My Journey at the Seeing Eye

This turned out to be an exciting day.

I was a bit worried that Rory would keep me up during the night but she slept very well. I could hear her sometimes moving around but she really did a great job sleeping.

I got up at 5:10 and quickly showered, shaved and got dressed before PARC time was called and before them bringing the food to our doors.

I then played with Rory for about 30 to 40 minutes and also did obedience with Barb with her just prior to breakfast.

I am having to heel her around the house for the first few days just like I did with Vincent.

I learned that I would be on the 9:15 shuttle so I went back to my room and picked up my phone and went into the Men’s lounge to check email while the cleaning staff did their work in my room.

We had a lecture on the care of your dog today but I couldn’t do the hands on work with her due to her being so new. I did go and sit in and listen to the meeting. It was good socialization work for Rory.

I then left on the shuttle and Barb and I set off for our first walk with Rory. All I can say is that if I had wings I would have flown to the moon and back. Her speed and pull were off the charts, even a bit more then I wanted. It was a nice problem to have. Tom followed Barb and me for part of the route and we ended up finishing the route quite quickly. Tom suggests that her speed will decrease as well as her pull over time but so far at least the first trip it didn’t that much.

We went back and we had our class pictures. They now email out the picture of your dog to you which I think is very cool. I hope it gets here soon.

I was on the first trip after lunch and we did half the route using a short handle and the other half with the longer handle. I am unsure which I want to stick with so we will see. Rory loves me giving her praise with a chipmunk type voice and it makes Barb laugh. The second working of the Maple route was also good but indeed speed and pull decreased a bit more from the morning. Parts of this could be due to the heat. It was a bit warm out.

We got back to the school and I laid down for a nap after calling Keri to check on how she was doing. I slept for a couple of hours and then got up in time for PARC and feeding time. Rory eats very fast.

We then went for dinner.

After dinner Lucas and I worked on the beginnings of Clicker with Rory and we will continue on Thursday. We then had the vet lecture with Dr. Holly. I found it interesting that the question I had about snake bites and training dogs to avoid snakes was never asked of her until this evening. What brought this up was a snake bite that Keri’s Mom received yesterday and she ended up in the hospital for quite a while for observation.

After the vet lecture it was time to go out to PARC again and now after checking email I am writing blog posts. I did go up and spend some time in the Common Lounge with the rest of the class after PARC time for about 20 minutes or so.

That brings up to the current.

Steve wanted more information on the booties. We are using them simply for training purposes. The weather wouldn’t mandate their use right now but they want us to be familiar with putting them on and getting the dogs used to them while traveling. They are trained with them on also so it is really more re-enforcing already learned behavior (well, sort of).

See everyone on day 13.

Tuesday was a difficult day for me. We got up, parked our dogs and ate breakfast. I was going to go out with Tom Pender (the class supervisor) to work on pull with Vincent. I went in on the 8:45 shuttle and met Tom there. We drove in the Prius to Madison, NJ. He had me work with Vincent with lots of play and praise to attempt to increase his pull. At times there was some but for the majority of the time it was not very strong. I expressed these concerns to Tom while we went back to the campus.

He then did a Juno walk with me in the driveway and told me he would begin searching to see what he could find.

I spoke to Michelle and Lucas Franck as I really wasn’t handling the situation very well. In addition, those on the Internet with whom I communicate with were a huge help to me throughout the day.

Tom came on got Vincent just prior to lunch and boy did it feel weird walking into the first dining room without a dog. It felt like all of the eyes of the room were looking at me (of which they probably were not). I started to cry at the table a bit and then we had a guest so I had to quickly compose myself as much as I could. I ate my hamburger and fries (that was what was for lunch) and kept pretty quiet.

I went back to my room and checked email and then went down to the front lobby and watched a Start Trek episode on the iPod to try and get my mind off of all of the activities that were taking place.

The afternoon crawled and I honestly thought it would never end. I stopped by to see Michelle, I went outside to stand in the rain a bit (it was lightly sprinkling) and went to talk with Pauline on potential travel plans if a match couldn’t be found. I wanted to have all of the options on the table if worse came to worse. I am Grandfather Chicken Little and many know this about me. If the worse could happen then I tend to believe it will (one of my unwanted features). The Unwanted Features is something that came up in class at our table and I will BLOG about it later at some point, everyone remind me ;).

I was sitting in Michelle’s office and she received a phone call:

“Is Jeff in your office?”

I guess Tom and Barb were hunting for me.

I received the news that they had found a new dog for me and that I would meet HER after dinner.

I ate dinner and then went back to my room to wait for Tom to bring her to my room.

