Guide Dog Foundation’s Suncoast Puppy Raisers

Newsletter November 2014 Suncoast Puppy Raisers Puppy Saturday Meeting

Date: November 8, 2013

Time: 11:00am-1:00pm

Where: White Rooster Farm

1474 W. Jackson Hill, Lecanto, 34461

Hi everyone,

We are planning our second overnight

party for our puppies and raisers as our

meeting event for November. We did this

last year and it was such a big hit, we made

reservations to stay again this year. We are

renting a house on White Rooster Farm, a

beautiful property owned by our good friend

Debbie Roik and her family. Debbie is an

exceptional pet massage therapist we met

several years ago when we desperately

needed help with our 110 pound, 9 year old, Shepherd, Kayo, when he became disabled from a spinal nerve

condition called spondylitis. Kayo was completely unable to walk and we were facing the decision to put him

down. As a last resort, our vet, Dr. Green, at Medicine River Animal Hospital, recommended we contacted

Debbie. Debbie came to the house to treat Kayo with intensive massage therapy, and the use of tuning forks

that resonated frequencies beneficial to the affected areas. It was amazing, between her treatments and hydro

therapy at the vets, within a few months, Kayo was able to walk!

Unfortunately, 9 months later, Kayo died of a heart attack. We still can’t thank Debbie enough for giving

him at least 9 more months of a good quality of life.

Debbie is able to perform the same type of therapy on people, with great success. She also does classes for

people to learn to do basic massage on their own pets. While we were at White Rooster last year, she gave a

demonstration on one of our raisers on how she uses the tuning forks, and then gave the rest of us a little intro to

how to give our own puppies a massage. It was fun and very informative.

The house we are renting has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a full kitchen, out door patio and full size grill. Other

amenities include, an indoor heated swimming pool, fenced in area for our puppies to romp, and numerous

exposures to horses, long horned steer, goats, chickens, and her new pup. There is also a mile long nature trail

around the property.

Although the house is reserved for the entire weekend, our meeting will officially take place on Saturday the

8th

from 11:00- 1:00pm. You can stay one night, 2 nights, or not at all. We will arrive Friday afternoon and will

head home Sunday. The lot is big enough to park a camper, so last year, The Thompson’s and Frances Lucas

took advantage and parked their camper vans on the property last year, they had their privacy but still used the

facilities. Personal pets are also welcome, as long as they are as well behaved as our puppies, which isn’t

saying much.

There is no charge to our puppy raisers for spending the night. This is our gift for all your hard work all year

round. If you would like to plan a meal the rest of us will help cook and serve it, that will be payment enough.

Chuck and I will handle the meeting lunch and we plan to grill hamburgers. If anyone wishes to contribute a

side dish, feel free.

If you would like to see pictures and get more information about White Rooster Farm, check out this link.

http://www.vrbo.com/459730

Above; being it is still Halloween weekend we added a

Suncoast Puppy Raisers Jack-O-Lantern. Now that is

scary! Below; Suncoast Puppy Raisers at Sirus K9

Directions: From the Suncoast Expressway, Take the Suncoast Expressway until it ends at US Hwy 98, turn

right on Hwy 98 towards Brooksville, at 491 Citrus Way turn left or north about 8 miles, Citrus Way will turn

into Lecanto Hwy, go to Hopkins and turn left on Hopkins, take first left which is Kerr till it ends at Jackson

Hill, turn right onto Jackson Hill, White Rooster Farm is the 6th

driveway on left. Call or email Chuck if you

need additional help.

Last Month Thank you Judy Bordignon for hosting

our October meeting at your new dog

training facility Sirius K9. At Sirius K9

she specializes in training service animals,

basic obedience and recently introduced a

pre-school puppy training for 9 week to 3

month old puppies. We talked about how

to handle a young puppy, establishing

leadership, and interpreting puppy body

language to better communicate while

interacting with the puppy. We also did a

training exercise she calls “passing the

puppy.” Everyone that had a dog, got

down on the floor in a position to be able

to keep their puppy under control, then the

puppies were passed to the left to the next

person. The object is to teach the puppy

that the rules of behavior and expectation

to behave were the same no matter which

person they were with. Good advice for

our guide dog puppies since in their

lifetime, they will have many handlers and

trainers before they finally matched with a

blind student. Thanks again Judy, we

learned a lot and I guarantee you, we will

be using the “pass the puppy” training

exercise again in the future.

On Wednesday, October 23rd, we took

the puppies to Gateway Mall for a pre-

Halloween shopping excursion. Party

City's motion-activated Halloween

displays and the overabundance of kids

picking out costumes always proves

interesting to our pups. After being

entertained by a street-drummer, our next

stop was Publix, where each pup got

weighed-in on a wobbly scale that had a

bumpy surface, as their classmates

patiently watched, from "down under" a

bench close to the noisy shopping carts.

EVERYONE did GREAT! We finished

up with Diane leading a brief obedience session, which included some "practical life experiences" -- getting into

and out of the car, and also heeling from various positions. Thank you Don and Donna for organizing this great

meeting

Above; Tucker & Sunny at last month’s meeting at

Sirius K9 Below; Debbie plays pass the puppy with

Tucker.

New Arrival We have already announced our newest arrival

Sunny and we finally got to meet her last

meeting. We are keeping our fingers crossed

that the next puppy to join us will be Martha, a

mature puppy that needs a home to finish her

raising, which will be with Mary and Bill

Wallace. Her transport papers are in order and

we are just waiting for final plans.

