleep well tonight.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This morning Charis was taking silly pictures of me. She likes pulling my fur and ears into all sorts of shapes. Here is what she came up with:

When I go to the off leash parks I meet lots of different dogs of all shapes and sizes, I met a pug. I don't want to be a pug, their legs are too short and I like to run fast.

After that I met an Afghan, with their sleek long face. They can run fast with their long legs, but I think they are a little big for me, I don't want too be that big. At least not yet.

On the way back I met a German Sheppard, with their perky ears. Their legs are long and they're not to big but they don't like kibble very much...I just don't understand that.














.....There is something fundamentally wrong about not liking kibble as much.... so in the end, I think I'd rather just be a lab.















Ok all dogs raise their paws if they want to go to bed.















Maybe I'll just be a gorilla instead!

Around Town

Yesterday Charis had a big balloon job for Missions Fest doing balloons. She doesn't normally do decorating however she likes doing this job. I was helping out Charis with the balloons, I was good all day, all eight hours we were at the Shaw Conference Centre. I didn't even mind the balloons when they bounced off of me and I didn't even try to eat the balloon scraps (ok just once at the end). Charis was proud and all the volunteers who know I was there really liked me. I mostly relaxed under the table while they made a ton of noise inflating balloons with helium right beside me. Charis did have me do one fun thing, run really fast up a single flight of stairs, and then we came right back down again! It was a good race, Charis was slow, but I let her win anyway.

On Tuesday Charis took me to the Royal Allberta Museum for a few hours. I only barked at the wolves but I didn't bark when Charis played the sounds of the cyotes barking and howling. The big bison and ploar bears didn't even bother me. Charis let me go down a penguin slide meant for little kids (and puppies too!) it was so much fun, I went twice! Once with Charis and once by myself with her waiting at the bottom. By the time we left the museum I was so tired that I napped at every exibit.

For now, I'm going to have my morning nap, have lunch and then it's off to the off leash park with the big Dogs With Wings puppies. This is going to be a fun afternoon.

One of the latest tricks I'm trying to learn is how to open doors. The house has the kind of handles where you push down and then open the door, instead of round knobs. Charis doesn't like me jumping and I think she doesn't want me to learn this trick. Sometimes she says I'm too smart for my own good. I wonder why because this morning I thought it was great when I opened the front door!

Home Again

For 10 days, I got to go on vacation to a wonderful new home. We did many different things, while my girl was at an international balloon convention in LA. I went to a park many times and even to a school for the first time and had a lot of fun with the kids petting me. Unfortunately now that I'm ready to play everyone's sick, but I don't mind catching up on my sleep too. Here's a sick daddy and sleepy puppy.

For those of you who don't know, my girl is a professional balloon artist (you can find out more at http://GracefulBalloonArt.com). She found out about Dogs With Wings by doing balloons at their silent auction fundraiser two years ago.