Reawakening from Hibernation

Hello and happy spring!

I have sorely neglected my blog for quite a few months now.  My apologies for the lapse!  Between intense training and then the winter term at Dartmouth, I've been up to my ears in work for the past few months--plus, mom has been hogging the computer a lot.

My first day of classes at Dartmouth College!  Don't I look incredibly academic?

Puppy Boot Camp over Winterim went very well for me.  I now pick up any item when my girl says "Get It," including keys, her wallet, and credit cards (which are hard, but with a bit of Border Collie determination, I always manage to do it!).  With all the intense training we did over those six weeks, my girl felt I was pretty prepared for my first Dartmouth term as a Service Dog.  I even had a winter coat and a custom fleece bodysuit to keep me warm!

The term itself went swimmingly for me--I rocked being a Dartmouth student from Day 1.  My professors loved me, even when I fell asleep in class.  You could say I was the teacher's pet!  Since my girl was busy with work during the term, training (aside from daily practice) halted for the time being.  I did on a whim, however, learn "Button," a command to press the handicap button to open the door to a building.  This doesn't count as one of my Service Dog tasks since my girl doesn't need it, but it's a really neat party trick that is super fun for me to do (Mom says I get a little too enthusiastic).

Here I'm in a Dartmouth classroom (and looking quite at home) and am sporting my Pawz booties and a new harness.

I don't know if you know this, but SNOW is super exciting!  It falls from the sky, and when you try to catch it, it just disappears!  The salt to melt the ice was a bit tough to deal with, but luckily, my girl had booties to protect my feet from all the chemicals--even though I hate wearing my booties, I secretly do appreciate that my paws don't burn from the salt all day.

Do you wanna build a snowman?

My girl and I are now home for the spring term, during which time theoretically we were going to do some research at a local university but have instead lounged around home because my girl has been sick.  We're looking for answers so that my girl can get back on her feet and so we can go back to pursuing Plan A!  In the meantime, when my girl feels well enough to emerge from her cocoon of blankets, we've been doing some training.

Over the next few weeks, we'll have four main focuses:
1.  Working on rear end and body awareness (post to come!)
2.  Honing guide work and momentum pulls
3.  Developing more consistent and less, err, enthusiastic medical alerts
4.  Reviewing and tightening up old material

My first time in a hospital: mwahaha I stole Mom's bed!

We might add another goal, but I believe that four goals will really keep us occupied in the coming weeks, especially if we try to have an element of finesse and mastery across the board.


I'll try to get back into blogging regularly.  I really like to share my progress (the good, the bad, and the ugly), especially since I don't know if it might help future owner-trained Service Dog teams.  While my mom has learned a lot about owner-training through my social media accounts, she couldn't find much helpful information or any guidelines when she started out.  Hopefully I can change that for future teams!

Speaking of my social media accounts, I am very active on Instagram as kelsie.iris --follow me for more periodic updates (but beware of multiple hashtags!).  I also have a Twitter (KelsieIris) and a Tumblr (kelsieiris.tumblr.com)

Wags until next time,
Kelsie Iris CGC


Check out these other posts of mine:
SD team etiquette
Don't distract SDs
Spoon Theory
Confused? See my terms and abbreviations