I will no longer be updating Iron Guide (see below). Instead, I am now writing at my new, personal blog. Though that will be about some of the newer things I'm doing in life, if you want to see updates about Louie, Lester, and now Dusky, add me on Facebook -- there's enough ridiculously cute pictures to go around.

I can't stop laughing. :) I picked up Lester from the vet today. Guess what they'd stuck on him?




An "Elizabethan collar". Right. That sounds way too dignified. It's glorified funnel. But it's a funny ..er.. funnel! Coming home, Lester got stuck on -- I counted :) -- six doors, three staircases, and stumbled over his head once. I tried to not laugh... really! Get this: it's loud, too. Loud? Yup. Ever seen a Labrador try to get at his favorite chew toy but keep getting thwarted by a big funnel wrapped around his head? For every minute of chewing, there's a good five minutes of scraping the cone around the floor, somehow managing to stick the whole open side on the floor and then pushing around the kong across the living room, wondering why the kong keeps staying just a few inches ahead, finally figuring it out and picking up the kong, trying to get a paw on it -- but instead pawing the cone -- and then giving up on the paw, forgetting, and then trying to paw at it again, taking a break for a second [chewing a kong is hard work!], watching the kong roll off... rinse, repeat for a good, oh, I don't know ten times or until benevolent master takes pity and just hands it to him directly. :) It reminds me of his more amusing younger days for some reason.

Lester's a conehead. Just a big, loud, awkward conehead. This is going to be an amusing week. :)

On a more serious note though, I'm not quite sure how the doctors' orders to avoid walking and keep him calm and rested are going to work with my meetings and other things. It pretty much means I can't take him anywhere. I'm not even quite sure how I'm going to leave him in his crate: without the cone, he's going to lick and bite at his stitches, which means they're going to get infected; with the cone, I can't imagine it's very comfortable and, really, I'm not even sure if he's going to fit. =P I was planning on traveling later this week but I'll probably have to push that back a few days. Anyways, the group meeting is tomorrow, so I'll just talk to Heidi and Betsy tomorrow and see what they think. Wish me luck.

Labels: Lester

Permalink | Written at 10:28 PM | Post a comment | 6 comments | Trackbacks

Louie is officially a dad! [!!!] Gail, the little lady that he had a "date" with some weeks ago, just gave birth on Monday. I'm a little short on details right now, but it's a litter of five puppies starting with P. I'd called Carol in breeding at Guide Dogs, mainly to just get an update on how things were coming along, but, yeah, wow, did she have a surprise for me. :) Both mother and her pups are doing well from all I've heard and Louie has been returned to Oregon to continue training and is progressing along in phase 8.

I'm working on getting pictures. Breeding is going to try and put me in touch with Gail's breeder-keeper. Lester may no longer be a cute-as-balls puppy [Quincy said he's starting to become "handsome" instead], but, shoot, I'll still be getting you guys some cute puppy pictures. :)

Eek! I'm so excited! I think I'm actually giddy.

Here's the best part: I get to name a couple of the puppies! What I'm actually going to do though is let you guys pick. What's your favorite puppy name starting with a P [*]? Either email me directly or post in the comments. In a few weeks, I'll gather up all the suggestions, pick the best ones and send them over to Guide Dogs. Tentatively, I have until about the middle of July to suggest names, so, there isn't a whole lot of time. Again, I don't yet know all the details like how many males and females or how many I'll get to name, but as I hear more, I'll update here.

[* For my non-raiser readers: the Guide Dogs tradition is that all the puppies in a litter have names starting with the same initial. When you first start out and go to get your puppy, all you know arriving at the airport or the puppy truck is that initial and whether or not your puppy is a boy or a girl. Finding out the name is supposed to be a surprise. :) But, to be honest, tradition aside, I don't know if there's a deeper reason that all the puppies in a litter have the same initial. Anyone know?]

The irony of the day, however, is that I just dropped Lester off at the vet to get neutered. He's probably being anesthetized and going under as I write this. He had his first evaluation a few weeks ago and, ultimately, he was just too dog distracted. It's been a known issue for awhile and he's been making steady progress, but the feeling was just that, you know, if he's this bad before his hormones have kicked in, what are his teenage years going to be like? Scary. In either case, I'll be getting the now-not-so-little Lester [he weighed in at 49lbs] back tomorrow morning. It'll still be the same, good ol' Lester... just, you know, with a couple things missing.

Louie is a dad!!!

If anyone even thinks of calling me grandpa, they die.

Labels: Louie

Permalink | Written at 8:48 AM | Post a comment | 10 comments | Trackbacks

Finishing up the series on catching up. I think I'm finally caught up. Phew.

