Training...Day 5

It's Monday, January 21st...sorry for the confusing post dates- I had them as drafts and then published them all at the same time and now it's all out of sorts, whoopsies!!  Today was the longest time we've been out of Charlie's usual surroundings.  We met up at my soon-to-be home and together experienced my first house inspection (which was really my dad going around with the inspector and reporting back to me).  While there Charlie was allowed to explore the place and sniff it out.  I was able to un-vest him and take off his leash.  We left it in the bedroom and then proceeded to the living room.  After some time I told him to get his vest and off he went to retrieve it in the other room and he brought it back to me!  Then, I told him to do the same thing with his leash and he went and got it and managed to bring that back as well.  We had some time to do a photo op as we were waiting for them to finish inspecting the basement... he is very photogenic! 

After the house inspection I walked Charlie back home (three blocks) to my parents' house.  We had some major excitement and a few barks at strangers, but we made it back.  The next thing to happen was something I've been anxious about since the beginning- the meeting of Charlie and Manu (my chihuahua that is deaf and has seizures).  I put Manu downstairs with a bone to keep him occupied while Charlie came in to get used to the smells and settle.  After only a few minutes I let Manu in and he went right up to Charlie with a wagging tail and sniffed and spun and checked out his new best friend!  There were no problems (minus the fact that they wanted to play with each other which would be a bad idea since Charlie weighs about 89 pounds more!).  It was a good feeling to know that my two doggies could hang.

After the meeting we did some training in my room with picking up my socks and placing them in my drawer or laundry basket.  Charlie mastered the opening and shutting of my closet door as well and practiced removing a shoe and sock.

It was past lunchtime so we decided to take a walk down to Tomato Pie Cafe here in Lititz.  This walk went WAY better- he had no pent up energy and a different leash attached to my chair which made things much easier since I could use my chair as a tool to correct him.  He opened the door for me to get in and laid quietly by my feet the whole time.  Our trainer, Lorrie, has been so patient through this whole process and is such a rock for us as we navigate our new routine and life together.  She is a major blessing.

We ended the afternoon with a run-through of how I enter the house in my power chair (into the garage, through the pantry, and then up the stairs in my stair lift into the kitchen).  After doing that a couple of times we said our see-you-laters and off they went to the UDS headquarters.  I joined them later for a volunteer training hour (for those that have dog that are in the being stages of training) and worked with Charlie in a group setting.  There were about 8-10 dogs together and we learned about things like practicing the retrieval sequence in bits (look, get it, that's it, hold, bring it, give it).  I was able to share my vest & leash retrieval story which was great because they could then see how what they were doing now really benefits the end consumer.  A long and eventful day comes to an end, but tomorrow we try out the city!!