CCI Workshop

On Saturday, CCI's Southwest Puppy Program Manager and an instructor came to Utah to do an all day workshop.  While it makes for a long day, it's fun to catch up with other puppy raisers in Utah, refresh on training and puppy raising info, and learn new things.  And, of course, I love seeing all the puppies in program!  They are all labs, goldens, or lab-golden crosses, but they all look so different and have unique and fun personalities.

Shaun and I got there a little late and Lucy was a bit of a brat for the first hour or two (she just didn't want to settle down with all those four-legged friends hanging around to "play" with!) but after being restless for awhile in the morning, she decided that she was going to turn her brain back on and behave :)

Sleeping under the table

The workshop was held in Salt Lake at a puppy raiser's home.  The property is up a canyon in a beautiful area with a great view of the valley.  The main portion of the day was held in a large garage with a lunch break held by the pool.  While Lucy has never been swimming, she thought the water looked like a lot of fun!  

Lucy even got a chance to see her sister Lana again!  Both pups have a similar face shape (from their lovely mom of course :)), but Lana is still much lighter than Lucy, has a more lanky look, but is actually shorter.  

Lucy on the left, Lana on the right

Lucy and Lana's PRs

So, even though I've been to numerous CCI workshops over the years, I always learn or "realize" new things.  For example, I had always known that it was not okay for the pups to ride in the front seat of the car, but I thought it was fine for them to be in a "down" on the front seat floor.  Come to find out, I was wrong!  So, Lucy started riding in the back on the way home from the workshop.

She was tired after her long day, but didn't want to miss anything by sleeping

Sometimes being up in Logan can feel like its own little world (although we're so happy that Mariko's PR is part of CCI now!), and so it's good to get together with other CCI people and recommit myself to the program.  I am always reminded about things I can improve on.  So, in response to that, Shaun and I have decided to create a training log for Lucy (and Cheri too).  On the way home, we used some money we had left over on a gift card and bought some fun notebooks to record their info in.  Hopefully, this will help us to increase our skills as puppy raisers and dog owners in general!