Self taught behaviours

Paige has developed a number of the behaviours that I wanted ultimately wanted to teach her all on her own.

She quickly figured out that when we stop at a till or a sink or a … that she needs to be flat against the counter and lying down. She developed a behaviour chain all on her own that I named “counter” and we use it all the time.

Another behaviour that she has figured out is blocking. Every time we stop, even if we’re just walking down the side walk, she will stop so she’s standing across the front of me. We went to the bookstore on the weekend to go to a family friend’s book signing. So excited for her (the friend). I can’t wait to read the book. Needless to say, there were a lot of people there that I knew and ended up talking to. A number of times, without prompting, Paige would stand between me and the other person. If we stood there for any length of time, Paige would end up lying down between us with her back towards the other person. Doing this, she guaranteed me space and was still able to watch me and what was going on behind me. It was very comfortable. She seems to know instinctually how much space I need and places herself properly. And our new, custom order leash is a perfect length for her to be doing this.

She has started doing a similar behaviour when I’m at the till at work or if I don’t ask for a counter when at a counter. She lays down behind me, typically facing away and keeps my back safe. It’s really nice at the till at work, the till is open to a partially blind hallway from the back. You have no idea what may be coming up behind you. Paige likes to lay in that hole and insure that everybody has to walk around the till where I can see them. She may not actually be thinking like this, but this is exactly what she’s doing.

Another behaviour that she’s taught herself is “guard my back”. This is where the dog stands in a heel position facing backwards. Paige does this when I’m unlocking the door on the apartment building. This is supposed to be a mildly difficult behaviour to teach. Happily, Paige has decided that she should just do it on her own. Now we just need to work out a better way for her to let me know that there is something going on behind me. Right now I can feel her tense up, either to say hi or to tell somebody to back off. It would be nice if she would lean into me or back up a bit or something similarly unobtrusive that doesn’t involve approaching the “threat”.

All of these behaviours have ended up helping to reduce my anxiety about being out in public and about talking to people or being in a place where my back is open. This is such a liberating experience! I would recommend it to somebody who needs this kind of support and has the ability to deal with training their SD. I was getting towards a point where I was getting worried that soon I would need to add anti-anxiety drugs to my cocktail. I didn’t really want to do this. I thought that a dog would be an excellent support but I had no idea how much. Paige has been life changing for me.

Doctor’s shock and amazement

I went to a doctor’s appointment this morning. My first meeting with him had been a couple weeks ago. He upped my antidepressant and wanted to see how I was doing. Life seems to be going much better. I have more energy. I’m getting more done – house work and homework. I’m making it to classes more often, although this morning I was tempted to stay home (it’s –30 Celsius outside today).

While we were at the Doctor’s, Paige alerted to me. She was looking asleep but when we started talking about Christmas, she altered to me. Christmas is a very stressful time for me. It’s way too many people in way too short a time. I can usually only handle a crowd once or twice a week. Christmas week is nearly 10 days of people straight. As we were talking about it, I started to talk faster. Paige gave me this stare that went straight through my skull. I took a deep breath and patted her. When I explained to the doctor what she did, he was amazed! It was an anit-anxiety tactic that is better and quicker than med with only positive side effects. He was so impressed with how effective Paige was at her job. I didn’t quite know how to explain that this isn’t something that I taught her to do. My Doctor is so interested in Hope Heels. He has so many questions, as do others in his office. This is an entirely new idea in this field. I left him with my email address so that he can send me questions as he thinks of them instead of trying to remember them for when I come to his office. This is a really good office to be introducing SD ideas into as it is the head office of the government’s mental health program. It will reach far into the system I hope.

Back on topic

Wow. It's been over a month since I last published! That's crazy long. I will try to publish more often than that. This blog has kind of fallen off topic since I've been sick again. Telling to outside world about me is one of the first things to go when I get sick. I wanted to make sure I signed in here to let everybody know that I'm feeling better and didn't come to any harm. I'm medically under the care of a doctor again. I had to take some time off and take it easy so I'm struggling with school a little bit but I have no fear of failing any of my classes.

I started this blog to focus on the process of training Paige and the experiences that I'm having while working with her. That focus has mildly gotten lost and I have been looking at me, me, me too much. So here are a few things that I've covered with Paige in the last little bit.

She goes everywhere with me now except for school. It's a very long bus ride for me to go to school. She goes to work, to restaurants, shopping (both grocery and to the malls). A couple of weeks ago, we took our first bus ride. We haven't done it very many time, not nearly as many as we should. I need to work up the length of our bus rides. Once she can go for long enough, she's going to school. Going to school will be a long day for her. Long bus ride there, sit quietly through class and then a long bus ride back home. The bus each way is roughly an hour and includes a transfer.

She's getting pretty good at ignoring people when we're out. Except we're having a bit of a slide back at work. She's getting comfortable, the same people come by everyday and it seems to be a long time for her to behave for so she really wants to say hi to some of them. The sandwich guy came in yesterday with our order and Paige came out from under the counter and followed him until I managed to step on her leash. Then I got the most puzzled look. "Why can't I say hi, Mom?" It will get better. Eventually, when I have a desk job and she has passed her public access test, I don't think it will be such a big deal to say hi to my co-workers.

If ever I disappear, you can always check Paige's blog to see what we're up to. Yes. Paige has a blog. A number of the people who are in the PSD community do and it's how we keep up on each other.

Dark Thoughts - Trigger Warning

I know that there are some people who read my blog who aren't necessarily stable themselves. A trigger warning is to say that there is content in this post that may set them off and that they need to be aware that this could happen.

You may choose to stop reading now or you may continue.

Leaving space

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This is a post that contains truth. This is the truth of living with an emotional instability. This is my truth. I know that I have a few followers who know my Mom. Please don't tell my Mom. She will completely over react and jump off the deep end. Many are going to think that this is really bad but please understand that it isn't as much to worry about as you may think.

Leaving more space.

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Starting actual post

This is not easy to write. This is the part about mental illness that gets hidden. This is the part that is so important to talk about. This is the part that is real and embarrassing. This is the part that really set those that are ill apart from those who are not.

I don't know how to start.

I blogged about how I was not doing well with my sleeping. I had blood work done and nothing showed up wrong chemically. Iron is good and thyroid is good. My GP has suggested that it is related to the changes in medication levels or that it's related to the quality of sleep that I'm getting. I slept until 11:30 today. It's now just of after 9:00 and I am dead tired. Because I'm sleeping so much, I'm getting behind on everything and missing classes and everything else.

But that's not what I'm really here to discuss. Although it may be relevant to the rest of this post, I'm stalling. Why is this so hard to discuss? But this blog is about the truth and I'm trying to be open for educational purposes so I need to write this.

This hidden, secret words: Suicidal thoughts. There. I said them. Typed them actually. It's out in the open and now I can discuss them in full.

About a week ago they started. This is the strongest that they've been in forever! Probably since I was a teenager - high school or early university. They have the rational part of my mind kind of worried but the rest of my mind accepts it as fact and doesn't carry. It may be a good thing that I have a rational part.

I wish I could well describe a week ago to you but when it comes to this the days, and even worse the emotions, blur together and it's hard to say if it was an hour ago or a day ago that I had that particular thought or emotion. But here is what I do remember (It's mostly a series of events):

Two Fridays ago (very beginning of October) Nick and I went out for a fancy supper. Both of our birthdays are in September and we decided to do this instead of buying each other stuff that we didn't really need. Since we were close to the theater, we decided to go to a movie. We went and saw Easy A. Great movie. Go see it. On the way home, I was wondering why Nick wasn't driving faster. He was driving the speed limit but I thought he should have been driving way fast and getting the RPMs on his engine way up. These are very destructive manic thoughts. If I was driving I may have been a menace on the road. I wouldn't have been thinking of caution or the possibility of accidents. You feel invincible when you feel like that. First thing I did: reach in my purse and fish out my debit and visa cards and give them to Nick. It is so easy to spend yourself right into the hole when you feel like that.

