This morning didn’t really start out all that great. I’m starting to learn that Bogart is not a morning person. (well there is something we have in common) We sort of slept in yesterday and when I got up to take him out he was still lying on his bed and making no move to get up. So I popped into the shower and when I came out he was still lying in his bed. Got to like his attitude he? Anyway, I roused my lazy dog and took him for relief which went fine. Then I popped into get my breakfast but about half way through he started having the heaves and threw up a bit o file. Leah asked if he had eaten and I said no that he had slept in. she found that pretty funny. Anyway, she suggested I try to take him up and see if he will eat anything. I did and the answer was no. I find it hard to get him to eat in the morning so maybe he’ll end up getting fed at work instead when I get back.
I let him rest for a bit while we had our morning 9am meeting. They told us that we were doing quests today. We would be groups of 2 or 3 and they would give us a place we had to find. In order to find it we had to ask people on the street if they knew where it was. I hate these sorts of games and probably was a bit whiney. Leah was laughing because I had pulled out my gps and she thought I was typing in the name of the place. Hah, she has obviously never seen me try to use my gps and how long it takes me to type in a search string. I was, however, making sure that street announcements was on. I was g going to try to change it so that POI’s would be turned on as well but I couldn’t remember the command in the ten seconds I had to do so. POI’s are Points of Interest which are things like stores, cafes, tourist attractions etc. I usually have this turned off because it gives too much information if I’m just needing street names. I use Mobile Geo and have it set up to tell me the next intersection. With a couple of quick taps to the screen I can find out what street I’m on, the next intersection or the closest POI’s.
I was with Katjyia and we were asked to find The roasting Apple. Sounds good but actually it’s a house ware store according to Courtney. Yippee, I get to ask people where the roasting apple is. We knew we had to get downtown so we took the first way we were taught which was Rebecca to Ker to lakeshore. As we were crossing Rebecca at Kerr we heard our teachers yell something. Both Katjyia and I were totally confused. In retrospect we should have just continued crossing and waited for them on the other side. However, being nervous students, we did an around command and took our dogs back to the curb.
It turned out that there was a woman in the bushes who had fallen over while she was taking a pee and her friend was yelling for help. These were two elderly women who might have had some other mental health issues going on. Apparently when the woman was helped up by Leah the whole world got a view of her privates. She didn’t seem embarrassed at all while she pulled up her underwear and pans. Her friend was telling her she should get some of those adult diapers since they are great and then things like this wouldn’t happen.
Okay, well that was interesting. Off we go again. The first people we encounter are some guys on a bench in front of Tim Horton’s. the guy says he doesn’t know where it is but he thinks it is on this side of the road further downtown. We continue …
I hear a man walking towards me. Well, I think it is a man because of the jingling change in his pocket. I stop him to ask for directions and surprise surprise, it’s Katy from our class with Byron, Bogart’s brother. Katy has weakness in her left hand so Byron has been specially trained to walk on her right. This is why I didn’t notice the dog. Regardless she wasn’t very helpful, although giggling a lot so off we went again.
Katjyia hit the jackpot by asking a woman where this store was when we were at Navy and lakeshore. I over heard the directions and they sounded very good. Off we went. It sounds like this store is at the end of downtown, beside lu lu lemons. Bogart sort of walked me over to a bench were people were sitting. I corrected him, telling to be careful but then took advantage of the situation to ask these people if they knew where the store was. Basically got the same directions as before so we knew we were on the right path.
Once we crossed Trafalgar we had to pay more attention. The next person we asked said it was 3 doors behind us. We turned around and walked about three doors back. I was then engaged in conversation about poodles as guide dogs. Before these people left I asked them what the store was behind me and, yes, it was the one we needed to find. Success at last!
We then walked the quickest way to the school I could think of. Bogart still wasn’t feeling well. He was guiding me around everything pretty well but he sometimes would stop and take a bit to make his decision, especially if we were in the shade. he was also walking very slowly.
Once we got back I took him upstairs and got him some water. I let him lie about in the air conditioned room until lunch was over. Then Katjyia, Katy and myself were driven downtown and dropped off and told to go back to the school. This was sort of a dry run of our solo walks that we will be doing on Wednesday. Then they will drop us out of the van but not tell us where we are. We are to ask people and then get ourselves back to the school. For us who use gps’s we are allowed to use them because we will be using them in our home environment. Besides, as Courtney said, it actually adds another layer of complication to our walk since we’ll have to be listening to the gps and paying attention to our dogs and our walk all at the same time.
We had no problems walking back and Katy made it the whole way under the bribe of a cheeseburger from her mom. I was disappointed because I didn’t get a cheeseburger! The only issue we had was our dogs feet were getting hot when we were standing around waiting for the other too go. Bogart did a couple of weird things but really he only walked me into two people and one there was really no where to go between the person and the bus shelter. He is also smart enough to to see the van even when it is behind us. At one point he went over to the curb just thinking that any car would do. I knew what he was doing but let him continue to see if he would navigate around the trees
In the night Alex gave us a talk on our rights and what would be in our graduation pack. The most important piece of information for me was that transportation carriers must provide a seat for the dog as long as they have appropriate notice. That will be very helpful when flying. We’ll see how it goes on my first flight on Friday.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Gary's guided tour of Toronto
The challenge this morning was to figure when to do everything with a different time line than we’ve had all the time we’ve been here. Anyway, Bogart and I had it figured out and were ready to go by 7:50am as directed. We always have trouble getting out of here on time but this time we had an 8:28am Go train to catch into Toronto and they only run every hour on holidays, which today is in Canada. We all piled into the van. since Michelle was sick we had heard she wasn’t coming along. Katy and her mom also didn’t want to come along. Thanks to this there was quite a bit more room for us and our dogs in the van. The sliding door closed shut, swoosh wham and we should have been ready to go. “Hmm, where are the drivers? “Jade was really starting to worry. It was 8:07am and we have not left. Then Courtney popped her head into say that Michelle was coming and had until 8:10am to get into the van. People in the van were starting to get restless. I was starting to get a little anxious but what is the worse thing that could happen? We miss the train and have to take the next one.
Well as we were about to attempt driving the van ourselves Michelle showed up and the trainers piled in. We got to witness Courtney’s grand prix driving skills as we hustled to the go Train station. We still had to buy tickets for everyone as well, not to mention get our dogs back into harness once we got out of the van.
As you probably all guess, we made it with time to spare. (well, okay about 2 minutes to spare, but who is counting? Jade?).
We got on the go Train at the accessible car which is one that has a ramp instead of stairs which was pretty cool. It is about a 45 minute train ride into Toronto from Oakville. I listened to some music and enjoyed a bit of chit chat with my class mates.
Once we arrived at Union station we nervously got off the train and followed Courtney’s directions very carefully. I find train sations to be very nerve racking with all the noises around, especially when I'm not familiar wit hthem. In the station, as we discussed our route to take, it became obvious that I knew the downtown probably the best of anyone, perhaps except Kenneth. I proposed what I thought would be a good route that would have us on the subway, walking on some city streets and then taking a street car to another subway to get us back to union station. Everyone seemed to agree and off we went.
Michele uses Union station more than anyone else so she knew how to lead us out and to the subway station. When we got there we took the train north on the University line. We then got off at Queen Street. It was funny in the subway trying to decide which exit to take. Although I knew the way, it has been 20 years since I lived in Toronto. So I had to get clarification on the signage. I think it was Courtney who was reading the sign that would take us to a west bound street car but forgetting that this wouldn't be on the west side of University Ave. Once this was clarified we headed off to the left and than right up the stairs to the road. Bogart got a little over excited and walked me right into the back of Kenneth,bonk!
No offense to Courtney and Leah, but their sense of direction isn’t well developed, at least not in Toronto. Once we got the group situated we headed west on Queen street. Being a holiday Monday, there really wasn’t a lot of foot traffic but enough, mixed with all the obstacles, to make our dogs work. John was having difficulties with Rocco really pulling. Bogart too was pulling hard except when he was in the lead, then he calmed down to a reasonable pace.
Once we managed to get to Spadina, the next step was getting on a street car. Of course, this is the intersection where the streetcar platforms aren’t in the same place they normally are. It must of looked pretty funny to passers by. There were eight people and six guide dogs all lined up at the curb trying to figure out how to proceed. Basically, we had to wait for two street cars heading opposite directions to pass to know where they would stop. Once we figured that out it was full steam ahead to the platform. We managed to walk out into the middle of the road, tell our dogs “over right” and they led us onto the platform. Getting on the street car wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be but, again, it was pretty empty. This street car takes us right into the subway where the north south and east west lines meet which was convenient.
Once off the street car we managed to follow the signs to the correct subway platform. This street car tunnel never existed when I lived in Toronto so I wasn’t quite sure where it dumped us out.
Anyway, we got to do another subway station which was good practice. This one was another one with a platform on each side, meaning it is a more narrow station than some of the central platform stations. Courtney had a big scare when she was leading jade to the escalator and saw Kenneth get off at the bottom and turn right. To the right was the abyss!! She yelled “Kenneth stop!”. Luckily he had also figured out what was going on and Aiden had stopped too. Kenneth joked that this is why he needs a new dog. The last one fell in. ,chuckle>
Once we had piled onto the train Courtney was happy that all were accounted for.
We had 45 minutes to wait for our go Train back to Oakville so leah offered us ice cream. I took a milkshake instead and enjoyed it immensely. It was pretty hot outside today.
The train ride was uneventful except for Rocco had some nasty gas that was pretty embarrassing. I’m sure he felt better letting it out but we all sure didn’t. H probably was feeling much more relaxed and wondering why we , his friends, were all holding our noses.
In the afternoon we took a nice walk down to the beach. Besides getting some rays and enjoying the warm weather, the other reason for doing this is to have some practice at walking on roads with no sidewalks. The whole group headed down which was pretty interesting. Two trainers with 8 clients and many dogs with personality. Except for pulling a bit much Bogart did fine on the way there. We had to walk down a flight of wooden stairs from the road down to the river and Denise, Katy’s mom, said we looked like pros coming down there. Nice and smooth. That was nice to hear. It did feel pretty good. We ended up at some picnic tables on a hill above the marina. Nice view, nice breeze and a warm sun made this wonderful. We had lots of laughs chatting. I learned about a cool bag from lulu lemons. It’s a pooch bag or something like that but it has pockets for a ball, treats, pickup bags and the normal things you need as well. It’s got a strap that is sort of courier style. Have to check that out once I'm back in vancouver but it seemed fashionable and practical.
Bogart got comments from Courtney as he stared at himself peeing. "Hey, I'm a cool guy. look at how great I can pee. Cool man." Needless to say I gotraazed about my dog after that. The trainers also did one of their tricks where they switch leashes on the client. It is to se how observant we are about our dogs. This one didn't work so great since they attached me to Hedda, a small lab.The first thing I always do when I go to pick up my harness is pet my dog. So no joy on that one gals. Well, I'm sure they still got to see a pretty funny look on my face for the first second or so while I figured it out. :)
On the way back Bogart got in the lead of the second group which means he wasn’t pulling anymore and walking at a good pace. He had another great maneuver where he could have gone forward up a curb, over a bit of grass and then onto the sidewalk but instead he walked around the edge of the curb and onto the wheelchair curb cut to get onto the sidewalk. Very good.
The embarrassing thing that happened though was when he stopped for no reason I could figure out. I had just checked to be sure that there was no obstacles in my way when I heard Courtney yell that my dog was taking a dump on the sidewalk. How embarrassing. Usually it is Rocco who does these sorts of things, not a proud poodle such as Bogart. It was a pleasure to pick up Bogart’s offering. At least Courtney offered to find me a garbage to put it in. I guess the lesson I learned was that Bogart went onto grass several times and I corrected him back to the sidewalk. I guess I should have pulled off his harness to see if he had to go.
Besides that , he guided all the way back with no collision for me. Have to like that.
After dinner, Leah said we needed to decide who was doing the speech on Thursday. We explained that we had planned on figuring this all out at the morning meeting but we ended up all being in Toronto at that time. Leah said that’s great but we need to figure this out now. So we did our nominations and it was clear that that there were two people who thought that they would b interested in doing the speech but the rest of the group wanted Katjyia and myself to do the speech to represent the younger and older, I mean more mature, members of our class. How do I always get myself into these situations? Eventually I’ll have to admit I like doing this sort of thing won’t I . With that in mind, the film crew will be back on Thursday to film the graduation so me being involved in the speech will give them some more good images to use for the story.
Katjyia and I are going to work on ideas tomorrow and then bring them to the group to help us with little funny stories to get people laughing as well as what would be some key points we would want to be conveying.
Tomorrow we will be doing two walks. The plan is to do quests. This is where they tell us what to find and we have to go downtown and find it by asking Joe public where it is. Sounds like tons of fun! (yeah, you’re getting my sarcasm I’m sure.) I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Well as we were about to attempt driving the van ourselves Michelle showed up and the trainers piled in. We got to witness Courtney’s grand prix driving skills as we hustled to the go Train station. We still had to buy tickets for everyone as well, not to mention get our dogs back into harness once we got out of the van.
As you probably all guess, we made it with time to spare. (well, okay about 2 minutes to spare, but who is counting? Jade?).
We got on the go Train at the accessible car which is one that has a ramp instead of stairs which was pretty cool. It is about a 45 minute train ride into Toronto from Oakville. I listened to some music and enjoyed a bit of chit chat with my class mates.
Once we arrived at Union station we nervously got off the train and followed Courtney’s directions very carefully. I find train sations to be very nerve racking with all the noises around, especially when I'm not familiar wit hthem. In the station, as we discussed our route to take, it became obvious that I knew the downtown probably the best of anyone, perhaps except Kenneth. I proposed what I thought would be a good route that would have us on the subway, walking on some city streets and then taking a street car to another subway to get us back to union station. Everyone seemed to agree and off we went.
Michele uses Union station more than anyone else so she knew how to lead us out and to the subway station. When we got there we took the train north on the University line. We then got off at Queen Street. It was funny in the subway trying to decide which exit to take. Although I knew the way, it has been 20 years since I lived in Toronto. So I had to get clarification on the signage. I think it was Courtney who was reading the sign that would take us to a west bound street car but forgetting that this wouldn't be on the west side of University Ave. Once this was clarified we headed off to the left and than right up the stairs to the road. Bogart got a little over excited and walked me right into the back of Kenneth,bonk!
No offense to Courtney and Leah, but their sense of direction isn’t well developed, at least not in Toronto. Once we got the group situated we headed west on Queen street. Being a holiday Monday, there really wasn’t a lot of foot traffic but enough, mixed with all the obstacles, to make our dogs work. John was having difficulties with Rocco really pulling. Bogart too was pulling hard except when he was in the lead, then he calmed down to a reasonable pace.
Once we managed to get to Spadina, the next step was getting on a street car. Of course, this is the intersection where the streetcar platforms aren’t in the same place they normally are. It must of looked pretty funny to passers by. There were eight people and six guide dogs all lined up at the curb trying to figure out how to proceed. Basically, we had to wait for two street cars heading opposite directions to pass to know where they would stop. Once we figured that out it was full steam ahead to the platform. We managed to walk out into the middle of the road, tell our dogs “over right” and they led us onto the platform. Getting on the street car wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be but, again, it was pretty empty. This street car takes us right into the subway where the north south and east west lines meet which was convenient.
Once off the street car we managed to follow the signs to the correct subway platform. This street car tunnel never existed when I lived in Toronto so I wasn’t quite sure where it dumped us out.
Anyway, we got to do another subway station which was good practice. This one was another one with a platform on each side, meaning it is a more narrow station than some of the central platform stations. Courtney had a big scare when she was leading jade to the escalator and saw Kenneth get off at the bottom and turn right. To the right was the abyss!! She yelled “Kenneth stop!”. Luckily he had also figured out what was going on and Aiden had stopped too. Kenneth joked that this is why he needs a new dog. The last one fell in. ,chuckle>
Once we had piled onto the train Courtney was happy that all were accounted for.
We had 45 minutes to wait for our go Train back to Oakville so leah offered us ice cream. I took a milkshake instead and enjoyed it immensely. It was pretty hot outside today.
The train ride was uneventful except for Rocco had some nasty gas that was pretty embarrassing. I’m sure he felt better letting it out but we all sure didn’t. H probably was feeling much more relaxed and wondering why we , his friends, were all holding our noses.