Her name is Rory. She is 21 inches tall and 51.2 pounds. I do not have a birth date yet but hope to get that soon. Verification that she is a pure Black Lab is also needing to be determined but we think she is.

The rest of the evening was spent bonding with her and then off to a lecture on more Clicker Training activities from Lucas. Lucas is probably one of the most dynamic speakers in the filed there is. He really makes training fun with his sense of humor and overall tone.

We then took our dogs out to PARC and I returned to my room where we played a bit more and then it was time for bed. It was a day that started with lots of tears and ended with lots of them but the emotion swing was completely opposite. Man, I hope I don’t have many more of those while I am here.

More to come on the day 12 post. Thanks for reading everyone.

I am writing this on Wednesday, May 5. I am a bit behind.

Monday, May 3, we got up at the sound of the wake up call and I got ready for the day and took Vincent out. I had cereal for breakfast.

We started the Elm Street route and I expressed more concern about Vincent’s lack of pull. So, Barb started to work with me much more on this both in the morning and the afternoon. I used a harness that was offset to the right and the handle was a bit shorter. Vincent wore his booties in the morning but not in the afternoon. It rained on us in the morning and as we got near the end of the route we heard lots of emergency vehicles screaming by. A transformer blew underground on Miller and boy did that create a big mess. The weather was warm so the rain actually felt kind of nice.

When we got back Barb took Vincent to the vet to have his paws looked at. It turned out that he had a bit of a problem with his left back paw, but nothing serious. Just need to medicate it.

In the afternoon she tied the harness handle to the body of the harness so that it did not give. We had no rain in the afternoon. The pull pretty much remained consistent.

The Elm Street route is much longer and the amount of traffic is much greater along this route.

I got back to the campus and was told that Tom Pender would be taking me out in the morning to work in Madison to see what he could do with Vincent’s pull.

On Monday night Shannon talked to us about dog food and toys. We started to switch Vincent from Imes to Pro Plan (or would on Tuesday morning).

I got to bed at 8:45 or so and slept pretty good.

Sunday was a great day of rest. We got up at 6:30 and took the dogs out to PARC. We had a yummy yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and English muffins. Did I tell you it was really really yummy .

After breakfast we went upstairs to get the information on our dogs. Vincent’s are:

67.5 pounds
24.5 inches tall
Birth Date: 7/18/2008

He is a young pup.

I spent the rest of the morning kicking back and then met with Barb for our progress meeting. Things are going well. She dropped off another harness that is two inches shorter and offset to the right. We are going to try this to see if his pull will increase using this new harness. Let’s hope so.

She noticed he was licking his feet and so we put bitter apples on them to get him to stop. We will take him to the vet to get his feet checked just prior to lunch.

Then we had lunch. The afternoon was spent just relaxing and then dinner/PARC time. Really a completely uneventful day.

See everyone on day 10. It is Elm Street route week. We will do this on Monday and Tuesday with solo on Wednesday morning.

Today is solo day where we have to work the route we have been working out without any instructor involvement.

It was hot in my room over night so I slept on top of the covers and was awakened by the announcement of PARC time. I quickly dressed, fed Vincent and took him out. I came back to my room to focus on reading email, doing some obedience and getting ready for breakfast.

I had cereal for breakfast and got ready to go out on the solo. The trip was uneventful accept for the major jump in temperature. It is 20 degrees warmer here then in Tucson for goodness sake. We got back to the lounge down town and man was I hot!

We then got back to campus after everyone finished and we took our dogs out for PARC again. Right from there we went to walk the leisure path.

Then it was time for lunch. I honestly wasn’t very hungry and just wanted to go lay down and take a nap. I ate quickly and went back to my room. I checked on email and proceeded to lay down and didn’t wake up until PARC time again. Boy, that 3 hour nap sure was nice!

It was then dinner time and we had pizza.

After dinner we had a short meeting on “Going Home”. They showed us a video that I have seen many many times.

I then came back to my room and called into Mushroom FM after PARC time at 8:00. I am now writing this blog post and heading for bed. We get to sleep in in the morning until 6:30. I am happy about that. Sunday we are only having a meeting to find out more about our dogs. I will post the specifics when I get them.

See everyone on day 9.

I did forget that I worked with Lucas Franck in the morning on Clicker Training again. We first sat at a table and looked at a map of the dining room. He then had me work Vincent to the new location where I will be sitting to eat in the new dining room. He attached the target to the back of the chair and we worked on teaching him to recognize the target. We would back chain (move further back as we worked the dog away from the target). For those that haven’t used Clicker you are in for a treat. It is a very valuable tool and I would strongly encourage that you sign up for the training when you come here.