That Saturday was the Hope Heels meeting. There was a lot discussed and it was a very long day. The significant parts for this story: I got triggered while they were discussing other patients on the conference call to Holland and had to excuse myself; and I continually bragged about how responsible I was in giving my cards to Nick.

Something else and then something else.

At some point after this, I stopped sleeping properly/normally/what ever you want to call it. For me, sleep patterns have always been significant signs. Sleeping this excessively is termed Hypersomnia. Once of Paige's jobs is to help me wake from this state and get me going. She's trying. Huffing in my face or licking my hand or shoulder. But she's not persistent enough in order to actually get me up. She'll do it for a few minutes and then give up and go lie down for a while.

I've kind of bounced around some. Disinterest in the world, hyper focus, no focus, hyper production, desire to pole (intense), no desire to move, take Paige on really long walks, not get Paige any further outside than it takes to go to the bathroom. I've completely neglected brushing Paige. I've haven't been doing the house work like I normally would have.

Last weekend, I hit bottom and started on suicidal thoughts. I talked with Nick because I was feeling so alone (IF SOMEBODY COMES TO YOU WITH THESE WORDS, LISTEN - don't judge!!! NOT FEELING ALONE COULD SAVE A LIFE!). And I felt a little bit better; a little bit less desperate. But I've made Nick worried. Nick tried to make me promise that if I felt that I was going to, I would call him first. But I know that when you have the pill bottle/knife/gun/... in your hand, you aren't thinking rationally at that point. You are about to do something that should terrify everybody. Thinking to make a call is probably not high on the priority list. There is also a lot of shame involve with it. You know that you are about to hurt so many people who matter to you; whom you love and who love you. I promised him instead that I would keep talking about it and would work really hard to not pull away. No sitting in corners wrapped up in myself.

I talked with my therapist on Tuesday about it. She handled it very well and very professionally. She talked about all of the things I could use as a safety net. (Don't tell people about all the good in their life. It doesn't help. Trust me; I can see it but it just doesn't matter. Instead tell them that they can call you at any time, any hour.) Paige was very cute at this appointment. She selectively disobeyed me. I usually have her lie in front of the filing cabinet. She scooted 3 more steps so that she was in front of my chair. I allowed it. Turns out that there is something deeply therapeutic about a dog lying between your legs with its head on your foot.

I didn't attend classes on Tuesday afternoon. I attended classes on Wednesday. I slept through my first class on Thursday and chose no to go to my second. Thursday was actually a very productive textbook day. Shocked. Friday, Paige woke me up at 4:30. She had yucky tummy. I decided to just stay up after that since I had to be at work by 7am. Disgusting but that's when I usually start if I work that day. So I made it to work on Friday. I think I was home for about an hour and then I climbed into bed. I slept for the rest of the evening.

Saturday. I took Paige to the dog park. We really need to work on recall! Dogs are way more interesting that I am. We stopped at the pet store. I ended up buying her a beef tendon. $3 well spent. She LOVES it! We went to Walmart. I want to start doing crowd training but it turned out to be the wrong place. I got some stuff we needed anyway. Last night, we just stayed in. I got some reading done. Then we watched tv and just chilled.

Today. Slept way too late. 11:30. When I got up, I went to the bathroom, go figure. The point of telling this was that while I was in the bathroom, Paige brought me her beef tendon. I laughed so hard so I thought I would share it with you. I figured, since it was already so late in the morning, Paige probably had to pee like crazy. I put the leash on and then remembered to grab a movie that I wanted to return. While grabbing the movie, Paige grabbed her tendon. When I told her that she couldn't take it outside, she lied down to chew on it and wouldn't move. Fine. Leash off and ate breakfast instead. Significantly later, we finally went out. Marni came over to train Paige with me. Once she left, I fell down a bad hill. On the car ride over to the inlaws, I started to mark. Marking is similar to cutting except that you don't actually brake skin. For me, I use my thumb nail again the inside of my arm. I know that healthy people don't understand this, but in this state it actually feels good. It's like a release. I would offer to post a picture of my arm, but already the marks are fading and I don't think a camera would pick them up. Paige has been working overtime tonight. She's practically glued to my side and won't let me out of her sight. I can't explain the work that Paige is doing but understand that it's important.

It's not a feeling where I need to do something drastic but it seems to be climbing closer that way. I have more stuff to discuss with my therapist on Tuesday.

Everybody hears the word suicide and panics. Please don't. You'll loose the informational message of this post. If you did panic, please calm down and then read this again.

My brain is fried by the tireds. I need to stop writing. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments. I want this to be an honest discussion.

Hope Heels

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to make this announcement. I haven't received any direct "go ahead" yet but I think this is far enough along to make a decision for myself.

There is now an organization in my area, Hope Heels (referred to as HH), that is going to help people train PSDs like Paige. It is an organization composed of psychologists, dog trainers (here in referred to as coaches) and administrative people. So far, everybody is working on a volunteer basis. There isn't any real amount of money yet to run the program. Paige and I are playing a unique role in the beginning of this project. Paige and I are the test team. We advise as to what it is like to truly live with a MI and work with a SD. I also help out where I can with other stuff. Things like we're going to be at a lot of the public fundraising/publicity things.

For more info on HH see their site.

More sleep needed

There is something wrong with me; so far, cause unknown. For the last few days, all I've wanted to do is sleep! Like 16+ hours of sleep in each day. This is crazy. Nobody truly needs this much sleep for nearly a straight week! But I can't stay awake. Today I went to school early for class because I was going to fall asleep if I stayed at home. I know I won't sleep in public so out the door I went. I'm having trouble paying any attention in class. I'm having trouble reading. I can get 2 or 3 pages and then the words stop making sense. Get up, do something, try to read again. But all I want to do is sleep. This isn't good or normal. It's kind of scary. I hope we can figure this out. I went for blood work today. My doctor had ordered it a while ago but I was having trouble getting around to it. I needed to do it first thing in the morning because it was one of those tests that I needed to fast for 12 hours before hand. For me, that means I need to be the first person in the lab in the morning. Trying to get that fitted in my schedule has been difficult. But I'm hoping that something shows up in the lab report. Going to call my doctor and set up an appointment for next week. Does anybody know how long it takes for lab work to get back to the doctors office? I'm hoping that this is something simple like a thyroid that has gone out or a small case of iron deficiency. Here's hoping.

A friend I've never met

I'm part of the list serve at www.psychdog.org and have met some very wonderful people over there. They have been a great support and a great inspiration for me while I've been working with Paige. A good number of them are "unstable." They are working through life situations or medical imbalances while dealing with their own mental illnesses. I don't know many of them very well, in reality, but they are people that I've come to feel close to because we share similar stories. One that I really look up to as a service dog team - we'll call them WonderHandler & SuperPoodle (you know who you are if you're reading this) - recently tried to commit suicide by overdose. It's taken me quite a while to come up with a reaction to this event. I finally managed to open the emails and read the updates today. I'm not sure why it took me so long; maybe I just really didn't want to believe that it could happen to somebody who was so stable seeming. I knew that WonderHandler had her up and downs like the rest of us but this felt heavily out of left field for me. Happily, her husband and SuperPoodle took really good care of her. SuperPoodle was with her in the hospital the whole time and did a fantastic job. He made sure that she stayed awake right after the overdose. He cuddled her and helped with her anxiety. He helped heal her with a ball that caused a smile. *Finally, just now, I'm getting tears in my eyes* I can only hope that Paige can do similar for me on the day that I need it.