In the afternoon we took a nice walk down to the beach. Besides getting some rays and enjoying the warm weather, the other reason for doing this is to have some practice at walking on roads with no sidewalks. The whole group headed down which was pretty interesting. Two trainers with 8 clients and many dogs with personality. Except for pulling a bit much Bogart did fine on the way there. We had to walk down a flight of wooden stairs from the road down to the river and Denise, Katy’s mom, said we looked like pros coming down there. Nice and smooth. That was nice to hear. It did feel pretty good. We ended up at some picnic tables on a hill above the marina. Nice view, nice breeze and a warm sun made this wonderful. We had lots of laughs chatting. I learned about a cool bag from lulu lemons. It’s a pooch bag or something like that but it has pockets for a ball, treats, pickup bags and the normal things you need as well. It’s got a strap that is sort of courier style. Have to check that out once I'm back in vancouver but it seemed fashionable and practical.
Bogart got comments from Courtney as he stared at himself peeing. "Hey, I'm a cool guy. look at how great I can pee. Cool man." Needless to say I gotraazed about my dog after that. The trainers also did one of their tricks where they switch leashes on the client. It is to se how observant we are about our dogs. This one didn't work so great since they attached me to Hedda, a small lab.The first thing I always do when I go to pick up my harness is pet my dog. So no joy on that one gals. Well, I'm sure they still got to see a pretty funny look on my face for the first second or so while I figured it out. :)
On the way back Bogart got in the lead of the second group which means he wasn’t pulling anymore and walking at a good pace. He had another great maneuver where he could have gone forward up a curb, over a bit of grass and then onto the sidewalk but instead he walked around the edge of the curb and onto the wheelchair curb cut to get onto the sidewalk. Very good.
The embarrassing thing that happened though was when he stopped for no reason I could figure out. I had just checked to be sure that there was no obstacles in my way when I heard Courtney yell that my dog was taking a dump on the sidewalk. How embarrassing. Usually it is Rocco who does these sorts of things, not a proud poodle such as Bogart. It was a pleasure to pick up Bogart’s offering. At least Courtney offered to find me a garbage to put it in. I guess the lesson I learned was that Bogart went onto grass several times and I corrected him back to the sidewalk. I guess I should have pulled off his harness to see if he had to go.
Besides that , he guided all the way back with no collision for me. Have to like that.
After dinner, Leah said we needed to decide who was doing the speech on Thursday. We explained that we had planned on figuring this all out at the morning meeting but we ended up all being in Toronto at that time. Leah said that’s great but we need to figure this out now. So we did our nominations and it was clear that that there were two people who thought that they would b interested in doing the speech but the rest of the group wanted Katjyia and myself to do the speech to represent the younger and older, I mean more mature, members of our class. How do I always get myself into these situations? Eventually I’ll have to admit I like doing this sort of thing won’t I . With that in mind, the film crew will be back on Thursday to film the graduation so me being involved in the speech will give them some more good images to use for the story.
Katjyia and I are going to work on ideas tomorrow and then bring them to the group to help us with little funny stories to get people laughing as well as what would be some key points we would want to be conveying.
Tomorrow we will be doing two walks. The plan is to do quests. This is where they tell us what to find and we have to go downtown and find it by asking Joe public where it is. Sounds like tons of fun! (yeah, you’re getting my sarcasm I’m sure.) I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.
Monday, May 24, 2010
A day off ... big sigh
Ah, finally, Sunday has arrived. It is so nice to have a day off. Well, of course, there is no day off when you have a dog but at least there are no meetings and no places we have to go. It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed to take Bogart down for his morning constitutional. Then we came back upstairs so he could eat and I could lie down again for a bit.
Breakfast was a simple fair but highlighted by Janis’s freshly cooked cinimon buns with icing. Mmmm, they were very good. So good that I had to have a second one.
After breakfast, I came back upstairs to try and get caught up on my blogging. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I’m not exactly getting each day done on the day it is for. It is actually more work to do the blog than I thought but considering how little I can remember of the last 3 weeks I think it will be a precious tool to help me remember everything that happened here.
Just before lunch I took Bogart out to the courtyard to run about with his friend Rocco (lab) and Aiden (white poodle). They had a very good time which was nice to see. We then headed off for lunch which was really great pizza. After lunch I hung out in the front of the building first with John and Rocco who were waiting for John’s wife. And then Katjyia and her parents. At 2pm Denise (Katy’s mother), Jade, Leah, Courtney and myself headed over to the Moonshine café for their blues jam. It was nice to go and have a drink or two with some of the adults. I really enjoy hanging out with Courtney and Leah. I got to play after the first set. We played a couple of songs that I play in Rain shadow which was fun. It’s hard to just hop up and play really well but those who came to watch said it sounded great. Just as we were getting ready to leave John, the owner, came over and asked if I would like to play again. Of course I said yes and asked Courtney to have Janis hold my supper or give it to one of the extra people staying. However, I gave clear instructions that I was to be saved a piece of Janis’s freshly made cheese cake. I ended up playing for most of the next hour which was fun. Onwards the end John and his wife Chris showed up so I sat and had a drink with them before heading back to the school to rescue Bogart from my room.
He didn’t seem to care that much and was just lying on his bed when I came in the room. I took him down to run again with Rocco as a reward for his patience. It was then that I found out that plans had changed and we were now going to Toronto on Monday instead of Tuesday morning. Breakfast was now at 7:15am and we were to be out of here by 8am. Wow, no sleeping in and actually we’re going to have to b up even earlier. Oh well, I’m looking forward to the whole trip. I used to live in Toronto about 20 years ago so it’s always like visiting my youth when I go there. I’ve suggested we take the go train to union station, take the subway to Queen Street, walk west to spadina and then take the spadina street car to the subway and back to union station. We’ll see if I get my way or not.
Breakfast was a simple fair but highlighted by Janis’s freshly cooked cinimon buns with icing. Mmmm, they were very good. So good that I had to have a second one.
After breakfast, I came back upstairs to try and get caught up on my blogging. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that I’m not exactly getting each day done on the day it is for. It is actually more work to do the blog than I thought but considering how little I can remember of the last 3 weeks I think it will be a precious tool to help me remember everything that happened here.
Just before lunch I took Bogart out to the courtyard to run about with his friend Rocco (lab) and Aiden (white poodle). They had a very good time which was nice to see. We then headed off for lunch which was really great pizza. After lunch I hung out in the front of the building first with John and Rocco who were waiting for John’s wife. And then Katjyia and her parents. At 2pm Denise (Katy’s mother), Jade, Leah, Courtney and myself headed over to the Moonshine café for their blues jam. It was nice to go and have a drink or two with some of the adults. I really enjoy hanging out with Courtney and Leah. I got to play after the first set. We played a couple of songs that I play in Rain shadow which was fun. It’s hard to just hop up and play really well but those who came to watch said it sounded great. Just as we were getting ready to leave John, the owner, came over and asked if I would like to play again. Of course I said yes and asked Courtney to have Janis hold my supper or give it to one of the extra people staying. However, I gave clear instructions that I was to be saved a piece of Janis’s freshly made cheese cake. I ended up playing for most of the next hour which was fun. Onwards the end John and his wife Chris showed up so I sat and had a drink with them before heading back to the school to rescue Bogart from my room.
He didn’t seem to care that much and was just lying on his bed when I came in the room. I took him down to run again with Rocco as a reward for his patience. It was then that I found out that plans had changed and we were now going to Toronto on Monday instead of Tuesday morning. Breakfast was now at 7:15am and we were to be out of here by 8am. Wow, no sleeping in and actually we’re going to have to b up even earlier. Oh well, I’m looking forward to the whole trip. I used to live in Toronto about 20 years ago so it’s always like visiting my youth when I go there. I’ve suggested we take the go train to union station, take the subway to Queen Street, walk west to spadina and then take the spadina street car to the subway and back to union station. We’ll see if I get my way or not.
Doggie's in the mall
It seems that everything came together today since it was the day that we were supposed to go to the mall and it was pouring rain. What better day to do a mall day? Leah is still sick so Courtney was going to have to do this with us all herself. The main goals at the mall were to do up and down escalators, elevators and stairs with open backs.
Once we all got out of the van and got our dogs harnessed (easier for some than others), we headed into the mall. Courtney took half of us up to Tim Horton’s to wait while she worked wit the other half. Katy hung out with her mom and Katjyia, Laura and Michelle went off shopping on their own. They all have quite a bit more sight than the rest of us.
When it was our turn, John and I followed Courtney to the first escalator down. Courtney was telling me that in training Bogart was bomb proof on escalators, elevators and stairs so that was good to hear. He hasn’t pulled any of his stair refusals while in harness in public. He still does this from time to time on the stairs in the school but not too often any more. John was having some issue with Rocco and he asked Courtney if he could just walk around the mall on his own. He lives in this area and knows the mall well and also has enough sight to get round even without a dog in this sort of lighting.
Courtney helped me find the HMV and, to my surprise, they had the CD I was looking for but couldn’t find in Vancouver. Not only that but it was on sale for $10.00. for those who might be interested the CD is Middle cyclone by Nico Case. When ever I go on a holiday or to some place interesting I like to buy a CD as a way of adding a musical memory to the place. Last year when I was in Cologne Germany I bought a CD by a popular alternative band. I have it on my phone so songs from it will come up from time to time.
After HMV Courtney just had me go down the stairs, walk around, back up the stairs and then down the escalator to the bottom floor. From there we took the elevator up to the third level and started pulling the group together. We all headed down to the main entrance . Here we had to wait for Courtney to go back up to Tim Horton’s to bring Michele and Laura down to see them manage the elevator. There was some mumbling about us having to wait for those two since they had been shopping around while we were doing what we needed to do. If they had time to shop one would think they could of had their Timmy’s at a time when it didn’t have the rest of the class waiting for them. As we enter the last week, I think everyone’s patience is getting a little shorter. We are all eager to get home and se how things will work out with our new partners.
In the afternoon we worked on food distractions and dog distractions. Treats were place on the floor in the main hallway and we had to walk our dogs through them without them trying to pick anything up. If I can be totally honest, I went up to my room after our late lunch, laid down on my bed and fell asleep. Jade came and got me so I missed the food distractions test. I'm sure bogart would have done great at being distracted by the food. that is the purpose of the test isn't it? :)
The dog distractions were interesting. Courtney brought out a golden lab named sable who had been disqualified from the special services program because she was just too hyper. First Courtney walked by with sable on leash and had her come right up to our dogs. I had to sit Bogart down several times but he listened fairly well. Then Courtney had Sable off leash and got her to wander around our dogs. You have to imagine this crazy panting hyper lab being encouraged to come and play with our dogs. Bogart didn’t handle this so well and needed a pretty hard correction. He is one who likes to play for sure.
Lastly, we went out to the courtyard to work on obedience . First we had the dog sit. Then we had them sit and lie down. Lastly we had them sit, lie down and we walked the length of a long leash from them before asking them to come. When they came to us and we had them sit, they would get a treat. We did this several times. Courtney said we should do this for a couple of minutes every day. It will help us gain the respect of the dog. This is also good to use to refocus the dog if yew feel they are not paying good enough attention.
Saturday night I mostly hung out in the room. I did get a chance to run Bogart in the courtyard for some exercise.
Sunday is our day off. For excitement I am going back to the Moonshine for their rock/blues jam around 2:30pm. It sounds like Leah and Courtney are going to come to watch for sure. We’ll see if anyone else wants to pop over.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention something that happened that was quite interesting. We were told that we had to pick a classmate to do the speech for us at graduation. Saturday morning at breakfast Kenneth proposed that, since there are two distinct age groups, that it would make sense to have two speakers. He suggested Katjyia and myself to be those two speakers. Everyone at the table agreed but what we didn’t know was that everyone wasn’t at the table. So I was called to a meting Saturday night so, as a group, we could discuss this issue and come up with a plan. It took much longer than I thought to agree on how to proceed. Apparently a couple of other class mates were interested in doing the speech. Personally I am not attached to doing the speech at all so am happy if there are others who would be interested. After 45 minutes we decided to have nominations on Monday morning at our early meting. it was a very interesting process where people were trying to do the right thing but didn’t exactly use the right methods. We also had much discussion on what special thing to do to thank our two trainers. In the end we came up with a plan that met everyone’s goals. It will be interesting to see what happens at our Monday morning meeting.
Once we all got out of the van and got our dogs harnessed (easier for some than others), we headed into the mall. Courtney took half of us up to Tim Horton’s to wait while she worked wit the other half. Katy hung out with her mom and Katjyia, Laura and Michelle went off shopping on their own. They all have quite a bit more sight than the rest of us.
When it was our turn, John and I followed Courtney to the first escalator down. Courtney was telling me that in training Bogart was bomb proof on escalators, elevators and stairs so that was good to hear. He hasn’t pulled any of his stair refusals while in harness in public. He still does this from time to time on the stairs in the school but not too often any more. John was having some issue with Rocco and he asked Courtney if he could just walk around the mall on his own. He lives in this area and knows the mall well and also has enough sight to get round even without a dog in this sort of lighting.
Courtney helped me find the HMV and, to my surprise, they had the CD I was looking for but couldn’t find in Vancouver. Not only that but it was on sale for $10.00. for those who might be interested the CD is Middle cyclone by Nico Case. When ever I go on a holiday or to some place interesting I like to buy a CD as a way of adding a musical memory to the place. Last year when I was in Cologne Germany I bought a CD by a popular alternative band. I have it on my phone so songs from it will come up from time to time.
After HMV Courtney just had me go down the stairs, walk around, back up the stairs and then down the escalator to the bottom floor. From there we took the elevator up to the third level and started pulling the group together. We all headed down to the main entrance . Here we had to wait for Courtney to go back up to Tim Horton’s to bring Michele and Laura down to see them manage the elevator. There was some mumbling about us having to wait for those two since they had been shopping around while we were doing what we needed to do. If they had time to shop one would think they could of had their Timmy’s at a time when it didn’t have the rest of the class waiting for them. As we enter the last week, I think everyone’s patience is getting a little shorter. We are all eager to get home and se how things will work out with our new partners.
In the afternoon we worked on food distractions and dog distractions. Treats were place on the floor in the main hallway and we had to walk our dogs through them without them trying to pick anything up. If I can be totally honest, I went up to my room after our late lunch, laid down on my bed and fell asleep. Jade came and got me so I missed the food distractions test. I'm sure bogart would have done great at being distracted by the food. that is the purpose of the test isn't it? :)
The dog distractions were interesting. Courtney brought out a golden lab named sable who had been disqualified from the special services program because she was just too hyper. First Courtney walked by with sable on leash and had her come right up to our dogs. I had to sit Bogart down several times but he listened fairly well. Then Courtney had Sable off leash and got her to wander around our dogs. You have to imagine this crazy panting hyper lab being encouraged to come and play with our dogs. Bogart didn’t handle this so well and needed a pretty hard correction. He is one who likes to play for sure.
Lastly, we went out to the courtyard to work on obedience . First we had the dog sit. Then we had them sit and lie down. Lastly we had them sit, lie down and we walked the length of a long leash from them before asking them to come. When they came to us and we had them sit, they would get a treat. We did this several times. Courtney said we should do this for a couple of minutes every day. It will help us gain the respect of the dog. This is also good to use to refocus the dog if yew feel they are not paying good enough attention.
Saturday night I mostly hung out in the room. I did get a chance to run Bogart in the courtyard for some exercise.
Sunday is our day off. For excitement I am going back to the Moonshine for their rock/blues jam around 2:30pm. It sounds like Leah and Courtney are going to come to watch for sure. We’ll see if anyone else wants to pop over.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention something that happened that was quite interesting. We were told that we had to pick a classmate to do the speech for us at graduation. Saturday morning at breakfast Kenneth proposed that, since there are two distinct age groups, that it would make sense to have two speakers. He suggested Katjyia and myself to be those two speakers. Everyone at the table agreed but what we didn’t know was that everyone wasn’t at the table. So I was called to a meting Saturday night so, as a group, we could discuss this issue and come up with a plan. It took much longer than I thought to agree on how to proceed. Apparently a couple of other class mates were interested in doing the speech. Personally I am not attached to doing the speech at all so am happy if there are others who would be interested. After 45 minutes we decided to have nominations on Monday morning at our early meting. it was a very interesting process where people were trying to do the right thing but didn’t exactly use the right methods. We also had much discussion on what special thing to do to thank our two trainers. In the end we came up with a plan that met everyone’s goals. It will be interesting to see what happens at our Monday morning meeting.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
We're in the movies
Well Friday has arrived. This is the day where I have scheduled the team from TAC TV to come and shoot part two of our guide dog story series. I have to admit to being a bit anxious about the whole thing. I still am inexperienced at doing stories in the film format and having not worked with the Toronto team before there is a bit of mystery as to what that will be like.
