Papiamento

Papiamento is the name of the local language in Aruba. It is a combination of Dutch, West African languages, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. I think the name of our church there is a good illustration of a combination of languages, don't you? I don't really see any English though!

Iglesia di Hesucristo di e Santonan di e Delaster Dianan

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

A dog under every desk!

When I started volunteering at the Guide Dog School I was told that 'there is a dog under every desk' and it's true. This is what greeted me today when I went into the vet clinic.

That is Jedi, a career change dog, on the left and Nottingham, called Scottie, on the right. He's a retired guide dog who has been sick and in the vet clinic for more than a month. Thankfully he is getting better and will soon be going back to his puppy raiser to live out the rest of his life. When a dog gets too old to guide, if his owner can't keep him, the person who raised him for his first year gets first dibs. I can understand why they would want him back. He's a lovable guy who prefers sitting in your lap! He's a 'lap full' for sure! I'm told that even though they haven't seen their 'puppy raiser' for seven or eight years, the dogs remember them and greet them like long lost friends. I'd love to see that sometime.

Goodbye Puppies!

On Saturday the 27 puppies that I have been helping to take care of will go to their 'puppy raiser's homes'! The dedicated puppy raisers spend about a year teaching these energetic little puppies how to be socialized, housebroken, obedient dogs who are ready for their specialized training to become guide dogs. About 70% of them make it all the way to graduation and spend their lives helping a visually impaired person. The rest are known as 'career change' dogs and they go on to become search and rescue dogs or therapy dogs or police dogs or just become wonderful family pets!

Here are a few things you can learn from puppies!

• Be aware of when to hold your tongue, and when to use it.
• Leave room in your schedule for a good nap.
• Always give people a friendly greeting.
• If it's not wet and sloppy, it's not a real kiss..
• Take naps and stretch before rising.
• Run, romp and play
• Eat with gusto and enthusiasm
• Thrive on attention and let people touch you
• When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body

"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about little puppies." -- Gene Hill

Random Aruba

Aruba isn't a lush tropical island. It's a desert with 47 different types of cactus. Don't think I'm complaining though!

The northern part of the island can only be explored in 4 wheel drive vehicles. That was a fun adventure! Sharing our jeep with a newlywed couple from New York made it even more exciting. They had never done any kind of off roading and they were pretty vocally nervous!

In the Marriott's 'Lazy River', we were absolutely LAZY for embarrassingly long periods of time.

A sunset cruise was the perfect ending to a perfect day!

Aruba is a Dutch island, complete with windmills!

Guess what these fish loved to eat? Crumbled up goldfish crackers!

The license plates appropriately expressed our sentiments concerning our Aruba vacation!

Head in the sand?

One of our fun little day trips in Aruba was a visit to the Ostrich farm! One Ostrich egg is equivalent to 2 dozen chicken eggs. That would be quite the omelet!

Feeding them was interesting! Notice the lumps in their long necks as the food works its way down!

We learned to tell an Emu from as Ostrich! The big guys are the ostriches.

Emus, like most birds, have 3 toes.

Ostriches are the only bird to have 2 toes. Cheetahs can run faster for short distances but the ostrich can run almost as fast for miles and miles.

If anyone ever calls you as Ostrich it isn't a compliment. Our guide said that all they do is eat, mate and protect themselves. Those tiny little heads can't seem to learn anything at all. The ostriches at this farm are primarily for meat. Ostrich drumstick anyone?

Oh, and they don't bury their heads in the sand to hide but they do bury their eggs. Mom sits on the eggs all day and Dad all night. The eggs are tough enough to withstand 300 pounds! Might be a bit difficult to make that giant omelet!

Favorite views in Aruba

We loved our trip to India and Nepal with Fun For Less Tours but those two weeks hardly count as a vacation. With 5 a.m. wake up calls and constant on the go activities we needed a vacation to recover from the trip! Aruba was just perfect for total relaxation! Here are two of my favorite views:

The pool and the beach from my lounge chair! Now that is a real VACATION!

Puppies, puppies and more puppies!

What's even cuter than one puppy! Twenty-seven puppies! And I spent the afternoon with them!

We had outdoor play time!

Just like kids, they had the 'if she has it, then I must want it" mentality!

Lots of puppy kisses during cuddle time! They loved my watch and my glasses and my camera strap and all the snaps and cords on my ski jacket! If it is possible to chew it, they did!

I especially liked "Individual attention time"! It's important for these future guide dogs to get lots of one on one attention so that they are completely used to different people handling them! We were happy to provide this service! I love the expression on my puppy's face. I'm sure he is going to be a STAR!

Doesn't he look like he's asking when his individual time is going to be?

These three are from the J litter. That means that they all have J names. I think they are Jed and Jethro and Jocelyn. It's like having one family with two blondes and one brunette!

After their exhausting afternoon they enjoyed some puppy nap time!

I get to go back two more times! Lucky me!

NO outfit is complete without dog hair!

Except for visits from Jackson, Scott's friend's dog, we have been 'dog less' for awhile now. I miss having dog hair on my clothes. Well I don't really miss the dog hair but I do miss having an excited pooch overjoyed to see me every time I come home. So I have started volunteering at the Oregon Guide Dog School in Boring, Oregon. I'm helping in the Vet Clinic. So far I have done some clerical work, some sterilizing, and some other organizing stuff. But I've also snuggled with a dog coming out of sedation after an X-ray and spent time loving on a retired guide dog, named Nottingham, who is recovering from a sickness and was lonely. I've walked a beautiful confident Golden Retriever names Jonathan and a sweet yellow lab named Nexie! And I've loved every minute! I haven't had my camera with me so I haven't posted about this new project.

This week all that is going to change. Normally the Guide Dog School gets 6 new puppies each month. These puppies stay at the school until they go to their 'puppy raiser' homes which are located all around the West. But because of a problem with Parvo at the school in California, yesterday they got 27 puppies age 7 - 9 weeks! And I get to go and work with them!!! I'm so excited! The puppy coordinator said, "If you think 6 little puppies are cute, you should see 27! Some of them are so small they can fit in your pocket." I can hardly wait! And I promise pictures!