Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone here at FineTunedMac.

And the same to you........although north of the 49th we had ours in early October. Some of us just can't wait to dig into a turkey dinner.

Likewise! (This turkey will be smokin'...)

Gobble, gobble!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well! This is a Thanksgiving I have a lot to be thankful for...a wonderful new relationship, ten happy and healthy two-week-old puppies, and being a privileged member of a stable Western nation with a hegemonic military.

More puppies? It seems you had a bunch about a year ago. Maybe it's time to have a quiet chat with your pooch about the perils of hanging around singles bars.

Yep, more puppies! We had a litter almost exactly a year ago.

Both litters were planned. We have a male and female poodle from two different bloodlines who have both had family members trained as therapy assist dogs. We've done two breedings, some of the pups have gone on to be pets but many of them have become trained therapy dogs. We're debating doing one more breeding in a couple of years, though we haven't decided yet.

That's great. Even though I'm one of those people who has always had a dog (since I was a kid growing up on the prairies), and think I know them fairly well, I'm still always amazed at the incredible effects that therapy dogs have on the psychological and physical well-being of humans. It's quite astounding what unconditional love can do.

Therapy assist dogs do make a huge difference. We've had some of our dogs even trained to the point where they can recognize low glucose in diabetic patients and the signs of an oncoming seizure on epilepsy patients. It takes a dog that's smart and highly people-focused to do that sort of therapy work, and surprisingly, poodles are often used in that role. (I had no idea people used standard poodles as therapy dogs before I met my sweetie.)

"standard poodle". Nothing standard about them. About as standard as a "jumbo shrimp".