This brings us to Tuesday, and it was a remarkably interesting day to say the least.
We started with the normal park time and breakfast. We proceeded to go out to practice the Elm street route once more on Tuesday morning. The weather was quite nice. All things went quite well on this trip and traffic checks along with barricades were the theme of the day in the morning.
After our trip we went down for coffee break and then took the dogs out for park.
The plan was to take the dogs out on the shuttle for our Elm street practice solo trip. I was supposed to be called for the 1:45 shuttle but my name was not mentioned over the intercom system, so I was a bit perplexed. I proceeded to go out for park before the trip and waited outside for a few minutes when …
God, or in this case Mother Nature, sometimes loves to play games with those of us in class. While waiting outside I heard very distant thunder. Thinking nothing of this I thought, well, I will go inside and wait in the lounge. I am glad I did. A few minutes later it was storming! Suffice it to say, we did not do our practice solo trips Tuesday afternoon.
In the evening we worked on more clicker work and targeting in the dining room. Dogs love this!
Wednesday morning, we were again paired up to perform our Elm street solos! This went very well. I only had to do one rework of an approach to a crosswalk which in the scheme of things is not bad at all!
We got back early and proceeded down for coffee break followed by picture-taking time!
This was ridiculously cute! It will be interesting to see what photos they use for the ID cards that we receive. All I will say now is that I have one very mischievous little puppy here!
After pictures were taken we waited for lunch. Before our afternoon trips we received our new harnesses. They are initially very stiff so you need to be careful on how long the dogs wear them. We were instructed to take them off during lectures and other periods of down time.
In the afternoon we went to the grocery store. I must say, this little pup did exceptionally well in the store. There were no distractions while in the store which was amazing! My guide was very alert and “Follow” was truly spot on for this big furry pup!
After we returned, we waited for park time and then dinner. After dinner we had a food lecture.
After this I decided to do a load of laundry. I got to bed a lot later than usual, around 11:00 or so but the day was filled with lots of fun!
This brings us to day eleven where so far, we have done country work. This was quite a small trip in the scheme of things and that work went very well.
One more thing, I determined yesterday the size of the cooling vest that I needed to buy for my dog. So, I will get this purchased today and depending on how quickly they ship it I will have it shipped either to the Seeing Eye or at home. Time will tell. Temperatures are still hovering around 110 or so in Tucson Arizona so this will be a must have part of the dog’s equipment.
Sunday will be a special day for the blog so stay tuned! Many secrets may be revealed!