Mary and Bill Wallace have been perspective

raisers since their application 2 years ago.

When they applied, they did not realize that the

condo association they were living in had a

weight limit on the dogs that could reside there.

Unfortunately, condo and home owner

associations do not fall under the ADA’s in that

they are private organizations and can make the

rules. Well since them, the Wallace’s have

moved and are now available to raise a pup.

Plus, they are from New York and are able to

attend meetings while they live on Long Island

part of the year, and here when in Florida.

Welcome aboard!

In For Training We got the word that we will have 2 dogs being

called in for the Dec. 1st in for training date. The 2

are Hearts, raised by Francis Lucas, and being

finished by Diane Anderson, and Rin, raised by

Karen Killen. By now you know our motto, what is

our motto????? Answer: “It pays to be flexible!”

All of the above can attest to that!

Up Coming Events This is always a very busy time of the year for all

of us, so we want to thank you all in advance for

helping us with the following events

Nov. 1 st: Foundation Fighting Blindness Vision

Walk, Al Lopez Park. Registration at 9am and the

walk is very short. The St. Pete Lion’s Club is

flipping burgers and Chuck is part of that team.

Personal pets are welcome, so we hope everyone

comes out, enjoys the weather and help raise money

for retinal research. Since Chuck did not get his part

of the newsletter done on time this event was

Saturday before we got this newsletter out. Thanks

to Karen, Don & Donna and Mary for holding down

our booth. I do mean that in a literal way as the wind

was howling and they were holding onto the canopy

at times to keep it from blowing away. In spite of the

blustery conditions the walk went off without a hitch.

Thank you all for attending.

Suncoast Puppy Raisers

Area Coordinators:

Chuck and Debbie Hietala

Email: Chuck@Suncoastpup.org

Website: www.suncoastpup.org

Phone: 727-515-2105

Guide Dog Foundation

371 East Jericho Turnpike

Smithtown, NY 11787

Phone: (800) 548-4337

Fax: (631) 930-9009

Website: www.guidedog.org

Hearts, Tucker and Rin Working hard at Sirius K9

Nov. 8th

: Picnic lunch at White Rooster Farm,

Jackson Hill, 1474 W Jackson Hill, Lecanto,

We rented a house on this property last year, and by

popular request, we booked it again for this year.

Come for the day or stay for the night or entire

weekend. Personal pets are welcome and during

our meeting we will take a walk on the nature trail

to meet the 4 legged residents, including horses,

long horned steer, goats, chickens and other dogs.

We are planning to grill hamburgers for lunch and

anyone is welcome to join us and/or bring a dish.

Please RSVP to www.chuck@suncoastpup.org to

let bus know if you are coming for the day or the

weekend. Directions are given above and please contact us if you need more info.

Nov. 15: Suncoast Animal League Dogtoberfest in Dunedin from 11:30 to 5PM. We will once again have a

booth at this event. Debbie and Chuck will be in Dallas on a business trip, so we are going to need help with

this one. We will need someone willing to set up before and break down after this event is over, and we will

need volunteers to work our booth during the event. Let us know ASAP if you can help with this event.

Dogtoberfest is an excellent exposure for your puppy so make sure to walk around and join in the festivities

while you are there. For more info on the event, go to www.dogtoberfest.info

Nov. 19th: Great American Teach In. This is a voluntary event and some of you have already mentioned

what schools you plan to do. This is a great exposure for the pups and kids. This will be the week Chuck and I

are out of town. Chuck has one school he has been at for this event the last several year’s, they have asked him

to do it again this year. If you are free and can cover this, let him know and he will give you more details.

Training Tip – Getting Through the Holidays As I mentioned before, this is a very busy time of year for everyone. You may be making plans to travel, or

plan to have house guests. Either way, it is most likely going to affect both you and your puppy’s regular

routine. Here are some suggestions to get you through this busy time.

First, try to plan ahead. If you are traveling, and plan to take your puppy, make sure the destination you are

traveling to is open to having your puppy as a guest as well. Some family members may not be as excited to

meet your puppy as you are to having them meet your pup. Remember, you have the option to have your pup,

puppy camped. Whether you are traveling or having house guests, make sure they know the puppy ground

rules, no people food, no getting up on the furniture and no sleeping in the bed!

Try to keep your puppy’s eating, sleeping and relieving routine as normal as possible. Don’t be surprised if

getting off track leads to an accident or upset stomach. Also, watch your puppy for other signs of stress.

Tucking of their tail, bowing of their head, backing away into a corner, may mean they could use a quiet safe

place to chill out. On the other hand, over activity playing with other dogs and or children may require you to

also step in to give the puppy a rest.

For young puppies, make sure you puppy proof your environment. If you are visiting someone that doesn’t

have a dog, or you have a guest that is not used to having a dog around, you will need to keep an eye on things

that may be left on the floor or on low tables and open to temptation. Keep areas like bathrooms and bedrooms

closed off to your puppy. During times that you cannot keep constant tabs on your pup use your crate.

A lot of these suggestions are common sense and natural to us dog people. However, they are not for those

who don’t have a dog. It is our responsibility to keep our puppy safe, but remember to have a good time with

them. PS. Take lots of pictures! We hope to see you all at White Rooster Farms You’re A/C’s Debbie & Chuck