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.