Gail here...


First of all, I'd like to thank everyone that donated to, and/or participated in the Southeastern Guide Dog Walk-a-Thon, it was a huge success!  For anyone that's still interested in donating, SEGD will apply all donations received through March 31st to the Walk-a-Thon campaign.  You may make a donation at www.sitstaygive.org/gailscorner




Ok, now onto the fun stuff.  Last week was pretty typical... work with Mom, walk in the park with Dad, work, walk in the park, yeah, you get the picture.  Oh, I do have to fess us to something about going to work with Mom...  I have the biggest crush on Scott, our UPS Driver.  Lots of people come in and out of the office each day, but when Scott comes in, I fall apart.  I'll try to get Mom to take my picture with him so I can post it on here, of course, that's if I can stop wiggling long enough for her to get the picture.


I had been hearing that a visit to Chili's was in my future, and was wondering what would be on the floor menu.  Well, guess what, I found out on Thursday night when we had our semi-monthly Puppy Raisers meeting.  I had a little tummy problem before we went in, so Dad asked Carolyn if we should stay for the meeting or go home.  Carolyn said that we could stay, but to keep away from the other small puppies like me and to sit at the back corner of the room just in case I had a bug that I could pass on (talk about feeling like a leper).  My dinner companions were Jam (he's really big compared to me) and his raisers/parents, Cheryl and Fred, and Stephanie, who is currently waiting for her next puppy.  Things went pretty well except for the occasional flick of Jam's tail in my direction which got me a little excited - it reminded me of  Sneakers' tail, so I thought it was time to play!

I just can't resist Sneakers' tail!

Jam being the mature puppy that he is, ignored me - shucks!  Anyway, since we were in the back of the room and away from all of the good pickin's, I didn't get a chance to sample the floor menu.  Oh well, maybe next time...



Saturday morning we got up and went down to Sarasota to visit the SEGD Discovery Center.  It turns out that they were doing "hug-a-puppy" that morning.  They had brought some of the teeny, tiny puppies from the campus down for the morning to meet and play with the visitors.  You might think that with cute, adorable, 8-9 week old puppies in the house, that I would be treated like a 2nd class puppy - Wrong!  There were so many people there that I had more attention than any puppy could possibly hope to have in a 2 hour time period.  While people were waiting to see the baby puppies, they lavished their attention on me, which was absolute torture - yeah, right.  :-)

Can you believe it was only two months ago that I was this small???

Dylan is a 7 month old Golden Retriever  puppy in training.
Shouldn't he be a Blonde Retriever?

These are some of the kids that I got to play with at the Discovery Center (ok, so I wasn't having too much fun in this one picture)

This puppy was sitting inside the front door at the Discovery Center.  I wanted to be his friend, but for some reason, he only wanted to sit there....  Maybe he's one of those Super Heros that you see on the billboard - "Some Super Heros Fly, Others Sit & Stay"

When we got done at the Discovery Center, we stopped at an Applebee's for lunch.  It was St. Patty's Day so green beer was flowing freely throughout the restaurant, especially the table next to us.  After lunch, we went across the parking lot to Publix where the Lion's Club was collecting donations for the blind.  The LC donates to SEGD, so we decided to spend time helping them raise funds.  It was an interesting experience for us since we've never participated in that type of fund raising.  I truly believe that a large percentage of people that donated would not have done so if I hadn't been there.  Many people stopped to see the adorable puppy (that would be me), and once they did they were pretty much committed to making a donation, even if it was only $0.25 (every penny counts).  I truly believe that those people would have done the averted eyes, walk straight ahead thing if I hadn't been there.  I truly hope that I helped to raise extra funds.  By the way, don't forget, if you have old eyeglasses laying around your house, please drop them off at your local Lion's Club, or Optometrist/Opthomologist's office as they as used to provide "eyes" to visually impaired individuals.


Sunday morning we got up and decided to look for someplace new for breakfast.  After driving around for awhile, we stopped at Kelly's in downtown Dunedin.  We had never been there before and were surprised.  From the outside it looks just like your typical downtown renovated restaurant, but when we got inside we found out that they have a really, really, big outside patio in the back.  We had a very fun and animated server, and the food was pretty good, or so I'm told.  After breakfast, we went to Best Buy.  The new iPad had come out earlier last week, and Dad had been very patient about buying a new one (he had Gen 1 and Mom has iPad 2) - LOL!  It was kind of funny, it took about 2 minutes for Dad to tell the BB Sales Rep that he wanted the new iPad, and about 30 minutes to talk about me and SEGD.  Can you believe it, I was more interesting than an iPad (rest in peace Steve Jobs)!  When we were done there we stopped by the park for a leisurely stroll and to meet people.  The rest of the day was about setting up and playing with the new iPad (now there's a surprise - LOL!)

Peek-a-Boo!

Is this the way in?

This week started out as usual but today was a little different. I was kind of antsy at work today, and stretching Mom's patience a bit.  Fortunately Dad came and rescued me and we went to the park.  After Mom got home tonight she thought she saw me chewing on something so I got the "no, drop it" command.  I didn't drop "it", so Mom opened my mouth and much to her surprise, it was all bloody.  After a closer examination, she realized that I had just lost one of my lower baby fangs.  That probably explains my behavior today.  Unfortunately, she couldn't find it to leave for the Tooth Fairy.  By the way, the Tooth Fairy left me 2 puppy biscuits for the tooth I lost last week - I sure hope that's the average for a puppy molar...


I hope you find this next topic kind of fun...  Dad & Mom decided that I was starting to outgrow my cape so they ordered a new one.  It looks like I'm going to have to grow into this one...

PS:  This is a special note to Marianne... Mom and I are thinking about you and saying extra prayers!  We hope to talk to you soon!