Today was a long day for sure. Allison and I were up and eating breakfast at Panera about 745am. (Thank you to Aunt Terry for our gift certificate. We'll be back tomorrow!) Allison begrudgingly got out of bed on this bitter cold morning. There was a definite conflict between sleeping and spending special time with Mommy. She opted for Panera...but barely! Trust me when I tell you there would have been no offense take had she opted for sleep. Joe and Zachary did their own thing for breakfast and then we were off to training. We were there for maybe 10 minutes when Allison had an accident....the 24 hour flu bug was back. We packed up our stuff and Aubrey and were off to the hotel again. Since one of us really needed to be back at 4 Paws for training with Aubrey, Joe gladly opted to stay back at the hotel with the kids. He needed a physical, mental and any other possible break from training before he completely shattered. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we've all been pushed beyond our limit at this point. Aubrey and I were off again and spent the rest of the day at 4 Paws.
Aubrey seemed a little lost in the back seat of the truck without the kids there. She kept sniffing at their seats when she first jumped in. I'm sure the simple sound of Christmas songs was much different than the constant chatter she'd normally hear back there with them both. Once we got back, we hit the ground running. We worked on tricks like "bang" (play dead) and "roll over". Aubrey is really good at "shake", "give five" and "high five." Zachary was working on some tricks with her this afternoon and got THE biggest kick out of this. My personal fave is when Aubrey gives "high five". Next, we worked on "sit" and "down" with our dogs off leash. Your dog should be just as obedient without it's leash on as it is with the leash on. A command is a command is a command. Their leash should have no bearing on how well they work for you. Aubrey did well. I had to release her from "down" quickly because she gets a little lazy and doesn't want to get up right away if she's had too much time to relax! :) We worked on "heel", "place" and discussed behavior disruption as well.
After lunch Jeremy fielded all sorts of questions from all of us. We all had lots of things to ask. Tomorrow is it. Come 4pm....we are on our own. Don't misunderstand, 4 Paws has a support network at their training facility once you leave, but it's a lot different than knowing you'll actually be with all of these people the following day. The trainers are a wealth of knowledge. It's going to be an adjustment going home and not having them with you all of the time. It's like leaving the hospital for the first time with your first baby. There's that element of "Okay, now what??!!".
Tomorrow is a huge day for all of the families in our class. We graduate and get to leave for our respecitve homes with the newest additions to our families. Before this happens, though, all of the other families need to pass their Public Access Test so their dogs can receive their public certification. It's a really big deal. Each handler will meet one of the trainers at the mall at their assigned time, and one by one they'll be followed by the trainers and observed for 20 minutes. What they need to do is demonstrate the knowledge needed to safely and effectively handle their dogs in public. Lots of luck to all of our classmates! You'll all be great!! :) Although Aubrey has been trained as everyone else's dogs, she will not be certified as a public service-dog. She needed to be able to handle the demands of working in public 100% of the time. She couldn't quite handle these demands when there were large crowds and chaos. Crowded malls and moving Christmas displays would be very difficult for her to manage. This is why we haven't participated in any community acitivities. We like to think Aubrey has had a master plan all along and was just waiting for Zachary to come along.
I do believe in miracles.
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