I've been so wrapped up in holidays and training that I've completely forgotten to post about the last two weeks of training--whoops! I've also been really distracted by the fact that Mom is back in town--I still can't believe she's still around the house after being gone for two months. There's been quite a bit of snuggling and tummy rubbing and general loving. I've even occasionally let her have more than just the corner of our bed at night (don't tell her, but when she's asleep, I slowly take over the bed again).
My first week of PBC started off immediately the morning after Mom came home. Although she was out of spoons from the term and traveling, that didn't mean I could wiggle my way out of a day of training. It's not like I'd want to get out of training, anyway: I really do love my job, and learning new things keeps life interesting for me. Mom says it's crucial for a smart girl like me to learn new things often--she says I'm going to be a lifelong learner. Maybe one day I'll know over 100 commands! (I'm getting close)
We quickly brushed over some basics, as well as my known tasks, but of course I already knew them! Did she really think I'd forget everything in two months? So she decided to give me a challenge. I watched as she set chairs and stools around the backyard. We'd never done anything like this before, so I wasn't really sure what was going to happen. Usually, I train naked because Mom says it's important for a SD to follow commands and be on duty with or without a vest on. She wants to make sure I know to listen to her even when I'm not officially working. On that day, though, Mom decided to put me in my first vest, my blue Active Dogs vest, with one addition: a pull strap.
I should preface by saying that Mom has never taught guide work before and couldn't really find any How To in book or web form,* so it was a learning process for both of us. Then again, my career so far with her has been a constant learning process for both of us, because I haven't been a SD before and she's never trained a SD before. She's learned many of the tasks I now know along the way.
Anyway, she started by giving me the command "Forward," which I didn't yet know, and having me walk forward, except there was one problem: there were objects in the way! Every time we would encounter an object, I would stop (duh), but she would say, "Uh oh," which is my cue that I didn't do something quite right. I couldn't figure out what I wasn't doing right, though, and luckily Mom quickly caught on. So we tried something different.
She took me to a patch of the backyard with no obstacles and asked me "Forward" again, but this time, she lured me with a treat and didn't keep pace with me so that I had to pull against my vest a bit. After a few steps, she rewarded me. We did this a pawful of times, and suddenly it just clicked for me. I understood that with "Forward," I can break my "Heel" to pull, which I know I shouldn't do normally. Once I understood that, it became a lot easier for me to learn how to guide Mom around obstacles. I definitely didn't learn guide work in a day and am still working on it quite a bit, but Mom says she's really impressed by my progress.
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| Back to playtime! |
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| And also back to work... and photoshoots! |
As far as my personal life goes, I had a great first Thanksgiving with Mom, and I even got to pretend I was a person for a little bit. Mixed in with my usual dinner (of Blue Buffalo kibble with a few forkfuls of carefully selected canned food), I received sweet potato chunks, a few green beans, gravy, and chicken. I've come to the conclusion that I really like Thanksgiving!
But I also like the part of Thanksgiving where you're grateful about things in your life, because I am so grateful for so much this year, ranging from being happy that my baby Uno has a happy home in Connecticut to being adopted myself to having a seemingly endless supply of balls at my disposal (seriously, where do they all come from??? Does Mom own some kind of a ball tree???). It's been a really, really good year for a pup like me. And there's still a month left!
Until next time,
Kelsie Iris, CGC
*Just a note: Mom isn't blind or visually impaired. Guide work can actually be very useful for many SD teams outside of just Guide Dog teams. Also, just tossing it out there, the term actually is "Guide Dog," not "Seeing Eye Dog," unless that specific dog actually comes from The Seeing Eye.
Check out these posts of mine:
SD team etiquette -- http://kelsieiris.blogspot.com/2015/04/dos-and-donts-of-encountering-service.html
Confused? Here are some terms and abbreviations -- http://kelsieiris.blogspot.com/2015/04/as-abbreviations.html
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