Meet Jack

As you may have guessed from some earlier posts, there is a new dog at our house.  His name is Jack.  He was born in September 2009 and is a black lab.  Jack was part of MAWP's first litter of puppies.  His mom, Casey, was donated to the program pregnant and had 11 puppies.

This is Jack's mom with his litter.  Jack is one of the black ones... who knows which one!

The chocolate is Jack's mom Casey and the yellow is Jack's Dad.  Jack inherited Casey's cross eyes :-)

This is either Jack or one of his brothers at 4 weeks.  It looked the most like Jack.

Jack was placed with a puppy raising family at 8 weeks old.  It was with a single mom who had a daughter with disabilities.  She was hoping to train him to help her with her daughter.  Unfortunately it was too much work having a puppy and a disabled child so she gave him back to MAWP.  He was then placed with a wonderful couple.  For a couple months they were doing great then they stopped coming to class.  MAWP contacted them and found out that they had lost both their jobs and were searching for new jobs and didn't have time for Jack.  Jack was recalled back to MAWP.  

Jack with his angel wings

He then stayed in the MAWP kennels looking for a new puppy raiser.  He started loosing weight and was getting very stressed out.  I was asked if I would take him home with me when I came back from Florida.  I agreed tentatively because first I had to meet him and see if Serena got along with him. When we got to Florida I fell instantly in love.   Serena and Jack also got along great.  You really can't help but like him.  He is a big awkward boy who just wants to be loved.  His cross eyes are the best:

Jack has been with me for 2 months now.  His way of learning is completely different than Serena's.  He shuts down if he thinks he is doing something wrong where as Serena will keep trying all sorts of things till it is correct.  But unlike Serena, he is overly food motivated. If you treat him at the right moment he will remember what you taught him and will do that command over and over again.

My friend from the barn, Alice, is co-raising Jack with me!  This is super awesome because that way he gets used to working with different people and goes to different places that maybe I wouldn't take him to.  Alice takes him any day she isn't flying around the country for work.  We are having so much fun working with Jack together.  It also gives Serena a break from Jack and some one on one momma time.  She has a love hate relationship with him.  She loves him when they are playing but gets very very jealous if I am paying attention to him and not to her.  Jack also likes to put his paws all over Serena which she tolerates:

Jack didn't get to go places like Serena did when she was a puppy so he is a very sheltered dog.  I took him to Target one day and he did wonderfully.  Everything was interesting but I had a pocket full of treats and he was a little unsure so he kept looking to me for guidance.  He also goes to work with me a couple days a week.  This is teaching him to lay calmly under a desk until I say it is time to go.  Alice takes him to work out at a gym where they have physical therapy.  He sometimes gets to help with the therapy sessions of the clients and everyone LOVES him.  He tolerates anything from pulling on his tail to picking up his paws. I am very excited to see how Jack progresses and help him turn into the awesome service dog I know he can be!