As some of you know, I'm leaving Amazon. Friday was my last day. I'll be venturing out on my own, starting my own company and pursuing a couple projects I'm very excited about. I obviously shouldn't talk about it too much, but hopefully there'll be something to see soon enough.

What does all this mean for Lester?

Hopefully not very much.

There's a chance I'll have to move to be (geographically) closer to investors. As long as I stay on the West Coast, where Guide Dogs for the Blind has a presence, this shouldn't be a very big deal.

Lester obviously won't be going to the office anymore. I won't be either, for that matter. :) Why? Well, we won't really have an office... at least for now. So, instead of sitting (and sleeping) obediently by my feet all day, Lester will be able to play at home, romp around with his toys, and, well... still sleep, but maybe just a bit more comfortably.

On the flip side, it also means he won't get the exposure to all the dogs, people, and random crazy things that happen at work. But, I figure, with the accident and my re-discovered love of public transit, Lester will still see all sorts of new people and random crazy things... shoot, now, he'll probably just be meeting random crazy people instead.

But, unfortunately for Lester, here is one little lady he won't be seeing much of anymore: Sadie, one of the coolest dogs at Amazon. Not that Sadie will mind. Lester totally, totally has a crush on her... but, you know, Sadie's just a little too hip for his hyper little puppy antics. Sorry pal, but I just don't think it's gonna work out.



Quincy took an awesome picture of Lester stealing a kiss from Sadie [just a few seconds after this one], but I accidentally deleted it, thinking I'd already saved it elsewhere. :( Somehow this one survived. Sorry folks.

All in all, exciting times for both Lester and I ahead.

Labels: Lester

Permalink | Written at 2:53 AM | Post a comment | 4 comments | Trackbacks

Guide Dogs just sent out their monthly newsletter. Whatever, right? Except they have pictures of the tiniest, cutest little puppies.



Best of all, they have pictures of puppies born to Alanis, a dog from our raising group who went back a couple months ago. I puppy-sat her for a few days when I was starting out, so it's nice to see that I wasn't too much of a bad influence. :)



But, you know, here's my favorite little puppy. As much as I love Lester and Louie, as much as Labs have grown on me, I think I'm still a German Shepherd guy at heart. I mean, really, in terms of cuteness, is there really any contest at all? Yeah, sure, they're a little more stubborn and sometimes too smart for their own good, but they're incredibly loyal and loving. Along with the little fellow, here's my not-so-little boy, Koji.

Labels: Louie

Permalink | Written at 12:58 AM | Post a comment | 0 comments | Trackbacks

Last Friday, I was randomly stopped in the elevator by a stranger wondering if I had run the Vancouver marathon. Why, yes, yes I had. What gave it away? Even before I finished asking, I knew the answer. Lester. The lady -- she works in another department at Amazon -- and I talked for a bit and it turned out that she had noticed green-jacketed Lester in the runner recovery area and recognized him.

Heidi totally hit it on the head. Lester really is semi-famous.

Labels: Ironman, Lester

Permalink | Written at 12:49 PM | Post a comment | 0 comments | Trackbacks

Continuing the series on catching up.

A few weeks ago, a bunch of us drove up to Vancouver to run their half-marathon. In all, nine people we knew were up at the race. Of those, three -- Karan, Brett, and I -- people ran the half-marathon and another -- Stephanie -- ran the full marathon. Black nails, dehydration, and some cramps aside, everyone finished their 13.1 or 26.2 miles and came back in one piece. =P

OK. So what about the cute puppy? Lester obviously wasn't going to run the half-marathon with me. I've tried taking him on very short runs before and, yeah, despite all his usual energy, he's a total wuss. He can't even get past a mile! Out of the blocks, he's like a little bunny, prancing, hopping around, tangling me up with his leash and just being a general nuisance. After about half a mile, he starts dragging behind and looking up at me with big, sad eyes. To make matters even more pathetic, he starts poking me in the hand, as if saying "Why? Oh why do you make me exercise?" I'd love to be able to speak puppy and respond, "Because you try to run laps around my living room."

In either case, even if he could run thirteen miles, I wouldn't want him on the course, the race organizers wouldn't wouldn't let him, and Guide Dogs would crucify me if I even suggested it. So, what to do about the dog for the two or so hours of the race? Normally, a family member would just be able to watch him. Because that obviously doesn't apply to me and none of my friends are approved by Guide Dogs, we faced a bit of a dilemma. Michele (our Guide Dogs adviser), Betsy (another lead for our group) and I talked and decided it'd be OK to fudge the rules a bit: we figured that, even though no one was officially approved, Kaushal and Paavany had seen me with Lester [and Louie before him] long enough and worked with him enough to manage for the race. Not strictly proper, but whatever, gotta do what you gotta do.

