Day 3 of Training: Updates from Day 1 & 2 and a little rambling

As we began to build into the foundation of being a dog owner, we are now coming into play the part of being a service dog owner.  Many may say there is not a big difference between the two however there truly is and as we add on to what is expected of a service dog owner my mind begins to open to real world experiences as well as accepting the fact a lot quicker that my family just got a whole lot unique. 

I am going to bring everyone up to a little more speed after having the first day be interrupted by viral infection and then the second day I was just pooped.  There are twelve families in all.  Our little lady actually has a sister pup in our mix name Pretzel who will be living in West Virginia.  All of our pups are amazing well trained, behaved, and just particular adorable however they are used to their trainers voice and so the process of getting them user to our voice is simply the challenge as well as getting them to respect our commands.  The very first day we worked on sit and down I was extremely proud of myself because I got the hands commands and word commands down pack quickly and Sherbert responds to both being given together or simply one of the other.

Our second day wasn’t bad well for me it was a rough one after a night in the local ER for a viral infection everything got to me from sound to smell and I was determine to fight it out.  Our goal for that second day was to get our counterparts to remain in the sit and down commands for longer periods.  How many people you know wants to constantly have to tell their service dog no and sit and stay among other things so it’s a learned and practice behavior to get them to stay one place in one position while their handler takes care of whatever it is that they are doing even  when distractions are around.

The great thing about these service dog is they have a understand that when a command is given that I’m already letting him/her know to stay  in that command until I give the release command which happens to be free. When Sherbert is given the command to sit she knows it’s an implied condition that she stays in that position until she’s released  which is simply by me telling her free.  I was amazed at how calm this little lady acted when they started throwing out some cool treats that she seems to love in front of her and the tennis ball. 

O let me tell you about the tennis ball I thought at one point my arm was going to be ripped from my arm she may look small but Sherbert is extremely strong so we keep tennis balls away from her unless she’s being rewarded or we are in play mode. 

Sherbert can also walk into a heel mode which for her it means walk to my left and have her ears within the my leg distance and to follow my every turn and step without over powering me or trying to pull me ahead.  To say she had my respect and attention is far by means but now I realized she knew what she was doing so I know needed to show her I was learning but I was still Mom and she needed to follow rules so here comes day three.

Today was tracking and do mind you I woke up to snow flurries (Did I mention to anyone I’m from South Carolina below the Dixie Line and that we don’t do snow) so imagine my crazy little self-watching the news and seeing all of the craziness going on so my first thought was let’s leave early (that didn’t happen) but we did get there on time.  Now today was totally fun well after I warmed up it was but we went tracking and I have to say if I didn’t say it before My Girl Is A ROCKSTAR she was on her boys trail snapping and S-trailing all on his body cell scent.  For those who are wondering what snapping is basically it’s her head movement that lets me know whether we still have a hot trail and also her way to be able to pick up where her boy has gone.  The S-trail is basically if she’s in a wind pattern the wind will blow the skin cells in certain areas so she’s on the trail but she has to work with the wind pattern. With a few new tricks up my sleeve such as place when Sherbert gets on this special mat that she has and she always keeps atleast two paws on it and she can do whatever she wants.  We had a lot of fun with disturbance training it’s interesting to find how she has now adjusted as me being her owner and when I leave she always thinks like Jonathan has and that thought process “Oh Mom’s gone yeah baby no rules.”

Overall she’s a good girl I’ve been taught some things to recognized about her I know she’s a stubborn little thing because my child is stubborn and I know she will do well as long as I respect her and she respect me. So all in all we are good however I hear my little angel in her kennel snoring and I’m now going to lie it down since tomorrow is a early day and it’s a super fun day as we are going to be doing more tracking as well as our first public access run a busy mall.