Our small community almost lost a valued member. I'm so glad that you're still with us WonderHandler and I'm going to hug SuperPoodle so hard on the day that I meet him for everything that he helped you through.

It is another event in my life that leaves me wondering if I'm actually sick enough to be working with Paige. I've never tried suicide. I've never seriously self harmed because I was scared about what my Parents would do. I hurt but I didn't really want anybody to know because then I would have had to explain it. I'm not as "sick" as others. I've been taking Paige to work with me for the last few weeks. Actually, Paige goes with me everywhere as long as it doesn't involve a bus. I've noticed a difference in myself while I'm out with her. She makes me smile and laugh. She makes me feel calm and confident. I'm starting to smile with my eyes again. The one where you get smile lines around your eyes and you get a twinkle. I lost that smile over a year ago. I don't know why. But it's coming back. She's such good medicine for anxiety. I've always had a bit of anxiety while out of my "safe spots" but as of late, the level of anxiety was getting much higher and the "safe spots" were becoming fewer. I was getting scared that I was going to end up house bound out of fear of the anxiety. But going out with Paige is easy. I feel comfortable and invincible. The dog has a downside: I end up talking to way more people, even if I don't want to.

Most of them are just crazy curious about Paige. She's not a sight dog, I'm not in a wheel chair, why in the world would I have a dog? But I look at what I've just written and I know that Paige is the right medicine for me. Hopefully, with Paige and the "actual" medicine, I won't end up putting up posts like WonderHandler has lately. Prior to Paige, there was a few times where Nick actually told me that he was scared that one day he would come home and find me in the bath tub, bled out. I never even told him which way I would go, but he got it dead on. Now I have one more thing to live for and one more support to rely on: Paige and everything that she has brought into my life (that includes all of my support through HopeHeels - yes, we're officially off the ground - and all my list serve friends, including WonderHandler).

Really, the point to the post was the first 2 paragraphs. The rest of it is just a small look into my mixed up thoughts - I'm sorry if the brain spew that happened there jumps around and doesn't make much sense. Welcome to my head.

What is a service dog?

There is a bit of a debate going on at some of the other blogs I read (see here and here). Both of these blogs are written by puppy raisers for service dog schools. Both of these bloggers are located in the USA. One holds a narrow view of which dog can be a service dog. The other holds a view that can accommodate dogs like Paige.

A service dog is any dog that accompanies their owner in public to help mitigate a disability. There is no limit as to where that dog comes from or who it is trained by. What matters is how it behaves and that it's appearance is kept up. Please understand that not all dogs are going to be on their best behaviour all the time. Dogs are not like wheelchairs, although they fall under the same piece of legislation here in Alberta. They have personalities and needs. They interact with the world separate of their handler and sometimes that smell over there is just too much. The handler should be courteous and kind to the public. Although the questions that we get asked can seem obtrusive at times, people really are just curious. Most don't see a service dog very often. Service dogs come in all shapes, sizes, and breeds. There is no right or wrong answer to this topic. I've seen a Pomeranian and a Saint Bernard be service dogs for different people, for different reasons.

Next time you see a dog out in public and wonder if it is a real service dog, because there are fakers out there, be careful before you judge. Not all disabilities are visible.

Panic Attacks and Skipping Class

Right now I should be catching a bus to go to my 2pm class - Advanced Financial Accounting. But I'm not.

Wednesday (Last week) I ended up having a horid panic attack on the bus on my way home from class. I could feel it starting even before I got on the bus but I got on anyway. Silly me. I just wanted to get home and get safe. The bus ride home from school is almost an hour. So I sat and paniced for an hour. I was amazed that I was able to hold it together and hide it from everybody on the bus. When I walked in the door at home, I just patted Paige while my vision blacked out and tears ran down my cheeks.

Thursday, I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. I would have had to miss my 2nd class in order to make the appointment. But I wussed out and missed both classes. I couldn't leave my house. I took Paige to my Doc appointment.

Friday morning I had to work. I just about missed my shift because I was having trouble leaving the house. On impulse, I decided to take Paige. I left the house nearly on time and I had a great day. I was smiling with my eyes again. You know; where the corners of your eyes crinckle up and your eyes sparkle a little bit. I haven't smiled like that in a very long time.

Over the weekend, I did pretty good but there wasn't anything going on.

This morning, since Paige did so good on Friday, I took her to work with me again. Paige is finding the really long down-stays under the desk difficult. We're only there for 5 hours and we move around some but by the end, Paige is so happy when her vest finally comes off. Even if it's just to put on her rain jacket, as was the case today.

Back to the present moment: I have a mild cold and a bit of a head ache. I used those as excuses to myself as to why I shouldn't go to school. Really, I think a lot more of it is about the bus. Something that I'm going to talk about tomorrow with my counciler.

The worst part of missing class Thursday and Today is the guilt that comes with it. The "everybody else can do it" and the thought that there is something wrong with me that I can't just swallow this and go about what I need to get done. It'll get even worse when Nick asks me how school was today and I have to admit that I didn't go. Not only am I disappointed in myself, but I can see on his face that he is disappointed in me. It hurts not to go but it's terrifying to go.

Paige goes to work

Paige went to work with me for the first time today. I did it on a bit of a whim. I had a really bad panic attack on the bus on Wednesday. It was bad enough that I couldn't make myself take the bus to school on Thursday. I was even having trouble leaving the house today even though there was no bus involved. So I grabbed Paige, her vest, and a bunch of treats and took her to work with me. That is why I have a SD, to go places with me. She did better than I could have hoped. She hung out under the counter and followed me around when I had work to do. She ignored everybody who came in and paid close attention to me. I didn't have to repeat a command twice all day. Way to go Paige. I'm pretty sure she will be coming with me to every shift now on unless I really am going to be so pressed for time that I won't have a chance to bring her back home. Taking the bus is our last obstacle from being able to truly go everywhere with me. I am one happy puppy mommy and service dog partner.

Pictures to follow when I get them off loaded from my phone.

Turkey Day

Not the gobble, gobble kind.

Paige has accompanied me to my psych appointment for the last 2 weeks now, last Tuesday and today. (Oh yeah, I finally found a councilor and for free too.) I'm trying to take her with me where I can. She's doing well for laying for the hour but I have to teach her a "head" command. Lay down, put your head down, you're going to be there for a while. Otherwise, she keeps looking at me like she's bored and fidgeting. She needs to learn that the hardest job a SD has is the 8 hour down-stay.

Paige hasn't been feeling good for the last few days. She ate a lot of hotdogs and cheddar cheese on Saturday when we were doing a public awareness event for PSDs. And it didn't agree. But today she is feeling good. Really good. And she's really happy that she's feeling better. And she has lots of energy! She was smelling everything and watching everything and walking ahead of me (leash still loose). When I had her in a down, she was fidgeting and huffing at me and giving me the "I'm bored" look. So instead of getting going again, after our appointment, I went and got a glass of tea and sat in the cafeteria. More waiting. I usually hate sitting in cafeterias and such unless I can get my back against a wall. But today I felt safe with my back open. Paige was sitting in such a position that she was looking behind me. I knew that she would respond if somebody was going to come up behind me. Good dog.

Hopefully not everyday will be a turkey day. It was super exhausting.

Already I'm getting sick of hearing "look, it's a dog", "isn't she cute", "why would she have a dog". All of these are whispered as we walk by.

Paige passes puppy class

Paige finished her 6 week puppy class last Thursday. Here she is with the certificate. We did the class to help her work on distraction. I put her vest on her during working times and took it off so she could play. I think it helped her understand what the idea of working and that was what the vest means. Over all, I think the class was a huge success.

