Zachary absolutely loves her; it is the sweetest thing ever. He's really excited to be with her which is awesome. He doens't spend too much time with her at the training facility, though. It's loud, busy and there are tons of people all of which put Zachary into sensory overload. He's handling all of the madness at training really well, but he can't walk and chew gum. That is, he can't focus and play with Aubrey and process ALL of the sensory stimulation in the room at the same time. Truth be told....it's not always easy for Joe and I either!! :) The other part of it is that right now, training is a lot of talking. Jeremey is explaining a lot of things and walking us through the obedience piece of handling a service-dog. Since Joe and I are the adults (well sorta!! LOL) and handlers, we're 100% involved with all of this. 4 Paws has a great play area for the kids that has all sorts of sensory equipment, toys, computers, tv with dvds and video games. There's also two tables for the kids to color and stuff at. It's been a blessing because there's no way most children could endure being there from 930am til 4pm everyday without all of this stuff. Having said all of this, once we're in the truck or back at the hotel, Zachary is all over her. He follows her, pats, her, asks for kisses, PLAYS, calls her over and tells her come to bed with him. If she gets off his bed, he'll try to call her back and come out to find her. :)
Tomorrow we'll start giving her a treat everytime Zachary comes near her or she goes near Zachary. What this does is reinforce the fact that Zachary is "her guy". She may not completely understand why for a few weeks, but what she will know is that every time she's near Zachary something really good happens...she gets her favorite treat. It's always positive and reinforcing. Zachary also never corrects her. Aubrey is his best friend; the relationship should be fun not negative. We haven't been able to do this until now because Aubrey was sick and could not have any treats. Right now, we'll just make litttle meatballs out of her special food to use as the treats. Their cuddle time at night and in the morning is not only great in terms of watching the bond develop, but a fantastic time to reinforce BOTH Aubrey and Zachary. This is telling Aubrey that Zachary is her best friend and visa versa. It's also telling Zachary that laying with Aubrey is a place to go to relax...it makes him feel good. This is the ultimate goal.
This morning, we worked more on "sit" and "down" with additional distractions. Aubrey did really well. Although, she did try to army crawl towards the Pup-peroni in front of her and required some correction. LOL I told you....it's like Oreos for me. ;) For the public service dogs, they must never move towards fallen food or any other distraction, and she is trained the same exact way. 80% of the time she was perfect in public. However, the other 20% she became overwhelmed in large crowds (sound like a human little boy you know???!!! LOL). Then, the COOLEST part of training took place before lunch....TRACKING.
Six families went to the Greene County Fair Grounds to track for the first time. These dogs knew exactly what was going to happen and were so pumped about about it. As soon as they saw Jeremey get out all of his gear, they were jumping and barking....they knew when they completed their task there would be hot dogs at the end! The dogs have no idea that it's a safety issue, at least not now. They have no idea that it could be a matter of life or death. They DO know, though, that at the end of the track is the mother-of-all rewards and that is what they're working for. It's a game to them. Joe, Zachary and Jessa walked about 150 yards away through grass and brush and stopped behind the trees. Aubrey didn't see this or have any idea where they went. Aubrey already started tugging and jumping when she saw Jeremey walk across the field towards her. He got her flat collar on and Flexi-lead which will only be used for tracking. She was ready to go. He talked her up and turned up the excitement of what she was about to do by a gazillion percent. She was pumped up. You want the dog to be crazy excited about the task at hand. Well....we were off. She "arched" (kind of like an S motion) a few times to find the scent. Right now, she's picking up Jessa's scent because that's who she knows. Ultimately, it'll be Zachary's scent she picks up regardless of who he's with. She lost the scent and slowed down a couple of times but would "snap" her head and move towards the scent once she picked it up again. Jeremey gave her an excited prompt like "Where'd he go?" to keep the motivation when she was loosing the scent in the widest area of the scent cone. This was unbelievable to watch. She really was doing search and rescue. She continued to "arch" in a tighter pattern until IT HAPPENED....she got THE scent. She was in a narrow part of the scent cone, and she was pumped up. When I tell you she took off like a bat-out-of hell, it's an understatement. Her whole body posture and the way she was running was like nothing I had seen the past couple of days. Jeremey flew foward with her, and she pounded the field over grass and through the brush and did not slow down until she found them. I couldn't keep up with them. Jeremey was not jogging at the end of the lead, he was running. It was insane. They went wild when she found them....you have to act like the MOST excited person in the world and present her with the mega-reinforcer to drive the point home that what she did was not just good but the most awesome thing in the world. And, for us, it really was!
ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY AMAZING!!!!
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