Monday, August 11, 2014

Flashback to My Dog Adventure: the weekend

This was the final installment of notes I sent to the folks back home during Team Training. I know I had planned to write more after this but adjusting to life with Dash kept me pretty occupied for quite some time. 

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Hi everyone!
Well, Dash has been by my side 24/7 since Friday morning and I have to say, I like it! It has been so fun to see his true personality expose itself now that he is out of the CCI environment. It's kind of like the difference between a kid's behavior at school when teachers are around every corner versus at home where rules exist but it's okay to let loose a bit. :-)
We've gone on a few field trips. Yesterday our whole class had lunch at Cracker Barrel right around noon. There are high expectations for these dogs in public (especially restaurants) but Dash did a great job of tucking under the table and not even sniffing the ground for any morsels that may have been dropped. I was a proud lady!
Today was our first day without class since Monday and it was a thrill to sleep in and take it easy! Week one was truly exhausting for the handlers and the dogs! After a slow morning we (my mom, Dash, and I) headed out to Target for our first unsupervised field trip. Again, a complete success! I even had Dash retrieve something off a shelf for me!  
Once we got home we played fetch until he lost the tennis ball under the bed. Silly guy! 
It's safe to say that we had a fantastic weekend and we are ready to head back to class tomorrow. We will learn a few more skills this week and have more chances to fine tune the things we have worked on so far. 
Just 5 days until graduation day! Woohoo!
All our love,
Emily + Dash  

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Flashback to My Dog Adventure: days 2 & 3

I woke up this morning with the folks who are attending Canine Companions for Independence's Team Training on my mind.  One of the most important events of the two week course happens on this, the first Wednesday - Preliminary Match Day! The first two days each student works with numerous dogs to give the trainers a chance to determine who works best with whom. It goes without saying that it was not hard to get up and to class in a timely fashion on Wednesday to finally get some insight into what they'd observed and find out which dog we could finally begin to give our hearts to! Below I recount my experience of Preliminary Match Day! 

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Hi everyone!
I'm so excited to share this latest installment of the doggy adventure with you! Briefly, yesterday was a challenging day for me! I had a chance to work with four different dogs throughout the day - Tamali and Dash again, and also Pluto and Juanita. The morning lecture that day was on how to give the dog a correction when it did not comply with a command. It takes both a vocal correction - "no" - and a physical correction - a quick pop of the leash. Needless to say, my physical corrections were less than effective, which can cause the dog not to put much stock in my leadership and therefore decide to ignore almost everything I asked! All of that to say, I left class yesterday a bit frustrated, very tired, but not at all without hope that things would get better and that this was nothing insurmountable.
Today was a whole new ballgame! (Side-note - speaking of ballgames, Go Tribe!) Today was the day we were assigned our dogs! Just to add a little suspense to the big reveal (ha ha!) I will tell you that I went into this thinking that by the end of the first day or two I would have a definite favorite and a definite least favorite. I was prepared to give myself talks on not getting to set on one dog because I might not end up with that dog at all! I did leave Tuesday afternoon thinking that I worked better with some dogs than others (Juanita, Dash, and Ansel) but I was not head over heels. I knew that the trainers knew so much more than I and just trusted they would pick the right dog for me! They have been working with the dogs for the past nine months so they know the temperaments and abilities of each dog far better than I! Soooo..... taking into account temperament, abilities, and size .... I was assigned .... the best, cutest, sweetest, smartest, best smelling, high achieving, wonderful, terrific, astounding, charming, handsome .... DASH!  
And you wouldn't believe how well today went! It was as if over night the trainers told the dogs "Okay, this is your for-real handler tomorrow, so you might as well do what she says!" As soon as Dash was presented to me in all his black lab glory, he sat, on my command! We spend the day learning new commands together and bonding with each other. Such a sweet and FUN time!
Of course I am attaching a few pics, and I will try to get a few more on Facebook in the next few days (a little incentive for those of you that don't have an account yet!)
Thank you all so much for your words of encouragement and prayers! They have helped to cheer me on!
More to come soon ....
Love,
Emily


Monday, August 4, 2014

Flashback to My Dog Adventure: day 1

This week all across the country Canine Companions for Independence is holding Team Training, a two week class culminating in the graduation of new service dog teams. I went through this in May of 2012 and thought this would be a fun chance to look back at some emails I sent out to the folks back home.  

Monday, May 7, 2012

 Hi all,
Today was the first of many training days! We spent most of the morning hearing presentations on things like what the dog expects from its leader (me!), and the way a dog thinks- very reactionary! 
After lunch we got to practice a few commands... on our human trainers! Finally, after getting the trainers to obey our commands (not always easy- they know how to imitate the worst of dogs!) we got to try the real thing! I worked with three different dogs- Dash, a black lab, and Tamale and Ansel, both yellow labs. It was interesting to observe the different strengths and weaknesses of each dog. The commands we practiced were sit, down (lay down), let's go (what many refer to as "heel"), and shake. Basic stuff but still a thrill when the dog responds well!
Tomorrow should be a similarly formatted day, but with new commands and possibly other dogs to work with. I'll write again if anything exciting happens or else stay tuned for Wednesday when we are given a tentative assignment for which dog will come home with us!
Much love to all,
Emily
PS. Meet Tamale in the attached photo!