Last night was so exciting! Well, it was exciting for me. I walked with Showbo from my house to the swimming pool. We walked down the side street, turned onto the street with the main entrance to the pool, and then it happened. Showbo took a pooh in the grass when I stopped to adjust my towel. I, being the responsible person that I am, picked it up all by myself. Go, go, go me!
Team training took place again today, and the recipients and the dogs acted as if this was another vacation day. That would have been nice, but oh well!
Showbo and I began our day with a visit to CPL’s vet, because she needed to do a check-up on Showbo’s skin infections. I did not receive a great report. In fact, I am in tears as I write this. Please be continuing to pray for us! Showbo’s skin infections have not really improved, but they have not gotten any worse, either. We need to visit the vet again on Wednesday for another chech-up, and the vet will teach me how to dip Showbo. Depending on Showbo’s progress by Wednesday, Showbo may have to use another medication. I was looking forward to finishing this bottle of pills, but I guess that is not going to happen anytime soon. This is getting to be a lot of work, but Darleen said CPL will help me give Showbo the dips in the future, if necessary. This whole thing is so not fair! I wish the devil would just back off!
Well, after doing some crying, I returned to the rest of the group for training. We finally learned the proper way to teach certain vocabulary words to our dogs. Today, we used a phone, and Showbo was a natural, as always! We again had a wonderful lunch, including enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Oh, our trip to the zoo tomorrow has been cancelled, because of the weather. Darleen thinks our dogs perform good in public anyway, and we need to practice some more commands.
We had yet another lecture after lunch about access, and Nikki, the president of CPL, shared her experience with John Hopkins in reference to her service dog. That story sounded like a major nightmare, but she survived it all!
Then, chaos broke loose. We used 4 different things to have our dogs practice tugging, which were 2 full laundry baskets, a long broom and a large mat. Showbo was the first dog to try the broom, but it began unsuccessfully. Then, one of the trainers helped by holding the broom near the dog’s mouth and lowering it little by little until it was back on the floor. Showbo finally accomplished this task, with ease!
Tugging a full laundry basket went smoothly for us, and Showbo kept everything in the basket. Yea! The basket was the last thing that we did, and then we came home. I am really having trouble having Showbo retrieve something from one of the stairs. She continuously wants to run right by it. I may use the click and treat with this problem, but who knows? Currently, I push the item to the bottom of the stairwell, and she retrieves the item with absolutely no difficulty.
Since the days are getting shorter, and graduation day is almost here, we were all given a problem question to answer. My question relates to a service dog growling
At specific family members. Please remember this issue does not reflect Showbo in any way at all.
Anyway, if a service dog does this growling, it must be for a reason, because these dogs are very smart! I am just kidding. If the dog growls, first make sure the person has not abused the dog in prior contacts with the dog. If this growling occurs with a person whom the dog usually appreciates, there must be something else happening in the dog’s brain. Immediately when the dog growls, say a firm no to the dog and hold its mouth shut. If the growling persists, pinch the dog’s ear until it hurts. When this same person enters a room containing the dog, and the dog does not growl, be sure to give the dog praise tenfold to the punishment.
If this is not a good, or an incomplete, answer to the question, I will tell you the correction tomorrow.
It is now time for bed. Good night.