""I began the day dressed casually so we could film me arriving at the school. Oh, this is a good time to return to the hair dryer story. I don’t think I gave an update on this topic. On Tuesday we were getting our pictures shot with our dogs so I wanted to look good. I borrowed Katjyia’s hair dryer. I brought it into the room and plugged it in in the washroom. Hey, it isn’t working. You can imagine the wheels Turning slowly in my head. “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t my hair dryer but the plug in.” What this reminded me of is that the plug in on the far wall where the computer is plugged into is turned off by a light switch by the door. But over the past couple of weeks I learned that this switch is down for on and up for off. Why you might ask? I have no bloody clue but figured it out when I thought I was charging my laptop and found the battery more drained than when I had plugged it in. so I tried both hair dryers in the plug in by the bed and surprise of all surprises, they both worked.! I feel better now. Of course, why it took me two weeks to think to ask any of the several teenage girls about borrowing a hair dryer one can only guess.
I got a call from Stuart saying that they’d be arriving in about ten minutes. I decided to wait for them outside in the sunshine. When they arrived Stuart introduced me to Paula who dealt with the sound for him. John, from the Vancouver TAC office, had sent a list of shots that he wanted to have for the story. I talked with Stuart and said that we should get those shots but if there was anything else he saw that he thought would be good for the story to let me know and we could film it.
We began with the shots of me coming into the school dragging my suitcase behind me. Then I took them up to the room in case this is where we wanted to do our interview section. We decided to do it outside but we got some great shots of Bogart. I’d have him standing beside me and then Stuart would call him. After doing it twice Bogart totally got what he was supposed to do and would walk straight to the camera. The last time we did it I think Stuart had to deal with a Bogart nose print on the camera lens. With a name like Bogart it shouldn’t be a surprise that he is good on film.
I then had to join my class to do a group photo. I think we’ll have to do one more of these so Leah, who was sick today, could be in it as well.
Once that was done we decided to interview me while sitting on the bench in front of the building with Bogart at my side. This went well. I am wondering if we should have done more filming of me talking and if there are more things I should have talked about. I’m still new at this and have trouble straying from the offered scripts. Also, so much has happened in the past three weeks I can barely remember what would be interesting. Writing this blog will be a great help to recall what I actually did while being here.
The last thing to film in the morning was sidewalk obstacles. This is when the side walk is blocked for some reason and I would need to go out on the street. The school recommends getting the assistance of a sighted person if possible just like you would do when using a cane. If this is not possible then the dog is trained for this situation. The dog walks to the obstruction and then stops. We have to figure out what is going on so we don’t wrongly correct our dogs. Once we see it is something blocking the sidewalk then we tell our dogs “forward, find the way.” Once they head out on the road (after we’ve decided the traffic is safe) we immediately step back a bit from the dog and say over right, over right until the dog puts us back on the curb. When this happens we give our dogs lots of praise. Heading in the opposite direction we would say forward, find the way and then over left once the dog has gone onto the street. As we said over left we would step up on the dog.
We filmed this with Courtney and myself wearing microphones. I think it should make for some interesting shots.
After enjoying hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch I had Ian give Stuart and Paula a tour of the newly renovated kennels. To finish off the day of filming Ian and I headed out for a walk to the local grocery store while being filmed and wearing microphones. Ian was explaining to me that I need to constantly be communicating and motivating Bogart. He took me into the grocery store and got us going up escalators again. We walked around the store, showed me how to use the follow command and how to make sure Bogart doesn’t start sniffing up everything around him. We ran into Laura and Katjyia with the trainer Sunny at the store so walked back with them. Once back at the school, Ian sort of gave us a pep talk about how good we are doing. In a month, they are really trying to turn us into dog trainers. It is good that our dogs are having behavioral issues while still at school so we can use the trainers to help us through them. The skills we learn here will help us with our dogs once we get home
The last interesting thing of this very busy day was going for my first night walk. This is important since dogs see differently at night and so do I. I can’t see much of anything so have to totally trust the dog. We left at dusk for a 45 minute walk and it got darker as we went along. Bogart was pulling at first but soon, with prompting from me slowed to a nice comfortable walking pace for most of our walk. Very nice. At one point I was telling him to find the curb. I couldn’t feel a down ramp so I thought he hadn’t found it. I told him forward, which he did. This had me stepping off a big curb into the street. No worries, it was a quiet side street but I had to praise him and then turn him and get him back onto the curb, praising him again. He did great. At the second last turn before the school, I tested him by knowing that there was a light post right beside us when I asked for a left. He did it perfectly, taking me out and around the pole.
Tomorrow we are off to the mall in the morning which is good since it is supposed to rain
""I began the day dressed casually so we could film me arriving at the school. Oh, this is a good time to return to the hair dryer story. I don’t think I gave an update on this topic. On Tuesday we were getting our pictures shot with our dogs so I wanted to look good. I borrowed Katjyia’s hair dryer. I brought it into the room and plugged it in in the washroom. Hey, it isn’t working. You can imagine the wheels Turning slowly in my head. “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t my hair dryer but the plug in.” What this reminded me of is that the plug in on the far wall where the computer is plugged into is turned off by a light switch by the door. But over the past couple of weeks I learned that this switch is down for on and up for off. Why you might ask? I have no bloody clue but figured it out when I thought I was charging my laptop and found the battery more drained than when I had plugged it in. so I tried both hair dryers in the plug in by the bed and surprise of all surprises, they both worked.! I feel better now. Of course, why it took me two weeks to think to ask any of the several teenage girls about borrowing a hair dryer one can only guess.
I got a call from Stuart saying that they’d be arriving in about ten minutes. I decided to wait for them outside in the sunshine. When they arrived Stuart introduced me to Paula who dealt with the sound for him. John, from the Vancouver TAC office, had sent a list of shots that he wanted to have for the story. I talked with Stuart and said that we should get those shots but if there was anything else he saw that he thought would be good for the story to let me know and we could film it.
We began with the shots of me coming into the school dragging my suitcase behind me. Then I took them up to the room in case this is where we wanted to do our interview section. We decided to do it outside but we got some great shots of Bogart. I’d have him standing beside me and then Stuart would call him. After doing it twice Bogart totally got what he was supposed to do and would walk straight to the camera. The last time we did it I think Stuart had to deal with a Bogart nose print on the camera lens. With a name like Bogart it shouldn’t be a surprise that he is good on film.
I then had to join my class to do a group photo. I think we’ll have to do one more of these so Leah, who was sick today, could be in it as well.
Once that was done we decided to interview me while sitting on the bench in front of the building with Bogart at my side. This went well. I am wondering if we should have done more filming of me talking and if there are more things I should have talked about. I’m still new at this and have trouble straying from the offered scripts. Also, so much has happened in the past three weeks I can barely remember what would be interesting. Writing this blog will be a great help to recall what I actually did while being here.
The last thing to film in the morning was sidewalk obstacles. This is when the side walk is blocked for some reason and I would need to go out on the street. The school recommends getting the assistance of a sighted person if possible just like you would do when using a cane. If this is not possible then the dog is trained for this situation. The dog walks to the obstruction and then stops. We have to figure out what is going on so we don’t wrongly correct our dogs. Once we see it is something blocking the sidewalk then we tell our dogs “forward, find the way.” Once they head out on the road (after we’ve decided the traffic is safe) we immediately step back a bit from the dog and say over right, over right until the dog puts us back on the curb. When this happens we give our dogs lots of praise. Heading in the opposite direction we would say forward, find the way and then over left once the dog has gone onto the street. As we said over left we would step up on the dog.
We filmed this with Courtney and myself wearing microphones. I think it should make for some interesting shots.
After enjoying hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch I had Ian give Stuart and Paula a tour of the newly renovated kennels. To finish off the day of filming Ian and I headed out for a walk to the local grocery store while being filmed and wearing microphones. Ian was explaining to me that I need to constantly be communicating and motivating Bogart. He took me into the grocery store and got us going up escalators again. We walked around the store, showed me how to use the follow command and how to make sure Bogart doesn’t start sniffing up everything around him. We ran into Laura and Katjyia with the trainer Sunny at the store so walked back with them. Once back at the school, Ian sort of gave us a pep talk about how good we are doing. In a month, they are really trying to turn us into dog trainers. It is good that our dogs are having behavioral issues while still at school so we can use the trainers to help us through them. The skills we learn here will help us with our dogs once we get home
The last interesting thing of this very busy day was going for my first night walk. This is important since dogs see differently at night and so do I. I can’t see much of anything so have to totally trust the dog. We left at dusk for a 45 minute walk and it got darker as we went along. Bogart was pulling at first but soon, with prompting from me slowed to a nice comfortable walking pace for most of our walk. Very nice. At one point I was telling him to find the curb. I couldn’t feel a down ramp so I thought he hadn’t found it. I told him forward, which he did. This had me stepping off a big curb into the street. No worries, it was a quiet side street but I had to praise him and then turn him and get him back onto the curb, praising him again. He did great. At the second last turn before the school, I tested him by knowing that there was a light post right beside us when I asked for a left. He did it perfectly, taking me out and around the pole.
Tomorrow we are off to the mall in the morning which is good since it is supposed to rain
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Off to the big smoke
Well today is the big day where we go to the big smoke, the centre of the Canadian universe, Toronto that is. Our day got off to a slow start because Leah, one of our classes trainers, called in to say she wasn’t feeling very good. There has been a flu going through the special skills class. In the end she was able to get in and help us out with our city adventure.
d talked to Courtney Wednesday night to see if I could sit in the back seat with John since we are the biggest and have the biggest dogs. She said that they could actually move the back seat further back which would give us much more room. I was hoping that it was just going to be john and me back there but the seating arrangements didn’t quite work out so on the way out we had jade beside us and on the way back we had katjia in the back seat. It was great to have the extra leg room but it sure was extra bumpy back there.
We finally arrived in Toronto and parked close to Runnymede subway station. Once we had all unloaded from the van we moved in two groups through the parking lot to a little park where we had to take our dogs out of harness to relieve them. Bogart was so excited he was bopping all over the place. He did go pee which I thought he would. However, unexpectedly, he did a number two. Well what an opportunity for me since I had told the trainers that I needed to still learn how to pick up their pooh. So Courtney came over while he was finishing his business to give me tips of how to position myself. With a little guidance from Courtney I found the gift and grabbed it. Before you faint my hand was , of course, inside a plastic bag. So once I had grabbed Bogart’s digested supper, I simply pulled the bag over my hand and, presto, poop in bag. Then Courtney told me to do the bag up in a knot and off we go. Gary has done the one thing that has been one of the reasons for not getting a dog over the years. Bogart, in his infinite desire to help me learn, also had another movement when we finished our walks and were relieving the dogs before our trip home. What a helpful fellow eh?
Once we were all happily relieved we got to walk over to Bloor street, cross it and head east. We ended up at a nice restaurant/pub whose name escapes me at this time. So the plan was to sit four of us down while the other four headed off for their first dog guided trip into the subway. I was in the group selected to stay behind with John, Katjyia and Michelle. John and I decided to share some fries and gravy while waited for the others to return. When the waiter came with our order he tripped on Bogart. I didn’t hear Bogart make any noise, he just jumped up. When the waiter tripped, I was worried about Bogart but I also was envisioning hot fries and gravy ending up in my lap. The poor guy was beside himself with apologies. Bogart rearranged himself when I asked for a sit and down and lined up his back with the bench of the booth. This would due until everyone returned.
Once the others returned We had the opportunity to order lunch. Being that I had already had fries I ordered a burger with a Caesar salad. Once we had our chance to go the excitement began. It is much different walking along a busy street such as Bloor street with our dogs compared to the Oakville streets hat have much less traffic and noise on them. I’m starting to see that Bogart has a thing for groups of young women. He had me almost inside another group of talking women. This might be a good thing but not something to encourage. Apparently the school once had a lab that would go up behind women with short skirts and Polk his nose up there. Just saying hi I’m sure but not really appreciated.:)
So the only real problem we had walking along Bloor street was that I was leaking sunglass lenses. I wear cycling glasses with different lenses I can put in . I carry them in a carrying case that I attach to my backpack. I didn’t know that they could fall out but I learned as I was walking along Bloor. I thought I heard the sound of plastic on the ground. Leah grabbed them and asked if they were mine. Well surprise surprise, they were. Then I realized I was missing my clear lenses. But along came a nice pedestrian with them. That was great. Saved me some money. Luckily being blind I probably don’t notice the scratches on them.
I had Bogart go “right inside” to head towards the subway station. I had given him the instructions right inside. Find the door, right inside. He was making the appropriate move when a bus stopped beside us and started making all kinds of noises. Not just the normal beeping when they lower the bus but these new buses make a horrible hissing sound that always scares me too. So Bogart made a very quick dash in the door at that point.
Once we were in there against the wall we each started down the stairs. The command was “Bogart, find the stairs.” He went to the beginning of the stairs and stopped. I found the railing and then gave the forward command. He moved nice and steadily down the stairs until the first landing. He continued to the first step and stopped again. Again, I gave the forward command and off we went. Once on the main floor I told him to find the counter. It’s hard to know if this would always work so smoothly since he was following other clients. However, one other client went through the gate that had been opened by a TTC employee. I wanted to go through the turnstile with Bogart. So he found the counter and walked me forward to the turn style. At that point, I dropped his handle, pushed myself through the turnstile and he came through after me. The leash went through on the left where there is a bit of space between the end of the turn style and the railing.
Then the command is “Bogart, Right, find the stairs” This puts us heading for the stairs going the direction we are looking for. Again he finds the stairs and we go through the same process.
At the bottom of the stairs we follow the diagonal wall to the platform. We want to go to the designated waiting area since this is where the cameras are if we have any problems. Also, there is a conductor on the trains and this is roughly where his window is. We are told, when walking along the platform, to keep giving the command “over left or over right” depending on which side the wall is on. The goal is for us to keep close to the wall. We should feel our dog move out from the wall to go around things like garbage cans and/or benches but we want to get him back over to the wall right away. We are told to not give any commands when the trains are coming into the station. It is really noisy. We are also told not to give hard corrections in here either. Our goal is to keep the dog paying attention but not make him anxious. Once the subway has stopped we give the command “Bogart, find the door.” He then walks forward to the nearest door. Once inside the train it is the same as on the bus as far as finding a seat and putting the dog under the seat at our feet. Getting off, we as for a find the door, forward, find the door and off he goes. Again we find the wall before proceeding. Next we head off towards the stairs, asking the dog to over right (or left) and when we feel the opening for the stairs we ask him to find the stairs. In some stations this will be escalators and the dog will respond to the command “find the escalator”.
Once at the top of the escalator I asked to find the turnstile which he did. We went through and then I asked for another “find the stairs”. He did that too and up we went. Once at the top I asked for a “find the door” and off he went to the door. I’ll need a command for “wait while I put on my sunglasses Bogart” but we haven’t managed that one yet.
After this we just walked along the street back to the park by the van to relieve our dogs and get back into the van.
Bogart waited until I was in the van, out of his sight, to throw up all over the sidewalk. I thought that was rather polite of him don’t you?
The ride home was pretty much uneventful.
Traffic had us over an hour late for dinner. Luckily the two main cooks here, tony on weekdays and Janis and weekends, are very understanding and accommodating.
Bogart and I decided to have a fairly relaxing night. Tomorrow I have a camera person coming from The Accessible channel to film part two of our guide dog story. In case we film anything in my room I will tidy up and let Bogart get his beauty sleep before his big film debut.
d talked to Courtney Wednesday night to see if I could sit in the back seat with John since we are the biggest and have the biggest dogs. She said that they could actually move the back seat further back which would give us much more room. I was hoping that it was just going to be john and me back there but the seating arrangements didn’t quite work out so on the way out we had jade beside us and on the way back we had katjia in the back seat. It was great to have the extra leg room but it sure was extra bumpy back there.
We finally arrived in Toronto and parked close to Runnymede subway station. Once we had all unloaded from the van we moved in two groups through the parking lot to a little park where we had to take our dogs out of harness to relieve them. Bogart was so excited he was bopping all over the place. He did go pee which I thought he would. However, unexpectedly, he did a number two. Well what an opportunity for me since I had told the trainers that I needed to still learn how to pick up their pooh. So Courtney came over while he was finishing his business to give me tips of how to position myself. With a little guidance from Courtney I found the gift and grabbed it. Before you faint my hand was , of course, inside a plastic bag. So once I had grabbed Bogart’s digested supper, I simply pulled the bag over my hand and, presto, poop in bag. Then Courtney told me to do the bag up in a knot and off we go. Gary has done the one thing that has been one of the reasons for not getting a dog over the years. Bogart, in his infinite desire to help me learn, also had another movement when we finished our walks and were relieving the dogs before our trip home. What a helpful fellow eh?
