Out and About!

We're on a roll! As the lectures and commands get completed, more and more time is been spent on practical exercises. While all class topics are important, Daily Life on Saturday (yes, we had class on Saturday) was critical in giving us an understanding of life with an Assistance Dog. Yes, they are dogs, but they are not "pets".

Pets don't go to restaurants, the movies or the library but Assistance Dog International certified dogs go every where we go, no questions asked and at no added cost. This Thursday, we take the ADI certification test at a Mall. If we don't pass, we can still take our dogs home (assuming we pass the 2 or so hour CCI Final Exam that morning) but we are not certified to take our dogs into public settings.

Thus, we spent a lot of time these past few days learning the commands for loading and unloading our dogs (car, wait, jump; off, wait, off), practicing that and going on field trips. You should have seen us at Target and Loews!

We were 10 students plus an additional eight family members here with us for training, a handful of trainers plus all our assorted mobility equipment. Of course, we took all the handicapped parking spots! Except me: I couldn't get one so I had to take a regular spot. It was quite a challenge to do the unloading and loading back up, as I brought my travel scooter to practice with so I had that as well as my dog, crutch and pocket book (decided to leave the crutch in the van).

In the stores, we got into a processional line, just like in grammar school, and followed our trainers as we traveled down various aisles. The goal was to make our dogs invisible. Think of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - all they do is look straight ahead while at the same time, know everything that's going on around them.

Just as kids act silly to make such guards lose their composure, our trainers did their best to make our dogs act out. They dropped products with a clunk, stepped right over them and made loud noises. That's Mark in the photo with his dog as Lisa does her best to cause a distraction. Mark's right on top of the situation, just as he is on his life. Despite a paralyzing truck accident, he rides an ATV and flying glider and goes snow mobiling and kayaking.

They also play acted like store customers enamored of our dogs - running up to them, cooing and asking if they could pet them. We learned to command our dogs to remain seated, explain that our dogs are working and offer to allow them to Shake. We keep CCI brochures in the pockets of our dog's Assistance Dog vests that we can hand out.

Whew! Upcoming Field Trips this week are to a Mall, grocery store and Pet Smart. At Pet Smart, we'll finally be allowed to do real shopping.

Life Around Dog Campus

Ah yes, life goes on for us and our dogs outside of class. A big, fenced in area gives us the opportunity to let our dogs run. It was fun to see them go a bit nuts. I need to run off some energy myself! Unfortunately, it's been too hectic to go to the YMCA as often as I had planned. I got there one night last week to swim and hope to get there tonight again as I have a hair appointment on Wednesday.

As the earliest riser, I'm first in the community kitchen to make the coffee. That's followed by taking Fido out. Oops, this morning I forgot my key and was standing outside in my morning sweats, flip flops and crazy hair hoping someone would get up soon and let us in. We all came here as strangers just a week ago and now we're hanging out as family - sharing a cup of coffee and funny stories, going out for dinner, finding someone's lost sock in the dryer and getting annoyed at something or other.

Without cell phone service in the facility, we have to go outside for phone calls. Here's John catching up on emails with his fiance Cindy and their dog. Like Mark, John (who was in a motorcycle accident at age 24) is non-stop. He's a special ed teacher, has been in the Boston Marathon - twice - and is an avid skier. See him on this Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4O4xY02k5I

Speaking of cell phones, I need to get outside to check for VMs and then get us to class!

In the groove and working the program

Gee, Dog Camp is a lot of work! The past three days have been non-stop between lectures, learning the commands, practicing the commands both in the training rooms and outside, reading informational handouts and completing the take-home quizzes every night.

Whew, as a consequence, here are two commands that were needed multiple times throughout the day by us as well as our dogs: Release (relax and take a breather) and Hurry (it's time to potty). Above at the left, we are doing a joint Release!

Imagine - there's a command to tell the dog to relax! That's because otherwise he is on command, which is work, and that creates a certain amount of stress. And yes, Hurry is a command to "go to the bathroom". Actually, the toilet process is to command him to the spot where you want him to relieve himself, give the command Release so he relaxes a bit and then command Hurry. Guess what - he goes pretty quickly! That means no unending dog walks, praying that perhaps around this corner he'll decide to go and you can get back home. Sounds like good time management skills to me!

