Day 3: the dog days have arived!

Well, today was the big day. We thought we’d be getting our dogs in the early afternoon but they surprised us and said we could get them in the morning. Everyone was pretty excited. All I knew was that I was getting a standard poodle but had no idea how big, what colour or if it would be male or female.

So how it works at Guide Dogs Canada is that the trainer has you go into your room to wait. When they knock at the door you are to sit in the comfy chair in the room and they bring in your dog for your first meeting. It is so exciting and so full of mystery an intrigue. What will this dog be like and how will everything work out. It is the final realization that you are making a change to your life that will be pretty all encompassing.

So I was sitting on my comfy chair when the knock came. Courtney, our lead trainer for this class came in with this very energetic extremely tall black standard poodle named Bogart. You can imagine how relieved I was that his name wasn’t Fee Fee. He came in and greeted me, pushing his head under one of my legs and coming through the other side. It is really weird when you get your new dog because, no matter how much you plan for it, it becomes real that instant and you know that everything has changed.

Now let me tell you about Bogart so far. Shall we say that he is testing me to the extreme right now. While others dogs are sitting obediently , you’ll here me battling with Bogart to get him to sit. In our first meeting with our dogs in the trainers room tonight the whole class watched as I had at least a minute battle getting Bogart to sit which ended with me having to push , quite hard, down on his butt while giving the command until he finally gave in and sat. Courtney said you just watched a battle of wills between Bogart and Gary. It is now Gary 1 and Bogart no score. the battles continue but I would say that over all I am winning them. (however, I’m sure if you read Bogart’s blog, bogarts no regard blog, he would be saying that he thinks he is winning most of the battles!) However, regardless, he is truly beautiful and regal which he is quite aware of. When he is sitting his head can nicely rest on the dining room table! He has what is called a puppy cut with a nice mop top on the top of his head. I’m working on getting a photo soon. We got one deceptive shot last night on someone’s camera where he was sitting leaning against my leg like he was the best behaved dog ever.

For the afternoon we did a bit of work on healing and taking him to the relieving area. Apparently tomorrow will be doing more work with them. Today we were just supposed to hang out and bond. Poodles are funny and may not go to the washroom or eat for several days. We are doing good. He has eaten all his food with no difficulty, he peed on my first try (except it wasn’t in his relieving stall but against the wall on the way out… give him marks for trying though eh?

I have now asked him to go into his kennel which he did with no complaint. Now lets see how we both sleep after a very exciting day.