Once we were all happily relieved we got to walk over to Bloor street, cross it and head east. We ended up at a nice restaurant/pub whose name escapes me at this time. So the plan was to sit four of us down while the other four headed off for their first dog guided trip into the subway. I was in the group selected to stay behind with John, Katjyia and Michelle. John and I decided to share some fries and gravy while waited for the others to return. When the waiter came with our order he tripped on Bogart. I didn’t hear Bogart make any noise, he just jumped up. When the waiter tripped, I was worried about Bogart but I also was envisioning hot fries and gravy ending up in my lap. The poor guy was beside himself with apologies. Bogart rearranged himself when I asked for a sit and down and lined up his back with the bench of the booth. This would due until everyone returned.
Once the others returned We had the opportunity to order lunch. Being that I had already had fries I ordered a burger with a Caesar salad. Once we had our chance to go the excitement began. It is much different walking along a busy street such as Bloor street with our dogs compared to the Oakville streets hat have much less traffic and noise on them. I’m starting to see that Bogart has a thing for groups of young women. He had me almost inside another group of talking women. This might be a good thing but not something to encourage. Apparently the school once had a lab that would go up behind women with short skirts and Polk his nose up there. Just saying hi I’m sure but not really appreciated.:)
So the only real problem we had walking along Bloor street was that I was leaking sunglass lenses. I wear cycling glasses with different lenses I can put in . I carry them in a carrying case that I attach to my backpack. I didn’t know that they could fall out but I learned as I was walking along Bloor. I thought I heard the sound of plastic on the ground. Leah grabbed them and asked if they were mine. Well surprise surprise, they were. Then I realized I was missing my clear lenses. But along came a nice pedestrian with them. That was great. Saved me some money. Luckily being blind I probably don’t notice the scratches on them.
I had Bogart go “right inside” to head towards the subway station. I had given him the instructions right inside. Find the door, right inside. He was making the appropriate move when a bus stopped beside us and started making all kinds of noises. Not just the normal beeping when they lower the bus but these new buses make a horrible hissing sound that always scares me too. So Bogart made a very quick dash in the door at that point.
Once we were in there against the wall we each started down the stairs. The command was “Bogart, find the stairs.” He went to the beginning of the stairs and stopped. I found the railing and then gave the forward command. He moved nice and steadily down the stairs until the first landing. He continued to the first step and stopped again. Again, I gave the forward command and off we went. Once on the main floor I told him to find the counter. It’s hard to know if this would always work so smoothly since he was following other clients. However, one other client went through the gate that had been opened by a TTC employee. I wanted to go through the turnstile with Bogart. So he found the counter and walked me forward to the turn style. At that point, I dropped his handle, pushed myself through the turnstile and he came through after me. The leash went through on the left where there is a bit of space between the end of the turn style and the railing.
Then the command is “Bogart, Right, find the stairs” This puts us heading for the stairs going the direction we are looking for. Again he finds the stairs and we go through the same process.
At the bottom of the stairs we follow the diagonal wall to the platform. We want to go to the designated waiting area since this is where the cameras are if we have any problems. Also, there is a conductor on the trains and this is roughly where his window is. We are told, when walking along the platform, to keep giving the command “over left or over right” depending on which side the wall is on. The goal is for us to keep close to the wall. We should feel our dog move out from the wall to go around things like garbage cans and/or benches but we want to get him back over to the wall right away. We are told to not give any commands when the trains are coming into the station. It is really noisy. We are also told not to give hard corrections in here either. Our goal is to keep the dog paying attention but not make him anxious. Once the subway has stopped we give the command “Bogart, find the door.” He then walks forward to the nearest door. Once inside the train it is the same as on the bus as far as finding a seat and putting the dog under the seat at our feet. Getting off, we as for a find the door, forward, find the door and off he goes. Again we find the wall before proceeding. Next we head off towards the stairs, asking the dog to over right (or left) and when we feel the opening for the stairs we ask him to find the stairs. In some stations this will be escalators and the dog will respond to the command “find the escalator”.
Once at the top of the escalator I asked to find the turnstile which he did. We went through and then I asked for another “find the stairs”. He did that too and up we went. Once at the top I asked for a “find the door” and off he went to the door. I’ll need a command for “wait while I put on my sunglasses Bogart” but we haven’t managed that one yet.
After this we just walked along the street back to the park by the van to relieve our dogs and get back into the van.
Bogart waited until I was in the van, out of his sight, to throw up all over the sidewalk. I thought that was rather polite of him don’t you?
The ride home was pretty much uneventful.
Traffic had us over an hour late for dinner. Luckily the two main cooks here, tony on weekdays and Janis and weekends, are very understanding and accommodating.
Bogart and I decided to have a fairly relaxing night. Tomorrow I have a camera person coming from The Accessible channel to film part two of our guide dog story. In case we film anything in my room I will tidy up and let Bogart get his beauty sleep before his big film debut.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
On the road again ... first trip on a bus
So today I was told that my time for walking downtown would be at about 11:15am. Perfect, I can go and have a little nap and check my emails before heading out. I went back to the room but Bogart decided that we should play a bit first which was fine with me. We have two games we play. One involves a little ball with nubbies all around it. It is about twice the size of a tennis ball. Bogart brings the ball to my general area and drop sit. I take it and throw it around the room. He then plays with it a little bit before bringing it back to my general area. The other thing he likes is his mostly destroyed stuffy. We sometimes wrestle for it. I try to avoid a tug of war. If we have one I make sure I always win. A tug of war with a dog can be a means for the dog to express dominance. Once I have his torn and now wet stuffy, I throw it high up in the air into a corner so he chases after it. The physical part of our play is be sort of wrestling with him . He’d be just as happy to be mouthing my arm as the stuffy. I don’t totally stop him from mouthing me a bit since this will make brushing his teeth a little easier.
I went downstairs a bit before my scheduled time and took Bogart to the relief area. Then we went outside to sit and wait on the bench. Today Bogart has started being stubborn putting on the harness. Generally you get the dog to sit and then hold the harness in front of them. Give it a shake and in your friendly encouraging voice say “Bogart, Harness, Bogart, Harness” . Then usually, he will move forward and put his head through the harness. Today I had to use a treat to get it on him. The first time I tried to use a treat he put his head half way through, took the treat and then quickly pulled his head back before I could put the harness the rest of the way on. Smart guy eh? Anyway, I improved my harness technique and was able to get him in his harness. Then we were told to get to Dun and church street by what ever means we wanted to. It was john and katjyia in my group. I tend to always have a route planned for these things but thought I’d let one of the other two make the decision. They decided to go east on Rebecca, south on Chism and west on lakeshore all the way to dunn street. I really can’t recall any major issues with Bogart on this walk. When we go in groups each person takes turns in the lead. This is interesting since our dogs work differently when they are in the lead or when they are following. I’ll be curious to see how Bogart works when there aren’t other guide dogs or trainers around. It will be both exciting and a bit scary too.
Getting on the bus isn’t all that difficult. First we wait for the bus to stop, open the doors, make all it’s beeps and sighs and then unload the passengers. We ask our dogs to find the door. Once they do that , they seemed to put their front paws up . We tell them forward and then follow them inside the bus. I will always head for the first seat on the drivers side since, in Vancouver, many of our buses have some sort of padding there for people who back into that spot in their wheel chairs. This leaves a lot of room for a dog under my seat or slightly to my left.
The boarding went pretty good and with a little effort I was able to get Bogart to sit and then back himself under the seat. His paws were sticking out so I sheltered them with my feet on either side of them. Getting off was just as simple. Wait for the bus to stop. This I will have to work on since I’m one of those who is always up early trying to be the first off the bus. Stand up, tell Bogart forward and he goes to the door. We just have to be careful getting off and then the dog immediately turns to the right. All pretty straight forward.
We did the same thing in the afternoon except we had about forty minutes until the next bus. I proposed that we take a slightly longer route which everyone agreed to. I suggested we walk west to ker Street, South to Lakeshore and then walk to Dunn on the south side of Lakeshore. This was good because we haven’t come this way much. The first thing that happened was once we had crossed lakeshore I asked for a left. Apparently, this put us on a raised sidewalk that went along in front of all the shops with a railing to my left to protect us from a drop off where the other half of the sidewalk was. Bogart kept me way from the planters but at the end he was a bit confused. As a dog, he wanted to go straight across the grass and back to the sidewalk but after some deep thought he decided that his clumsy master couldn’t do that so he turned left 90 degrees, took a few steps and then turned right back onto the normal sidewalk. Very good. He did have one mishap along the way. He had nicely weaved me around patio tables that were sticking out and, according to the trainers, he looked like he was angling out to the middle of the sidewalk which would have me miss a fence that was sticking out but at the last minute he straightened up and I got a 2 by 4 plank in my chest. That smarted a bit. I got Bogart’s attention and told him to BE Careful. We had no other real close calls during the route. Katjyia did point out that there was no way to cross at dunn street from the south side. She was getting a bit nervous about the time but I was confident that even if we had to walk one more block for the lights and then walk back to dunn street we had enough time. Her idea was for us to cross at George Street where there are lights. The problem with this is finding the crosswalk because it is a T intersection. However, we did it with little effort since lakeshore had a red light so we could hear where the traffic had stopped. We crossed, walked one more block and then left to the bus shelter.
Getting on the bus the second time was a bit more challenging. Maybe that was because I was first. We had all three of us and our dogs trying to sit in the 3 seater pull down seats behind the driver. This was a challenge. The bus was a bit more crowded since it was rush hour. I had some troubles getting Bogart under the seat but having a huge lab beside me and some sort of wheel well or something on my right didn’t help. Then somehow the bonehead across the aisle stepped on Bogart’s paw, causing him to yelp. In the end I just got Bogart to sit with me supporting him because we were only going about 3 stops. I don’t think it will be too much trouble getting on and off the bus. No more trouble than I already have from time to time. Heavy rush hour certainly will be interesting though.
We got off the bus with little difficulty and headed back to the school for supper.
After supper we had our one hour health talk. It was pretty informative. It wasn’t as detailed as I would have liked but maybe things aren’t as complicated as I think they are. The first thing we need to do is find a vet when we get back. We have to do two visits a year and have the vet report faxed back to the school. The thing that will get us in great trouble is if our dog becomes over weight. This is one of the few reasons why the school would ever take a persons dog away. Recently Courtney had to take a persons dog away for 3 months since it was supposed to weigh about 85 pounds. It was weighing 125 pounds. The school takes the dog back, puts them on a diet and once they are back to their proper weight the client is given a second chance. However, this time they must have their dog weighed every week and it’s weight faxed to the school. Having a dog over weight can cause many health issues so it is in our best interest to keep our dogs at their proper weights. Poodles don’t have the same problem as labs when it comes to gaining weight. In fact Bogart really needs to put on some weight so he doesn’t look so darn skinny.
During the talk Courtney went over other details such as talking about heart worm prevention, fleas and tics. Talked about eye care, ear care, teeth care and over all grooming. I’ll have to read a bit more about all this stuff once I get going at home with Bogart.
I have a recommendation for a vet from a fellow guide dog user and it is pretty close to my home as well. That will be my first step and they will probably be a great help even in doing things like finding a good quality groomer that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg.
This was the evening where the Moonshine Café was to have a country music jam session. I headed over there around 9:20pm, after relieving Bogart. My friend John joined me after he had finished a call with his wife. We enjoyed a nice cold beer while listening to the first set. I was asked up after that and , well, I never left the stage until about 11:20pm where I had just had enough and wanted to drink a beer. I did have a really good time and received many compliments on my drumming which was certainly nice. I was invited back for the rock/blues jam on Sunday afternoon. I always enjoy going to a jam where I can sense people’s hesitation to let you play. It’s not really hesitation I guess as just wondering if you can play or not. I like sensing that and then getting up and playing really well. I’m looking forward to the jam on Sunday but I imagine there will be more drummers there so I won’t get to play quite as much but one never knows.
Tomorrow we are off to Toronto to have a go at a busy city street and then dealing with the Toronto subway. We’ll see how that goes. I’m looking forward to a half day trip planned for next week where we will go train into union station, take the subway to Queen street, take a street car to the other subway line and then head back down to union station to go train back to Oakville. That will give some more big city experience.
I went downstairs a bit before my scheduled time and took Bogart to the relief area. Then we went outside to sit and wait on the bench. Today Bogart has started being stubborn putting on the harness. Generally you get the dog to sit and then hold the harness in front of them. Give it a shake and in your friendly encouraging voice say “Bogart, Harness, Bogart, Harness” . Then usually, he will move forward and put his head through the harness. Today I had to use a treat to get it on him. The first time I tried to use a treat he put his head half way through, took the treat and then quickly pulled his head back before I could put the harness the rest of the way on. Smart guy eh? Anyway, I improved my harness technique and was able to get him in his harness. Then we were told to get to Dun and church street by what ever means we wanted to. It was john and katjyia in my group. I tend to always have a route planned for these things but thought I’d let one of the other two make the decision. They decided to go east on Rebecca, south on Chism and west on lakeshore all the way to dunn street. I really can’t recall any major issues with Bogart on this walk. When we go in groups each person takes turns in the lead. This is interesting since our dogs work differently when they are in the lead or when they are following. I’ll be curious to see how Bogart works when there aren’t other guide dogs or trainers around. It will be both exciting and a bit scary too.
Getting on the bus isn’t all that difficult. First we wait for the bus to stop, open the doors, make all it’s beeps and sighs and then unload the passengers. We ask our dogs to find the door. Once they do that , they seemed to put their front paws up . We tell them forward and then follow them inside the bus. I will always head for the first seat on the drivers side since, in Vancouver, many of our buses have some sort of padding there for people who back into that spot in their wheel chairs. This leaves a lot of room for a dog under my seat or slightly to my left.
The boarding went pretty good and with a little effort I was able to get Bogart to sit and then back himself under the seat. His paws were sticking out so I sheltered them with my feet on either side of them. Getting off was just as simple. Wait for the bus to stop. This I will have to work on since I’m one of those who is always up early trying to be the first off the bus. Stand up, tell Bogart forward and he goes to the door. We just have to be careful getting off and then the dog immediately turns to the right. All pretty straight forward.
We did the same thing in the afternoon except we had about forty minutes until the next bus. I proposed that we take a slightly longer route which everyone agreed to. I suggested we walk west to ker Street, South to Lakeshore and then walk to Dunn on the south side of Lakeshore. This was good because we haven’t come this way much. The first thing that happened was once we had crossed lakeshore I asked for a left. Apparently, this put us on a raised sidewalk that went along in front of all the shops with a railing to my left to protect us from a drop off where the other half of the sidewalk was. Bogart kept me way from the planters but at the end he was a bit confused. As a dog, he wanted to go straight across the grass and back to the sidewalk but after some deep thought he decided that his clumsy master couldn’t do that so he turned left 90 degrees, took a few steps and then turned right back onto the normal sidewalk. Very good. He did have one mishap along the way. He had nicely weaved me around patio tables that were sticking out and, according to the trainers, he looked like he was angling out to the middle of the sidewalk which would have me miss a fence that was sticking out but at the last minute he straightened up and I got a 2 by 4 plank in my chest. That smarted a bit. I got Bogart’s attention and told him to BE Careful. We had no other real close calls during the route. Katjyia did point out that there was no way to cross at dunn street from the south side. She was getting a bit nervous about the time but I was confident that even if we had to walk one more block for the lights and then walk back to dunn street we had enough time. Her idea was for us to cross at George Street where there are lights. The problem with this is finding the crosswalk because it is a T intersection. However, we did it with little effort since lakeshore had a red light so we could hear where the traffic had stopped. We crossed, walked one more block and then left to the bus shelter.
Getting on the bus the second time was a bit more challenging. Maybe that was because I was first. We had all three of us and our dogs trying to sit in the 3 seater pull down seats behind the driver. This was a challenge. The bus was a bit more crowded since it was rush hour. I had some troubles getting Bogart under the seat but having a huge lab beside me and some sort of wheel well or something on my right didn’t help. Then somehow the bonehead across the aisle stepped on Bogart’s paw, causing him to yelp. In the end I just got Bogart to sit with me supporting him because we were only going about 3 stops. I don’t think it will be too much trouble getting on and off the bus. No more trouble than I already have from time to time. Heavy rush hour certainly will be interesting though.
We got off the bus with little difficulty and headed back to the school for supper.