We've learned 30 commands so far and have another dozen or so to learn. Here I am as we practice Carry. We had our dogs pick up items from the floor (Get) and then we walked around the room while they held them in their mouths. When we were good and ready, we touched the items while they were still in our dogs' mouths, commanded Give, and our dogs let them go. "Fido" and I got A's on this exercise although some people needed to correct their dogs and try again and sometimes, again and again.

Note than I'm wearing all white! Much of my wardrobe is black but now, a lot of the black will have to go. Tonight after dinner, I ran to the store to get a lint/hair remover roller so the two pairs of black pants I brought won't stay covered with white speckles. The other night I ran to Kohl's to buy these white shorts.

My brain is a little overloaded with all the commands plus all the lectures on Resistance, Canine Communication, Grooming, Canine Learning and Safety & Public Etiquette. Our dogs accompany us to class - see Courtney with her dog (and her son Findlay's dog). The Grooming lecture led to a grooming exercise. Except for nail clipping, they loved it. Especially the tooth brushing - they licked every final bit of toothpaste off the brush.

Speaking of all the classes and exercises, the trainers are magnificent! There's a whole crew and it's clear they love their jobs. They attend a three year apprentice program to become certified as dog trainers. Three years! Of course they fall in love with the dogs they are training but then, those dogs graduate to their owners and a whole new class of dogs to be trained comes on board. I guess it's like being a teacher. Lisa was the trainer for my dog. I've done pretty well learning the commands with good responses but the starting point is great training. Go Lisa! And then, as we've learned, it's up to the handler to be a proper Pack Leader. I'm learning!

I have more to share but it's late and I need to get my clothes out of the dryer. There's a huge laundry room with plenty of washers and dryers, a sink, counter and drying area and plenty of detergent. I didn't need to bring my baggie filled with Tide after all!

I'm going to tip-toe out out to get my clothes because "Fido" is sleeping now. Yes, I have an overnight guest! See him trying out the crate when we got back from training today. It's our first night with our dogs and we'll keep them from here on out.

Notice that he doesn't take up all the space in the huge crate. When I got here, I was taken aback by the size of the crate. One of the trainers explained that the crates were donated and although they are big for our dogs, they were free. Like with any non-profit, donations and volunteers are the lifeline. Thanks to those who donated great crates!

Our last activity today was a group outing to Target. I'll share about that next time! You should have seen us!

Matched!

I got my match but I was informed I can't release the name until after the training so for my blog, we'll use "Fido". Fido is gorgeous and has a gentle, loving temperament. We just finished learning the commands Under and OK. Under is to go under a desk/table/space and take up a small space. I'll need that when I travel on the airplane. OK is to allow the dog to eat food.

I'm on a 15 minute break and have to get back to class. Now it's lecture time about resistance.

To the dogs!

Week One, Day 1 and Day 2
Settling in, learning the lay of the land and getting started

Dog Camp this week is a combination of classroom lectures and practical exercises with take home quizzes. CCI volunteers arrive in the mid-morning as busy bees in the communal kitchen preparing delightful lunch salads, entrees and desserts. The volunteers are CCI "puppy raisers" who raise and socialize their assignments for eighteen months. Then the dogs are turned over to CCI kennels for training, which takes 6 - 9 months. About 60% of the dogs make it all the way through to becoming a certified Service Dog.

Day 1 classes were Orientation to Team Training, Orientation to the Canine, Correction, Command Introduction, and Kids & Dogs.

There was a lot of information but the bottom line: Dogs are emotional, reactive pack animals. We must be the Pack Leader, handle our emotions, be at-the-ready to praise, correct and react to their reactions to distractions. Yikes, this will be real skill building work.

After the lectures, Day 1 practices began with working with a fake dog - actually, a rolled up rug dubbed Carpet Dog. A trainer held and moved Carpet Dog as the student worked with it. Commands were Sit, Down, Let's Go and Don't. Don't is the correction word used when the dog doesn't do as commanded. It's accompanied by a swift pull of the leash that snaps the collar. While Carpet Dog responded correctly most of the time, there were times he ignored commands and we had to correct him.