So, on race day, Lester and I woke up extra early [5am!] and went over to Paavany's room. I lay Lester down by Paavany and had him settle back to sleep, after which I tiptoed out of the room and went back to preparing for the race. All told, Lester was with Kaushal and Paavany for about four hours, two of which was spent sleeping. My dad-like paranoia aside -- Brett was teasing me, since I started worrying right after I crossed the finish line -- they did just fine. No misbehaving. No accidents. No nothing. They were even able to explain to the race organizers that Lester was a guide dog in training, pointing to the green jacket, apparently perfectly on cue, and so could enter the runner recovery area even though pets weren't generally allowed. Woo! Go Paavany! Go Kaushal!



Coming off the high of running one half-marathon, another buddy (Wes) and I decided to run another half-marathon. Which one? We just looked around for something that weekend and found one in Olympia. A little overconfident from Vancouver, we hopped in my rental car [my car being semi-totaled and all], threw in Lester and his crate, and drove to Olympia. (As crazy as this sounds, it's really not all that crazy. Last summer, Wes, Quincy, and I -- and Louie -- decided one day that it was just to nice to stay at work. We took the day off, drove to the coast and surfed for two days.) Overconfident? Yeah. Thinking that Lester would be fine, since he now sleeps loose in my bedroom and has stayed in the car a couple times without incident, I thought I'd let him relax in the car for the the race. So, a few minutes before the race, I went back to the car, rolled down the windows a bit, and had Lester settle down into the rear floorboards to sleep.

When we returned, about two hours later, Lester was no longer sleeping. Or in the rear floorboards. Nowhere near. He was in the driver's seat. And that wasn't all. Lester had apparently had a bout of diarrhea. Explosive diarrhea. He'd pooped all over the driver and passenger seats. Not his spot, mind you, there wasn't a single drop anywhere on the back seats or on the floorboards. It was all in the front and almost entirely on the driver's -- my -- seat. You thought I was kidding when I said that dogs won't ever poop in their den? Nope. Definitely not kidding.

Disgusting. But I guess I deserved it. I really shouldn't have left him in the car for so many reasons. That was totally stupid.

Two hours, three-fourths of a bottle of 409, half a roll of paper towels, and lots of stain remover later, we finally had a car that looked somewhat sanitary. To prevent our butts from getting wet from all that 409, we put some big ol' Safeway paper bags over the seats. We must've been quite a sight driving home. =P

Although that was enough to bring the car home, I would've felt extremely, extremely bad giving back that car in the shape it was. So, I spent some three hours yesterday doing a second pass: vacuuming up all the fur, going a little crazy with Nature's Miracle, and even cleaning out hard-to-reach areas with a toothbrush. Ultimately, after everything was done, I was pretty proud of my clean-up job. By looking at it (or, for that matter, smelling it), you wouldn't be able to tell that anything had happened. The rental company did a full check, gave me a thumbs up, and took it back without a word.

But, still... if you're offered a gray Ford Focus rental with California plates, you might want to consider upgrading. =P

Oh, I almost forgot. As much as I deserved to clean up Lester's poop, Lester deserved -- and got -- a very thorough bath. Here he is looking quite pathetic in the tub after we got home.

Labels: Ironman, Lester, Louie

Permalink | Written at 6:51 PM | Post a comment | 1 comments | Trackbacks

Summer's here! Well, mostly. Just ignore the little downpour a few hours ago. You don't understand: in Seattle, after nine months of gray skies, walking around in hoodies "just in case," and rain that just makes your car dirtier instead of washing it, we start counting down the days to summer. You would too. But, the three months of summer more than make up for it. Summers in Seattle are absolutely incredible. If you like the outdoors, you'll be in love here. I'm totally smitten. So, on Saturday, we gathered up the gang and hiked up to Lake Serene. Amazing. Mountain springs. Hundred-foot waterfalls. The twin peaks of Mt. Index towering above a (freezing) snow-lined Alpine lake. Absolutely amazing. At right, you can see me trying to convince Lester that the waterfall really isn't so scary. Lester doesn't like water so much. Yes, yes, I know, he's a Lab. No, no, it's not a sign of the Apocalypse: Louie, also a Lab, didn't like water either but we're all still alive, the world hasn't come to a fiery end and he's doing just fine now. We'll work on it. A few dunkings in Green Lake should cure him.

Labels: Lester, Louie

Permalink | Written at 11:51 PM | Post a comment | 2 comments | Trackbacks