Day 223

Today was a killer day. Just as soon as all the day care dogs had checked in and had a chance to run around for a little bit, it was off to the vet. Most people take one dog when they go to the vet. A few may take two dogs, but how many of you take four dogs with you to see the vet? Wrap needed a rabies shot and she was out of heartworm preventive. Sanity needed help with her on again, off again diarrhea problem and she was out of heartworm preventive. Cromwell had diarrhea and Tyler went along to say "how do" and because he needed heartworm preventive. So there you have it. Two Dobermans, one Schipperke and one Miniature Poodle pup.

Poor Tyler. He couldn't figure out whether he wanted to walk on that leash or not and then there was the issue of where to walk, beside the Dobermans, behind them, in between, under? So many decisions and so little time to make them. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be saying "poor Tyler". Once we were in the exam room there was a steady stream of tech's and staff finding an excuse to walk through or come in and hang out for a while just so they could meet the "little guy". So he got loved, and snuggled, and fused over to the max.

By the time we got finished, the bill paid (no you really don't want an "office visit" bill like that one), got home, unloaded and everyone back outside it was time for the next thing scheduled for the day. Which meant I had to bring everyone back in.

The next thing on the schedule was a service dog evaluation and public access test. Sanity was totally great. She hopped the fence when I called her and got up on the love seat with only one quick reminder. She stayed right with me doing everything I needed her to do when I needed it. Since a part of the access test is a dropped food/refusal test, I took the opportunity to get in some training myself. She did very well for a full 3 minutes. I did have to tap the button twice, but they were little "reminder" taps rather than true corrections. That piece of food was so close to her front paws she could have snarfed it up by just sticking her tongue out. She didn't. Will continue to work on that task, since it still has a long way to go.

I really should have taken my scooter or borrowed one of the ones the mall has. I didn't. I couldn't "see" myself doing the testing while riding a scooter. That is something I am going to have to work on, because by the time I got home from the mall, finished up the evaluation, let all the dogs back out and had a chance to catch my breath, I was totally fried. Didn't get another thing done for the rest of the day.

No scent work again today. We did practice in public at the Mall We worked on heeling, sits, downs, the stand as used for a stand and brace, she demo'ed a short recall, of course there was the food refusal. Best of all she did what I would consider to be her first real working retrieve. It was a folded up piece of paper I accidentally dropped. She took two tries to pick it up, but there was no playing around and no tearing of the paper. Humm...in looking at what I just wrote I realize we really did do a fair amount of training after all.