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Two steps forward and Three steps back sometimes.

I know that I'm not writing as much as I used to. This has always happened with any "journal" that I have kept. When I'm not feeling good, I can't find the energy to write and when I do sit down to write, I seem to have nothing to say. I know: This doesn't seem possible as this is a blog about training Paige and there must still be training going on. True. But the ability to put it into words is what is missing. This is the truly disabling part of mental illness. The good days are good and you function like everybody else. It's the bad times that are so hard and frustrating.

This time around, I'm having a lot of trouble staying organized and being anything that looks like consistent. I have forgotten keys to either my parents or to the apartment at home 2 days in a row. I double checked that I had both pairs with me this morning because I would need them both with me in the next few days. I have forgotten my date book numerous times. And a number of other things. I can't even remember what I've forgotten. And sometimes it's silly. I will end up moving something to the counter that is right beside/above the bag that I'm going to take out the door in a couple of minutes and I'll still manage to forget it. I've been forgetting where I've put stuff down. This is very unusual for me because I have excellent placement memory. If I've seen it, I can tell you exactly where I saw it last. Nick makes excessive use of this ability. "Where are the keys/wallet/novel/phone/...?"

As for Paige, we've had some progress and some set backs. Progress: While working on "Take it" she picked up her nylabone for me the other day and actually took a step with it in her mouth. She missed my hand on the Give but I threw her a party anyway. Getting her unstuck from one spot has been very difficult. I find it very helpful to throw her parties as often as possible when training. It makes it really fun and lets her know when she did something really super.

Another thing we've had progress in is the lean command. I've been trying to figure this one out for a while. The basis for it is shoulder targeting - for the dog to touch stuff with their shoulder instead of there nose, for example. I want her to be shoulder targeting my leg to help me get grounded again when I get anxious. She is going to lean into me with her body weight. I've had a lot of trouble trying to shape her to do this but she does it naturally when she's giving me love. She leans into and rubs on stuff all the time. So I grabbed the clicker and the treat bag and am trying to capture her when she does it. I caught it a few times the other day. After every time I catch it, I approach her and touch her with my leg. She's not moving away any more when I touch her with my leg but she's not closing the distance yet. I'm sure it will come now that we've started on it.

More progress: Paige is getting closer to be able to walk past that Basset hound in the alley. This dog is completely under exercised and neglected. They leave him and 2 others in the backyard all day long. Out of boredom and pent up energy, this dog barks all day and attacks his fence when somebody walks past. He really gets Paige going so I've been working on being able to walk closer. The goal is to be able to walk past the fence without caring. That's the goal. For now, Paige isn't pulling as much when we do get close and she is having more luck paying attention to me. It was funny the other day. I have been trying to get her to "touch" when she hears him. The point is to give her something else to do other than bark. The funny was that she was doing both at once. Touch, bark, touch, bark. It's an improvement. If she's staying close enough to touch, then she's not pulling me down the alley.

The fall back: Paige has forgotten how to walk on a loose leash and is pulling to meet people. Both of these are really bad things. So we've been working on our focusing which helps with loose leash. If she's focusing on me while walking, she can't be ahead of me and she's watching if I turn. To help with this, it's been a few very treat rich walks and slowly I'll start to decrease the treats again. I'm only using low value treats at this point - kibble and small crunchy treats. For her, it seems to be more about stuff landing in her mouth than what that something is. But I do need yummier stuff for any new behaviour. With meeting people, she just has to get it through her skull that she can't. Which means that every time we meet somebody on the street, she has to ignore them. If she can't ignore them than she definitely doesn't get to meet them. If she does keep her focus on me, then she can say hi, if the circumstances are appropriate. I've suspended outings until these issues are cleared up. I can't have a SD pulling me down an aisle in Safeway to meet somebody.

And so, training continues.

The first sign of fall

It doesn't look like much but there is a fallen leaf on her back.

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Creating it along the way

When I started this journey I came up with so many tasks for Paige to do. Wake me up. Remind me to take my pills. Take me out if I get stuck. As I'm teaching these tasks, I'm noticing that I'm finding other ways to cope with many of these things. To teach Paige to wake me up, I have to wake up to get her going. In taking my pills on time, I have to get Paige excited to go and find the pills. Once some of these are trained, I may take it easy and let her do it for me or I may stay in the routine of just doing these things. When you are dealing with a psychiatric service dog, you aren't training for every day. You're training for the bad days. The days when you need somebody to haul you out of bed and kick you out the door. The days when you need somebody to say "take your meds" because other wise you would have forgotten. Right now, while I'm having good days, I keep forgetting the reason that I'm training these tasks. I think "why am I training Paige to get my pills. I can do it just fine on my own. And I've created other cues to help alert Paige that also alert me." This morning I woke up to Paige's new pill signal and got her all excited to find the pill case and for her to be able to get the cheese (her super high value reward) that is inside of it. Then I fell back into bed for a couple more hours without taking the pills. Don't worry: I remembered them at breakfast. Many people suggest using a "service human" to help with these things instead. Good idea. Downfall: a person isn't going to be available all the time. I need to be self sufficient, even on the bad days, and Paige will allow me to do this.

The major task that I'm training Paige for is public access. This is the one that I want probably above all others. An example: The other day I went to walmart to get a few things. This is my local walmart that is the smallest in the city. Nothing has moved in that store in the entire time that it's been in that location. Guess what: They are rearranging the store! Anxiety: 7/10. I thought I was going to melt. But I found what I needed. I came home and just stayed at home for the rest of the day.

Wish me luck. Today we're going to safeway but I'm taking Paige with me.

The bad. The good. And a concrete truck

The bad:
I think Paige is developing a barking problem. From the dog who didn't bark for the first 8 days that I had her to a dog who attacks the front window and pulls me down the street to bark at something. I miss the other dog. On Saturday, we were walking down an alley and she suddenly paused. I tried to get her moving forward again. Instead she attacked a 8', solid wood fence. I had accidentally managed to get the leash attached to the key ring that holds her tags instead of the heavy ring on her collar. She pulled the key ring apart, and it was a pretty heavy duty key ring. Luckily, since she was so busy barking at the fence, I was able to get the leash back onto her collar. And through all of this, I only ever heard a couple of growls from the other side of the fence. After I managed to pull her away from that fence, I had to go strait home. I couldn't do it. Right after we got home Nick showed up. I just showed him the pulled apart key ring and fell into his arms crying. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Why is this starting? Marni and I are going to go for a walk on Wednesday and see if we can't figure it out. I'm wondering if I didn't rush into my selection of the dog. This was something that I was worried about when I agreed to her and now it's escalating. And the worst part, when she does this, there isn't anything I can do in order to regain her attention. I'm glad I got Paige at 5 years old. I'm learning a lot about what I want in my next dog but I'm not going to be tied to her for too long.

Later in the evening on Saturday, Nick was rough housing with her a little bit. At one point she yelped - he said that he put pressure on her in the wrong way. She went to nip at him. When he moved backwards to avoid the bite, she lunged in further and snapped at the air in front of his face again. One corrective nip I could understand. The second one was inappropriate. I feel like I'm making this sound worse than it really was. After the walk we just had, it was just too much on me.

The good:
Sunday we decided that we wanted to buy Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii so we walked over to the local future shop. I took Paige because I thought it would be a good training exercise. On the walk over, we passed one dog and I had a dog in a working vest lunging and barking. I was so embarrassed. This is not how a dog in vest is supposed to act.

At Future shop, she took a little bit to settle in but then she was a super service puppy. Following me attentively with her eyes and moving with me when I moved. She's even starting to figure out what to do when I turn into her after stopping.