The day started about 5:30 or so. I took Vincent out to park and came back to write Day 6’s blog post and to read mail and tweets. I then went down for breakfast. As usual I was on the first trip and went with Lee as a pair on the South Street route. Walt (one of the supervisors) drove the silent car and the first traffic check he moved in front of me right by a very large truck. I thought Vincent was afraid of the truck but no it was Walt :). The rest of the route went well including the second traffic check.

I then came back to the school and groomed Vincent.

At 10:50 we took our dogs out again and then went directly to a meeting about “Dog Senses”. This is a lecture that hasn’t changed much but was fascinating. The mp3 player has a much more in-depth lecture on the subject then we heard.

It was then lunch time.

I finished lunch and went back out on the South Street route again. This time it was a semi-solo type route. What this means is that we made all of the decisions on what tasks would be done as far as crossings goes. The trip was uneventful. Only one run curb and an issue with a meter poll. He is doing quite well.

When I got back I decided to do my laundry. I lugged the bag down stairs and got the clothes loaded by 3:30. I had the clothes done just after dinner. I was quite happy about this. I really didn’t want to do it over the weekend.

The rest of the day was very uneventful. We had dinner and then I just kicked back. This week has been very long and tiring. I am looking forward to the weekend.

Steve commented on the blog and wanted an update on the use of GPS on the routes. I haven’t been able to do that. Barb hasn’t wanted me to turn it on on the routes. I was a bit disappointed by this. We will see though about doing it later on during training.

See everybody on day 8.

Day 6 began around 5:25. I staid up until about 11:30 the prior evening and man was I feeling it that morning. I fed and gave Vincent water and took him out to park. I came back to my room and in a few minutes did obedience with Vincent and Barb. This is the first day in which we are taking the shuttles into town. I was on first trip and we started the South Street route. This basically is like a rectangle (kind of anyway) route. We start by walking up to Dehart, then Community which is a light. We then move to Madison and then up to James. We turn left to South Street and walk along it back to Dehart. We turn left back to Maple and then cross Dehart back to the lounge. It is definitely more then a mile walk. We had traffic stops to deal with, dog distractions, very narrow sidewalks, flags waving over our heads and more.

I got back to the school at around 9:30 and I just kicked back. I was quite tired. It was soon park time and then I came back and continued to rest up. The week is long here and man was I feeling it.

I went down for lunch and then back out on the route.

I took the 2:45 shuttle back to campus and worked with Lucas Franck on more clicker training with a door knob. We started by having Vincent touch the target with the bell and treated. We continued this until he did it pretty quickly and we slowly moved further back and had him work up to the target. At the end we removed the target and had him bring me to the target. I would touch the target and click and then give him a treat. It worked out well.

I then had to do some work at the office for our Admissions department and then fed and gave Vincent water. I continued the work with the issue at the office. I went to dinner and had a chicken sandwich and went back to finish up my work before the 6:30 meeting with Shannon. We discussed the upcoming weekend schedule as well as on social behaviors with our dogs. We then got Kongs for our dogs. Vincent isn’t to interested in it.

I came back to my room, grabbed a soda from the fridge and began work on testing some Window-Eyes script changes I am working on.

See everybody on Day 7.

I woke up at about 4:45 and began the day. It was about 45 minutes prior to taking Vincent out to Park. I started to write yesterday’s blog post and also read some email and tweets. It was very quiet here that early.

I took Vincent out and boy is that guy quick. I was out and back in in less than 5 minutes. He did that all 4 times today. It is awesome. It has been very windy today and quite cold in the morning so it was good to get back in doors.

I then worked on obedience with Barb and also “Go to Your Place”.

For breakfast I had cereal and went back to my room to get some things ready to take to the down town lounge (or Training Center).

We got down town about 8:15 or so and I was paired with another person in our class and off we went to do the Maple Avenue route once more. We had a traffic check during this route. Tom Pender basically drives up through an alley or driveway right in front of the dog and the dog must stop to insure the safety of himself and me. It went perfectly. He drove a van today but he will drive a silent car later on in class.

We got back pretty quickly. I then had some hot chocolate to try and warm up a bit and then Lucas Franck came over and asked me if I was ready to do some Clicker work. I was ready for that. Karen watched my things as I left with Mr. Franck. We went down two flights of stairs into this room I had never seen. It is a large open room where training staff can meet. It was very nice.

Now, since I had participated in Clicker training at GDB I was a bit familiar with the process. I was excited to see how the Seeing Eye approached the training.

For those that don’t know Clicker Training is a process of teaching the dog to “Target” things through the use of positive reinforcement. You will see how this works as I describe how the Seeing Eye does this.