Then it was time to practice with real dogs, the dogs to be assigned to us. That was quite a different experience. Most of us weren't as assertive snapping the leash with the word Don't because we didn't want to hurt the dogs. And, we were stupefied on the occasions when the dogs continued to ignore commands and corrections. We just looked at the trainer wondering "now what do we do?" Keep practicing, of course, and build up the confidence.

Day 2 was spent doing practical exercises including a tour inside the facility and outside around the building. We practiced Day 1 commands and learned more commands, practicing first with Carpet Dog. These were heel (sit at the left side), side (sit at the right side) and release (telling the dog he has some time off to just be a dog). Most of us still had to work on getting the dogs to respond timely and appropriately. We have a long way to go!

At the end of Day 2 after having handled about 6 different dogs over the two days, we wrote down the names of the three dogs we were most interested in. The trainers have their opinions based on our written applications and phone and in-person interviews as well as observing us. We'll get a pre-match tomorrow and begin working with "our" dogs. The trainers said sometimes adjustments need to made but generally, the pre-matches work out.

Everyone's nervous as we've all handled some dogs that felt "good" and some that didn't feel very "right". The trainers cautioned us not to pre-judge matches because we've had limited time with the dogs and circumstances are abnormal so nobody is at their best - dogs or humans.

Life outside of training

Dinner each day is on our own as well as breakfast, so most people went out to the nearest grocery store the first evening to stock up. The community kitchen is huge with lots of refrigerator and freezer space and plenty of kitchen appliances and tools.

The first two nights I enjoyed home cooked dinners with a nice group including (in the photo from the left) Melanie, her mom and Patrick. Melanie is an adorable, 11 year old dynamo in her wheelchair who is one of the nation's youngest sit skiers as well as rides horses! At the age of just 18 months, a virus attacked her spinal cord and left her paraplegic. Patrick, another baby-boomer like myself, has trouble walking due to surgery on a spinal cord tumor that took away the tumor but damaged nerves involved in walking.

Now it's time to do some laundry and complete today's take-home quiz! Wish me well on my Match tomorrow.

I'm finally here!

It was a delightful, arduous, exciting and overwhelming day but I am here. The goal was to get to the CCI campus by 5:00 p.m., when the front gates close. It was 4:46 when I drove through, whew.

The delightful part was the lovely Lunch Connection in Fairfield, CT before I boarded the Ferry. Elizabeth and her husband and adorable son, Cheryl and Mark and his wife met with me. The arduous part was the three hour drive to get there, mostly in the rain. The exciting part was taking my van on the Ferry to Long Island (took 1 1/2 hours).

Finally getting here and having it all begin to sink it is a bit overwhelming, on many counts.

The "Miller Family Campus" of Canine Companions for Independence, completed and opened just last summer, is quite a campus indeed. I feel like I'm back at the U and need to find the Union.

My dorm room (one of 11) is clean, sparse, and huge. It has all the basics plus one notable difference: there's a huge, and I mean HUGE, crate in the corner. OMG, I thought. This dog is going to be the Lock Monster. Honestly, I had a sudden, serious doubt about this.

I saw most of the other participants at the Orientation Dinner, held in a large, communal kitchen that opened up into a huge, open living room with a big TV, sofas, chairs and game tables. We didn't have an opportunity to chat, though. A trainer just had us each say our names and where we were from. Then she spoke about program and campus rules and responsibilities and gave us a tour of the meeting and training exercise rooms. She emphasized how intensive and tiring the days were and suggested we be sure to rest and eat well. Ok, another doubt welled up...

She also informed us that we don't have cell phone service here. It's a bad location plus the building is brick. Maybe not having cell phone service was part of the plan so that people would pay attention better? Let's add another descriptive word for this day: challenging!

There were four baby-boomers about my age - a man using a manual wheelchair, another man using a walker and a woman using an electric wheelchair plus myself with my forearm crutch and travel scooter. There were two elementary school age boys with significant challenges in power wheelchairs who with their moms. The program is also for disabled kids, offering assistance to the team as well as companionship and socialization for the kids. Finally, there were two young, bright women, each in manual wheelchairs, one by herself and one with her mom. Quite a diversity of situations! I wondered what each of their stories were.

