Second Saturday at GDF

Today we got up bright and early and breaked the dogs. Then after breakfast, we headed to the gathering room and the trainers, Valerie, Jodi, & Lisa all fitted our dogs to thier new harnesses, :) After we got everyone fitted for thier harnesses, they told us we were going to the mall for the day. But before we went to the mall, we were going to go out back and try breaking the dogs again (so we didn't have to do it at the mall) and then we'd walk to the back of the break area and work our way past three obstacles that were completely blocking the sidewalk and then on to the bus.

Here's the break area:



We did so and Rei did great, immediately taking me right to the sidewalk and then down and around the obstacles and immediately back up to the sidewalk and then on down to the next one and doing the same until we made our way completely to the bus. :)

After everyone had completed this exercise and we were all loaded on the bus, the two vehicles made thier way to Smithhaven Mall. We all unloaded and made our way to the food courts and had a seat together and chatted until it was our turns to walk the mall.

When it was Rei and my turn, we took off and golly, it felt sooooo good to be able to walk with my head a little higher, be relaxed that I wasn't going to clobber some little kid, and even if someone cut in front of me she would take me around it. Such a feeling of independence and relief to have again. We zipped on down the main corridor to the other end, and came to the Sears. We made our way to the escalator to practice that and began our work there.

Rei did well with the escalator, but she almost likes them a little to much. LOL! She likes to run onto and off of them, which can make it a little dangerous for her. It's not too bad going on, but getting off, you really, really have to watch her. Basically once you give the command for off, she takes off running off the escalator. the concern is that if she hits the end of the leash before being off the actual belt, then she can lose her balance, get her nails/pads of her feet caught into where the belt goes into the floor. So I have to be really, really careful to make sure I'm moving as quickly as I possibly can so that she doesnt hit the end of the leash. We did this several times with improvement each time. Lisa also suggested that I really work with her on the stay command so that she'll listen well when on the escalators whenever we use them. She also asked that I not use any until she comes out to work with us some more on this at a mall.

After 3-4 times of working the escalator, we made our way back to the other end of the mall, passing Santa Claus and his picture taking station along the way. I can't believe they have it out already!

After everyone was done, we all came back to the foundation and Suzi and I had a lunch date with several of the local puppy walkers and another grad. I'll have to post about that later, as it's time to head out for the morning. :)

***to be continued***

Happy Halloween!

Today was a busy day. We started out getting up and I am feeling crummy. Stopped up in the head, a little achey, and think I'm coming down with a cold. :( Headed down to breakfast and ate, and asked Lisa if we could stop by a pharmacy for me to pick up some sudafed for me. Rei was also popping up a lot under the table so asked for some effective ways to get her to go down and stay. We worked on that and learned some good tips there! :)

Then for the morning, we went back to the horseshoe walk and started out walking the bottom of the horseshoe and beyond, doing traffic checks during all along the way. I was really suprised at how this time it didn't rattle the nerves like it did last time with Honey. I think it's because I know I can trust the dog now, having had Honey before. We bopped along very nicely and she really, really did well. I'll be honest, I'm VERY impressed with her guiding work.

After making our way down and back, we got back to the bus and Lisa told me that if I wanted to, she was fine with me doing the horseshoe solo. I said sure and away I went. Rei was spectactular, taking be between two trashcan lids that were only a foot apart and making sure I was cleared of them. There are three areas that there are overhanging branches that are low and they just clear my head in certain spots. This dog has amazing accuracy and hits the right spot every time so that there's just barely enough clearance, but I don't hit anything. She hup'd up nicely when asked to and is very, very good, slowing down at all the rough spots, taking me around the trash cans/lids in the way and so forth. We made our way all the way around and back to the bus. after knitting for a while, Valerie popped in and asked if anyone wanted to join the three that she had to walk all around the horseshoe, and I said sure, so got out again (having to untangle my yarn from the harness) and we took off again, catching up quickly to the group and then Valerie let me take off in front and we were gone.... Left them behind until I got to the sprinklers that were going over the sidewalk and Rei came to a dead stop. Instead of going out into the street and around the car, I waited for Valerie to come up and give the approval. And of course they stopped as I asked if it was ok, so we buzzed on through their and everyone loaded up on the bus to head back for lunch.

