Have come to a conclusion

So I have finally come to a conclusion . . . I miss my Rock Star! All this week I have gotten some strange looks at school; I realized that I was saying left and right out loud along with find the door and step, I was able to catch myself most of the time just every once in a while it slips out.

It is way too quiet around our house, no Rocky coming running when the freezer is open or when you turn the hair dryer on. I think Ely misses his housemate. He has been much more attached to us than his normal self. For once I wish Ely had a little bit more energy.

One of Rocky’s best friends, Cole, who lives across the street, was going for a walk the other day and his owner stopped to talk to us. Cole went crazy trying to get in our house or to try to get Rocky to come to the door. We both have glass doors, and so they were too funny watching each other through their door as they grew up. Poor Cole does not understand what happened to his friend.

Hopefully Rocky is enjoying college life. Rocky’s personality is just so happy that I know he will be content where ever he is.

As for the many people who want to know if there will be another puppy? The answer is yes, it just might be a few months. Puppy raising is a highly additive activity and is too much a part of my life. I was offered a puppy that would be ready in mid-May, but since I am still trying to catch up with life, which has left me behind again, I might need a little bit more time and focus on some important stuff for my future. Hopefully I will have another bundle of joy to raise before the end of the summer.

Puppy raising has been such an rewarding experience for me and I have a hard time seeing myself without being a part of such a wonderful organization.

Till then, I am filling up my spare time with a ton of jobs and puppy sitting just happens to be one of them. I will have a very sweet puppy in training named Bingo next week. She is so sweet and I can’t wait! I also get to watch her housemate Singita who was CC’d from SEGDI and is Ely’s age.

Man, I miss those eyes looking back at me!

Continuing on the Journey

Rocky left Friday morning to head off to Florida. He traveled with a former puppy raiser and dear friend who had to go down for meetings at the school anyways and offered to take along my sweet boy. We dropped him off around 9:30 and said our goodbyes. I somehow managed to hold it together while I told about Rocky and what was in his bag and watched as he happily hopped up into the car and looked back with a big smile on his face. We drove away a little before 10 and headed to the beach to get our minds off the fact that there was not a happy, snuggly puppy with us anymore.

I am so thankful for all the wonderful updates I got along the way about Rocky. He apparently slept all the way to Florida and then stayed with some family of my friend. I found out he almost didn’t make it out of Jacksonville since they had fallen in love with him! He was dropped off at Southeastern around 2:30ish Saturday afternoon and found his best friend and brother, Spike, waiting for him. I got a call around 3 saying that Rocky and Spike were both happy and they were playing in the receiving kennel yard.

Rocky got a good report on the trip down and was a great rider. In only a little over 24 hours, my friend was in love with him.

Good luck little buddy! Don’t party too hard (I hear there are some pretty, black goldador girls who like to party coming from Georgia). Make lots of new friends, give lots of love to the kennel assistants, listen to your trainer and have fun. Remember what you have learned and don’t pick up any bad habits. You have already made me proud and I am so honored and blessed to have raised such a special puppy. Whatever career you choose will be fine with me; all I want is for you to be happy! I love you Rock Star!

I wanted to say a very special thank you to all our blogger, facebook and twitter friends as well as other friends for the prayers, thoughts and well wishes over the past few weeks along with the letters, e-mails and phone calls. They meant so much and were very appreciated!

A huge thank you to the wonderful lady who took such good care of my sweet boy and made sure he was all settled in at college. You have no idea how much I appreciated it!

Quick update and Rocky leaves on Friday

Just wanted our readers to know that we are still here, but it has been crazy! Spike, Rocky’s brother, came to stay for a week while his raisers went out of town. It is amazing how Rocky and Spike love each other so much; they would rather play with each other than a pack full of other dogs.

Rocky will be leaving Friday morning to head back to Southeastern. I know he is ready and will make me proud. He is traveling back with a former puppy raiser and board member who I know will take super good care of my little boy. Rocky will be traveling down with her, and be dropped off at the school Saturday afternoon. I also found out the other day that Spike will also be dropped off around the same time on Saturday. I know that they will enjoy starting the new chapter of their life even more now that they get to start it together. They will keep each other company.

Rocky has gotten to say good bye to most of his friends and fans and made some of them cry already. He has one more day of going to class with me tomorrow and I know there will be some very sad people. Rocky has been going to class with me since he was about 12 weeks old and has made lots of friends, especially all the ladies in my sign language class; there are not many of us left as people have dropped out along the way, but they love Rocky to death and have enjoyed having Rocky apart of our class since August. He also has so many friends in student life that he has to go say bye to.

I am taking it as a sign that Rocky is truly ready to go back when we have seen most of the service dogs on campus in the last week or so after going there almost 2 years and only seeing one or two once in a while. I think it is kind of interesting that most of them are yellow labs and they all perk up so much when they see another dog.

I have finished up all of Rocky’s evaluations and forms, have had his health stuff sent to the vet at school twice (our vet was switching to a new computer program) and have done most of my to do list of 'things to do before Rocky heads south'. I also told Rocky that he is leaving , he took it better than I thought :) but I truly think he knows something is up, he is quite a smart boy. Rocky has been playing with all of his toys making it quite difficult for me to conclude what his favorite toy is so that I can set it aside once he leaves. I'll give it to him later, when he graduates. He has about 20 toys and bones that he loves; I guess I get to pick for him.

Since I would much rather spend time with Rocky right now than blog, I will post about some of his adventures he had in his last few weeks as a puppy in training in the next week or so.