After supper we had our one hour health talk. It was pretty informative. It wasn’t as detailed as I would have liked but maybe things aren’t as complicated as I think they are. The first thing we need to do is find a vet when we get back. We have to do two visits a year and have the vet report faxed back to the school. The thing that will get us in great trouble is if our dog becomes over weight. This is one of the few reasons why the school would ever take a persons dog away. Recently Courtney had to take a persons dog away for 3 months since it was supposed to weigh about 85 pounds. It was weighing 125 pounds. The school takes the dog back, puts them on a diet and once they are back to their proper weight the client is given a second chance. However, this time they must have their dog weighed every week and it’s weight faxed to the school. Having a dog over weight can cause many health issues so it is in our best interest to keep our dogs at their proper weights. Poodles don’t have the same problem as labs when it comes to gaining weight. In fact Bogart really needs to put on some weight so he doesn’t look so darn skinny.
During the talk Courtney went over other details such as talking about heart worm prevention, fleas and tics. Talked about eye care, ear care, teeth care and over all grooming. I’ll have to read a bit more about all this stuff once I get going at home with Bogart.
I have a recommendation for a vet from a fellow guide dog user and it is pretty close to my home as well. That will be my first step and they will probably be a great help even in doing things like finding a good quality groomer that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg.
This was the evening where the Moonshine Café was to have a country music jam session. I headed over there around 9:20pm, after relieving Bogart. My friend John joined me after he had finished a call with his wife. We enjoyed a nice cold beer while listening to the first set. I was asked up after that and , well, I never left the stage until about 11:20pm where I had just had enough and wanted to drink a beer. I did have a really good time and received many compliments on my drumming which was certainly nice. I was invited back for the rock/blues jam on Sunday afternoon. I always enjoy going to a jam where I can sense people’s hesitation to let you play. It’s not really hesitation I guess as just wondering if you can play or not. I like sensing that and then getting up and playing really well. I’m looking forward to the jam on Sunday but I imagine there will be more drummers there so I won’t get to play quite as much but one never knows.
Tomorrow we are off to Toronto to have a go at a busy city street and then dealing with the Toronto subway. We’ll see how that goes. I’m looking forward to a half day trip planned for next week where we will go train into union station, take the subway to Queen street, take a street car to the other subway line and then head back down to union station to go train back to Oakville. That will give some more big city experience.
dead or alive ... we'll see after the traffic checks.
Tuesday turned out to be one of those very interesting days. We did traffic checks. This is to be sure that our dog would stop if some bonehead in a car pulled out in front of us. In the morning we went out one at a time in front of the school. When crossing the driveways Leah would pull up quickly with her car right In front of us. What was supposed to happen is our dog would stop immediately. We then say “stay and good boy”. It is a hard drill since my natural reaction is to stop far before the car gets that close. (and Leah is good at getting real close! Had to wipe the red paint off my dogs nose. ) Basically, one has to trust one’s dog and the trainer at the same time. It went really well. We did some driveways and then we did a car turning right and not looking as well as a car cutting us off from the left.
In the afternoon we got to go for a much longer walk with 4 classmates. Along this walk Leah and Courtney had their cars and were taking all opportunities to cut in front of us. It was funny when some guy started laying into Courtney. Yes, she had a guide dog school sign on the side of her car but I guess he wasn’t looking either. Bogart did good on all of these drills but, too be honest, it was hard for them to cut me off since I’m always listening for idiots in cars pulling here and there. This means I often didn’t let Bogart get as close to the cars as the trainers wanted. You never know if it is a test or a real driver. Michelle had a real driver pull out in front of her but she thought it was part of the test. she and her dog did it perfectly.
Bogart walks nicely but he is still walking a bit fast for me. I thought poodles didn’t pull much but maybe he thinks he is a lab. It is all my fault since a couple of days ago he was walking too slowly on the bridge so I had him pick it up. Now he is thinking “you wanted to walk fast, well we’ll walk fast then Master.” However, I’m sure, as we continue to work together, he’ll figure out when it is that I like to go fast and when I like to go slowly.
After dinner, John and I went out to Tim Horton’s . We pulled out our trusty canes and headed on out. I showed John where the Moonshine Café was in case he wanted to go there. It seems I’ve set myself up a bit by telling everyone I plan on playing at the country jam on Wednesday and the blues jam there on Sunday. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll play okay. (We all know I love the attention)
John was commenting on how far we have come in these three weeks. When we think back to how things were going with our dogs in the first week it is sort of amazing how far they have come along. Certainly Bogart has more things to work on and he picks a different topic from day to day to be obstinate about but he is generally much better behaved and easier to control.
Wednesday is the day we get to walk downtown and bus back. That should be interesting.
In the afternoon we got to go for a much longer walk with 4 classmates. Along this walk Leah and Courtney had their cars and were taking all opportunities to cut in front of us. It was funny when some guy started laying into Courtney. Yes, she had a guide dog school sign on the side of her car but I guess he wasn’t looking either. Bogart did good on all of these drills but, too be honest, it was hard for them to cut me off since I’m always listening for idiots in cars pulling here and there. This means I often didn’t let Bogart get as close to the cars as the trainers wanted. You never know if it is a test or a real driver. Michelle had a real driver pull out in front of her but she thought it was part of the test. she and her dog did it perfectly.
Bogart walks nicely but he is still walking a bit fast for me. I thought poodles didn’t pull much but maybe he thinks he is a lab. It is all my fault since a couple of days ago he was walking too slowly on the bridge so I had him pick it up. Now he is thinking “you wanted to walk fast, well we’ll walk fast then Master.” However, I’m sure, as we continue to work together, he’ll figure out when it is that I like to go fast and when I like to go slowly.
After dinner, John and I went out to Tim Horton’s . We pulled out our trusty canes and headed on out. I showed John where the Moonshine Café was in case he wanted to go there. It seems I’ve set myself up a bit by telling everyone I plan on playing at the country jam on Wednesday and the blues jam there on Sunday. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll play okay. (We all know I love the attention)
John was commenting on how far we have come in these three weeks. When we think back to how things were going with our dogs in the first week it is sort of amazing how far they have come along. Certainly Bogart has more things to work on and he picks a different topic from day to day to be obstinate about but he is generally much better behaved and easier to control.
Wednesday is the day we get to walk downtown and bus back. That should be interesting.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Will BBogart come when he is called?
When we arrived at our 9am morning meeting we learned that they were going to be cutting down the trees in front of the building. To be safe they decided that we’d take the van downtown and do some work there. Once again we all piled into the van and headed down to the second cup. Went we were all out of the van and harnessed up we headed off. Bogart and I were in the lead. He did fine. When we got to the corner of Navy and Lakeshore Courtney asked me to say “stay” and then ask for “left inside”. left inside” to get him to find the door to the second cup. I followed Courtney through the shop to get to the back patio. Honestly, it was nice and sunny and I certainly wanted to sit out in the sun. Bogart did great here. I was the only one sitting out there for most of the time. However, we were sitting beside the main pathway to the ramp up to the back door. This was a pretty high traffic area. Bogart did wonderfully. I think he only got up once to investigate.
We then went out on our walk. Bogart did pretty good on his walk. We walked east on Lakeshore heading towards Allan street. We had one interesting moment where Bogart was trying to figure out how to get around a slow moving woman. He found the space and opportunity to go around her to the left but then there was a mother and her 3 year old running free. He went screaming across in front of Bogart. Apparently he is afraid of dogs. This had Bogart slamming on the brakes to a complete stop. Well his mother, not thinking on many levels, told her child she could pet the dog as long as he only pet the body. Aw yeah, his teeth can’t reach his body. Secondly, there was the whole issue of him being a working dog in harness. We told the mother that they couldn’t pet the dog because he was working. To be honest, I wasn’t too worried about the kid. If he is afraid of dogs then there is no need to make this scenario more than it needed to be. But his parents, on the other hand, also still pet the dog. Grr….
Once free of that situation Bogart continued on his merry way doing quite well. Our next challenge Leah told me was that we were coming up on a challenging construction obstacle ahead. Bogart did really well because he had to weave me to the left and then, with a tree right in front of us, make a 90 degree right turn, a few steps and then a 90 left turn to get us back on course. It was very nicely done. The thing I will need to learn is when he is guiding me excellently like that compared to when he is “window shopping”. This is what I like to call it when he is not paying attention.
Our next hazard was a woman with about 3 little dogs. This was all too much for Bogart and he had to stop to smell and say hello. Personally, I think those little dogs were hoping that the giant fluffy dog didn’t see them. One of them was standing perfectly still just hoping for the best. I got Bogart refocused on heading forward and the rest of the walk was uneventful. We ended up back at the Second Cup and piling back into the van again to return for lunch.
In the afternoon the first thing we did was recall exercises. For this leah kept Bogart with her and I went down the hall and hid in a side exit. Then I was to shake the harness and yell, “Bogart come, come here Bogart” several times. In my hand were some very high reward treats. Some sort of dried bacon I think. He found me pretty quickly and got rewarded and praised for his efforts. We did this three times with me in different places and he came and found me pretty quickly each time. We are going to work on this a bit more in the courtyard over our last week. I’m hoping that Bogart will be a dog that will come when he is called since this will give him more freedom in the cool off leash park close to my house.
Once we were done this drill we then started working on using the harness in the building. We had Bogart go down the hall and find the door where he goes to relieve himself. Then I bring him back and get him to find the stair doorway. We also had him “left inside” from the hallway to get into the dining room. Then it is the “find the seat” command. I am really the only person that this will work pretty good for since my chair is totally on the end of the table. Not the side at the end but at the head of the table. We need to keep practicing these thins. He doesn’t like going up stairs in harness so I just drop the harness and hold the leash. I should take this time to compliment Bogart on his stairs. I think I mentioned earlier that he was refusing pretty consistently at the stairs. Well, now it is the rare time when he refuses. One thing I’ve have done when going up stairs is to not pause at the bottom of the up stairs which is where he always refused. I just start walking up the stairs and he heals nicely. I’ve had him come down the stairs twice in harness and he didn’t seem to mind that much. He had a nice easy pace and was slow and calm on the landing. Obviously, I make sure he stops at the top of all stairs going down. We are heading into Toronto on Thursday for some subway work and we will see how he does on stairs there. I partly think that it is just going up and down the same stairs here in his comfortable space that is part of the problem.
We have been told that we can now use our harnesses in the building and it is our choice as to where and when we do this. Usually I have him in harness at the table for lunch and supper. To be honest, lately at breakfast I am running so late that I just don’t want to deal with putting him in harness to go downstairs to the relieving area. Taking him out of harness to relieve himself and then putting the harness on again to go to the breakfast table seems like a lot of work for both him and I. he is now much better behaved at the table. Usually something happens that excites him and gets him up. We then have one of our little battles to get him sitting again and then he goes down nicely, staying there for most of the meal. I have noticed that he seems to have these moments of excitement when my mouth is full and my hands busy with knives and forks.
Tomorrow we do traffic checks in the morning and afternoon.
We then went out on our walk. Bogart did pretty good on his walk. We walked east on Lakeshore heading towards Allan street. We had one interesting moment where Bogart was trying to figure out how to get around a slow moving woman. He found the space and opportunity to go around her to the left but then there was a mother and her 3 year old running free. He went screaming across in front of Bogart. Apparently he is afraid of dogs. This had Bogart slamming on the brakes to a complete stop. Well his mother, not thinking on many levels, told her child she could pet the dog as long as he only pet the body. Aw yeah, his teeth can’t reach his body. Secondly, there was the whole issue of him being a working dog in harness. We told the mother that they couldn’t pet the dog because he was working. To be honest, I wasn’t too worried about the kid. If he is afraid of dogs then there is no need to make this scenario more than it needed to be. But his parents, on the other hand, also still pet the dog. Grr….
Once free of that situation Bogart continued on his merry way doing quite well. Our next challenge Leah told me was that we were coming up on a challenging construction obstacle ahead. Bogart did really well because he had to weave me to the left and then, with a tree right in front of us, make a 90 degree right turn, a few steps and then a 90 left turn to get us back on course. It was very nicely done. The thing I will need to learn is when he is guiding me excellently like that compared to when he is “window shopping”. This is what I like to call it when he is not paying attention.
Our next hazard was a woman with about 3 little dogs. This was all too much for Bogart and he had to stop to smell and say hello. Personally, I think those little dogs were hoping that the giant fluffy dog didn’t see them. One of them was standing perfectly still just hoping for the best. I got Bogart refocused on heading forward and the rest of the walk was uneventful. We ended up back at the Second Cup and piling back into the van again to return for lunch.
In the afternoon the first thing we did was recall exercises. For this leah kept Bogart with her and I went down the hall and hid in a side exit. Then I was to shake the harness and yell, “Bogart come, come here Bogart” several times. In my hand were some very high reward treats. Some sort of dried bacon I think. He found me pretty quickly and got rewarded and praised for his efforts. We did this three times with me in different places and he came and found me pretty quickly each time. We are going to work on this a bit more in the courtyard over our last week. I’m hoping that Bogart will be a dog that will come when he is called since this will give him more freedom in the cool off leash park close to my house.
Once we were done this drill we then started working on using the harness in the building. We had Bogart go down the hall and find the door where he goes to relieve himself. Then I bring him back and get him to find the stair doorway. We also had him “left inside” from the hallway to get into the dining room. Then it is the “find the seat” command. I am really the only person that this will work pretty good for since my chair is totally on the end of the table. Not the side at the end but at the head of the table. We need to keep practicing these thins. He doesn’t like going up stairs in harness so I just drop the harness and hold the leash. I should take this time to compliment Bogart on his stairs. I think I mentioned earlier that he was refusing pretty consistently at the stairs. Well, now it is the rare time when he refuses. One thing I’ve have done when going up stairs is to not pause at the bottom of the up stairs which is where he always refused. I just start walking up the stairs and he heals nicely. I’ve had him come down the stairs twice in harness and he didn’t seem to mind that much. He had a nice easy pace and was slow and calm on the landing. Obviously, I make sure he stops at the top of all stairs going down. We are heading into Toronto on Thursday for some subway work and we will see how he does on stairs there. I partly think that it is just going up and down the same stairs here in his comfortable space that is part of the problem.
We have been told that we can now use our harnesses in the building and it is our choice as to where and when we do this. Usually I have him in harness at the table for lunch and supper. To be honest, lately at breakfast I am running so late that I just don’t want to deal with putting him in harness to go downstairs to the relieving area. Taking him out of harness to relieve himself and then putting the harness on again to go to the breakfast table seems like a lot of work for both him and I. he is now much better behaved at the table. Usually something happens that excites him and gets him up. We then have one of our little battles to get him sitting again and then he goes down nicely, staying there for most of the meal. I have noticed that he seems to have these moments of excitement when my mouth is full and my hands busy with knives and forks.
Tomorrow we do traffic checks in the morning and afternoon.
Monday, May 17, 2010
visiting dy and I actuallly have visitors!
First as a side note to yesterdays post, I did actually get myself out to the Moonshine Cafe. Once Bogart was back in the room, I grabbed my trusty white cane jasper and headed out. It was a pretty quiet place but the music was good and the beer was really good. The owner came up to me when I came in and helped me find a table. I learned that there is a country jam on Wednesday and a blues jam on Sunday. I will probably go to both to get some playing in. For those who don’t know I’m a professional drummer and am currently playing in a classic rock band called Rainshadow. I also really enjoy playing jazz and have found a great jam on Monday nights in Vancouver at the Cottage bistro. It was good to get out of here on my own. I’m perfectly capable to find whatever I need but sometimes it just takes a lot of motivation to head off by myself and see what the evening brings to me. Maybe some of the other adult students might want to come with me on one of my other excursions.
Today is our day off from training and this week it feels well deserved. I was so tired when my alarm went off. I must say that Bogart is a pretty patient dog. I got him downstairs around 8am. He certainly had to go. Then I came back up and went back to bed for another 40 minutes. Breakfast is at 9am on Sundays. Have I mentioned how good the food is here? I guess I should since it was one of my key anxieties before coming. Anytime you are going to be at a place for a month one can only wonder about the food. There is a good mixture of foods but I seem to like most of everything. In the first week I seemed to eat and eat. I was accepting seconds and really enjoying the desserts. I have found that as time moves forward I am getting back to not eating so much (although I always leave room for desserts which are almost always home baked).