After Future shop we decided we were hungry so we went to Red Robins. Paige did her first restaurant. She climbed under the table under the booth readily. But she wasn't comfortable. She was stress panting and kept shifting around. After ordering I decided that we should go and practice bathrooms. I thought it would be a nice break from being under the table. Once we get there, of course the toilet in the large stall is plugged so we got to try and figure out how to fit a large dog into a small stall with me. I will say this: It can be done but it's clumsy. How do you move a dog in far enough to be able to close the door? Turns out that it's easiest to get the dog positioned where you would like them and then close the door over them when they are lying down. Who'd have guessed? Then it was back under the table. Paige decided that she should turn around this time so that she could look out. Voila! Much less stressful. And then boredom kicked in part way though the meal. She kept huffing at me. But I was very impressed with how long she lasted. When we go out of there, she was so done. It was vest off on the way back to the apartment so she could just be a dog. The lessons learned: Should have done a fast food restaurant before a sit down one; If there is more than 2 of us in the booth, Paige is going to have to lie on the floor outside of the booth.

And our final point: This morning we passed a concrete truck. Paige looked at it with her ears pricked up but didn't show any startle or fear. Good girl.

Paige update

Paige's training marches forward, except now we're having to go back and do stuff that was kind of solid before. For example, I'm on a med now that makes me sleepy and sleep really hard, and she's not doing her wake ups at all. With the lower bed, she's just sticking her head onto the bed (if she's doing that much) which isn't enough to wake me up. I wrecked her signal for "down." I used to just point at the floor but then I started pointing at stuff that I wanted her to paw target. So now I'm building a new signal to mean "down".

On the other hand, we have lots of new stuff. She will "give me 5". She turns in circles. This was hard to teach. I tried for a long time and then had to get creative. Puppy (a stuffed toy) sometimes is sometimes the best answer to problems. I got her all excited and when she spun in a circle, I clicked. The click means "I just did something and have to figure out what it is". It only took a couple more tries to get it figured out.

She also is getting very good at "take it" - to hold an object in her mouth until I ask for it. She's even starting to take a step with it in her mouth. Ulitmately, the task will be "find it" + "bring it" + "give it". A couple of days ago I asked her to pick up her leash. The first time she looked at me like I was retarted. "We don't put our mouths on that mom." Now she's doing it but she's still very hesitant with it.

She's getting good with the lamp. She's even starting to put her paws up on the dresser to reach it. And she gets really excited about that one. Now I just need to figure out how to build it into a wake up chain. Alarm goes off, she turns on the lamp, and then she jumps on me. That's what I want.

Nick is for me

I feel like I haven't posted in such a long time even though it wasn't that long ago. Still so much has changed, again.

After my last post, I finally lost it. I told Nick to stop talking to me for a bit. Completely stop. I said "I can't miss you if you won't go away." I really needed some space. During this time, Jenn acted as an messaging service when we needed to get hold of each other. Thank you Jenn. We had arbitrarilly picked last Saturday as our day for re-evaluation of our situation. I got so excited about seeing him. I dressed up and did my makeup and even put on perfume. If you had an idea of how often I did that, any of that, this was a big deal. I wanted to dress up for him so badly. At any rate, we're back together. I am going to be moving in with him again in the future. But I want to wait some more for that because he still needs to get his cleaning habits under control. We're also going to go to councilling together. We want to make sure that this works. But I have my hubin back (think a not quite husband). I know I'm missing stuff that happened but right now is good and I have hope about Nick and me.

We both also noticed on the same day - while we were not talking - that all of this started when I came off of my birth control. The headaches were becoming so bad that my doctor and I decided that we needed to try something. Since headaches is a common side effect for hormonal birth control, we decided to remove that. Within a week the headaches were gone. The week after that, I lost my mind and drastically changed life and left a lot of hurt behind me. Was the horomone balance involved in that? It's possible. I'm going to stay off of it for now. Let the horomones settle down. Maybe I'll reconsider it in the future. Maybe we'll try something that's non-hormonal. We'll see.

Paige at Winners.

I forgot to post this sooner. Enjoy

Service puppy at the grocery store

I figured that I would take Paige out on a really challenging outing. She did so well at Winners last week that I figured I would give a shot at this. I took it on with the understanding that we may end up abandoning a shopping cart half way through the trip. It wasn't going to be that long of a trip. I needed just a few items.

I am very proud of Paige and how she did. She had to work on getting focused when we first got there. It's still taking her a little bit to get into "the zone". Once she was there, she was spot on. There was even one point where we were walking forward and I said "wait" and she stopped on a dime. Perfect. She stayed right beside me the whole time, paying attention to where I was and what I was doing. I only had to use "leave it" a couple of times when her curiosity got the best of her. She didn't solicit attention at any point. I had her lay in front of the self checkout terminal. The girl monitoring the system said "I wish my dog was that well behaved." We seem to be gathering complements no matter where we go.

One thing that we do need to work on is simply walking around the community. When we were walking home, I just left her in vest because my hands were full and the bags were heavy. We saw a dog on the way. I told Paige to stay and she did, but she was talking her fool head off trying to convince the dog to come over. I'm very proud of the other owner. She asked if they could come say hello which let me respond "not right now. She's in uniform." But this is something that we need to practice more.

Paige's biggest outing to date

Yesterday, after a particularly disheartening visit to the apartment (No, I don't want to actually talk about it), I decided I needed a little retail therapy. So I called up Joce and we decided to go to my local Winners. Since it's a really quiet Winners (as far as Winners goes) in a fairly quiet mall, I decided that it would be good exposure for Paige.

I did go in with a purpose. I wanted a new wallet. Note to all who live with an illness like bipolar or who deal with somebody who does: Shopping without a solid objective is DANGEROUS! Like "do not try this at home" dangerous. Money runs out of your fingers like water and you end up with a bunch of stuff that you don't even remember buying.

Anyways, I wanted a wallet. All of the wallets were on a 4 sided little square stand. I figured this was a good practice for positioning and for waiting for Paige. So I had her lay between me and the first side and wait while I rooted through the shelf (sometimes I really hate Winners because of the lack of organization). Then we moved to the second side. I had to reposition Paige so she was between me and the rack again. I found the wallet that I wanted there but in the interest of practice I did the other two sides as well. Paige positioned perfectly on both of those sides. Yeah Paige. I even *accidentally* dropped a wallet on Paige at one point. She didn't even flinch. She gave it a "What?" look but didn't break the down or make any sounds.

We then wondered through the purses and the clothing with Joce. I practiced a lot of turns (both into her and away from her) and stops. After a bit, she was very mindful of where I was. I didn't run into her if I turned and never had to ask her to stop or let her know that I was moving again. I did manage to find a shirt that I wanted to try on but I decided to leave it behind and that we would do dressing rooms at a later date. We had already been in the store for about 45 min. Then we goofed around looking at all the little knick-knacky things up by the tills. And then we paid. Again, Paige showed that she knew exactly what to do at the counter and flopped down at my feet against the till. The hardest thing I am ever going to do is to get this dog to hold a sit without lying down.

As we were leaving Winners, the security guard in the mall gave me a chance to practice my access challenge skills:

"Sorry, but we don't allow pets in the mall."

"She's not a pet. She's a service dog in training."

"Oh, I see her badges. Most of the dogs have longer capes."

"I prefer the vest during the warm weather" (I don't actually own a cape - yet. I'm going to get one for winter because her heavy coat is going to hide her little vest)

"We've had some problems with people bring their pets in."

"Thank you for asking me about her. I understand that pets aren't allowed in the mall."

During all of this I had a confident smile on my face. I didn't feel that confident inside, but nobody can see your insides.

