Merry Christmas

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We are home!

What an experience! It was hard work and worth it all. We left 4Paws a a little after five on Friday and drove to Indianoplis and spent the night. Judy had an early morning flight back to Anchorage. She was such a blessing to us in Ohio. we could not have managed without her help. Thanks, Jude! Love you!

We met up with Julia at the hotel in Indy and she, Javan, Tobi and I left out around ten Saturday morning to drive home. Julia did the majority of the driving and we drove straight through. Depending on which time zone you were using, we got home around two or three Sunday morning. We arrived home on TX time which was two, but we were all still on Eastern time which was three!

Tobi Mesa is a perfect traveler! No a complaint of any kind from or about her! We could easily forget she was in the car.

We are all pretty wiped out today, but I am sure by afternoon we will have our energy back, (well some of it, maybe). Javan already seems to be in full swing! LOL

These are Sunday morning pictures.

Javan and Tobi on the first morning home. Grandpa had the tree up and decorated and we thougth it was beautiful! Tobi really likes the ornaments, took a few "No's" to not like them so much!

Javan, Amber and Tobi. Today is Amber's birthday and she came by to see us this morning. She is coming back after lunch.

Amber really loves my Tobi Mesa. I think Tobi really loves her, too!

Graduation....Yeah!

We made it. Here are some pictures from today. This is Tobi Mesa's foster family. They came to graduation and also brought us a book of pictures taken when she lived with them.






Javan and Tobi in their mortar boards.











Jeremy, Javan, Jennifer, and Tobi Mesa after graduation.
Jeremy and Jennifer are the trainers. They are wonderful.






It is late and tomorrow starts early so I am going to wind things down.

Thanks for the prayers and good wishes.

Vicki, Javan and Tobi Mesa

December 11, 2008

Well, formal training is over. All that is left is passing the access testing, signing papers and graduating. We are all so tired but it is good to be at the end of the road so to speak. We do our testing at 11:00 am tomorrow. At least we don't have to be up at 6:30 like all of the other days!
We plan on leaving as soon as graduation is finished tomorrow, probably around 4 pm.
I will post pictures as soon as I have more and have some time to do it. Thanks for all of your prayers.

So Sweet when sleeping!

This makes it all worthwhile! Javan has stayed in his bed all night every night except one. And that was about 3:30 AM when he woke up and found Tobi in the floor in the other room because his bed was hot and the floor was much cooler. He loves sleeping with his Tobi Mesa. And I love it, too!

One more day of tracking, and a visit from the vet. More practice on commands and then we will be ready for public access testing and graduation! It has really been an experience. We are all tired and ready to be home with our families and introduce our new family members to all of our friends.

God has provided what appears to be the perfect companion to Javan. We ask for His continued blessings and a safe trip home. Praise the Lord in all things.

Day 8...I think

WOW! Where to start. We have been going from 9:30-4:30 almost every day. We have tracked in wind, and snow and rain. Tobi is doing great. I am learning! We have done mall work, and inside mall tracking, learned all kinds of commands and tricks. Tobi knows shake, give me five, hight five, high ten, roll over and play dead. I just have to get the commands down to an art, lol.
Tobi does well on all of the obedience commands, but is still testing the water a bit to be sure I mean what I say. But she is a very easy dog to work with and we are so in love with her. She can be as active as Javan or she can calm him down. It is just amazing to watch her work even though she doesn't quite realize what she is doing with him yet. She loves the nuzzle and it has made him stop throwing a fit and start laughing every time. She is excellent in resturants! She goes down right under the table or if not enough room there right beside the table and she just doesn't move except maybe to repostition her legs so she can sleep. Javan does wear her out! She is very good on her place, so school should be no problems at all. Small group should be the same. We took her to worship on Sunday evening at a smaller congergation, about 250 members, she did great. One of the young boys, around 12 yrs I would say, had kind of a hard time knowing she was there, but Javan and Tobi did just fine.
Two more days of training, tracking and learning everything we can, and we do our testing and graduation on Friday. Then we will be heading home. I am more than ready. But I think about a week of sleep will be in order! I wish!
It is time to head down to dinner, so I need to get the dog and the boy ready to go. Things do take a 'bit' more time.
Thank you for your continued prayers.

Day Three

Just hanging out on tracking day number one. Tracking is fun! It was soooooo cold, but I got to give Tobi hot dogs and hugs and kisses when she found me! And we got to run back to the parking lot and then I got to go along on the next track to see how the dog works. Jeremy let me run beside him! I had a great day! .... Javan and Tobi

Tues night pictures

Day 2 of training

Wow you can do a lot of pack leader training when you don't have the children with you. We trained on a lot of stuff today, lots of sits and downs and also tricks. It was fun to have the twelve dogs in a down and just walk around and over them and they just don't move. Well, mostly they don't move, lol. Tobi did great. Tomorrow we start tracking....high temps are suppose to be low thirties. Should be fun. Who knows?
For some reason I can't get any pictures to load tonight so I will just leave it at this and hope to load some pictures tomorrow.
Javan's Aunt BrrBrr arrived today so she will be with us for a couple of days to observe and help. She gave Tobi a bath and had quite an experience. LOL


Vicki, Javan and Tobi
Judy and Amber

Tobi Mesa

According to Javan Tobi is the dog he dreamed about! So I think we have a great match.

We have arrived!

Well, we have arrived at the Homewood Suites and are mostly settled into our room. The staff here is fantastic! Just ask and it is taken care of. We met about half of our class at a small get together this evening and we are all so excited to get going in the morning and meet and greet our dogs. Javan is sound asleep so I am sure he will be up early. I will try and post on Monday night to let you all know how our meeting with Tobi Mesa goes. God bless and thank you to all for your prayers.