So it all really begins tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m. Turns out they have coffee available in the kitchen. Whew. I had brought some coffee and paper filters just in case. What would I do without java and guess what: it's DD coffee. They also provide towels, which I had brought just in case, and bar soap so hadn't needed to bring that, either. But there were no cups at my bathroom sink! My hand will need to be my cup after brushing my teeth tonight.

My first evening tomorrow after my first long day will entail grocery shopping. And not just for bathroom cups. People are on their own for dinner as well as breakfast so I'll need to stock up on easy to make dinners. Think I'll take my cell phone with me so I can call someone from the outside world.

Exchanging one dog for another...

I'm just about ready to head out to Long Island to go to Dog Training. Most everything is ready to load up into the van - just need a final think-through and look-through. I almost forgot that I probably need my own towels! The Residence Hall is not a hotel. Maybe I need to also bring my own coffee. Hope they have a laundromat.

While waiting for my final clothes to finish drying and the last dishes to finish washing, I printed out Mapquest directions to Tucker's Cafe in Fairfield CT for my lunch with a few folks before boarding the Ferry, from the Cafe to the Ferry, from the Ferry to the Canine Companion Campus and from there to 1) a Hair Salon where I have a hair appt next week and 2) the YMCA where I pledge to keep up with PT and exercise. Oh yes, I do have GPS in the car but people who know me understand why I still need to do this... sigh. Love those lists, reinforcements and back-up plans.

One last minute task was taking the photo above. I forgot to share that I indeed already have a dog - well, sorta. I bought this "breathing dog" at a kiosk in the mall a few years ago. He's so cute! And with his battery, his belly moves up and down and you can hear breathing. I had a fun time when people came over and saw my new dog napping on the couch. Hope he doesn't get jealous...

Ok, time's crunching, time for that final check before loading up.

About to enter a Dog's World

Countdown to heading from MA to Long Island for an on-site, two-week Assistance Dog Training Class … if all goes well, I’ll return home with “Fido” …

As you see, I can put my (lightweight) travel scooter in the trunk but I do have some trouble walking. I have a rare neurological condition that affects the muscles in my legs. I use a forearm crutch to get around but need a scooter for distances.

It took nearly two years to get called. The process required a written application, phone interview and doctor referral. After all that was approved, I traveled to NY for an in-person interview. Then, I took my spot on the waiting list.

The Labrador Retrievers are fully trained – it’s the humans who needs training. Training is intense with lectures, group practice and individual instruction as well as field trips. There’s no guarantee – there are tests to take and proficiency to prove. It was a real eye-opener when the thick training notebook arrived several weeks ago. Fortunately, it came with two CDs, which I’ll listen to as I drive to NY. (Ssh, don't tell, but my friend Leslie with MS sent me her notes from her Training Class last February - she loves her dog Wheeler!)

Honestly, I had my doubts. It’s a major commitment and undertaking with 24-7 responsibility. I’m at our FL home about ½ the year and 75% of that is alone, as Ed’s still working. So the bottom line and pooper scooper will be all mine a lot of the time. However, being alone in FL is one of the reasons I applied and so I’m embracing the opportunity.

The trip begins with a 3 hour drive to Fairfield CT. There, I’ll enjoy lunch with a few people involved in an online support group for our health condition. Then, I’ll take the 1 ¼ hour ferry to Port Jefferson, Long Island.

The Canine Companions for Independence facility is in Medford. The 11 acre campus features 35 kennels, exercise yards, a wellness clinic and grooming facility, kennels and play yards. The Residence Hall has 11 dorm rooms and a community kitchen, dining room and lounge. There are 5 training and meeting rooms. That will be my "home" and "school" for two weeks.

Tonight I finish packing and getting ready for my drive tomorrow. Let's see: clothes, personal care items, Training Workbook and CCI materials, camera, pocketbook, magazines and books, gym clothes & bathing suit for exercise/PT at the YMCA, crutches, scooter and battery charger. Oh yes, I still need to make sure my daughter Julia comes by everyday to feed my two Fighter Fish while I'm gone. Hope they'll get along with Fido. And of course I need my laptop! The campus has WIFI, whew.

Stay tuned!

For information about the Canine Companions for Independence program, visit www.cci.org