We came back and had lunch- minestrone soup and a large salad. Time went by too quickly as we went back to the gthering room to load up again to go to sayville and do country walks. This was actually a new place for me, as I didn't do it last time with Honey. On the bus once we got there, Rei just wouldn't settle down. She was up and down, up and down, and kept walking off towards the front door. I eventually took her out and she did pee, but even with going back in, she was still up and down.

Not too much longer, Valerie had me come out and break her again and then she was my sighted guide over to the pharmacy and Rei went along with too. We picked up the sudafed and headed back to the bus, where Lisa was now waiting. We then breaked Rei again and she did a #2 and harnessed up. We were working on country walks, where there is no sidewalk and the dog is trained to keep you up to the shoulder of the road as close as possible. She did really well, though she was distracted some by the trick or treaters that were now coming out and the dogs on leashes.

It was a little bitter sweet to see all the adorable kids trick or treating. At least Mike gave me a treat and took some pics of the kids and uploaded them into dropshots for me. :)


Here's my kiddos:


Alex has said for the last 3-4 weeks that he wanted to be a lady bug, so here is the lady bug:


and his wings/spots on the back:


Katie was a witch and Meaghan was Princess Jasmine. :)

Alex's school pictures came in too, which were just really awesome- taken by Wibur Tague Photography:



So back to the topic- this evening we had dinner- the whole class went together and chipped in to order pizza for us all and for the evening trainers. We all ate and since Suzi and I won't be attending the subway or city orientation walks, we were not required to attend the lectures. So thus we came back to get some zzzzz's.

From yesterday afternoon, coming home from the horseshoe walk- Rei snoozing with her chin on my knee:



so off until later and hope everyones day will go smoothly!

Trying to catch up...

ok these days have all just been running together!

Yesterday morning we did the backwards P walk again. Rei did really well yet again and her guiding work is just superb. I told Mike tonight that her guide work was just as good as what I remember of Honey's work. Which I'm really, really thankful for, as Honey was just an awesome dog!

So we walked the backwards P again (no rain this time! Yay!) and we were late getting back to the school and rushed to water and break the dogs to get down to lunch. After lunch we met in the gathering room and loaded up again, this time to go to Patchhogue for the afternoon.

We make the 20-30 minute drive there and when it was my turn, I took off down the street and we breezed through to the end of the block (a LONG block) and then headed up to the main street. We then worked our way up the main street to encounter pigeons, other dogs, and passing other guide dogs. She did well with the dogs with a quick "Leave it", but the birds were tough to keep her attention. With a slight leash correction though, she quickly re-focused on her work and was back to weaving me in and out of people and around poles and such. :)

We made it to the corner and then turned toward the off street that the van was parked off of. We made it to that street corner and headed left again, back to the van, and got to the next downcurb and there was a large man in a wheelchair off to our left. Lisa later told me he was very intensely staring at us and was sitting very still, which prompted Rei to jump and bark a couple of times. I quickly did a hard leash correction and told her to "Leave it" and got her to move foward and she then re-focused on the work she was supposed to be doing. I was a little surprised she'd barked at the guy, but then as we were unloading from the bus, she gave out a bark too at the trainer Sebastian, standing in the door. So not sure what her deal is with men. LOL!

Last night we then had three lectures rolled into one, Harness mechanics- teaching us how to take apart and put together our hanress. Then there was the toy lecture of what toys were appropriate and what was not with the do's and don'ts of playing with the guide dog.

Today, we got up and had breakfast, and loaded up in the van for Patchhogue again, this time, after talking with Mike Sargent, there was a person in a wheel chair on the sidewalk. It also came up behind us at the intersection and while Rei jumped a little bit to the side to push me away from it, there was no barking. :) Yay! We then worked the entire intersection, crossing at the cross lights and the pedestrian walk. Ick, those things are hard! Anywho, she did great with the intersection and walk altogether! :)

We were indeed very late coming back to the school, so we went straight to the dining room and had lunch and then went and watered and breaked our dogs. Afterwards, the three of us going home on monday went over to the kennels with our dogs in the van and Lisa ran them in for thier flight certificates and any followups they may have needed medically.

