DLP Week 20: Modelling Paste...

...or not! This week's Documented Life Project prompt was to use modelling paste and the theme was 'rising to the occasion'. 

I certainly feel that Yoshi, my Lions Foundation of Canada future dog guide puppy has risen to the occasion. She is an incredibly beautiful, gentle puppy and on Monday I returned her to Dog Guides so that she can begin her formal training as a service dog. She will be training to work with a person who has a physical or medical disability, possibly someone in a wheelchair, although not necessarily.

The "or not" comment is because I was so involved in moment, creating this page that I completely forgot to use modelling paste, and I love how it turned out, so I'm leaving it as is!

My friend Marilyn accompanied me for the drop off and took lots of pictures of this milestone event in the life of this fabulous dog guide in the making. Thanks Marilyn!

Ontario Network of Needleworkers (ONN) Conference

Yesterday I participated in the 2015 ONN conference, hosted by the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild, Guelph chapter. It was another well organized and productive meeting. Thank you to all who were involved in organizing the day!

In addition to the meeting itself, each guild attending sets up a display of of members' work to showcase what they have been doing, so I thought I'd share with you our display. There are only nine of us in our Group of Eight Fibre Artists group, but I am always awestruck by the incredible talent and versatility of our members!

For those of you keeping up on my foster puppies, that is 4 month old Wafer, practising her down-stay in the first photo.

The beautiful Miss Yoshi will be going off to puppy university in a couple of weeks to begin her formal training. She has been selected for the SSD program which means she will be working with an individual with a physical disability when she and her client graduate. I couldn't be more proud of her. She is an incredible puppy and will make someone's life so much better!

A Little Bit of Baking...

This week I came across a recipe for pumpkin puppy treats and since I had all the ingredients in my kitchen I decided I'd bake some healthy, all natural 'cookies' for Yoshi and Wafer. I can't believe the price of dog treats, especially the healthier 'natural' varieties, so discovering how easy these were to make was a great bonus and the puppies just love them!



I found the recipe on Facebook. It had been shared from John Hammer's page by a friend. Here it is if you're interested in trying it.

DOG TREATS

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (pure pumpkin...not the sweetened pie filling!)
2 tbsp dry milk
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 cups brown rice flour*
1 tsp dried parsley (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF
In large bowl, whisk together eggs and pumpkin until smooth. Stir in dry milk, salt and parsley. Add brown rice flour gradually, combining with your hands to form a stiff, dry dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface (use brown rice flour) and if dough is still rough, briefly knead and press to combine.

Roll dough between 1/4 - 1/2" thick, depending on your preference and use cookie cutter to cut out bone shapes, gathering and re-rolling scraps as you go.

Place cookies on a cookie sheet (no greasing or paper is necessary). If desired, press a fork pattern on biscuits before baking.

The puppies happily sit pretty
to earn a cookie reward!

Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from oven and carefully turn them over. Bake an additional 20 minutes on this side. Allow to cook completely before storing in an airtight container or letting your dog sample them.

*Brown rice flour gives the cookies a nice crunch and promotes better digestion, especially for dogs who do not tolerate wheat well.

Makes about 75 small biscuits or 50 medium biscuits. I ended up with about 120 using the little bone cookie cutter I have and these are a perfect size for training treats (broken in half for Wafer). 

Meet Wafer-Foster Puppy #3

As most of you know, I foster future Dog Guide puppies for the Lion's Foundation of Canada Dog Guides. On February 10th we welcomed home our third foster puppy, Wafer. She is another yellow labrador retriever and she came home on her 7 week 'birthday'. We still have Yoshi, now 9 1/2 months old, and she will likely not be returning to Dog Guide 'University' for her formal training for another month or two. If you'd like to know more about Dog Guides or fostering a future Dog Guide, please click on the above link. Yoshi and Wafer are 2nd cousins.

Getting ready for Wafer's first car ride...she curled up and slept with Yoshi the whole way home!

Yoshi's never far from her new 'little sister'.

Being my first winter baby, I made some sweaters to keep Wafer warm when
I had to take her outside for 'bathroom' chores. This sweater was made using
a free pattern from http://www.mimiandtara.com

Hey Wafer, are you sure you want all of that?
The shirt pictured here is a little 'onesie' that I cut off and hemmed.

Sleeping in her crate with Lampchop.

Wafer's first shopping mall excursion.

Escalators are one of the many things to which future Dog Guides must be exposed.
"Mom, is this the cookie machine Yoshi told me about?" asks Wafer

Sitting pretty!

Napping together.

Yoshi seems to always be close to her new baby 'sister'.

Blowing raspberries on Wafer's belly! Haha

Baby it's cold out here!

More snuggles...Yoshi's sharing her bed with Wafer.

Another shopping mall outing with my Mom, Yoshi and Wafer.

Yoshi tried on her hockey buddies jersey.

Just hanging out...

Thanks Auntie Marilyn for my pretty name tag!

If I try really hard I can jump like a kangaroo!

Getting sleepy...

Yoshi likes to be close, even when Wafer is learning to nap in her crate!

A Rough Drawing Becomes An Incredible Piece...

A while back, in this post, among other things I shared some rough drawings I did for an idea I had for a piece of furniture that would help me get a little more organized.

The idea was to have a "puppy unit" that would hold all of the things I need close at hand for my Dog Guide foster puppies.

My husband, a retired elementary school principal, is a self taught and very talented woodworker. You can see some of his work here and here. Bill likes to have a winter project, so I gave him my drawings and asked if he might be interested in making it for me over the next few months. He asked me to draw some more detailed scale drawings and then he was off and running. But instead of taking his time, he was determined to finish it in time for Christmas!