Lucas handed me a food pouch to clip onto my belt (not a fanny pack like GDB gave us to use). He then handed me the clicker which I placed into my left hand. Lucas then held out a bell wrapped with duct tape and it had a magnet on the back. It was all hooked together on a key chain. He then had a long telescoping stick (one that someone would use in a mechanics shop to get screws with). So, the magnet would stick to the stick. He then had me click when I would hear Vincent touch the “Target” with his nose and the bell would ring. After the click the dog receives a treat. You do this to get the dog “in to the game”.

The process of targeting can be done to find almost anything (door knobs, empty seats, traffic signal buttons, etc.).

Eventually the goal is to slowly remove the need for the clicker for the specific target and simply use normal techniques of praise to reward the dog.

This process is very affective in training the dog. The big difference here is that the entire process is a very positive and rewarding one for the dog unlike the use of corrections when reworking a work related issue.

I had a blast with Lucas working on Clicker and we will continue the process on Thursday with finding door knobs.

I then went back and sat down to wait for everyone to finish up their routes. We got back around 11:30 or so so we took our dogs out to park and got ready for lunch.

For lunch we had grill cheese sandwiches and fries. It made me feel like a kid again.

After lunch we had a short meeting discussing traffic work. That was entertaining. The instructors played different roles in discussing the topic and they played a CD with Lucas Franck giving us examples of things not to do. I want to get a copy of this CD, the things on it are great fun!

We then discussed working our dogs in the house using the harness. Nothing new here really. I am just glad we don’t have to keep having them sit at the beginning of each set of stairs. It really slows down moving around the building for sure.

After the meeting we went to the Men’s lounge and we got booties for our dogs. We put them on and walked around with our dogs. Vincent wanted to run like a little pony and really wouldn’t listen to me to much with those things on. I can see this will be an interesting challenge with him getting used to these things. It made everybody laugh which probably didn’t help matters LOL. It really was quite funny.

At 2:30 we went down and had house keeping show us the new washers and dryers. These are side-by-side models and are quite different from the machines I used last time when I was here. They seem simple enough though and do have Braille and markings on them to help in where things are.

Barb came to see me around 4:15 or so and we worked again on “Go to Your Place”. She then told me she would bring in a crate for me to use with Vincent for a few days.

It was then time to feed, water and park our dogs just prior to dinner. After this was done we got to work the dogs down to dinner in harness. That was very nice. I love working Vincent in the building. It sure makes life a lot easier.

This evening we have the night off. I am very happy about this. I got a lot of things done tonight and just relaxed. I went down to groom Vincent and also transferred some files from Karen’s DS50 and emailed those files to her.

This concludes day 5. On day 6 we will start a new route, the South Street route. It is a very simple route but I am bringing Mobile Geo with me to aid in street names and just to have a play as I work with Vincent. It will be interesting to see what POIs are around along the route. Who knows, I may go in somewhere perhaps :).

See everyone on day 6.

Day 4 is the first full day with our dogs. I got up around 5:00 on Tuesday and proceeded to get ready for the day. We took our dogs out at 5:30 and I cam back to work on my third day blog post as well as catching up on email and tweets. Before breakfast Barb came over and we worked on some obedience with Vincent.

Breakfast was at 7:00 and I had cereal for breakfast. We are now using gentle leaders to bring our dogs down to the dining room.

We then had a meeting on dog handling and dog fears. We had some good laughs during this with some of the audio segments played on the CD player.

We then got ready to go into town. We left around 8:30 or so. I brought my iPod to listen to local Tucson radio stations. Man does that work well.

I was first to go out on the Maple Avenue route. It went quite well. We are still having some issues with running curbs and some pull issues but these will come in time.

I came back to the lounge and listened to the iPod and took a power nap. I was pretty tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before.

We got back at 11:45 or so so we immediately had Park time with the dogs and then went in and gave them water and then it was lunch time. I had a roast beef sandwich with chips.

We then got ready to go into town again. This time we didn’t leave until about 1:45 or so as Barb worked with other students with obedience drills.

We came back about 4:35 and parked our dogs as well as giving them food and water.

It was dinner time at this point. They had a meal which included fish and I really wasn’t in the mood for this so I again had a sandwich. I really wasn’t that hungry honestly.

After dinner we had an introduction to Clicker Training. That was a very fun meeting. After the meeting the instructors came around and had us practice with the clicker. The program is optional but it looks like the majority of students will be participating in it I think.

We then took our dogs out to park for the last time. I then took Vincent down to groom him and came back to the room and crashed after getting ready for the next day. I was pretty tired and I slept like a rock!

Stay tuned for day 5 activities.