Day 5 - September 19

This morning we’ll walk to Fortino’s, a local grocery store about a six blocks away.  There we’ll be able to practice roaming around, picking up any items we want and doing escalators.  Again Bill and I traveled together.  The walk was pretty uneventful.  The only issues were that Bill’s dog relieved himself in harness again.  Seems to be happening all the time but I’m sure they’ll get that figured out.  

Once at the store we headed for the escalators to go upstairs.  Gonzo got on okay but seemed a bit nervous by the way he was looking around, but he jumped off just fine according to the trainer.  Then Courtney took Bill and I around the store.  Gonzo did a great job of avoiding some displays in the middle of the aisle.  We headed off to the chip aisle where Bill and I picked up some junk food for the rooms.  Courtney gave us a good reminder when Bill spun around about three times trying to get the harness handle.  She pointed out that the dogs work for us, not us for them.  That means in this situation you want to drop the harness handle if you’re holding it, and get the dog to heal.  The dog should then come around behind you to your left side.  It was good to remember this since I’m sure I did dances around Bogart before and shouldn’t do them with Gonzo.

On the way out we did the escalators several times just to make sure my dog was comfortable and I was comfortable with him.  The next two times he seemed much more at ease than the first time so that was probably a combination of us both calming down.

Oh, I forgot to talk about what happened in the store.  Courtney was working with Bill and told me I could wander around if I liked.  So off Mr. Gonzo and I went.  He did some great work like when I took him into a sort of dead-end aisle where he had to turn right and find his way back to the main aisle.  He moved around a central pillar nicely but did end up saying hello to a nice older lady and her basket.  The next aisle we went up we were walking a bit faster and Gonzo moved to his right around a central display, but didn’t give me enough room on my right and I slammed my knee into the edge of a pillar.  Ouch!  I tapped the pillar and told Gonzo to pay attention but needed a moment before I could rework the scenario.  Heading off, only limping a bit, we went down another aisle.  Here, again, Gonzo didn’t give me enough clearance on my right and I bumped into a shopper.  I apologized and told him we were training and asked if he minded staying in the same place while we came through again.  He and his wife were great training tools.  It’s common for dogs to have some clearance issues if the new handler is larger than the trainer was.  Being 6 feet tall with wide shoulders I am bigger than all the trainers here I’ve met so far.  I remember Bogart getting me good a couple of times but it was eventually worked out.

I have to talk a bit about Gonzo here so his agent doesn’t get upset with me.  Being that we are a new team and learning how to work with each other, I tell a lot of stories of things that went wrong.  I try to share the cool things that happen as well but I’m hoping to shed some light on what it’s like training with a new dog.  Gonzo is a sweet dog.  He is eager to please, for a poodle.  He heels perfectly and easily.  His sit is a secondary positon for him.  He will often sit if I stop and talk or can be easily directed to a sit which is wonderful.  He seems to get genuinely upset when he does something wrong especially if ends with me being in pain.  After I hit my knee and was bent over in pain he came up and started licking my hand as if to say “sorry master, my bad.” He is very playful but in a much different way than Bogart was.  Bogart was a much rougher dog and some may say I got him into rough housing with me, but I can guarantee he started it at school when we played. When Gonzo plays he bounces the ball around for a bit and then he starts bringing it to me so I can bounce it for him.  He did that the first day I gave him the ball.  I love how we’re both trying to please each other.

Back to our walk … another lesson was shared with poor Bill as the example.  We were waiting at the curb about a block ahead of everyone else so naturally Bill, who arrived first, turned around to talk to me.  When the trainers arrived they pointed out that his dog was now facing the wrong way and that we always want our dogs to be facing our direction of travel.  Otherwise they’ll start doing things like diagonal crossings, because that is the way they are pointing.  We all know a dog prefers to take the straightest line to its target rather than crossing twice.  It was a good reminder for those times we are with our dogs and talking with others, which happens all the time.  Keep our toes pointed in the direction we are going and turn our torsos to talk.

In the afternoon, Sarah from the communications department came to speak to us about what she did and how important our stories are to the dog school for both awareness and fund raising.  The next speaker was Christine and she went through how the school is funded:  20% through Lions clubs and the rest coming from corporate donations, individual donations and sponsorships.  The school is a charity and receives no government funding.  She also went through who our sponsors were for our dogs.  It cost about $25000 to breed, raise and train a dog guide!  We’ll get all the details in our graduation pack including the details of Gonzo’s sponsors.

After this Courtney gave us our health talk.  She went over what our responsibilities are such as sending in semi-annual vet reports, forwarding any reports from vets and following up to let Courtney know to expect them.  We will have a talk about weight control later.  She also told us the dangers of bloat and gave us an overview of what to look for.  The key information was not to have your dog vigorously exercise 2 hours before or after they eat.  Bloat occurs in deep chested dogs like labs, poodles, German Shepherds, great Danes, etc.  It is where the stomach twists around creating what looks like a figure eight. In a very short time this can cause the dog’s organs to shut down and, if not caught in time, is deadly.

Now that we are all freaked out it is time to feed our dogs and give them two hours before we run in the courtyard after dinner.  They all had a blast down there.  Then I took my dog, huffing and puffing, up to the room where we both got some water and had some down time.  Tomorrow is more walks but I have no idea where.  I’ll have to wait and see.