We finally made it! Dog Day! Now, no, I won’t reveal today the name, breed or any other characteristics of my dog, but stay tuned. All will be revealed in time.
I got up at 3:30 and proceeded to go down to the gym and get some exercise. I checked in on email and other work-related activities while I waited for the instructors to wake up the class at 6:00. Breakfast was at 6:45, a bit early due to them wanting to get things moving as it relates to dog day.
We then had a lecture at around 7:30 on praise, corrections and fears. After the lecture was completed, they gave us bones for the dogs, and we proceeded to our room to await our instructor.
Greg came to me first. Brian, one of the instructor assistants came into the room first to help with videotaping the experience for family with my iPhone.
Greg brought in my dog, and I connected my leash. Greg provided some visual descriptions of the dog and then it was off to hand off more dogs to students!
After this, he returned, and we worked on heeling the dogs down to the dining room. We are required to put the dogs at sit at the top of each set of stairs. Getting them under the table was a bit challenging but it all worked out OK.
We then took the dogs out to park and then proceeded to lunch.
All of us then got in the van and proceeded to work our way to the training center where we worked the dogs in harness for the first time. Lessons learned thus far:
• Pace and pull are coming along nicely!
• Crowding is a bit of a problem so we are going to try a few combinations of harness handles to see how we can deal with this. This may solve over time anyway as we work together as a team.
• The dog’s work is tremendously great with limited distractions.
We then got back to the Seeing Eye and worked on door control. Basically, this is to teach the dogs that if they are at sit and rest and someone knocks at the door it isn’t their job to be the greeter. This is a bit challenging for the dogs as they know their instructors well or at least they know our instructors well as they have worked together at some level. They want to jump up and go greet them at the door. It is all about discipline.
We then fed our dogs and took them down to park.
Dinner was right after park time. We used our gentle leader on the dogs down to the dining room. We were allowed to take it off once we arrived at the table. I can tell you that my dog and I had some conversations about the use of the gentle leader, and I don’t blame the dog one bit!
We then proceeded to have the grooming lecture along with grooming our dog’s downstairs. We were then free for the rest of the evening until park time.
I was extremely tired, so I laid down for a bit until park time and made a few phone calls to family and very close friends to talk about dog day with them.
I am writing this on day 4 now and I slept in a bit today, getting up at 5:15 this morning. So far, all is going well this morning and my dog slept very well overnight with no problems.
See everyone in the next post!