L Litter Update

Although this is a bit late, Merry Christmas, but for Friday, Happy New Year! A few days ago I received an update about the L litter and I figure I would post about how Llarson's litter is doing.

Llenoir, Llangley, Llinnane, and Llarson were the four puppies from the litter to enter official training with the Canine Training and Evaluation Branch early at 11 months. Llane, Llangone, Lleavey, Llevin, and Llilore are still undergoing evaluations with the Canine Breeding and Development Center (the puppy program) and are looking forward to joining their brother and sisters soon.

Just a quick clarification about the training departments. Unlike Guide Dogs for the Blind or other similar programs that trains and breeds their working dogs, the Canine Breeding and Development Center (CBDC) is strictly a breeding program that relies on puppy raisers to help raise the puppies and prepare them for future work. The CBDC is essenitially the puppy training aspect of things.

Once the puppies reach 12 months and in Llarson's case 11 months, they are evaluated for official training by the CBDC. This evaluation includes both medical screening and traning ability. If they pass then they are sent to the Canine Training and Evaluation Branch (CTEB) for official training. If they dog not pass then the dog will be offered for adoption to the general public. If all goes well and the dog completes offical training, the dog will graduate and become apart of the National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program (NEDCTP). The dog will then work in airports or other mass transit areas to protect our country.

Sometimes dogs do not make it all the way through official training for what ever reason. (The standards are extremely high to become a part of the NEDCTP.) In this case they will generally be offered to Customs and Border Protection or other police agencies to do other detection work such as drug detection, currency, etc.

I hope this helped clarify the order of how training works to prepare a dog to become an explosive detection dog. A lot of work, but in the end it truly pays off to have these dogs protect our country.


Happy Holidays!

-Addie & Ggoody

Dog Park

In March a new dog park opened up in my area, but I never had the chance to go. Today I had some free time and took Ggoody up to the park to check it out. It was awesome. There was a lot of mud because it had just rained, but the park is great. Ggoody got a chance to run around with a lot of dogs plus there were tennis balls everywhere, her favorite! She started annoying some lady who was wanting her dog to fetch, but Ggoody kept interrupting her, begging for the ball to get thrown. Once I grabbed her and moved her away, Ggoody was fine. Overall a very fun outing. I might take Ggoody there tomorrow. I will bring my camera if I do.

-Addie & Ggoody

Christmas Tree Shopping

Every year Ggoody tags along to pick out a tree with us. Unfortunately we could not go the Christmas tree farm like last year to cut down the tree. But we did go to our favorite Christmas tree lot and found a nice frasier Christmas tree. Here are a few cell phone pictures of Ggoody at the tree lot.

Just a quick note: I think after Christmas we might foster some puppies for a local rescue group! As the time gets closer and I get more information I will update. I am also thinking of getting Ggoody certified as a therapy dog from the same organization, but I need to look into the idea a little bit more before I do. Anyway...

Happy Holidays!

Addie & Ggoody

Happy Birthday Llarson!

Today is the "L" litter's first birthday. Wishing them a happy birthday. I wish Llarson was here to celebrate, but I know he is now onto bigger and better things. Best of luck in training "L" litter.

Me and my younger siblings saying goodbye to Llarson at Lackland's kennels

Homework Time

Last night while I was working on homework, I couldn't pass up the chance to snatch a few quick pictures of Ggoody. Every night while I work, she sleeps on my bed in the same spot.

Oh the life of a career changed dog!




Ggoody with her favorite toy, a tennis ball.



Ggoody looking back at me, while I take a picture from my desk.



Random close up

Seaworld and New Holiday Collar

Every year before Christmas, Ggoody gets a new holdiay collar to help show her holiday spirit. Today while we picked up some dog food, we bought a new collar. It is green with white snowflakes and then outlined by red. It also has a HUGE reindeer bell, that could possibly get annoying in the future.

Ggoody with her new collar



Close up of collar and bell (sorry for fuziness)



I also decided to post some pictures from a field trip I went on. On Tuesday, I went to Seaworld in San Antonio, Texas with my Aquatic Science class. We went on a back stage tour of Seaworld and learned about how to become a trainer and what working at Seaworld is like. It was a fun trip, but the weather was pretty miserable. It was cold and raining, so I got a nice soak down. A killer whale decided I should have been even more wet and spit some 50 degree saltwater on me, which looking back at now is pretty funny. Enjoy the pictures!

King Penguins



Baby Beluga Whale



Adult Beluga Whale and baby



Monk Seal



Jumping Bottlenosed Dolphin



Pacific White-sided Dolphin

T Litter

I have mentioned Dd'Atri (a black lab who is a breeder for the program) several times on my blog. I saw her at the puppywalker picnic as well as when I said goodbye to Llarson. I mentioned she was having puppies at the end of November, well....

Dd'Atri had four puppies on November 23, 2009. All of them are black labs and are absolutely adorable. As the title suggests this is the "T" litter. There was another litter, the "S" litter, born a few days prior with seven puppies. Perhaps one of these pups could be my next puppy in training... :)

Dd'Atri's four puppies