After we left the mall, we decided we wanted to stop at the dairy queen across the street. We ordered. When I went to pay, for some reason I mildly tangled in the leash, tripped over my own feet, and ended up stepping on Paige who was lying in front of the till. Paige didn't even flinch. I got a "what are you doing?" look but no other response. Good girl. After I had her positioned underneath the table, a group of giggling teenage girls came in to select a frozen cake. I don't know if Paige has ever seen this type of person before, let alone 3 of them. She remained under the table but turned to face them. She watched them so intently but didn't move a muscle. Some people say that the dog's head should be down all the time when they are out but I don't feel that's necessary. I'm perfectly okay with her watching the going ons so long as she's not soliciting attention or looking for dropped food. Especially during her exposure training that we're doing right now. I figure if she gets to see everything, than nothing is going to be surprising later. For her to be steady will be helpful on the days when I'm not.

It was a huge outing for Paige. We were out for over an hour. We walked past all sorts of smelly things in Winners. There was a basket of little stuffed animals that I needed to "leave it" on. And a couple of purses too - I think they were genuine leather ones. We saw teenagers. We saw children being all excited and screaming "puppy/doggy". Happily all the parents knew that we don't pet service dogs. I handled my most serious access challenge to date and I would like to think I did very well with it. And Paige was working very hard on being invisible, which a service dog should be. She was doing so well that a couple who went around me almost ran right into her. She's figuring out her positioning and she's making excellent choices. All in all, Super Service Puppy and a pat on the back for her handler as well.

Psychiatrist hide and seek

As some may know, I've been hunting for a psychiatrist to take on my case full time. My meds are causing me nothing but trouble at the moment. I need to get them rebalanced and I need to get feeling better. I'm getting so sick of being sick. Many people have trouble thinking of mental illnesses on equal footing as bodily illnesses. Right now I feel like I have an ongoing infection that is med resistant and I'm unable to find a specialist who cn treat it. After school this morning I get to make a bunch of phone calls to see what I can find. Wish me luck. Phone calls make me so anxious that I feel like I could puke!

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Love is good

Last Friday, I walked out on Nick. We've been dating for 4.5 years but what was going on wasn't working for me any more. I needed to leave. In leaving, I think he finally realized that his messy ways weren't cutting it. Also in leaving, we both realized how much we love each other. We really want to work through this. We want to stop neglecting each other because we have been. He's the one for me and I really hope he can clean up his act. If he can't, we'll both have to face the heart break that goes with leaving somebody you love. He came over to my parents last night. We kissed for the first time in well over a week. Yes. It had gotten to the point where we weren't even kissing anymore before this happened. After this, I've decided to stop moving. There isn't any urgent need to get ALL of my stuff out. I'm going to leave in boxes what is in boxes and I'm going to take my desk (because doing homework on my bed sucks!) but I'm not going to pack any thing else until I know what's going on. Really, other than the kitchen, I'm pretty much done with packing. Here is hoping that the pile of boxes helps Nick remember what he needs to do.

Nick had the oddest suggestion. Prior to our separation, we had been talking about moving. His parents had suggested that they buy a house and rent it to Nick. From there, Nick could sublet to anybody he wanted but Nick would be responsible for the entire show. Ever since this happened, I've felt homeless. My parents' house is a place that I can always go, but it's not where I'm going to hang my heart. I feel mildly like an intruder. He suggested that even if we're not ready to share a bed, he could sublet to me and I can make the place my home. He even went so far as to suggest that I could have the upstairs and he would have his space in the basement. I so appreciate the offer but I don't know if I could share a house with him without climbing into his bed more often than not. But the idea of a home, especially one shared with him, is so appealing. Please notice the difference between the words "home" and "house".

But I'm scared. I'm so scared. I don't know if he can make the changes I need. I've heard "I will do ... " so many times without any results that I have trouble putting any faith in it. He needs to this time. The time for "I will" and procrastination is over.

On the training front:
With life going on, I've mildly neglected Paige's training. I've been doing just enough to maintain what we've covered already but we haven't progressed at all. Except in one area: I bought her a new lamp to be able to turn on. It's one where you just touch the base to turn it one. She took to it like a fish to water. Now I just need to put it on command and then set it up so the alarm is the cue. Still lots to go on that one.

Yesterday, after being at the apartment and everything (see yesterday's post for how I was feeling), I needed to go to the drug store by my parents' house to move my prescriptions over there. I couldn't do it alone, so I turned it into a training walk. Paige is being a bit of a monster on the leash ever since we moved without warning. She needed a couple of reminders once we got into the store but she settled into working mode quite quickly. She has figured out when I approach a counter (to pay and such), she should just lay down because we're going to be there for a couple of minutes. At one point, I actually had to look for something on a shelf and when I turned around, she was sitting there looking at me like "Look Mom. What's next?" I'm amazed that she can be a monster on a walk sometimes but she gets it so quick when we're out some place. There was one point where the clerk approached us to see if I needed help finding anything. Paige's tail started to go and she started to move forward. I walked her away for just a couple of feet and when we approached the clerk again she was all business, hitting a sit as soon as I stopped and looking at me the whole time. Wonder dog.

I'm noticing that I'm not getting very many access challenges and most are quickly dealt with by me saying that she's a service dog. There aren't very many service dogs around here. The government estimates that there are only 100 or so in the province. I think I'm not getting challenged very much because people are just so surprised to see a dog there. LOL.

Burn out

I'm getting to a point where I don't know how to proceed. I am so tired. I was before this week but it's even worse with this emotional load that I'm dealing with. I'm debating if I should stay in schoo and do my advanced classes next year. If I don't stay in school, I have to go and get a job. I hate looking and I question if I'm well enough to be grasping new tasks. For staying in school, I'm not thinking well and I can't remember what we went over last class never mind last semester. I need help and need a professional suggestion. Also to consider: if I do stay in school, I qualify for government funding even if I have a reduced course load.

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Life changes so rapidly

To start this very bluntly: I moved out of the house that I shared with my boyfriend. I just couldn't live with him any more. I'm naturally a very neat, organized person. I like a clean environment where everything has a place. It helps keep me stable. The apartment that I shared with my boyfriend was the opposite of that. It was a disaster and any cleaning that was happening was because I was doing it. With the cycling and negative feelings, I wasn't able to keep up with the cleaning. I needed his help and he wasn't helping. Friday morning (at 4AM) I woke up to the strangest dream. All the way through the dream, I was in a number of situations where different people were taking advantage of me. Eg. operating a coffee shop when I was actually closed. At the end of the dream, I was choking Nick and he was saying "you don't know king from Cain". I think it was a biblical reference: "You don't know Cain from Abel". I instinctively knew that he was trying to say "You don't know how good you have it." I woke up knowing that I needed change. But after that, the change happened way quicker than I thought it was going to. I went to my parents' for the night to have a chance to get some perspective. When I woke on Saturday morning, I knew I was doing the right thing. I've spent the last few days back at the apartment packing up my stuff. You never realize how much stuff you have until you move. Nick and I have been together for 4.5 years. We both thought that this was the big love. That this was it. The one you marry, have babies with, grow old with. And we decided that we may not be ready to give up on that idea. We're going to try and work through the issues while living apart. I need to SEE that the changes are being made in order to have this work. When I move in with him again, it will be because I have agreed to marry him. I never wanted the big, white wedding but if we survive this, I think that maybe we should. We would have a lot more to celebrate than if everything went easy to start with. I really hope that he is able to do and be what I need him to. I'm not ready to give up on him. In the mean time, I hate moving. Right now, I have a bed but no desk, no dresser. Just me, Paige, and Marissa out on our own. We do have plans for moving out with Joce and her dog Charlie but I'm not sure when that will happen. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