After the vet visit, we headed over to the Horse shoe walk. Rei absolutely did fantastice, taking me around all the objects, and guiding under low tree branches. I really apprecate it,it helps! :)

Suzi and I were in the van at this point and we were really late getting back to a dinner that most everyone threw away tonight. It was just really bad.

Anyway, not much more to share, lecture tonight was how to clean thier ears nd to teach the newbies how to clean up after thier dogs. I skipped out on the poop patrol lecture, since I've gone it before and know how it's doing it.

Here's a couple of favorite shots of Rei from the last couple of days:

tired puppy...

Tuesday- day of Decisions...

We got up bright and early this morning, actually being ready to go outside when the call came to feed, water, and break our dogs. I fed Rei and watched her closely and again, she jumped into the tub and I immediately corrected her and got her out of the tub. No soap this time though, it's now kept up as high/far back as I an on the sink. ;)

We went out for break and as she's shown so far, Rei did an awesome job, getting right down to business and getting it done quickly. We came back in and boy was she ever playful and definately feeling a LOT better and bounding around the room. LOL! :) I took my laundry down and tossed it in before we went down to breakfast. The trainers had thier thier weekly staff meeting from 8-9am, so we had free time to kill. I got my clothes moved to the dryer and dried, so I have clean stuff to wear again! LOL!

While I was in the laundry room, Mike Sargent pecked on the door and said Hi! and asked how I was doing with the new dog. I said pretty good, but that she's really dropping off on her pace about half way through the route. Told him what Lisa and I had discussed and that I knew she'd been out before. He asked me who she'd been out with and I told him and he was like Oh! that's a REALLY nice dog! I told him I agreed, but this pace thing was a problem, her turning it off halfway through the route. He stood there thinking about it and asked again, "You said it's halfway through? when you head back to the van?" and I confirmed. He said he thought it sounded like she didn't want to quit working. He told me to tell Lisa to work Rei a half block past the van, and do the things Lisa had in mind, which was keeping the harness handle taught with tension, where I would feel the pull, so that she would push into the harness more and would then speed up. Mike also said too that he couldn't help today, but that tomorrow he should be able to help with things.

After the meeting, we met up in the gathering area and Bill Krohl came to speak to us about some of the GDF programs and so forth. We were really late getting out of here and the trainers decided to just go back to St. James again. We got there and I was the last one to walk. We also were getting the same rain that Indiana got 2 days ago and it was wet and raining. Thankfully when my turn came up, it'd stopped for the time being, just the temps were dropping.

I took Rei out and breaked her outside the van. We harnessed up and took off to the sidewalk through the parking lot that we were in. instead of the right, we made a left down the sidewalk and towards the railroad tracks. We crossed over the busy intersection and headed back down the sidewalk and at the first side street, we deviated from the normal route and made a left onto the side street. very quickly we came to two utility poles very close together and in the sidewalk. Rei did an awesome job working me through them and was responding VERY well to my requests to hup up too. She kept a nice pace and was very attentitive since things had been changed up a bit. I kept the pressure on the harness through the handle and she moved very nicely and responded to all my requests. I was very happy and pleased at how the route went. We walked on down a half block past the store, crossed the street and then walked our way back to the van, keeping the same pace throughout the whole route. Lisa said she was really happy with the way she worked and that we had a really good route too. We then loaded up and headed back to the foundation to water and break the dogs and then headed to the dining room for lunch.

We settled down for lunch and Wells Jones, CEO of GDF came down and introduced himself to the group and brought several people from Eukanuba with him that were taking a look at various guide dog schools across the country, planning to set up a beneficiary program to the schools, that with foods purchased, a % of the proceeds were to go to these schools. So we all chatted and so forth until 1pm and we were then headed for the Backwards P walk, which is down the main street of Smithtown, along the main street and through some of the residential area. This is actually a walk that I didn't completely do with Honey. I did the main street part but not the "p" part.

