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.
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