Around 8:30am I got a phone call asking if I would like some visitors today. I certainly would. I am getting bit of cabin fever. Bogart and I relaxed in the morning and I took him for a run with Rhino after lunch to try and burn off some of his energy. As I was coming back from the courtyard there was my sister, Jennifer, brother, Stephen, and my nieces Madisun and Kamyrn in the hallway. I was surprised to see them since I had asked them to call when they got close. (I guess I forgot to say call my cell phone
I will try to upload some photos of this event but I’m sure you’ll already guess that everyone loved Bogart. The biggest insult Bogart paid to me was when my niece Madisun asked him to sit and he did with no hesitation. What’s up with that? Unfortunately we can’t take our dogs off school property until we officially graduate if we are not accompanied by a school trainer. This left Bogart heading back up to the room.
The rest of us piled in to the mini van and headed down to the lake for a picnic. My how times have changed. I was there two weeks ago before coming here with so much anxiety about everything. I still have some anxiety about how things will work out when we get home but every day brings me closer to feeling that we’ll be able to make this work.
It was nice to see some of my family members again. I usually only get out this way about once a year for meetings so like to take the opportunity to visit when I can. getting Bogart has given us the opportunity to visit several times.
When we came back from the beach everyone was able to meet my friend John, his wife Chris an his dog Rocco. Of course, now my nieces want a poodle and a lab.
We had our tearful good byes and I had to rush in for dinner. Bogart and I had a relaxing evening, if not boring, evening. I took him down around 8:30 thinking we could sit outside but it had got much colder. Of course, Bogart took the opportunity to go pee. We sauntered back upstairs with a little detour to the cookie jar for me. When we got into the room Bogart went and curled up in his bed. I thought that wasn’t a bad idea so we both had an early evening.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Bogart rises to the challenge
Bogart seemed a bit uppity today before we headed out for our walk. Hmm, or maybe I’m just not as patient as I used to be about him behaving as I request.
I totally slept in today. My alarm didn’t go off at 7am so when I heard people heading out I checked the time to see it was 7:40am. Breakfast is at 8am. So I took Bogart down to the washroom and then straight to my breakfast. Then he got to eat while I showered, rushing all the way.
We got our scheduled walk time at 10:30 so Had a couple of minutes to hang out and relax. My back is really bugging me today so it was good to give time for the Tylenol to kick in. Bogart wouldn’t have much of this laying about waiting for our time. He was at the door whining and since I don’t know him really well, I had to assume this was a bathroom request. Not so. Took him down to the relieving area and nothing happened.
He did great on his walk. His only mistake was missing a big lamp post that he would have walked me into if Leah a, the trainer didn’t speak up. Besides that he handled everything pretty well.
Encountered my first casual corner petter. It happened when this old couple ended up beside us. Bogart had turned to the side so I felt his head to see which way it was pointing and felt the old guys hand. I corrected Bogart and told him to pay attention. The man then apologized for petting him and distracting him. I told him that it was a good training opportunity for me and the dog. (wanted to say keep your hands off my dog!) Leah was telling me that they had one student once who had a bit of residual vision and when people went to pet her dog she would slap their hand away. Pretty funny eh? Well, it took a lot of explaining to get her to understand that she couldn’t just hit people.
In the afternoon I was scheduled to go out with Katjya again except this time Courtney, the trainer who Bogart is still in love with, will be our leader. We headed out and Courtney asked where we wanted to go. We told her that in the morning Leah gave us an intersection she wanted us to get to and said we could go however we wanted. I said I’d like to go the opposite way we normally go but left the final decision to Katjyia. She wanted to go the way we have previously. This afternoon she was more interested in going my way since this would avoid our morning issue of running into other guide dog teams and slowing us down. She is a real speedster.
Courtney said she wanted us to go to George and lakeshore. No problemo. I suggest my rout and seek input from my walking partner. We agree on a route which is basically what I wanted to do in the morning. For those who are Google mapping we went east on Rebecca over the river, south on navy to lakeshore. We then took lakeshore east all the way to Reynolds. Then we came back on the south side of Lakeshore all the way to Kerr Street where we headed north to Rebecca. There we turn right and went one block east to Wilson which brought us back to our starting point.
It went really well. Especially once we got down to Lakeshore. There were tons of people walking around. Bogart did many wonderful things with working his way through/around people. The funniest was when there was a group of young girls talking in the middle of the sidewalk. I knew they were there but wanted to se what Bogart would make of the situation. What do you think he did? Yup, went right into the middle of them. (Hmm, don’t they say pets often reflect qualities and interests of their owners??) It was all pretty funny. He had a situation again where he almost ran me into a lamp post on my right shoulder. Courtney said we’d continue to work on that with him. He just needs to learn how big I am and not cut things too close. Later in the walk he did an amazing problem solving thing. We crossed a road and once up on the curb, there was a tree and a narrow passage way and then one of those lamp posts again. Katjia was ahead of us and her dog, Rhino, took her between these obstacles which were too narrow for me. Bogart started to follow her, stopped, thought and veered sharply right and went around the outside of the lamp post and back into the middle of the sidewalk. He got a treat for being so darn smart. There were many dog distractions as well. Another good one was running into a person who volunteers at the school. She was with her husband and their golden retriever. We followed them across the bridge and Bogart didn’t seem to care about the dog at all. At the end of the bridge they turned off to the left for the river path. Bogart didn’t even flinch to follow and kept right on going. Courtney said that was great. 90% of the dogs would have followed them since we were behind them for so long and talking with them too. Very good dog.
Bogart was walking a bit fast this afternoon. He must be wondering what the hell I want. This morning I was getting him to speed up and then this afternoon I was getting him to slow down. Over time I’m sure we’ll figure this out. I like how fast he walks in the wide open stretches but I like a bit more normal pace in the more crowded areas. He’ll learn that as we get more experience together.
We got the rough agenda for next week and it is really busy. We have one morning in the country learning how to walk where there is no sidewalks. We have a full day in Toronto doing the subway and busy city walking. Me and several others will get an extra half day in Toronto since we live in big cities. On Friday, I have a film crew coming to do another part of my getting a guide dog story that will eventually be aired on The Accessible channel. We will also be walking into downtown and then taking a bus back to learn how to get on and off buses. Next week we will have our dog health talk on Thursday night and the following week we will have a presentation on accessibility from the school. On Tuesday we will be getting a photo taken for our school id card, done professionally. I’m sure there were some other things that were mentioned but I can’t recall. Oh yes, showing us how to use the harness on stairs and in the building. It all sounds pretty busy which is fine with me. Helps lower my anxiety as we go forward and I see Bogart’s improvements.
Tomorrow is Sunday, which is our day off. I am amazed that johns wife has offered to do another load of laundry for me. That is so kind of her. You may not believe it but a highlight of my week was when I was able to give instructions to one of the teenage girls on how to use the laundry machines here. It shows that once I have the instructions my inner teacher comes out.
It is funny as I write this, two of the girls just left to go to Tim Horton’s. One dog is barking up a storm. He finally was about to give up and then the other dog had a little bark and off goes the first one again. Bogart is napping on the floor probably being annoyed by the sounds too.
Tomorrow is a day of rest. I think I should leave Bogart at least once and go for a walk with my cane now that I know the streets better. Was thinking of going out tonight but am still not sure if it will happen. I always have the best of intentions but then I get waylaid and soon feel too tired to go anywhere’s. There is no one of my age or inclination who would enjoy going to this café, The Moonshine Cafe, to have a beer and see some local talent. Perhaps I’ll take Bogart down for relief and then just get myself pulled together and get out for an hour or two. if that dog keeps barking it will certainly be motivation to get out of my room.
I totally slept in today. My alarm didn’t go off at 7am so when I heard people heading out I checked the time to see it was 7:40am. Breakfast is at 8am. So I took Bogart down to the washroom and then straight to my breakfast. Then he got to eat while I showered, rushing all the way.
We got our scheduled walk time at 10:30 so Had a couple of minutes to hang out and relax. My back is really bugging me today so it was good to give time for the Tylenol to kick in. Bogart wouldn’t have much of this laying about waiting for our time. He was at the door whining and since I don’t know him really well, I had to assume this was a bathroom request. Not so. Took him down to the relieving area and nothing happened.
He did great on his walk. His only mistake was missing a big lamp post that he would have walked me into if Leah a, the trainer didn’t speak up. Besides that he handled everything pretty well.
Encountered my first casual corner petter. It happened when this old couple ended up beside us. Bogart had turned to the side so I felt his head to see which way it was pointing and felt the old guys hand. I corrected Bogart and told him to pay attention. The man then apologized for petting him and distracting him. I told him that it was a good training opportunity for me and the dog. (wanted to say keep your hands off my dog!) Leah was telling me that they had one student once who had a bit of residual vision and when people went to pet her dog she would slap their hand away. Pretty funny eh? Well, it took a lot of explaining to get her to understand that she couldn’t just hit people.
In the afternoon I was scheduled to go out with Katjya again except this time Courtney, the trainer who Bogart is still in love with, will be our leader. We headed out and Courtney asked where we wanted to go. We told her that in the morning Leah gave us an intersection she wanted us to get to and said we could go however we wanted. I said I’d like to go the opposite way we normally go but left the final decision to Katjyia. She wanted to go the way we have previously. This afternoon she was more interested in going my way since this would avoid our morning issue of running into other guide dog teams and slowing us down. She is a real speedster.
Courtney said she wanted us to go to George and lakeshore. No problemo. I suggest my rout and seek input from my walking partner. We agree on a route which is basically what I wanted to do in the morning. For those who are Google mapping we went east on Rebecca over the river, south on navy to lakeshore. We then took lakeshore east all the way to Reynolds. Then we came back on the south side of Lakeshore all the way to Kerr Street where we headed north to Rebecca. There we turn right and went one block east to Wilson which brought us back to our starting point.
It went really well. Especially once we got down to Lakeshore. There were tons of people walking around. Bogart did many wonderful things with working his way through/around people. The funniest was when there was a group of young girls talking in the middle of the sidewalk. I knew they were there but wanted to se what Bogart would make of the situation. What do you think he did? Yup, went right into the middle of them. (Hmm, don’t they say pets often reflect qualities and interests of their owners??) It was all pretty funny. He had a situation again where he almost ran me into a lamp post on my right shoulder. Courtney said we’d continue to work on that with him. He just needs to learn how big I am and not cut things too close. Later in the walk he did an amazing problem solving thing. We crossed a road and once up on the curb, there was a tree and a narrow passage way and then one of those lamp posts again. Katjia was ahead of us and her dog, Rhino, took her between these obstacles which were too narrow for me. Bogart started to follow her, stopped, thought and veered sharply right and went around the outside of the lamp post and back into the middle of the sidewalk. He got a treat for being so darn smart. There were many dog distractions as well. Another good one was running into a person who volunteers at the school. She was with her husband and their golden retriever. We followed them across the bridge and Bogart didn’t seem to care about the dog at all. At the end of the bridge they turned off to the left for the river path. Bogart didn’t even flinch to follow and kept right on going. Courtney said that was great. 90% of the dogs would have followed them since we were behind them for so long and talking with them too. Very good dog.
Bogart was walking a bit fast this afternoon. He must be wondering what the hell I want. This morning I was getting him to speed up and then this afternoon I was getting him to slow down. Over time I’m sure we’ll figure this out. I like how fast he walks in the wide open stretches but I like a bit more normal pace in the more crowded areas. He’ll learn that as we get more experience together.
We got the rough agenda for next week and it is really busy. We have one morning in the country learning how to walk where there is no sidewalks. We have a full day in Toronto doing the subway and busy city walking. Me and several others will get an extra half day in Toronto since we live in big cities. On Friday, I have a film crew coming to do another part of my getting a guide dog story that will eventually be aired on The Accessible channel. We will also be walking into downtown and then taking a bus back to learn how to get on and off buses. Next week we will have our dog health talk on Thursday night and the following week we will have a presentation on accessibility from the school. On Tuesday we will be getting a photo taken for our school id card, done professionally. I’m sure there were some other things that were mentioned but I can’t recall. Oh yes, showing us how to use the harness on stairs and in the building. It all sounds pretty busy which is fine with me. Helps lower my anxiety as we go forward and I see Bogart’s improvements.
Tomorrow is Sunday, which is our day off. I am amazed that johns wife has offered to do another load of laundry for me. That is so kind of her. You may not believe it but a highlight of my week was when I was able to give instructions to one of the teenage girls on how to use the laundry machines here. It shows that once I have the instructions my inner teacher comes out.
It is funny as I write this, two of the girls just left to go to Tim Horton’s. One dog is barking up a storm. He finally was about to give up and then the other dog had a little bark and off goes the first one again. Bogart is napping on the floor probably being annoyed by the sounds too.
Tomorrow is a day of rest. I think I should leave Bogart at least once and go for a walk with my cane now that I know the streets better. Was thinking of going out tonight but am still not sure if it will happen. I always have the best of intentions but then I get waylaid and soon feel too tired to go anywhere’s. There is no one of my age or inclination who would enjoy going to this café, The Moonshine Cafe, to have a beer and see some local talent. Perhaps I’ll take Bogart down for relief and then just get myself pulled together and get out for an hour or two. if that dog keeps barking it will certainly be motivation to get out of my room.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
off to the pet store ... hold on to your dog!...
This morning at our regular meeting we learned that we’d be heading off to the pet store in the morning and then doing walks in the afternoon. It was quite the challenge fitting all of us and our dogs with their harnesses into the van. Like my friend John was saying, “This reminds me of kindergarten.”. Once at the store parking lot I asked if I could wait out side of the van for my turn to go in. they were taking people in two by two, depending on their sight. They were worried though, about people losing control of their dogs since we were right by a major 6 lane road. Leia came over and suggested using the halty in the store to make my time in there tolerable with my exuberant doggie. He was great with the gentle leader on. First we went to look at rain coats. This store gives us 25% off so it’s a good deal to buy some of the dogs stuff here. Of course, living in Vancouver, I only have so much luggage room to use for Bogart’s treats. They didn’t have his size in a rain coat so we have ordered a size 22 for him. They didn’t’ have yellow rain coats so I’ve ordered a red one. I’ll have to decide if I want red or not when it comes in. It will be pretty cheap so I might just by it and see, if we aren’t visible enough at night in the rain, then get a brighter yellow coat. I got him some rubber balls, a rubber Frisbee type of thing, some healthy treats since he is very food motivated and a smoked bone. I think that is what it was called. It is a real bone from a real cow that still has grizzle and such on it. It has been treated somehow so it’s not covered in maggots but apparently it will give the dog hours of enjoyment. They say it is rather messy so I might give it to him here when I want to put him in the kennel for awhile. Including the raincoat, this came to about $50. Pretty good. I asked Bogart for his visa card but surprisingly enough, he wouldn’t give it to me.
In the afternoon we were out for another walk. I was paired with another person who walks at a fast rate. In fact, we can’t figure out how she and her dog go so fast since she is pretty small. I’d be walking behind her across the bridge in full stride and not be able to catch her. By full stride I mean that a little faster and I’d have to be jogging. I’m six feet tall by the way. They try to match people with others of similar speeds to make the most out of the walks. They will, at times , put you with people who are slower, if you’re a fast one, to help you learn how to keep your dog from racing all the time.
Anyway we had a very good walk. Bogart did very good. He missed the planter that he’d been consistently stopping at. Mind you, he was still sort of window shopping. Still likes that tattoo shop. However, he has expanded his tastes. He now found the jewelry store interesting as well as the Jamaican restaurant . Good taste eh? When walking over the first bridge we were just flying along and then Bogart came out of hyperspace because a woman with a walker was approaching. Once we safely passed her he kicked it up into another gear again until we got to the corner. On the bridge, when the railing is on your left, we ask the dog “over left with a sweep of our right hand across in front of us to the left, to get them to hug the railing and keep us away from the curb. We also walked past another dog without me even noticing which means Bogart barely moved his head.
The only two negative things for me was that Bogart let me a bit too far right and into a tree branch when crossing a road. At the next corner he saw his former trainer and wanted to do a diagonal crossing to get to her which, of course, I put a quick stop to by a pretty firm correction. Other than those two things he did very well.
I ran Bogart later with my friends lab named Rocco but they really didn’t play that well. I don’t think rocco was in the mood. I think tomorrow night I will go back to playing him with Rhino since they seem to get along and play with lots of gusto.
Looking forward to more walks tomorrow. I’m hoping it will be as nice as today. I finally broke out my shorts and a short sleeve shirt for our walks. Hopefully the weekend will be just as nice.
In the afternoon we were out for another walk. I was paired with another person who walks at a fast rate. In fact, we can’t figure out how she and her dog go so fast since she is pretty small. I’d be walking behind her across the bridge in full stride and not be able to catch her. By full stride I mean that a little faster and I’d have to be jogging. I’m six feet tall by the way. They try to match people with others of similar speeds to make the most out of the walks. They will, at times , put you with people who are slower, if you’re a fast one, to help you learn how to keep your dog from racing all the time.