It had been raining ALL afternoon in a pretty steady rain. I got out and it had broke or a bit, but as I got out of the van, Lisa told me it'd started back up again, so we take off and start this mile and a 1/4 walk. We start down to main street and make our way very quickly down the sidewalk, around poles and so forth. She did an awesome job of keeping me clear of things and continued working even though it was raining quite hard by this point. We continued on down to the main intersection and by this point, it was a flat out downpour. This little dog amazed me as she kept right on going and we even had a traffic check as I missed a car that came up from behind on my right when we started to cross a street. But seriously, while she shook herself a couple of times, she sped up readily and willingly, she followed all my commands, and so forth. I had to take my glasses off since they were so wet and covered in rain. I was soooooo glad to have Dad's waterproof jacket and my waterproof rockports to walk in. My feet and body pretty much stayed dry, my jeans and long johns were just soaked though.

We worked our way back to the van through the heavy rains and when I got back and almost to the van, Lisa turned to me and said ok, she did awesome, just to let you know, we do have a back up dog for you. I want you to think about it and let me know what you want to do. I was kind of taken aback and was in deep thought shortly after I climbed into the van with Suzi and now with Pam, who also was out and got soaked too. Valerie took the three of us back to the foundation to get out of our wet clothes and take it easy for the next hour.

I came back, got myself out of the wet clothes I had and was deep in thought about things. What other than the pace did I not like about Rei? Was there any reason to change dogs since she showed me she would speed up when asked and slow down as needed. I really like that she is mature and that she's very independent in personality. She doesn't need my coaxing and excessive loving to gain her trust, keep her working, and so forth, if that makes any sense. She's happy to work and she's content with it since she loves it. She's content to lay by my side and stay with me, yet loves to play when she's done working. I really think she'll fit well in our family. So other than knowing she's going to be a little more work in the beginning, working through the "pack leader" establishment, I really feel that she's a good dog for me.

I buzzed my hubby, Mike, on IM and talked with him at great lengths and he agreed too, that he didn't see the need to change dogs either. After the rest of the students came back, Lisa stopped by and wanted to talk again, apoligizing for the way she said that they had a back up dog. She was really just wanting to re-assure me that if things for some reason didn't work out with Rei, that they did have another dog they thought would work for me and that everything would be ok. I told her my thoughts of Rei and that Mike and I had talked and that I was really happy with the way the day went and with what Rei showed me today and that I really didn't see any need to change dogs. Lisa was happy and said she was more than happy to continue to work forward with Rei and would help me through keeping her up to pace and so forth. :)

We went out for break and Rei did her business quickly and then we went to the front desk to talk with a friend that's on the GDF talk list. :) We chatted for a while until time to go to dinner. a group of us kind of formed and talking until we were called to dinner, thus we all made our way to our tables in the dining room.

After dinner, we had a "secret lecture" about how to do corrections- secret being that we left the dogs in our room, taught by Mike Devlin. It was quite comical seeing Mike being he dog and holding on to the harness for the students to make the leash and harness corrections on him. Suzi caught him off guard and actually pulled the harness handle out of his hands! Oops! LOL!

After lecture, we took the dogs out for evening break and she did business as usual. We all came back inside and I've been updating here and playing for a bit with her. :) I'm super tired and worn out, so going to call it a night. :)

The rest of Monday- Day of second thoughts

Ok, after she ate the soap, we had breakfast and then loaded up on the bus and headed to St. James. A very nice little town, straight sidewalks and the people there seem very nice. Not sure though of how many people were actually residents of the town and how many were actually GDF employees, since I recognized quite a few people from the GDF campus there as people driving cars, riding bikes and so forth. Which is cool that they go through all that to make things as real as possible. :)

I did get a couple of shots of Rei with another pup on the van, and it was pretty cute since Rei put her leg over the other pup's leg.





