Friday, November 6, 2009

One week to go..................help!







Today's picture gallery: 1) Photo on top can be called "Laundry Train, Ho!" showing me on my way back to my room from a very inaccessible laundry room, with machines whose doors open in the "wrong" direction, going through the HED classroom (whose clients were fortunately elsewhere) 2) Photo on the bottom - Pina is on the right, with Legend and Lilo to the left, all in perfect "Stay" position, even with our trainer, Tracy, trying to distract them by prancing Midnight, the collie, around them!
All in all, a good day today! No new skills were added, and Pina did well on the review of previously introduced ones. We did lose Michelle (Legend) and Diane (Zeke) after morning break - they both had not slept well last night, and went to take naps before the afternoon's outing. Poor Diane - Zeke had the "runs" last night, and on one of her trips to the "relief room" near midnight, she inadvertently locked herself out of her room! What made it even worse is that she is on the third floor, and the key to the elevator was on the lanyard with her room key! She had to knock on Joannie's door and call the staff member on duty to resolve the problem.
It was chilly, but wonderfully sunny, as we scooted and wheeled our way to Liquidation World, for another practice session of navigating aisles in stores, and preparing for people's reactions to the dogs. Upon our return, after a break, we worked on a circuit of Tugs, Fetches, Gives, Push, Push, Push, "Alert" and Help.
We broke a little early today, and our group met to go over the draft for our graduation speech for next Thursday night. I cannot believe that I will be leaving here in one week's time! Will I be ready to deal with the continued responsibility of reinforcing the skills of this incredibly trained dog? Yikes! Good night!
P.S. A humourous, but true, anecdote - While reviewing the commands for putting on the dog's equipment, and with Pina fussing a bit over the Halti, I got a little flustered, and while getting the harness, leash, collar, and Halti all untangled and sorted, while trying to keep Pina in a perfect "Sit" and "Wait" position, all the while giving commands, I inadvertently called her the wrong name:................................................................................................................."Penis! Halti"!!

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