Hi. My name is Harry, I'm a Guide Dog Puppy in Training and this is my Blog.
Atherton Appeal
Harry supported Guide Dogs' appeal to equip the brand new training school for the North of England at Atherton. He was keen to help as he was to be one of the first puppies to train at the new school.
Harry was at the launch of the appeal on 7th October 2008 where he got to meet the Press. One of the newspaper articles can be seen here.
We’re not quite sure why, but today Harry reverted to the kind of behaviour he exhibited at 15 weeks old, except he’s now 15 months. It may be that he’s feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time he’s spent in the company of other dogs, or it could just be the spring weather has gone to his head, but whatever the reason he’s definitely behaving like a small puppy again.
And just to prove it, he took two of his favourite toys out into the garden and tried to bury them in the gravel under the seats, just like he did when he was small.
Except now he weighs 36 kg and it was a pretty tight squeeze, back then he weighed about 10 kg and getting under the seat was an awful lot easier.
When Harry goes off to training school next week we know that he will be sharing a kennel with another pup called Jenson. Harry and Jenson have met regularly at puppy class, but have never really played together.
As the pair of them will be spending lots of time together in the future, last Friday we arranged to take them both on a free run so they could introduce themselves to each other properly.
Harry and Jenson
They got on like a house on fire and really enjoyed each other’s company – it looks as though they could turn out to be quite a double act.
Usually when we appear in the kitchen in the morning Harry will stay firmly on his bed, stare up at you with his big brown eyes and go “oh puh-leeze don’t disturb me, at least not until my breakfast is ready”. Occasionally, if we’re very lucky, we might get a few wags of the tail, but rarely does he drag himself out of his basket to greet us. He is so not a morning person.
Today was different. Very different.
Harry and Lacey are not sleeping in the same room and he had completely forgotten about her being around. So when Lacey came strolling into the kitchen his eyes nearly popped right out of his head, he jumped out of bed, quickly shook himself and then stood routed to the spot in shock. His jaw nearly hit the floor.
Lacey was as cool as a cucumber, spotted Harry’s bed and hopped straight in. There was nothing else for Harry could do – he jumped right back in beside her.
The Guide Dog he fell in love with on Valentine’s Day came to stay.
Lacey is a seven year old Collie/Golden Retriever Cross and due to a medical condition is no longer able to work in harness. So she has taken early retirement and come to live with us at Number 58.
Today the weather was absolutely glorious, so after a walk round town we took Harry for a quick visit to the woods to see the bluebells – only when we got there we discovered we were probably about a week too early as there were only one or two in bloom. Instead were were met with the overpowering odour of wild garlic but Harry didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he seemed to love it and constantly stopped to sniff the air in delight.
After all his posturing in the mirror recently he has finally decided which is his best side and insisted on posing, in fact, he wouldn’t move from this spot until his photograph had been taken.
Spring cleaning is well and truly under way here at Number 58 and this year we have a special little helper. This particular little helper insists on taking lots of breaks and always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Guess it’s just going to take longer than normal this year.
While preparing the video of Harry for yesterday’s post he suddenly stopped playing with his toys and came to investigate where the sound of chirping birds was coming from.
Once he realised the laptop was responsible he insisted on getting up close and personal, and that’s when he saw himself frolicking about on the screen. To say he was fascinated would be an understatement. We had to re-play that video at least ten times before he was satisfied.
He was probably checking to make sure we had filmed his best side.
It may have been the fact that it was someone else’s garden or it may have been the heady scent of spring on the air, but yesterday Harry did a fairly passable impersonation of a spring lamb.
And all because of a tiny piece of twig – he just wasn’t sure if he wanted to chase it, eat it, bury it or toss it on the air.