So we unloaded from the van and took off down the sidewalk. We breezed through a good 7-8 blocks it seemed easily. We made it a good ways down the street. As soon as we turned around to come back, it was like Rei hit a brick wall. She was plodding, wouldn't hup up much at all and I seriously felt like I was dragging her. She had started it just before we got to the turn around point and Lisa asked me what I thought of her pace. I said it was pretty good, that it was ok that she slowed down a little bit as the kids walk slower than I do.

So we tried "hupping" her up, making kissing noises and the whole ball of wax. She just wasn't having any part of it. Which really worried me. Would I be able to keep up with the kids? Is this really the dog for me? There were a lot of questions going through my head. We got back to the foundation and settled in before break. I talked with a couple of people I know as handlers for thier thoughts and they all pretty much said the same thing, that a dog get's bored in surroundings they are really familiar with so she may just be plodding along because of it.

Lisa came to let me know it was time for break and I had her come in and talk with me. I told her that I had some concerns of Rei's pace and such, as well as I knew that Rei had been out before with another handler before me. I asked if Rei was being so slow and knew these areas, since she worked with the other handler in these areas, was she possibly doing this because of it? I asked too if it was possible to go to an area that she hadn't been before to see if she'd be more responsive there. She thought it was a good idea and asked that I not make a decision on Rei right then, to give her 2 days to work with us and then we'd revisit the conversation. I said that was fine. Honestly, I really want this to work out, so I was more than willing to give it a shot.

Then we went out for break and then headed down for lunch. Lisa sat with us at the table and asked me a couple of times if I was ok, as I was in pretty deep thought and rather quiet for what I normally am around the group we are in. Lisa told me that she'd talked to Valerie and Jodi to give them the heads up of our conversation and asked that we work with Rei through today and see how she did. I agreed that was fine.

After lunch, we all loaded up on the van and since about half of the dogs in the class have had some sort of medical issue, we drove over to the main GDF building and each of the trainers grabbed a dog and took them in to be checked by the vet. Rei was one of them to be checked, as since I've gotten her, she's had white, goopy stuff in the corners of her eyes all the time. It's reduced dramatically in the last couple of days, but just to make sure, we got her checked out. Apparently it was also very close to time for her annual shots, so they went ahead and did all of those and drew blood for the heartworm test so that I won't have to do those once I get home with her and not have to pay for it.

Once all the dogs were looked at, it was so late that it wasn't going to be worthwhile to drive the distance to Patchhogue. So the trainers decided to go back around to the back of the GDF property and do a group obedience session. Which quite honestly, was VERY oool and worked on things I wouldn't be able to do on my own.

They lined all 12 of us up along the curb and we all had to tell our dogs to sit and stay and make a long leash and go to the end of it and walk around and keep the dog in the stay. Then we went back to our dogs and had them do a down and stay and do the same- going to the end of the leash. Now this doesn't seem like much in level of difficulty, but when you put 12 dogs side by side and there's leaves blowing across the ground, sticks EVERYWHERE, and telling them to stay is quite a challenge! LOL! Rei did pretty well as did quite a few of the dogs. A couple had some practice sessions coming thier way, but we made it through. :)

We then did a down and stay and the recall. This is where you walk to the end of your leash and call your dog to you. Easy enough right? Ok, now we did the same but every other person recalled their dog, the others had to keep thier dog at the stay position. It was quite interesting for the 2 people who had dogs of the same name. LOL! Again, Rei did really well.

Then the real test came. We put our dogs at a sit and stay at our sides and the trainers walked by shaking leaves and throwing sticks down in front of our dogs, and again we were to maintain the sit stay position. Since a lot of the dogs went for the sticks that were tossed in front, we worked on that a good while and then Valerie went and got several food dishes with some food from the kennels that were very close by. Boy that was some serious distraction, being it was within an hour of feeding time too! YIKES!