What was I doing

The last little bit has been rough. My brain is running a million miles a hour and jumping from thought to thought. When it does finally get tired, I either need to desperately sleep (the like now, regardless of where I am variety) or I end up sitting "moping" (as Nick calls it) or dissociating. In bipolar terms, I'm cyclicing hard, again. I hate this. Right now I can barely hold a thought in my head for 5 seconds. If some of the sentences in this post don't make sense, please try to read what I mean. I keep loosing my train of thought prior to the end of the sentence. This morning while I was counting the till at work I ended up having to count things 3 or 4 times. I was still moving the coins to my hand but I kept getting distracted from the counting portion of the task. I really hate this part of the disability. Trying to do my homework is nearly impossible. Nothing makes sense because I keep missing parts of sentences/paragraphs while reading. Beyond that, I've missed a few classes of my accounting class as of late. I emailed my teacher yesterday because I'm feeling so frustrated and lost. I blamed my absence on a complication with my medication, which is partially true. If the meds were working perfectly, I wouldn't be cycling. If he offered to actually meet up with me and go over the concepts. That is so helpful. Crap. I had more that I wanted to write but I got completely distracted by something that was going on on the radio. Oh well. I'll leave the post there for now because I have a pile of homework that I need to try to get through.

Lost

Hi everybody,

I haven't posted in so long. I'm sorry. I used to post so regularly. Now I just can't seem to do it. I have no energy left. Between school, work, and Paige, I'm done. I couldn't imagine having a full time job. I'm not walking Paige like I was. No more long hikes. I just don't have the energy or drive. I'm not doing homework like I was. No motivation. I've missed quite a few classes lately. Happily, I have classmates that are willing to just hand over their notes for photocopying, no questions asked. And I'm getting frustrated with training. Training is a long process. I know that. But I feel like my weak energy is killing the training processes. I'm only doing it half heartedly and because I have to and I think Paige knows it. The most recent: she has forgotten what sit means. She is so wonderful. She follows me everywhere. Last weekend we took her camping up at my parents' cabin. I don't know if she's ever done that before. Earlier this week, I took her to the bookstore to buy the text for my philosophy class. She did great. But I don't know if it was service dog standard. We have a basics class that is going to start later this month. I'm using it more like a learn-to-work-under-distraction class. Why is this so hard? Paige is so smart. I've dealt with dogs before. Why isn't this coming together better?

Training walks

I've decided that it's time for Paige to get used to wearing her vest and to learn what the vest means for her. Every couple of days, because that is about how often it fits into life, I've been taking her out with her vest on. We'll walk for a few blocks with the vest on and her on high focus. Then I'll take it off and we'll carry on with our relaxing walk.

A few days ago, a guy saw me taking Paige's vest off and stopped to ask some questions. I was calm and collected and answered them no problem. There was one point where one of them got a little bit personal and I panicked a little bit. But I looked down and Paige was sitting right between us, not paying any attention to either of us. She was blocking me. I thought that this was going to be an idea that was going to be hard to train but here she was doing it automatically. I answered the question easily. My dog made me feel safe and secure and not alone. :)

Today, we went to Safeway. We walked in one door, across the front of the store, and out the other doors. That was then entirty of our public access trip. Just let her get used to the sounds and smells. Eventually, we'll wander down an isle and then back out. Even further away, we'll go and actually buy something, just one thing. And so on and so forth until we're making full, small shopping trips.

After we had walked through the store, I borrowed a shopping cart and pushed it around the parking lot a little bit. I wanted to see how Paige would react. She just walked calmly beside me. She moved closer to me to get out of the way of the cart at one point. I had turned very sharply and tried to run her over. She didn't care but she didn't let herself get run over either. Such a good girl.

Then I took her vest off of her and we carried on with our walk.

Stay tuned. More public outings to come.

Paige takes the bus

Yesterday was the Pets in the Park fundraiser that I had mentioned previously. There were 2 options for getting there. You could drive and park or you could do a park and ride. We chose the park and ride because it gave us the exposure opportunities for Paige to public transit. So I "assisted" her in getting under the front seat, where she will be riding when we take regular transit. (Assisted looked a little more like getting her to lie in almost the right position and then pushing her just a little bit so she was actually under my seat.) We had so much fun at the park. There was the fundraising walk, 2.5 km pack walk. I think it was a great introduction for Paige to the park environment. Then there were frisbee demonstrations. Paige cried at them so we're going to get her one. There was also a sheep herding demonstration. I thought Paige's head might have popped with how badly she wanted to chase them. There were hundreds of dogs. Paige smelled so many noses as we walked through the crowd. And kiddie pools that were being used as walk-in water dishes. It was so warm out that it wasn't uncommon to see a dog lying in one of these pools. It was a good day and ended with a second bus ride. Paige did great. I was so proud of her.

Last night was Nick's Aunts birthday. A big family gathering. I chose to leave Paige at home because she had a long day and I'm not quite sure how to tell relatives (either my own or my in-law variety) that Paige is a PSD and what that means for me, and for them by extension. In some ways I wished that I hadn't left Paige at home. After the busy morning, I was feeling overwhelmed and mildly discossiated. I worked really hard at playing normal and even managed to hold a few conversations. Mostly I sat around and listened and smiled at appropriate times. I even missed my name being called a couple of times. People looked at me a little bit oddly when they were saying hi and I wasn't responding. Maybe I should teach Paige to alert me if my name is called and I don't respond.

I slept until noon today to make up for the busy day and the heat.

I wish I could limit the big events in a day to one, but life has a tendency to pile up.

Is my head attached?

I know that I haven't posted very much. There are have been some stuff that I didn't want to talk about on here going on and I didn't trust myself to blog without bring it up. On top of that, every time I think of something to blog about, I'm not near a computer. And when I do find a computer I can't remember what I was going to talk about.

My first of my summer classes is over. I wrote the final for it on Wednesday evening. Courses that are easy As are good for your GPA. At the end of the test, I thought "There. That's done." Unfortunately, this idea carried forward and I managed to forget that I had class this morning. So silly. I've had the same schedule every week for the last 2 months and I've done stuff like this a few times. Grr! I'm writing every day I have class in my day timer. I'm NOT missing anymore classes over this stupid reason.

In other news: I've joined the list-serve on www.psychdog.org. The information and support that has come from that have been huge. It joins a community of very special people with something so profound in common who live over a very large geographic region. It's so nice to not feel like I'm in this alone.

I have other big news that I'm dying to disclose but I haven't received the go ahead yet so you'll all have to wait to hear it.

On the training front: Paige is so smart! We've got targetting with her nose down cold. It doesn't matter where we are or what I hold up, she's smacking it with her nose. She'll run across the room to hit my hand. I'm starting to work with this for positioning. I can get her to touch my hand by crawling under my legs or under a table. She won't settle there yet but she'll go. Now we're putting the touch on command because she's starting to nose me just to get a treat. I'm also going to be making this into a touch-hold (a long touch) and a nudge (touching my hand repetatively quickly). She is sitting every where and laying down every although she is a little slow at times. Almost as if she's saying "are you sure you want me to do this?" Yeah, I am. Her wake ups are starting to become persistant. Giving her a reward is like hitting the snooze button but it will only buy me a couple of minutes. Yesterday, in 20 minutes, we got paw targetting - hitting a target with her paw. I haven't tested it today to see if she really got it. It took me a bit to think of how to train this then I realized that she'll paw at puppy when we're playing. So out came puppy and everytime she pawed him, "click". She understands what the click means and caught on really quickly. We've also been working on watching me more closely when we're walking. We've also been trying to work on her reaction to other dogs. This is a negative punishment/positive reward situation for us. If she can't behave, we're walking away. If she is calm and polite, she can meet the dog. We are looking at taking Marni's basic obedience class for this. I suggested it to Marni and she was doubtful because Paige can do it all. The class would be very simple for her. I countered with the fact that she needs to be able to do the simple around other dogs. Marni agreed. The class starts in late July.

