[nagdu] Jetta update

[Julie J.]

We got back last night from our week long Midwest tour.  We were at my parents home in Illinois for a couple of days before heading up to Wisconsin to see Miss Jetta.  I picked her up from Meghan’s Monday evening and had her until Tuesday evening. 

Her personality is so much like when she was little. She still likes to look and check things out, but she stays close. It's a good balance between boldness/confidence and wanting the security of her people. She still likes to stop and watch things to figure them out. When she was a wee thing it seemed that stopping is all we did, now she just pauses to look at interesting things, then it's all good and we can go on our merry way. 

She's very alert and watchful of everything. This concerned me a little because I want her to be able to relax and settle easily. After carefully watching her at the hotel and how she responded to all the new, I believe she is alert in a more curious wanting to learn mindset than I must be on guard response. That is a huge relief.

Jetta is almost 9 months old. Time flies! She is so easy to handle. There's a lot of puppy yet, but compared to other adolescent puppies she's light years more mature and settled. She can get rowdy, but calm is her base temperament. She learns amazingly quickly. After only once or twice outside to relieve she would indicate which direction to go before I made the turn. 

Her obedience is very good. She didn't want to listen to me at first, but after a short bit once she had accepted me as her person, she was willing to do what I asked. I actually like this very much because I think she won't be prone to taking commands from random people on the street who feel the need to tell the cute doggie to sit or whatever insanity they can dream up. 

I had a nice time playing with Jetta at the hotel and getting to know her a bit more. I think she's going to be a really excellent guide dog. She has a lot of similarities with Monty, but she’s calmer.  She's going to be easy to handle, intelligent and able to adapt to new things without too much effort.

Julie