Update on Eugenia from the Uhligs
We have now had Genie for about a year! What a
joy she has been. On May 15th, 2010, we will turn
her in to Canine Companions for Independence for
her professional training. She will go through 6
months of training and if she graduates, she will
help someone with a disability. We place our dogs
with people with many different disabilities (except
for blindness). The people who receive our dogs
are not charged for these miracles at all. CCI is a
non profit organization, and the dogs are worth
about $45,000 when they are fully trained! Should
Genie not graduate (only about 40% of the dogs
do), she will be released. We get priority to adopt
her, or we may designate someone to adopt her. If
we have no one, CCI has a long waiting list to get
these pups. There is a $500 adoption fee (waived
for puppy raisers) and the adopting family has to be
approved by CCI and pay to get the puppy to them,
or go to CA to get the pup. We have decided to
raise another puppy (which we will get late March to
early April) so we will not be adopting Genie, should
she get released. If you would be interested in
adopting her, please let us know. Pray for us as we
let Genie go and please also pray that she graduate
and prayers for the person whose life she will
change!
Thanks,
The Uhligs
Last night we attended out first Puppy Kindergartern for CCI. Soft and fluffy Genie was a hit, but not a great student as she fell asleep halfway through class! Two brother puppies that are about 2 months older are in class and two more will be there after they arrive, Friday and next Wednesday.
She had her first shots this morning and now weighs 20.6 pounds. Seems she has gotten (?sp) tall and skinny overnight. Dr. Specht did a great job of teaching her how to lick faces. Hmmm...
Sent out by the Shepherd of the Hills (our church) Mid-week news:
Well, miss Genie is settleing in just fine. Getting into a bit of a routine, but the real routine won't start until everyone goes back to School and work.
She is a big help on laundry day, keeping the dirty laundry on the floor nice and warm. No more pooing in the house, but an occassional pee. She actually yips by the door when she needs to pee. Got to work on having her wait to go out.
She sits before she gets her meals and then waits until we say ok. Hannah has been working on down and she is getting that.
Apparently we are feeding her enough. She weighed 12.4 pounds when she left CCI and two days ago weighed 18.6. Needless to say the collar has had to be extended serveral times.
Her tatook number is 08604, so she was the 604th puppy born to CCI this year. We have to turn her in in May 2010. We got her first gentle leaders, her cape and vest. The small gentle leader is just about too small for her already.
So that is it for now.
Genie gave us the gift of a good night sleep! We went to the midnight service at church and then she slept until 8 am!
The last two nights before that have not been good at all. Boopsie Woopsie came to us with a Cociddia parasite and had been treated at CCI. But diarrhea continued especially at night. I finally brought a special Christmas present in a cup to Dr. Dave to check for more cociddia. It was negative for that but positive for yeast and stuff. He said we could treat with Flagyl, but when I talked to him she have a normal poop, so we decided not to treat. Well that night it returned to icky. So we started flagyl on the 24th and she is now good! phew.
So anyhow she is doing much better. More than you wanted to hear about poop? Well, I used to be an RN (okay so I still am, but don't practice) and we just kind of fixate on poop sometimes! Sorry, but not really!
Little Miss is adjusting. She was pretty mellow Thursday and Friday, but now is full of vim and vigor.
Thursday, she took her first excursion and went to Hannah's Christmas program. She was very popular. During the program she was a doll. Got a little freaked by clapping, but otherwise slept. Thursday night she got up at 12 and then slept until 5:30. Hannah worked with "quiet" on her when she barked and she is getting it and getting used to the kennel.
Friday, we went to Hannah's school. We met her foster cousin Peter (Dan and Lisa's nephew) who is five. And Peter's class. Also a visit to Hannah's class. She was then pooped.
Today is Saturday and we will stay home. The Specht's are going to come visit. So nice to have your vet come to your home!
The most popular question is "Why is her ear green?" Most think we did it for Christmas. But CCI tatooed her before she left. Haven't seen the number yet, but hope to when we wash the ink off tomorrow. It wil be 08 and three other numbers. The 08 means she was born in 2008 and the second number will be the number of puppy of the order of all the puppies born this year for CCI. So thinkgs are good.
PS: Watched Dan after the program on Thursday talking to a few folks and looking at the puppy and he had this huge smile on his face!
Dan, Lisa and Beth had a very good night sleep. Oops, what happened to Hannah. Well, Princess Fluffy spent the night in her kennel in Hannah's room in the basement. Hannah resports she was up five times! That will have to change.
So fun to potty train in a deep freeze!
WE got home from the airport about 6 pm... lots of traffic. The day started for her with her flight from San Francisco to Houston. Our "friend" Ralph Schuette who is a Continental pilot met her plane there. He flies out of Houston. I say "friend" because he was naughty. He sent us pics of a pointer and said she looked kind of funny. Then he sent three pics of her.
She just got to the cargo area when we arrived. She was not too messy, just a little wet and happy as a clam. She kept the girls busy on the ride home. She has been VERY busy since we got here. playing like a dickens. Must have slept lots on the planes. She loves Lacey and Lacey is getting used to her.
So the journey begins!
Poor Eugenia will have a long day tomorrow. She was supposed to fly direct to Denver, but because United doesn't transport to the cargo area in a heated van, they went with Continental. So she has to fly to Houston first. She won't get here until 4 pm. yet leaves at 8 am. We have a pilot (Ralph Schuette) friend that flies for Continental and is actually going to be in Houston tomorrow. If he is able (he does have to fly out tomorrow sometime too.) he is going to go check on her during her layover!
Got an e-mail from David and here is what he has to say about the pups:
All is well. The pupsters are all fat and sassy. We have them outside each day from about 8-ish when it starts to get warm and take them back in the house around 5 p.m. when the sun goes down. They love to play out on our patio. It is a space about 15' by 20' so they have lots of room to roam. We put lots of items out for them to play with.
This afternoon, Lisa, Dan and Hannah drove through the snow to Colorado Springs to the CCI office to have our puppy raiser orientation class. We met Kelly and Paul (Aubrey, Brit and another dog, who were just wonderful. Brit and the other dog were released pups and Aubrey is a tiny lab, at 15 months and baresly 50 pounds that we fell in love with. Aubrey will be going to CCI college in February.) who told us so much information and gave us some tools to help us do our job. We also found out that the Specht's will be our mentors for this process!
They gave us lots of information about what will happen when Eugenia arrives at DIA in just 12 days! They said she will have green on her ear from a tatoo (all CCI dogs are tatooed). The tatoo will have the year and the number that is her birth order of all the CCI pups born this year. They also said she may be a little stinky after the flight in a crate from CA! So needless to say the excitement level has increased a bit!
We were also given permission to give her a nick name, so we decided that Genie would be much easeir to roll off the tongue quickly.