Um... Crap... Forgot what else I wanted to talk about. Damn short term memory. Hopefully this clears up some soon. It's kind of bugging me.
If I think of it, I'll be back later.

Trainer Found

This is my third attempt at posting this blog. The application on my phone has some sort of fatal error and won't post after I've finished writing it. Grrr! Needless to say, the first 2 attempts were much more interestingly written but they are gone. So here is the point:

After much hunting and much frustration, we have finally found the trainer we are going to be working with. I could not believe how many trainers wouldn't work with a service dog and how many of those who did wanted $100+/hour. CRAZY! But we found Marni and everything is going to be okay.

We met Marni for the first time on Tuesday. I really like her and really like her teaching style. Within 20 minutes she had me feeling like I could do this and that Paige was wonder dog. She is leaving us with a pretty intense homework schedule after every meeting. This is the way that it needs to be if we are going to progress as quickly as I want. This weeks homework: Look - Paige has to just look me strait in the eye; and Touch - Just targeting stuff with her nose. Example - my hand, a coaster, a CD, my pill case (this one was my idea. I figured that she would have to find it eventually anyway so learning that it is a target now wouldn't hurt.) Targeting like this will eventually be worked into a whole bunch of the manoeuvring stuff that we will eventually do. I'm trying to get her to touch under my leg when I'm sitting down. This is the beginning of climbing under chairs, benches, tables, etc. She is catching on very quickly. I'm proud of her.

Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape, or form a dog trainer. Anything that is documented in my blog is what I am going through with the training. If you are in need of training advise, please contact a reputable trainer in your area.

Blogging from the bus

I have myself a new toy so I'm going to try this. Chances are that this is going to make me feel dizzy and neasous and will ruin me for the rest of the day but I like the portability idea.

Thursday I had a Reiki session with Ashley. I decided to be brave/silly and take Paige with me. She did so great at the beginning. The 30 minute walk there probably didn't hurt any. She laid down and just took it easy. Shortly after the half way mark she started breaking her stay and I had to keep correcting her. It proabably didn't help any that the room we were in looked like living room and she has always gotten to explore in that setting. I was very proud of Ashley for managing to ignore Paige the whole time and waiting until we were outside aftetwards to actually meet her. Overall I think that the length of this appointment was too much to ask of Paige. If it had been 20 minutes she probably would have been fine. I will be leaving her at home this week when I go. Having her there was very distracting for both Ashley and me.

In other news I can feel my desire to do anything waning again. Nothing is interesting or important although I do have stuff for school that really does need to get done. I have to figure out how to teach Paige to bring me her leash or ring bell or someting so that I can at least manage to make sure that Paige gets to pee. We were walking this morning and I just wanted to lie down on the grass and rest. We hadn't even walked very far. I hate not wanting to move. It's a hard feeling to deal with because it feels so stupid. Why can't I just move and be productive? Grrr.

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Footnote to 6 weeks

I forgot to add this in the original post, even though I meant to.

I can't take credit for a lot of what I've done with Paige. She came to me with such excellent manners that a lot of the credit goes to her breeder. Her and I have been bonding and working on trust between each other. Now she's cool with a lot of things because I suggest that she should be and she's starting to trust me as her leader. But it has still been a fun journey.

6 weeks

I've had Paige now for 6 weeks. That is a long time but it has gone by so fast. I thought I would share with you some of our trials that we have gone through and some of the fun that we've had over that time.

We've done so much exposure stuff just in our own neighborhood. Oh, and we've gone for car rides but I forgot to take a picture of her in the car or at the vets or at our parent's houses. I need to take my camera along more.

We made friends with a horse and a bull.

We've practiced at sliding glass doors. These are the old ones that make terrible noises.

We've played in parks

We found some favorite toys. Puppy is the best. He has a squeaker in him. So does the bone. The globe this is one that you stick some kibble in and she's got to figure out how to get it out.

We've started working on a book of dog tricks

We've spent some time out on the patio. We'll eventually get plants growing in those planters

Don't you just love our view from the balcony!

Marissa would love to come out too but she's not allowed. She tries to run away to the neighbor's porch when she does manage to sneak outside.

We've done lots of grooming. These are our tools and the fur that came out of Paige's mane today. This is a typical amount that we've gotten out of her on numerous occasions while she's been shedding.

I swear Paige is now half the dog she was when we got her. Check out this picture that I took the first day she was with us. The second one was from today before I brushed out that massive fluff pile.

Brushing is so much easier now that the shedding is done. 20 minutes for both sides and just a little pile of loose stuff.

We've worked on stairs and looking at me when we reach the bottom (I may need to go back up or left or right - eventually.)

She is right beside me when we go down or up the stairs. I had to try to back up to get this bad picture. She was so confused why I kept stopping but wanted her to keep going.

She heels right beside me now and can just about ignore other dogs. Just about.

We sit and wait for lights at the corner. She's not remotely bothered about the going ons of the world when she's waiting.

Buses aren't scary anymore unless they sneak up behind us and let off their air brakes.

We spend lots of time walking in the river valley. Check out our playground. There is this massive set of stairs that we go down quite often. One day we'll go up them.

With living in an apartment building, we've had lots of practice riding the elevator. Don't you just love "collie ears"?

Paige had to do a course of antibiotics when she got fixed. No body believes me about how she would take the pill, so here is the video. Sorry about the quality. I'm not very good with my really old camera.

And if you made it to the end of this post, you must be a super hero. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Tylenol is a bad idea

With the medicine combination that I'm on, Tylenol doesn't agree with me. I get dizzy, disoriented, groggy and it leaves me with no option but to go to sleep until the drug wears off. But I thought I would try again today just to make sure that this was still the case. I've been fighting a migraine today. The kind that makes you miss work and be unable to study for the midterm you have tomorrow. The kind that makes you cringe from all light and sound and when you actually encounter either, your head aches and you get nauseous. Welcome to my day.

I was at a point where I couldn't have any more Advil for a while and was dying of pain. I know that you can layer Advil and Tylenol because, while they are both analgesics, they go after different receptor sites in the brain. If you are going to layer them, take a small dose of Advil and a small dose of Tylenol a couple of hours later. So I figured "how much worse can one, small Tylenol make me feel?" 25-30 minutes later, Nick comes into the bedroom where I had been attempting to read my textbook by soft light and told me I was going to sleep. He removed my book from my hand, turned off my light and took my dog for a walk. Good man. Thanks honey. He was going to wake me up in an hour, and I remember him doing this. He even turned the lamp back on. But I didn't move until I had slept for 3 hours.

If ever I say a Tylenol may be a good idea, somebody please kick me in the shins. It would hurt less and take less time out of my day.

Reiki

I've been trying to treat my symptoms in a holistic, natural way. Paige is a natural way to help modify my symptoms. I'm also doing Reiki on a (not so) regular basis. Reiki is a form of guided meditation. I find it very calming, refreshing, and centering. It helps with the god offal headaches that I get and with the tension that I carry in my body. When I'm not so tense and stressed, I find that I don't have symptoms that are as dramatic. Some people will go "Yeah right" and blame the placebo effect. If it can get me off of my chemical cocktail eventually, bring on the placebo effect. All I really want is to eventually be off the meds or even to have them greatly reduced. My next appointment is 3 weeks from now. Let's hope that in doing them more regularly, I get an even greater benefit from them.

Everybody knows my name...

Lassie!!!

No... I'm Paige.

Can't you see we're completely different.

Yet everybody (children, seniors, adults, homeless people) mistake me for that dog.