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.