5 days until going home!

Hello All!

Well we had a busy, busy day today, and a COLD one at that! Got up this morning and the desktop temp said it was 15 degrees outside. Nice balmy weather to go out and walk in 'eh! :)

Went down for breakfast and got the run down for the day. We were going to Patchogue for the day. For those in Indiana, it makes me think of Old downtown Anderson or downtown Elkhart. with lots of old store fronts, long sidewalks and few stoplights. There were lots of things going on and lots of sea gulls around too.

Today, we paired up to do our walks, Destiny and her handler and Honey and I paired up, as we seem to be the fast walkers of the group. I thought I walked fast until the Destiny team took off. Sheesh, that lady walked off and left me in the dust! LOL! But we took off, taking turns on taking the lead. I'd start off from the curb and take the lead, and we'd go to the next down ramp and both find the curbs and stop, then the other would take the lead and start off. It was a really enjoyable walk and while there were a few corrections for distractions and for crowding just a bit, Honey did really well. We walked down a couple of blocks, over a block and then back up the main street in front of all the stores and with all the distractions of people, small bands playing on the sidewalk, birds flying around and so forth. Both the Destiny team and Honey & I really took it all in and did well. :)

We then came back and hurried to water and break our dogs, as we were running late. We then went to lunch and had some really good chicken soup with noodles to warm up. Then following lunch we all got bundled up yet again, myself being bundled with my long underwear, a t shirt, sweatshirt, both fleece jackets, the rain/windproof jacket, the fleece hood thing, and the fleece gloves. Thankfully I was quite cozy and aside from my hands being just a tad cold, I was in good shape. :)

They gave us the body of our actual harneses today! :) We tried them on the dogs for size and all, just before we took off for the afternoon walk. These are the ones we'll take home and with the GDF imprint on them. :) They'll give us a new handle though when we head for home. :) Check it out:







And a couple of pictures a few minutes ago of Honey. :)







We went back to Patchogue, where this time the Destiny team and Honey and I were pretty muh the last ones out, but again we made pretty quick work of it. We went the other way around the route this time. Also, this time they had people stationed out to pop out at us/be obstacles for us too. My first indication came as we were walking along and Mike S yelled out HALT! intending for the Destiny team to stop, forgetting he'd told us prior to starting that if we heard anything that sounded like Halt or Stop, to just both of us to FREEZE. So I immediately halted and just as I did, a girl came bopping out from a store front, anticipating my passing. She immediately hopped back in with this big sheepish grin on her face. So that clued me in pretty quick. LOL!

We continued on to the corner and again, Mike had me take off in the lead. We were now going down the main street, passing all the store fronts and people were moving out of the way and such. We came up to these three guys standing and talking, pretty much blocking the sidewalk. So Honey and I tried to navigate through them and the one guy with his back to me immediately cut over in front of me, in the direction Honey chose. He was smooth, had the other girl not popped out, I would have thought he'd done it on accident. But Honey was a champ, and we both halted quickly, and went right on around them and on our way.

I think the Destiny team got hung up, as I'd kept on going and very quickly had left them behind. :) I trekked it on to the next corner, as Honey did great, working really well, watching intently at the cars and such, and taking me around a grate and then slowing way down to go down a pretty good decline in the sidewalk. Then took me straight to the curb as she was supposed to. :) We got there and hung out until the Destiny team caught up. :) Mike was saying awesome! Very, very good. :) That she really levelled out and was like ok, I'm way from that big bad trainer and was really working good. :)

Then he got in front of us to tell us about our next direction to go and I asked him, "So how many of these people do you have working for you?" He was like "Ahhhh, I'm listening. LOL! Quite a few. :)" So we continued on our way and with the exception of a slight brush with Mike, Honey did great, and we continued on to pass a couple of others that were coming our direction and then heading on to the bus. We got to the bus and talked with Mike a bit, as I'm having a little bit of obedience problem with Honey not wanting to sit the first time I ask her, and Destiny is having a bit of a problem too, so Mike said sounds like both our dogs are having a bit of a 'tude with us, so he'd work with us tomorrow on that, but was really glad to see that we both were really interested in perfecting techniques we knew, showing that we were really wanting to make our teams click. He also said that we are really going to be accelerating our training, as both teams are leaving for home on Friday too. We are supposed to go to Walmart in the morning and do store work, as well as pick up the alarm clock to start that training too. So we'll see what fun we have tomorrow! :)

We loaded up on the bus, and got back to GDF late, so we hurried to get our dogs all fed and watered an then took them out for break. We came on back in and had dinner, porkchops, rice, and broccoli. Then after dinner, we had a pretty short lecture on how to take apart and put togther our harnesses :) Then it was off for downstairs to brush Honey, and chatted for a bit with Destiny and her handler, before heading back up stairs to grab coats and take the dogs out for thier Saturday evening break. So did that and came back here and vegging.