Day 6 - September 20

I don’t know if I have mentioned this yet but the weather is absolutely amazing.  Today the high will be 28 degrees!  Luckily I was optimistic and brought lots of summer clothes.  Looks like it will be this way for our whole class.

So, with that beautiful weather, we are off for a long walk with our substitute trainer, Gloria, to downtown Oakville.  Don’t get too excited—I think downtown Oakville lasts about 5 blocks.  There was a good long stretch to get us going east along Rebecca.  Then we turned towards downtown.  Here I messed up because Bill had stopped on the other side of the road and I didn’t hear him do this.  I think Gonzo stopped but I was probably in mid stride.  I had to really manage my balance to be sure not to fall over any dogs.  I’d rather fall than hurt one of the dogs.  Luckily I stayed on my feet, but I think Gonzo was a bit spooked by his clumsy handler.  In that block he came a little too close to something that felt metallic, so we quickly reworked it without too making too much of a big deal.  That’s because when I hit my hand I never know if it’s my hand that has been flailing about. J Going through downtown he did a good job.  I had my hand touch a person on the way by.  I apologized and just asked Gonzo to pay attention but not in a correcting voice.  Towards the end of downtown my hand was again brushing a patio fence, so I asked for an over left and that was fine.  He even ignored a small child reaching out from her stroller for a pet while we were navigating a wooden detour that went out onto the road around a sidewalk patio.  All very good.  Nice positive walk.

In the afternoon we were heading down to Starbucks.  I think it was going to be Tim Hortons but with the nice weather Starbucks has a large patio for us to enjoy.  The reason for a trip like this is not just for us to be lazy and enjoy a coffee (in my case a cinnamon bun) but to have our dogs be in public and behave themselves while we’re socializing.  They all did pretty good.  Duncan, who is a gentleman around 80 years old, is having some problems with his dog listening to him.  One thing our trainer, Courtney, tells us is to always remember to drop the harness handle once the dog is done guiding us.  That gives them more freedom to lie down or sit.  When we are new dog guide handlers we never want to let go of that harness. 

This outing was pretty interesting since the whole class came. There are all different levels of ability and speed so it was work for the two trainers to keep us close enough together.  On the way down Kerr Street Gonzo had a mental melt down.  There were stairs at the side of the building facing us.  Upon review it looks like he was thinking about going up the stairs, but at the last second said nah, I should follow that other dog.  But to show how late that decision was, I got the railing of the stair right in my stomach on my left side.  It really hurt and Gonzo could tell he had hurt me, or at least that I was hurt.  Once I got myself under control we reworked the stair obstacle again.  He still didn’t get it but we moved on to Starbucks.  

We were sitting around chatting about what Gonzo did.  The trainer, Gloria, said, “We should go back and rework that accident, we didn’t get it on video.”  She said this as if she was totally serious, which had us all dumbstruck for a second, before Courtney, the other trainer, started laughing and said that that was the last thing she expected to come out of Gloria’s mouth.  “Yes, we video the crashes, add sound effects and put them on YouTube to see how many hits they get,” Courtney joked.  Everyone was having a great chuckle imagining our trainers following us with their cell phones waiting for something YouTube worthy to happen.

Somehow we got on the topic of galoshes.  Considering it is 28 degrees, who can remember how that came up?  Sarah was asking what galoshes were.  People were trying to explain them.  “They are like over shoes” and “use them in the winter for snow and slush” and “salesmen used them a lot so their shoes don’t touch the ground.”  Sarah asked, “Do they go over their legs?”  Finally someone popped up with “they are shoe condoms!”  Everyone broke out laughing.

On the way back we took a longer route.  We did some country walking.  This is where there is no sidewalk and the dog is to hug the edge of the road.  That went pretty good for us all.  Just had to keep reminding our dog to go over left to keep them hugging the edge.  On the road back to school, one block had a lot of things on my right, like planters, parking meters and those grey poles with signs.  I think there was even a grate for him to navigate.  He did great with me not brushing anything.  He even forced himself to walk over the grate.  He had to fight his fear but he did it.  We got back to that staircase and Courtney wanted to rework it a bit to see what he was doing.  Courtney yelled to the class “wait a second we are working something.”  We did the stair obstacle several times and he wasn’t really getting it.  Courtney ran him through it and got him to move when he needed to.  The last time I did it, with some encouragement, he got over far enough that I missed it.  Courtney looked towards the class and they had gone.  Oh brother.  They are all confident and they did stop at the next major intersection, but it was funny because Courtney asked them what did she say and, as a whole, they chimed “to keep going.” <Chuckle>

After supper I had a relaxing night.  Got caught up on some work.  There is something wrong with my air conditioner and it’s like a hot summer day in here.  So I took my computer with me and sat outside in the beautiful warm air.  As I was sitting there Sarah and Sandra returned from going out for supper.  We had stew tonight and I guess they didn’t like it the last time they had it.  It would have been nice to get out for supper.  Maybe one of these nights this week I’ll see if Bill wants to go out.  The food is great here but sometimes it’s nice just to get out.

After the girls arrived Bill returned from dinner with some friends.  Soon we had a whole group hanging out and socializing.  Roy, a parent from the autism program, came by to say goodbye because he was flying out early the next morning.  He got the overnight staff person to take a group picture and texted it to us all.

Another fun day over.  Tomorrow looks to be a slower day with pictures, a client services talk and gift shop opening.  Oh yeah, some are going to the pet store but I was able to bail out of that to do a walk with Greg.  Had a relaxing night and got caught up on some work.