Santa Rosa - First Graduation ceremony!

I On Thursday we drove to Santa Rosa for the February 2016 Graduation! The weater was beautiful and we arrived on campus in the late afternoon. We visited with some of our favorite staff on campus and then went back to the hotel.

This was Mary's first hotel experience and she did great! We stay at the Best Western in Rohnert Park before graduations and it's always a lot of fun! They are great with the CCI puppies and there is a free hot breakfast.

We went out to dinner with puppy raisers from the North Central Region and had a great evening. Desty and her puppy raiser stayed with us in the hotel and the NCR puppy raisers brought their last puppy Rupert by, he's now a breeder and was being presented at this graduation.

On Friday we woke up very early! There was some more playtime in the room before going over to Canine Companions. Desty turned in her puppy equipment and received her matriculation cape.

At 11 am there was a small ceremony for Chandra's memorial bench that was presented to CCI. It is outside of the vet clinic and is so beautiful. The names of her breeders and  her Grand-Puppy breeders are on the bench along with her paw print. It is very special and I hope people enjoy it for many years to come!

Mary was pretty exhausted by all the activities and meeting so many people! After lunch we were off to the Wells Fargo Center for graduation. It's always fun to see the dogs meet their puppy raisers again after 6-9 months of Advanced Training!

There was another beautiful class of graduates, 16 new service teams to go with the 7 service teams that were placed in January.

Mary slept the entire graduation ceremony and was such a great puppy. When we were in the reception area she just laid down and checked things out. She's a very smart and confident puppy! Battier is also the cover girl for the 2016 graduation programs!!

We went to Mary's first restaurant after the graduation ceremony. The Gold Rush Chapter puts on a dinner at El Torito after gradautions. Mary slept on the floor with her friend and newest GRC puppy JT named after my friend Jason Thompson. The puppies were so tired from graduation that they slept the entire time. In total there were 40 dogs at dinner.

The waitress dropped some chips and we just left them there for practice, the puppies were so tired that they didn't even care about them. 

It took a little extra time to get home, but Mary was great! JT did cry for a lot of the trip, just thinking it was a little pay back for all of Mary's screaming a few weeks ago!

It's hard to believe that tomorrow marks a month since I picked her up, I sure love this pup!!