The next two days at the Seeing Eye were pretty uneventful compared to the last few days :).
We started the South Route on Thursday and soloed it on Friday afternoon.
The first two trips went without a hitch. She is really focusing on curbs now and doing a great job. I did notice that her pull was slowing a bit near the end of the route but I wasn’t concerned because I knew it was not her normal pull.
Thursday morning and afternoon I had to continue to heel her around the building. Starting at PARC time I was able to start using the harness. I could work her to and from the shuttle when we were downtown though which was nice.
Lucas Franck and I did a double Clicker training session to try and get caught up. That went well and boy is she a quick learner.
Thursday evening we had a discussion about the harness and giving free water and freedom in the room. I can not start these activities quite yet as she is quite new still.
I got to bed about 9:00 or so and boy was I tired.
Friday we continued the South street route. Barb was going to be going to New York City with Lee in the afternoon so we did a practice solo before the real thing in the afternoon. It turns out I would be doing it with the class supervisor Tom Pender. Talk about nerve racking :).
Both routes went great. We had some dog distraction issues and a couple of clearance issues on the solo but over all the day went great!
In the morning on Friday Lucas Franck worked with me on Clicker training with the new seats in the dining room. Again, she picked that up like a charm.
We got back and I had to work with Rick on cleaning her teeth. That went fine, she honestly doesn’t mind her teeth done unlike all of my other dogs.
After this it was PARC time and dinner. We had to go to our new seat locations and she did it very well.
The evening was spent dealing with some personal things going on at home and then went upstairs to discuss the pizza party we are trying to plan for Saturday. We are not sure we can pull it off.
At this point it was PARC time.
I got to bed about 8:30 or so. I was very tired. I laid there and made a few phone calls and fell asleep around 9:15 or so.
This brings us up to Saturday. Some students have today off and some have Sunday off due to when instructors are off. Barb and I will be doing the Elm Street route twice today to try and catch up. More on that later.
I did find out that I will be staying at the Seeing Eye until 5/20 instead of 5/13. This is making for a very long trip :). Poor Keri.
I think that’s damn impressive that they will keep you on for the extra time you missed. I’ve never heard of a guide-dog school doing that, ever. Talk about commitment to one’s clientele. While you’re there for the extra week, will you be in the company of a class, or pretty much by yourself?