After getting her fed and watered, I took her out for break and golly I think she's been the fastest dog of the East. LOL! Seriously, she doesn't mess around if she needs to go and she lets me know if she's done by coming back up on the curb. I'm talking out do the job and we are out and in in 5 mins tops! :D Yay!
So come back in and put her on tie down again and head down for breakfast. It was good with bacon, egg, english muffin, and a hash brown patty. After breakfast, I make my way back to the room and get my stuff together to take to Kings Park, for our first Harness walk.
I have to note here that the differences in classes are just phenomenal. So far we have not taken our dogs to the meals with us, where on the my class with Honey, we took the dogs to the dinner table with us the next day. Also with this class, it's been a lot more protected and strict about things. With my class with Honey, we were given harnesses to keep and take with us from that 2nd day as well, not the case in this class, which is ok, but I'm really surprised at the difference in things.
So we load up on the bus and in a van and head to Kings Park. It was a really nice day, not too cold and not too warm but was very windy. The trainers each took a person out and we all hung out on the bus and chatted. Rei kept looking out the window, front feet on the wheel well, the back on the floor so she could see what everyone outside was doing.
When they got back, I asked if we could sit outside with our dogs, and the trainers got the lawn chairs out and then we had the fun of keeping our dogs out of the sticks, from eating the leaves, and digging in the ground. They were just being goofballs. LOL! As you can see here, there's another pup and Rei both getting into trouble, noses into the grass and rooting...
Now we are being good doggies, as we were corrected and told to "LEAVE IT!"...
Suzi went with her pup for her walk and then Lisa came and grabbed me. We started out trying an 18" handle since I'd had a 17" one with Honey (Rei being smaller than Honey), but since it felt like I was pulling yet still we switched to a 19" one and it felt good, I wasn't pulling hard on her harness just to stand correctly, so we took off.
Man how I've missed that sense of freedom and being able to look up and stretch out the legs and just go. Rei had a pretty good pace, being a little bit quick but she soon settled down to a good pace and it was so enjoyable to be able to hold a conversation with Lisa and relax about not running into things/tripping on things. We trucked it up to the first bend quickly and came upon a commemorative marker and Rei stopped dead in her tracks. Lisa figured out what it was, had me drop the harness handle and went up to the marker, which resembled a tombstone, and sat upon it and called Rei to her. Rei went bounding up to inspect it, seeing that it wasn't harming Lisa and once she was able to see that it wasn't hurting anyone, she was fine and we moved on, and was back up to pace again and made our way around the loop and back to the bus. :) It was exhilarating! :)
After loading up on the bus, I worked on some knitting as we waited for the last person to finish up with her trainer and then at that point, everyone was loaded up and the bus made it's way back to the school. We all went in and watered and breaked our dogs, which Rei again did her business in record time and we came back in. I put her on the tie down and got my stuff together to go out to lunch and to the mall with Suzi and a couple that volunteers thier time to take the students out on the weekend. Another student and his volunteer were wanting to go to the restaurant, so we all carpooled in a GDF van and headed to the Smithhaven Mall area and went to this really good Italian restaurant. The food was soooo fresh and yummy, and thier bread was to die for! :)
After we finished our meal, we headed to the Mall and Barnes & Nobles, looking around there and then we walked down the mall for a bit. The other student wanted a starbucks so we camped out there for a bit as several drank thier coffees and we tried to chat amongst all the noises that were happening.
We made our way back to the school and I came in and fed, watered, and breaked Rei and came back in and laid down on the bed, just to get off my feet since my knees were hurting with the impending weather change that we are having now. Next thing I know, Lisa is knocking on the door and asking if I'd heard the announcement for dinner. I'd fallen asleep in those few minutes.
Went down for dinner and it was baked chicken, mixed vegetables, corn bread, stuffing, and ice cream for dessert. After dinner, a group of us got to chatting and it was quite comical, as four of us were retrains, a couple having had several dogs, and then two new ones. We were sharing stories and things that will happen while having guide dogs and boy it was a fun group. :) We all realized at 7pm, that we hadn't watered our dogs for thier 6:15 water break so we all took off for our rooms and did so. Then Suzi knocked on my door and the group was going to re-convene in the rec lounge downstairs, but take our dogs with us too to continue talking. We did so and it was quite fun, and again funny conversations and hysterics ensued with the lively group that we have here. :)
It was quickly 8:30 break time, so we all headed up for that and we went out for break and it was pretty awesome, we were the last one out and the first one in! Whoo hoo!
I have to say though, I'm soooooo thankful that GDF has thier break area covered now (it didn't used to be before the new building) because it was raining in a pretty good downpour. We made our way back in and I uploaded the pictures and now have you up to date on what we are doing here. :) Not sure what we are doing in the morning, as right now we are getting super heavy rain, hard enough I can hear it on the roof, which means it must be pretty loud!
Well, I've stayed up too late the last couple of nights and its 10pm, so going to call it a night early and get some zzzzz's!
Toodles!
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