So they laid the bowls down and we had to walk past the bowls, keeping the straight line to the curb of "crossing the street". Rei seriously drooled at the thought of a bowl of food being there for her. Each person walked thier dogs past and to the up curb and then made the left to cross a second "street" past another bowl to the up curb. I'll be frank, I was worried. This dog LOVES her food! LOL! But she did well, and it got easier with each bowl we passed, telling her to "Leave It!"

After this, we loaded up on the bus and they drove us around to the student quarters and we stayed in the gathering area. They then had us go by table down to the dining room and taught us how to seat our dogs at the tables with us. Then we were released one by one to go to our rooms and settle in for the evening.

At break time, we took the dogs out and Rei did her business fairly quickly, but I could tell she wasn't feeling well. she wasn't very responsive and was just downright grumpy. We all then took our dogs with us for dinner and it was really nice, and the dogs were all actually very calm and laid quietly under the tables during dinner.

After dinner, we had the grooming lecture, which we went down to the grooming room and Mark, the apprentice, showed us how to groom the dogs and so forth. Since Rei was being grumpy, she actually kind of nipped at me about brushing her back leg. I'm wondering though if it was probably where she got her shots earlier in the day and with the way things have been the last few days with her, if she'd just had enough.

After lecture, we had our last break and Lisa suggested that I take her to the room and let her chill for the night. Lisa also came by and said that when I came back to the room, that I should let her off the tie down to fully wind down. I went down to the tv room with Suzi and watched the first quarter and about 2/3ds of the second quarter of the Colt's/Titan's game and then came back up and let Rei off the tie down.

I talked with Mike for a good while and then it was time to call it a night, so put her back on the tie down and headed to bed.

Soap eating dog....

Ok, I'm calming down now. LOL!

We are feeding our dogs in the bathroom, where we can put he stainless steel bowl on our bathmats so that if they spill water, there's not water every where- or at least that's the theory. ;)

Anywho, I've been feeding Rei, with her leash on so I can grab her if needed. I have her sit at the door as I scoop out the food, leash laying on the ground/dragging by her and she sits/stays until I blow the whistle to eat or call her to drink. And being the Lab, she tears to her bowl and within seconds, the food is GONE.

So lets back up to yesterday... I took a bath the night before and yesterday morning, I feed Rei and since I was running late, I leave her scarfing down her food and came out and put my shoes on. I finish up and look into the bathroom and she's standing in the tub, checking things out. I tell her to get out of there not thinking anything of it and we go about our business.

This morning, I take my shower and I'm like hmmmm, where's the soap? I know I left it here on the soap rest. I climb out of the shower, all wet, and grab a new bar of soap off the sink and unwrap it and proceed with my shower. After getting dressed, I feed Rei as usual and I'm standing there at the sink, combing my hair - trying to multi-task, which is pretty much what I do all the time, being a mom of 3 kids. LOL! So I hear her leash jingle and I turn to see Rei standing in the tub and looking at me. Right behind her head is the soap rest and NO bar of soap. Immediately I realized what had happened to both bars of soap! LOL!!!!

I got her out of the tub, put her on tie down and rushed to the hallway and got Lisa to ask her if it would hurt her. She said no, but to keep her on leash and stand and watch her from now on when she's eating and that she may have some loose stools, but she'll be fine.

Good golly, I'm gonna have to watch this girl like a hawk, just like I do Alex! LOL! :) We're learning! :)

Oops!

Oops, I had planned to write about this link and got tired doing so on the other post and forgot to erase the link.

Mike sent me this link from MSNBC, which is about a service dog in training being denied access to a hotel in Indianapolis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27368805

Mike commented to me that maybe Suzi and I could organize a protest when we got home. LOL!

An excerpt from the article:

Preston explained under Indiana Law, service and guide dogs are allowed in public places. The law also applies to dogs in training.

"The law is very clear that says someone who is training an assistance dog has to be given the same accommodations as someone with a disability that has an assistance dog," said Preston.

This type of stuff just infuriates me! Here is the link to thier "contact" us page... Send an email of your thoughts to this company for not following the law and for thinking they can avoid answering for thier actions...

http://www.intownsuites.com/contact.asp

off to bed now! :)