Gary & Gonzo Guide Dog Blog

Things are going well with Gonzo.  In the morning Bill and I were paired again for a walk.  Courtney is funny.  She forgot her debit card at home so she decided we’d walk to her place.  The round trip ended up being about 3.6 km.  It was a nice walk, going north on Kerr with the normal sidewalk obstacles of planters, people and patios.  Once we turned off, there were long stretches without even having to cross any roads.  Bill had success in the sense that his dog pooped again in harness but this time he noticed it, got the harness off and was able to pick it up.  He has had luck relieving the dog in the front area on the grass, so hopefully he’ll not have to deal with frequent relieving in harness for much longer.  We also had a long stretch where there were no sidewalks.  I was following Bill and Ziegler at their normal break neck speed.  I was sharing with Courtney that walking on the road makes me nervous, even when I’m walking...

Today is picture day.  We are all dressed up and meeting at 9 amto get pictures taken in the park.  Amazing weather for the last day of summer.  First we took a group photo of all of us and our dogs.  Next we did an individual pic with us and our dogs sitting on a ledge so the dog is beside us.  Gonzo was doing many poodle head tilts looking ever so cute. Once that is done we went to another part of the park and worked on obedience.  One of the goals is that we want our dogs to sit if we stop to talk to someone.  We had our dogs sit and then go down.  Gonzo’s default position is a sit, but the funny thing he has learned to do is shuffle his sit around to keep watching whatever distraction I might have had him sitting to ignore.  “Hey, I’m sitting,” thinks Gonzo.  Next we were working on the stay command.  For this we are to get the dog to sit/down.  The sit so far seems to be a stable position for Gonzo.  Then we give...

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 s...

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.  Sh...

Today was a good one.  We learned at our 9 am meeting that we would have 3 walks.  Our first would be on the same route as yesterday, except this time I would have full control over the dog, holding both the leash and the harness.  I went out with Courtney for this walk.  As a side note I still haven’t met Gonzo’s trainer.  She became ill on Tuesday last week and had to go to the hospital by ambulance.  Apparently she is feeling better but is not able to continue working with the class. Yesterday it was Greg helping us and today it will be Lori going on the walks with some of the clients.  Gonzo did very well on the first walk with a few small glitches.  On one road crossing he was angling into the road, so I gave him a light correction and asked him to find the curb.  He straightened out immediately and when we got to the curb I gave him some love.  Courtney was saying that Gonzo worries about his mistakes.  He gets that he has do...

Today is our day off, which is too bad since I’d like to get at it.  Slept much better last night except for Gonzo found a way to tell me in the middle of the night that he wasn’t enjoying his kennel.  I checked on him and saw that he was standing, so I let him out.  When you get a dog here you’re supposed to keep them on leash for the first day or two and kenneled for the first few nights and when you do things like go for a shower.  This is because, apparently, a lot of dogs have accidents in the room.  I don’t think this has anything to do with them being house trained.  It’s more to do with them being nervous or making a statement to their new handlers.  I’m a light sleeper so if Gonzo walks around I just listen to where he’s going.  If he gets out of earshot for too long, like in the washroom, I give him a call and he comes back.  After he was out of the kennel he settled and we both slept really well.  Next thing I knew I was rush...