Got up this morning and made our way to the prison. On the way we stopped for some breakfast. Sally did incredible. She got up a couple of times and just rested her head on my leg. After breakfast we headed on down to the prison. Got in and started the training with Sally. First we walked up and down the hallway. At each end Terry had the ladies give me a command to use. There were a couple that I hadn't dealt with before so they explained them to me. One was "Turn". Upon receiving this command Sally turned in a circle. Normally used for when you groom her, if I would have had a brush she would have turned 180 degrees to let me brush her other side. We worked on the basic command to include "Sit", "Down", "Stay", Then I was taught "Back". This command is good if she is heeling and gets ahead of me. I can stop and tell her "Back", and she will back up to where I want her to be. We also worked the command "Behind", this command Sally positions herself behind me leaning up against the back of my legs and watches behind me. The photographer came out and took some pics of us working with Sally and combining commands. Today was a little bit easier. Concentrated more on working with Sally than other thoughts that normally clutter my mind. There were a couple of times that both Sally and I got caught off guard as we were working in the hallway but we both just kept moving.
After the work in the hall we moved back into the classroom and started working on the more specific commands that the trainers have been working on for me. "Pay Attention", and "Alert". As we were going over these commands Karen and I started talking about last night at dinner and this morning at breakfast. The few times that Sally got up and moved around we started wondering if she was doing these 2 commands. For the pay attention command Sally has been trained to nudge my leg if anyone comes up towards me. Particularly from behind but the ladies said today she has done the same for people from the sides. As we thought about her getting up and her reactions when she did get up she had nudged us both as the waitresses had come up to the tables. Karen and I both gave some input as to possible ways to refine the training since Sally is the first of the paws4vets dogs to receive this training. Now they are looking at training those dogs for the vets to lay facing out from under the tables or to the sides so as increase their range of vision and help even more with the pay attention command. It was real neat to see how the training can modify as more is learned and more comes in from those of us that are benefiting from the dogs.
Before Sally and I took off to spend the afternoon together Terry assigned me some homework. I was to work with Sally on the basic commands that we worked on today. I have now done it for the third time. Sally is such an incredible dog. Although you could see that she was getting bored. We did pretty good. The first time was the roughest but now Sally is starting to understand me a little better. We just got back from a 10 minute walk. That is something I haven't felt comfortable doing for quite a while!!! It was nice having some company I could talk to and enjoy the fresh snow with. Now I think she is worn out at least she is laying down and relaxing. I am going to cut this post short as I am sure I will have more later this evening after we get back from Dinner and a store.
