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.