Anyway we had a very good walk. Bogart did very good. He missed the planter that he’d been consistently stopping at. Mind you, he was still sort of window shopping. Still likes that tattoo shop. However, he has expanded his tastes. He now found the jewelry store interesting as well as the Jamaican restaurant . Good taste eh? When walking over the first bridge we were just flying along and then Bogart came out of hyperspace because a woman with a walker was approaching. Once we safely passed her he kicked it up into another gear again until we got to the corner. On the bridge, when the railing is on your left, we ask the dog “over left with a sweep of our right hand across in front of us to the left, to get them to hug the railing and keep us away from the curb. We also walked past another dog without me even noticing which means Bogart barely moved his head.
The only two negative things for me was that Bogart let me a bit too far right and into a tree branch when crossing a road. At the next corner he saw his former trainer and wanted to do a diagonal crossing to get to her which, of course, I put a quick stop to by a pretty firm correction. Other than those two things he did very well.
I ran Bogart later with my friends lab named Rocco but they really didn’t play that well. I don’t think rocco was in the mood. I think tomorrow night I will go back to playing him with Rhino since they seem to get along and play with lots of gusto.
Looking forward to more walks tomorrow. I’m hoping it will be as nice as today. I finally broke out my shorts and a short sleeve shirt for our walks. Hopefully the weekend will be just as nice.
Friday, May 14, 2010
A new day brings a fresh start
Thursday morning started with Bogart coming around to see if I was awake at 6:30am. He’s starting to learn the schedule better. Last night one of the girls and myself took our dogs out into the courtyard to play. I had taken Bogart out there twice by himself but he just wandered around sniffing. So Rhino, a white poodle, who was his kennel mate came out with us. They had a blast. This was great since it tuckered Bogart out. He was crashed on the floor while I was crashed on the bed early in the evening. The cute thing I noticed is that he had pulled his blanket out of the kennel and put it in front of his kennel. He then also incorporated a bit of my bed spread that was on the floor to make a nice comfy bed for himself. That is nice since he won’t be kenneled at home. I like kennels but I just don’t have enough room in my apartment for such a big thing.
Once we got going today we were told that our walk would be at 10:15am. Great. Knowing this I could get a bit of email writing done. I was down there ready to go when my trainer arrived back from her first walk. Bogart was a bit distracted when it came to getting into his harness. What we do with the dogs is get them to sit. Then we hold the harness in front of them and in our happy voice say “harness Bogart, Harness.” The theory is that the dog will dive his head through into his harness. I was outside when doing this so there were more distractions but he eventually got in there and I was able to do it up quickly using the side clip.
Off we went. As usual, he is a bit sluggish leaving the immediate area of the school but once we were half a block away he picked up the pace and off we went. He did great this morning. The last two walks he had stopped to sniff a low planter. This time he ignored that, walked me around a pole that I had almost shouldered yesterday and ignored the tattoo shop that he was constantly wanting to go into. He has probably learned from the other dogs that there are way more tattoo shops in Vancouver where he is moving to.
Another test he passed was when a dog and it’s owner passed right by us and Bogart only turned his head for a second and then kept on motoring ahead. Towards the end of our walk he was very impressive by stopping at two corners where I had forgot to ask him to find the curb. I realize that he is trained to do this but for him to do this without his rookie handler asking him to was pretty cool I thought. I gave him a treat so he might also think it was pretty cool.
In the afternoon we had a more complicated course set up in the hallway and introduced pedestrian distractions and corrections for if we bump a person. When this happens we are to quietly slap our leg and say “Bogart, be careful.” We have to slap our leg since we are not allowed to slap the person who ran into us for some reason. When Bogart takes me too close to an obstacle in our walks I am to stop him, slap the object and say “Bogart, be careful. Pay attention.” Bogart did really good on this new more challenging obstacle route even with the pedestrian being his former trainer.
At the dinner table I was able to get Bogart to sit and lie down several times without touching him or using the leash correction. (Okay, I will admit that I was eating chicken with my hand and did use that hand in front of his nose while giving the commands … but hey, he did them for me which is pretty darn cool.
Tonight I took Bogart out to play again with rhino. They had a blast. Bogart is the dog who barks and says “come on, lets play. How about you give me that ball Rhino. No, okay, I’ll chase you and bark at you.” .
right now Bogart is laying on my foot as I type this message and he is all flaked out. We were just throwing the ball around in the room. Poodles are funny, they like to dribble their balls before they give them to you.
As I suspected would happen with a good rest and some positive thoughts, I too am feeling much better today. I was happy that we’ve had such a good day and Bogart continues to work better for me as we go out. Even my table mates are commenting on how much better Bogart is being at the dinner table. You have to remember that there is food (which he likes), and all kinds of people and dogs walking by us. I’m perfectly situated at the end of the table where everyone has to pass by. He had other dogs almost walking over him without getting up. Awesome I thought. He is still pulling too much when we heal but I’m noticing this is getting better. He is still pulling his refusing tricks at the stairs but I have been successful in coaxing him down and when he comes his pace is perfect. He is healing perfectly and not pulling on the leash at all. The last two times I found myself without treats so it was just me, using my ability to coax, that got him going. Often, if I let him smell my hand and then pull it away while asking him to come or heal, that often works.
There are some others who are having rough days today so I tried to share how frustrated I was yesterday, yet how impressed and happy today.
Right now, several of the girls have gone out to Second Cup with the trainer who is staying over night. One of the girls dog is constantly barking. This is Byron, Bogart’s brother. The girl who stayed came and knocked on my door to ask me if we should take him out and put him in one of our kennels. But I think he had an accident the last time someone took him into their rooms. Secondly, it is not our dog so we need to leave it be. Sadly for her, she is staying right next door to the barking dog and it is setting her dog off. Being a couple of rooms away, Bogart is totally ignoring his loud brother.
So tomorrow is another day. We are walking in the morning and going to the pet store in the afternoon. This store, Ren’s, gives us a 20% discount so I’ll probably buy a rain coat for Bogart and maybe a toy or two. He’ll need a doggie bed when I get home but I can’t take that on the plane so it will have to wait. I got some good ideas for cheap beds from the trainer which I will look into.
Once we got going today we were told that our walk would be at 10:15am. Great. Knowing this I could get a bit of email writing done. I was down there ready to go when my trainer arrived back from her first walk. Bogart was a bit distracted when it came to getting into his harness. What we do with the dogs is get them to sit. Then we hold the harness in front of them and in our happy voice say “harness Bogart, Harness.” The theory is that the dog will dive his head through into his harness. I was outside when doing this so there were more distractions but he eventually got in there and I was able to do it up quickly using the side clip.
Off we went. As usual, he is a bit sluggish leaving the immediate area of the school but once we were half a block away he picked up the pace and off we went. He did great this morning. The last two walks he had stopped to sniff a low planter. This time he ignored that, walked me around a pole that I had almost shouldered yesterday and ignored the tattoo shop that he was constantly wanting to go into. He has probably learned from the other dogs that there are way more tattoo shops in Vancouver where he is moving to.
Another test he passed was when a dog and it’s owner passed right by us and Bogart only turned his head for a second and then kept on motoring ahead. Towards the end of our walk he was very impressive by stopping at two corners where I had forgot to ask him to find the curb. I realize that he is trained to do this but for him to do this without his rookie handler asking him to was pretty cool I thought. I gave him a treat so he might also think it was pretty cool.
In the afternoon we had a more complicated course set up in the hallway and introduced pedestrian distractions and corrections for if we bump a person. When this happens we are to quietly slap our leg and say “Bogart, be careful.” We have to slap our leg since we are not allowed to slap the person who ran into us for some reason. When Bogart takes me too close to an obstacle in our walks I am to stop him, slap the object and say “Bogart, be careful. Pay attention.” Bogart did really good on this new more challenging obstacle route even with the pedestrian being his former trainer.
At the dinner table I was able to get Bogart to sit and lie down several times without touching him or using the leash correction. (Okay, I will admit that I was eating chicken with my hand and did use that hand in front of his nose while giving the commands … but hey, he did them for me which is pretty darn cool.
Tonight I took Bogart out to play again with rhino. They had a blast. Bogart is the dog who barks and says “come on, lets play. How about you give me that ball Rhino. No, okay, I’ll chase you and bark at you.” .
right now Bogart is laying on my foot as I type this message and he is all flaked out. We were just throwing the ball around in the room. Poodles are funny, they like to dribble their balls before they give them to you.
As I suspected would happen with a good rest and some positive thoughts, I too am feeling much better today. I was happy that we’ve had such a good day and Bogart continues to work better for me as we go out. Even my table mates are commenting on how much better Bogart is being at the dinner table. You have to remember that there is food (which he likes), and all kinds of people and dogs walking by us. I’m perfectly situated at the end of the table where everyone has to pass by. He had other dogs almost walking over him without getting up. Awesome I thought. He is still pulling too much when we heal but I’m noticing this is getting better. He is still pulling his refusing tricks at the stairs but I have been successful in coaxing him down and when he comes his pace is perfect. He is healing perfectly and not pulling on the leash at all. The last two times I found myself without treats so it was just me, using my ability to coax, that got him going. Often, if I let him smell my hand and then pull it away while asking him to come or heal, that often works.
There are some others who are having rough days today so I tried to share how frustrated I was yesterday, yet how impressed and happy today.
Right now, several of the girls have gone out to Second Cup with the trainer who is staying over night. One of the girls dog is constantly barking. This is Byron, Bogart’s brother. The girl who stayed came and knocked on my door to ask me if we should take him out and put him in one of our kennels. But I think he had an accident the last time someone took him into their rooms. Secondly, it is not our dog so we need to leave it be. Sadly for her, she is staying right next door to the barking dog and it is setting her dog off. Being a couple of rooms away, Bogart is totally ignoring his loud brother.
So tomorrow is another day. We are walking in the morning and going to the pet store in the afternoon. This store, Ren’s, gives us a 20% discount so I’ll probably buy a rain coat for Bogart and maybe a toy or two. He’ll need a doggie bed when I get home but I can’t take that on the plane so it will have to wait. I got some good ideas for cheap beds from the trainer which I will look into.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Day of frustration
Wednesday has been a very challenging day for Bogart and myself. Today was the day we worked on dog distractions in the hallway since it was raining outside. Shall we say that Bogart did not do well with this. He started off not so bad but once the new dogs came along he wouldn’t sit, let alone go /stay down. The goal of dog distractions is to have your dog sit and stay while other dogs are brought by closer and closer. First, they are dogs that are known to our dogs, or well behaved dogs. Then they bring out other dogs that our dogs don’t know. Really this is quite easy since the Special skills Program folks just got their dogs today and are having to walk by us.
Well this sort of not listening, out of control behaviour was sort of the last straw for Bogart. This means out came the halty (or gentle leader). I don’t know if I can describe a halty well but I’ll try. Basically it has a piece that goes around the dogs muzzle connected to a strap that goes over the back of the dogs head. The leash then connects on the side of the head. The purpose of this is sort of like what we use on a horse. A tug on the leash gets the dogs attention right away because they don’t like having their heads turned. This does not hurt the dog but you must make more gentle corrections because you are directly connected to his head. Bogart certainly improved his heal with the halty on but when we started our harness exercises he just wouldn’t go forward. I took the halty off after lunch hoping that he’d understand that it is in my pocket and can be used again. He certainly improved a bit on our healing on leash.
I was a bit annoyed with how the afternoon went. On Monday a special needs class has started. I really don’t think they should have more than one program going on at the same time since it makes our hallways really crowded. We were going to do an obstacle course but had to wait until the other program was done showing everyone the relieve area. Once my turn came up, one and a half hours after we were told to arrive for this class, Bogart was up. First I was walked through the obstacles with an empty harness. The idea is that there is basically a zig zag course set up with construction cones. They wanted to teach us about body position as the dog goes around obstacles. The idea is that as the dog turns in front of you, to the right, you want to hang back a bit to give him room and as he turns to the left you want to speed up to catch up with him. the program head trainer, Ian, was here and asked if he could work with Bogart and me on this drill. What he was trying to teach me was how to use my voice better. Lots of praise whenever Bogart makes the first positive move. Part of this course goes by the door that leads out to the courtyard where the playing happens so this was quite a distraction. By the third time through Bogart did okay. Ian then took me aside to talk to me and see how I was feeling. He was explaining how working on voice and confidence in my voice will really help get and keep the dogs attention. He also said that the school would be honest with me if they felt a dog wasn’t working out. At this time they do not think Bogart will be a failure. He explained how partly I might think I want a mellow relaxed dog but then I’d be frustrated with it’s pace and abilities to solve problems. Bogart is a dog with a lot of initiative and our goal is to try to get the initiative working for us as a team rather than against us. He asked me how I was feeling about everything. I shared that I am certainly feeling frustrated at times with Bogart but when I’ve seen him in harness working I can see how he is capable of focusing and doing a good job. I feel that he is getting better from day to day. Admittedly, I’m also getting less patient and starting to demand he does what I ask of him much sooner. I think this is the time of the program where we start wearing out a bit. Yesterday one of the girls was crying from the frustration she is feeling about her dog. I was surprised since I thought her dog was pretty well behaved. We have another dog who tried to bite one of the other assistance dogs. One of the other girls dog doesn’t seem to want to go into the harness for her. My point is that each of us is having our own issues with our dogs at this point. I really feel that Bogart is going to make a big change just when one least expects it. He is having moments of brilliance, behaving with less moments of being a little devil.
I would be lying if I didn’t say this can be trying emotionally. We are all getting pretty tired out. I think tomorrow night will be the night that Bogart can spend a couple of hours alone in the room and I can go and have a beer at the pub around the corner and listen to some good live music. It’s hard not to let my frustration show with Bogart since I know if he hears frustration or uncertainty it will only work to slow the obedience process. However, I do see us bonding. When he is off leash he does come when I call him. Last night I was watching the Canuncks playoff hockey game. I had Bogart’s leash under my foot. I must have been relaxed at the same time when bogie saw something that had him run off. For a moment my friend John was saying he would go and get him for me. I said no, I will call him back. I did call for him and he did come back which was great.
Overall it was an exhausting day for both of us I think. After supper Bogart and I just relaxed in the room trying to regenerate. I am confident that tomorrow will be a better day and we will again make noticeable progress.
Well this sort of not listening, out of control behaviour was sort of the last straw for Bogart. This means out came the halty (or gentle leader). I don’t know if I can describe a halty well but I’ll try. Basically it has a piece that goes around the dogs muzzle connected to a strap that goes over the back of the dogs head. The leash then connects on the side of the head. The purpose of this is sort of like what we use on a horse. A tug on the leash gets the dogs attention right away because they don’t like having their heads turned. This does not hurt the dog but you must make more gentle corrections because you are directly connected to his head. Bogart certainly improved his heal with the halty on but when we started our harness exercises he just wouldn’t go forward. I took the halty off after lunch hoping that he’d understand that it is in my pocket and can be used again. He certainly improved a bit on our healing on leash.
I was a bit annoyed with how the afternoon went. On Monday a special needs class has started. I really don’t think they should have more than one program going on at the same time since it makes our hallways really crowded. We were going to do an obstacle course but had to wait until the other program was done showing everyone the relieve area. Once my turn came up, one and a half hours after we were told to arrive for this class, Bogart was up. First I was walked through the obstacles with an empty harness. The idea is that there is basically a zig zag course set up with construction cones. They wanted to teach us about body position as the dog goes around obstacles. The idea is that as the dog turns in front of you, to the right, you want to hang back a bit to give him room and as he turns to the left you want to speed up to catch up with him. the program head trainer, Ian, was here and asked if he could work with Bogart and me on this drill. What he was trying to teach me was how to use my voice better. Lots of praise whenever Bogart makes the first positive move. Part of this course goes by the door that leads out to the courtyard where the playing happens so this was quite a distraction. By the third time through Bogart did okay. Ian then took me aside to talk to me and see how I was feeling. He was explaining how working on voice and confidence in my voice will really help get and keep the dogs attention. He also said that the school would be honest with me if they felt a dog wasn’t working out. At this time they do not think Bogart will be a failure. He explained how partly I might think I want a mellow relaxed dog but then I’d be frustrated with it’s pace and abilities to solve problems. Bogart is a dog with a lot of initiative and our goal is to try to get the initiative working for us as a team rather than against us. He asked me how I was feeling about everything. I shared that I am certainly feeling frustrated at times with Bogart but when I’ve seen him in harness working I can see how he is capable of focusing and doing a good job. I feel that he is getting better from day to day. Admittedly, I’m also getting less patient and starting to demand he does what I ask of him much sooner. I think this is the time of the program where we start wearing out a bit. Yesterday one of the girls was crying from the frustration she is feeling about her dog. I was surprised since I thought her dog was pretty well behaved. We have another dog who tried to bite one of the other assistance dogs. One of the other girls dog doesn’t seem to want to go into the harness for her. My point is that each of us is having our own issues with our dogs at this point. I really feel that Bogart is going to make a big change just when one least expects it. He is having moments of brilliance, behaving with less moments of being a little devil.