Yoshi and her sister Yona (visiting for a few weeks) are sitting pretty, showing off the new unit!

Obviously I need to reorganize this drawer, but I just quickly shoved everything in because my whole family was coming over for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities (a German tradition) in about an hour when this was put into place in the kitchen!

It's hard to see in the photo, but the red food bin is on a sliding shelf so that it can be pulled out for easy access. On the shelf above I keep the extra treats, clean, dry dog towels, etc.

And of course all of the toys are contained in the open bin which is easily accessible to the puppies so they can help themselves.

On the side of the unit is a towel bar to hang a wet towel after it's been used to dry off a wet dog or wipe paws.

What's Keeping Me Busy...

I don't seem to be able to find much time in my studio these days, but I have been very busy so I thought I'd share a few of the things I've been up to.

I continue to keep up on my art journal calendar, and I really enjoy recording the highlights of my days in such a fun and colourful way!

Because of his sad misfortune, I learned about Artis de Partis. Sadly, this particular little fellow lost an arm so as a favour to a friend I performed some delicate surgery to reattach the limb.  Artis de Partis was very brave during surgery considering that with the exception of a glass of wine for the surgeon, no anesthetic was used.

Yoshi and I continue daily outings to expose her to as many opportunities and experiences as possible. Often it is just the two of us, but we also like to get together with other foster 'parents' and their future dog guide puppies.  

We recently had a coffee date with Mojo, another future dog guide. As you can see, Yoshi quite liked this tall, dark and handsome flat coated retriever.

We also participated in an informal group mall visit in which we practised our skills among the many distractions of the mall and other puppies.

While at the mall, Yoshi sent her letter to Santa, asking for a pair of non-slip booties so she could sit in a more 'lady-like' fashion on slippery floors!

Popping back into the studio briefly, I was able to repurpose a damaged spatula that I felt was no longer safe for use with food.  It'll make a great mark-making tool for Gelli prints and such!










In addition to volunteering to raise these incredible future dog guides, I enjoy participating in many of the PR events that help to bring awareness to these amazing service dogs. These dog guides are provided to the clients at no cost, and all funding is raised through private and corporate donations and sponsorship!

Did you know that Dog Guides are trained to assist with more than blindness and visual impairments? Lions Foundation of Canada trains six types of Dog Guides to help with a wide range of disabilities including: deafness, hard of hearing, autism spectrum disorder, type 1 diabetes with hypoglycemic unawareness, epilepsy, as well as physical and medical disabilities. To learn more or to make a life changing donation, please visit www.dogguides.com

Canine Vision | Hearing Ear | Service | Seizure Response | Autism Assistance | Diabetic Alert

Yoshi and I have already participated in two Santa Claus parades, and we are signed up to walk in two more upcoming parades!  For the Kitchener parade, we invited my Mom along (she's temporarily in a wheelchair due to a foot issue). Having Mom along was a great help because I was puppysitting Kermit, a 13 wk old puppy and he ended up snuggled on Mom's lap in the sleeping bag. I'm not sure who enjoyed the cuddles more!

The Oshawa parade was a bit wet and messy, so by the end of it Yoshi was looking a bit more like a black lab! By the look on her face, I'd say she didn't care for my suggestion of a bath!

Because I've become totally hooked on this role as a foster puppy 'mom', I've decided it's time to get a bit more organized. I've been drawing a few rough ideas for a cabinet that will house the puppy kibble, treats, toys and miscellaneous other needs that are currently tucked into various cupboards and corners of the kitchen.  I've got a perfect space in the kitchen, as well as an incredibly skilled and willing husband, so once I finalize the plans and draw them to scale, he's said that he'd be happy to construct it for me!

As I mentioned earlier in the post, in addition to raising Yoshi, I've been helping out some foster mom friends by looking after their puppies for a few days here and there. Yoshi loves having other puppies to play with, and my husband and I enjoy having the extra puppies around too!

And finally, I'll end this way to long post by showing you that I am still working on the hand stitching of this piece in progress. However, gone are the days when I would stitch and listen to TV for hours...I seem to spend more time playing and/or walking Yoshi! As such, this is going to be a much longer term project than I first anticipated.

Life is busy but wonderfully fulfilling! Thanks for stopping by to catch up on what I'm doing! Have a fabulous day!

World of Threads...

A perfect 'sit-stay'

Last week, while Yoshi and I were puppysitting a 13 wk old Future Dog Guide puppy, we were in Oakville and had some time to fill, so I decided to pop in to see the World of Threads fibre art exhibition. What an incredible show.  If you haven't seen it yet, it runs until Nov. 30th and it is well worth seeing!

Here is just a glimpse at a few of the pieces, with these two future dog guides in the foreground.

The puppies were more interested in who was
coming down the hall than in the art behind them!

In addition to enjoying the art, it was a wonderful training opportunity for the puppies. Yoshi is now almost 7 months and she and little Kermit were amazing ambassadors for the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides!

Kermit, how can you sit without slipping?

I loved this particular installation, although the photography doesn't do much for it. The location they chose, with the back lighting, was fabulous but very hard to photograph.

It's on the floor...does that mean we can touch it?

Yup, enough with the fibre art...

No, I'm done posing...

This piece was beautiful...stunning colour and texture...I can only imagine the time that went in to it!

Yoshi, you'd look pretty in a crown like this!

Okay, one more good 'sit-stay'
and then can we go?

Seriously Yoshi, we need to find a
12 step program for your mom...
this fibre art addiction is worrisome!

Kermit was thrilled to be home again and
'out of jacket' so he could resume wrestling
with Yoshi. She doesn't look it here, but
she enjoyed the playtime just as much!