I would be lying if I didn’t say this can be trying emotionally. We are all getting pretty tired out. I think tomorrow night will be the night that Bogart can spend a couple of hours alone in the room and I can go and have a beer at the pub around the corner and listen to some good live music. It’s hard not to let my frustration show with Bogart since I know if he hears frustration or uncertainty it will only work to slow the obedience process. However, I do see us bonding. When he is off leash he does come when I call him. Last night I was watching the Canuncks playoff hockey game. I had Bogart’s leash under my foot. I must have been relaxed at the same time when bogie saw something that had him run off. For a moment my friend John was saying he would go and get him for me. I said no, I will call him back. I did call for him and he did come back which was great.
Overall it was an exhausting day for both of us I think. After supper Bogart and I just relaxed in the room trying to regenerate. I am confident that tomorrow will be a better day and we will again make noticeable progress.
hungry dog means distracted dog
Tuesday morning started out with our normal 9am meeting in the trainers room. The schedule that I have developed is I have my alarm go off at 7am. Usually Bogart is awake around 5:30am and comes to see if I’m awake. Trying to convince him I’m not by not reacting to him, we wanders back into his kennel. I’m usually awake by 6:30 again. Actually last night was funny because I woke up around 2:30am (I thought) so made great efforts to get back to sleep but a bit later I realized that I had got the time off my laptop which is still set on Pacific time, 3 hours behind. Oh well, I got some more reading done and better understood why it was so hard to get back to sleep.
Where was I? Oh yes, the schedule … so I get up, pull on some clothes and take Bogart down to the relief area so he can do his thing. Then I come back up, feed him and while he is eating (poodles eat a bit slower than labs because they are much more civilized) I have my shower. I like this set up since it will be similar to our home routine. Breakfast is at 8am and then we come back up to the rooms and prepare for our 9am eating.
In the 9am meeting the two trainers outline what the plans are for the day. If we are going on walks then they give us our tentative schedule. There has been some frustration in the class from many of the clients about how much sitting around we are doing. Part of the problem has been in climate weather. It seems that people in Ontario can go outside in -15 degrees (Celsius for those American readers) but they can’t seem to get outside in the rain. My suggestion to the trainers was that they develop an outline of what is tentatively going to happen on which days. This being with the understanding that these schedules must be flexible depending on the weather and how the class is progressing. Perhaps anyone reading this who has gone to a different school can comment on if all programs of this issue of scheduling.
Bogart had a rough start to this day. I had just brought him up from his morning relief and, as I was about to head out to get his food, he started throwing up. I wasn’t too scared but, obviously, I was a little worried about him. I walked across the hallway to get the over night trainer to help out. When knocking on the door I remembered her telling us that she’ll be in the kennels working after 7am. As fate would have it, I made a joke about all emergencies happen after 7am. Anyway, I made my way downstairs with no dog and no cane (that’s probably why we need good orientation skills before attending programs) and found the back door to the kennel. Guess I missed the populated front door. It was humorous since I could hear her cleaning kennels somewhere deeper inside. Like one of those action movies I moved forward tentatively, feeling my way along. I walked around a corner and stood there for a minute trying to get a fix on where the sound was coming from when all of a sudden one dog noticed me. BARK BARK … then all the dogs joined in. Bark Bark .. Angela there is an intruder … bar bark …let us out and we’ll get him!”. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a concrete building with 40 or 50 dogs barking but it is very loud. I just decided to stand there and wait to be rescued (or perhaps eaten). Angela showed up beside me, yelled “That’s enough!” and the barking subsided. You can imagine the dogs looking around wondering what she is yelling at. “we were just trying to help.”
Angela came back up to the room with me to see how Bogart was doing and help me clean up his mess. He seemed fine and there was nothing much in what he brought up, just that he brought it up all over the place. He didn’t seem to understand when I offered him his food dish to throw up in rather than all over the floor, between me and that door. Isn’t he inconsiderate?
So we had two walks. The first one didn’t really go that great. I think Bogart was hungry since he couldn’t stop himself from sniffing everything. Since he had thrown up I was advised to skip his breakfast. Due to this lack of attention we cut that walk a bit shorter and I brought him home so he could have a light lunch to hold him to dinner. Our afternoon walk was much better and Bogart seemed a bit more focused.
Overall it was a pretty good day. I continue to see progress with Bogart and continue to grow fonder of him each day.
Where was I? Oh yes, the schedule … so I get up, pull on some clothes and take Bogart down to the relief area so he can do his thing. Then I come back up, feed him and while he is eating (poodles eat a bit slower than labs because they are much more civilized
In the 9am meeting the two trainers outline what the plans are for the day. If we are going on walks then they give us our tentative schedule. There has been some frustration in the class from many of the clients about how much sitting around we are doing. Part of the problem has been in climate weather. It seems that people in Ontario can go outside in -15 degrees (Celsius for those American readers) but they can’t seem to get outside in the rain. My suggestion to the trainers was that they develop an outline of what is tentatively going to happen on which days. This being with the understanding that these schedules must be flexible depending on the weather and how the class is progressing. Perhaps anyone reading this who has gone to a different school can comment on if all programs of this issue of scheduling.
Bogart had a rough start to this day. I had just brought him up from his morning relief and, as I was about to head out to get his food, he started throwing up. I wasn’t too scared but, obviously, I was a little worried about him. I walked across the hallway to get the over night trainer to help out. When knocking on the door I remembered her telling us that she’ll be in the kennels working after 7am. As fate would have it, I made a joke about all emergencies happen after 7am. Anyway, I made my way downstairs with no dog and no cane (that’s probably why we need good orientation skills before attending programs) and found the back door to the kennel. Guess I missed the populated front door. It was humorous since I could hear her cleaning kennels somewhere deeper inside. Like one of those action movies I moved forward tentatively, feeling my way along. I walked around a corner and stood there for a minute trying to get a fix on where the sound was coming from when all of a sudden one dog noticed me. BARK BARK … then all the dogs joined in. Bark Bark .. Angela there is an intruder … bar bark …let us out and we’ll get him!”. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a concrete building with 40 or 50 dogs barking but it is very loud. I just decided to stand there and wait to be rescued (or perhaps eaten). Angela showed up beside me, yelled “That’s enough!” and the barking subsided. You can imagine the dogs looking around wondering what she is yelling at. “we were just trying to help.”
Angela came back up to the room with me to see how Bogart was doing and help me clean up his mess. He seemed fine and there was nothing much in what he brought up, just that he brought it up all over the place. He didn’t seem to understand when I offered him his food dish to throw up in rather than all over the floor, between me and that door. Isn’t he inconsiderate?
So we had two walks. The first one didn’t really go that great. I think Bogart was hungry since he couldn’t stop himself from sniffing everything. Since he had thrown up I was advised to skip his breakfast. Due to this lack of attention we cut that walk a bit shorter and I brought him home so he could have a light lunch to hold him to dinner. Our afternoon walk was much better and Bogart seemed a bit more focused.
Overall it was a pretty good day. I continue to see progress with Bogart and continue to grow fonder of him each day.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Bogart hits the road with Gary in tow
Today was a great day. The sun was out and the wind was gone. I was the first one selected to go out this morning for a walk with Bogart in harness guiding. First we fitted his new harness. This is the harness with the quick release on the side which makes it much easier to put on and take off. Then we added my new slightly longer handle to make the fit perfect. Out into the sunshine we went. “Forward Bogart” and we were off. Okay, until we were a little ways from the school the pace wasn’t exactly blistering. However, once we were away Bogart did amazingly well. He stayed focused, found the curbs as directed, moved me around most obstacles. I was impressed with how he dealt with distractions. A guy popped out of a back alley right in front of us and dropped his skate board, noisily skating away. Bogart didn’t even blink an eye. Next we had a fellow with his border collie. This dog was well controlled which helped but Bogart slowed for a hello sniff but then he got back to business and guided forward. The same dog went running by us with his master jogging beside him on the street as we were doing a parallel crossing. This distracted Bogart for an instant until I reminded him to find the curb. He did a fine job of that.
Our second walk was a bit less productive. Bogart seemed to be more interested in window shopping at times than guiding efficiently. He really wanted to go into the tattoo shop. I said he was one hip dog. Had to deal with the nice young lady who asked to pet the dog and didn't like when I said she couldn't because he was working. It turned out that this woman was the wife of the fellow who does the cleaning here. Guess they have never really learned about guide dogs.
I must say that today’s walks have certainly made me feel much better about the potential of Bogart and his ability to guide me in the future. I was giddy with excitement and pride when we were done our first walk. I had to get up to my room and call my girlfriend to share my enthusiasm.
We had a fellow arrive last night who is getting a new dog because the poodle he has had for the last year isn’t working out. He sits directly to my left, beside Bogart. Bogart has been a handful keeping him lying quietly at the dinner table but add a new person and a new dog and he has been even more frustrating. It seems that we have less battles about sitting/laying quietly but when we have them they are hard fought. Bogart is as stubborn as I am I think. However, I feel he is getting better each day. As my sister pointed out, I’ve only had him 5 days now. What was I expecting. Each of these dogs has it’s own little issues from what I can se so it will be a great success for all of us on graduation day when they are working nicely for us. One of the things we have to work on apparently is them staying calm during applause and whooping it up. At our end of the day meeting we were told that on the next rainy day we will go to the mall. One of the girls clapped and yahoo’ed. Her dog started barking and then all 6 dogs started barking and jumping on each other. One dog had to pull him self out of being sound asleep to start barking. He didn’t know what he was barking at but he certainly was going to not miss a chance to bark. Our trainer was funny describing poodles versus labs. She said a class full of labs would pop up and go “hey what’s going on? Are we going to have to eat everything here?”. Whereas poodles think “oh my friends are barking,wuff woof, I should bark too.” Meanwhile you can see him looking around wondering what exactly they are all barking at. Pretty funny.
So tomorrow it’s more harness walks. We’ll be doing work on distractions and obstacle avoidance either in doors or out, depending on the weather.
The fun continues.
Our second walk was a bit less productive. Bogart seemed to be more interested in window shopping at times than guiding efficiently. He really wanted to go into the tattoo shop. I said he was one hip dog. Had to deal with the nice young lady who asked to pet the dog and didn't like when I said she couldn't because he was working. It turned out that this woman was the wife of the fellow who does the cleaning here. Guess they have never really learned about guide dogs.
I must say that today’s walks have certainly made me feel much better about the potential of Bogart and his ability to guide me in the future. I was giddy with excitement and pride when we were done our first walk. I had to get up to my room and call my girlfriend to share my enthusiasm.
We had a fellow arrive last night who is getting a new dog because the poodle he has had for the last year isn’t working out. He sits directly to my left, beside Bogart. Bogart has been a handful keeping him lying quietly at the dinner table but add a new person and a new dog and he has been even more frustrating. It seems that we have less battles about sitting/laying quietly but when we have them they are hard fought. Bogart is as stubborn as I am I think. However, I feel he is getting better each day. As my sister pointed out, I’ve only had him 5 days now. What was I expecting. Each of these dogs has it’s own little issues from what I can se so it will be a great success for all of us on graduation day when they are working nicely for us. One of the things we have to work on apparently is them staying calm during applause and whooping it up. At our end of the day meeting we were told that on the next rainy day we will go to the mall. One of the girls clapped and yahoo’ed. Her dog started barking and then all 6 dogs started barking and jumping on each other. One dog had to pull him self out of being sound asleep to start barking. He didn’t know what he was barking at but he certainly was going to not miss a chance to bark. Our trainer was funny describing poodles versus labs. She said a class full of labs would pop up and go “hey what’s going on? Are we going to have to eat everything here?”. Whereas poodles think “oh my friends are barking,wuff woof, I should bark too.” Meanwhile you can see him looking around wondering what exactly they are all barking at. Pretty funny.
So tomorrow it’s more harness walks. We’ll be doing work on distractions and obstacle avoidance either in doors or out, depending on the weather.
The fun continues.
Monday, May 10, 2010
And on the 7th day we were to rest
Today is Sunday, which is supposed to be our day of rest. Breakfast isn’t until 9am however I don’t see how we can sleep in since we still have to get up at the same time to relieve our dogs.I did come back and do a bit of reading after Bogart was fed and I had my shower. I have spent a lot of time with Bogart today trying to improve his sitting and laying. With all the visitors here today he was often excited and distracted so I used these as training opportunities to get him to sit when being introduced to new people and to lay quietly when I was sitting on the couch. He is probably getting a bit sick of all these commands. Yesterday and today he has been giving me some issues on the stairs. He is stopping at the bottom of the stairs but when I give the heal command he just stands there. With some coaxing and praising he does eventually walk up the stairs in a nice manner. I will talk to the trainers about this tomorrow and get some more work with him. I did get permission to take him out into the court yard today so he could run and blow off some steam. After that time, on the way back up stairs, he went perfectly on all three floors.
It was great to get him outside in the courtyard. I had him sit, took off his leash and then said “go play”. Well it was like I had just launched a black rocket. He was off running and break neck speeds. After he sort of wore himself out he wandered around sniffing at everything. It was good because he continuously came back to where I was sitting on the bench to say hello. After about 15 minutes he kept heading for the exit door so, although I would have enjoyed sitting out there for several more minutes, I took the hint and put his leash back on and went through the door.
Right now we have been playing in the room. He has already pretty much destroyed his toy from yesterday. He also liked me throwing the tennis ball in the room. He’d kick it around for himself and then bring it back to me to toss against the wall for him.
We had our first real issue of discipline which was mostly caused by user error. That is me being the user. A friend’s wife hhad given me some home made treats which I had put in the front pouch on my hoody. I forgot they were there but when I heard unusual sounds from the floor I investigated. Bogart had pulled my hoody to the floor, nosed his way into the pouch, pulled out the plastic bag and was proceeding to open it when I caught him. I just said no and took the treats away, putting them in a desk drawer that he can’t get at. However, a few minutes later I heard more suspicious sounds and found him with my hoody on the floor again. This called for a stronger NO and me explaining in no uncertain terms that the hoody was mine and not for him. I think he got it since he did come and suck up to me after awhile. I think he was sucking up although it was me who ended up rubbing his belly. Hmm, who won that go around?
Tomorrow is an exciting day since our new harnesses have arrived. They have a buckle underneath like a traditional harness but also have a clip on the side to make it easier to do up and undo. We are supposed to go for 2 harness walks on Monday. Can’t wait.
It was great to get him outside in the courtyard. I had him sit, took off his leash and then said “go play”. Well it was like I had just launched a black rocket. He was off running and break neck speeds. After he sort of wore himself out he wandered around sniffing at everything. It was good because he continuously came back to where I was sitting on the bench to say hello. After about 15 minutes he kept heading for the exit door so, although I would have enjoyed sitting out there for several more minutes, I took the hint and put his leash back on and went through the door.
Right now we have been playing in the room. He has already pretty much destroyed his toy from yesterday. He also liked me throwing the tennis ball in the room. He’d kick it around for himself and then bring it back to me to toss against the wall for him.
We had our first real issue of discipline which was mostly caused by user error. That is me being the user. A friend’s wife hhad given me some home made treats which I had put in the front pouch on my hoody. I forgot they were there but when I heard unusual sounds from the floor I investigated. Bogart had pulled my hoody to the floor, nosed his way into the pouch, pulled out the plastic bag and was proceeding to open it when I caught him. I just said no and took the treats away, putting them in a desk drawer that he can’t get at. However, a few minutes later I heard more suspicious sounds and found him with my hoody on the floor again. This called for a stronger NO and me explaining in no uncertain terms that the hoody was mine and not for him. I think he got it since he did come and suck up to me after awhile. I think he was sucking up although it was me who ended up rubbing his belly. Hmm, who won that go around?
Tomorrow is an exciting day since our new harnesses have arrived. They have a buckle underneath like a traditional harness but also have a clip on the side to make it easier to do up and undo. We are supposed to go for 2 harness walks on Monday. Can’t wait.
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