Hoagie and I have been training for another year since the last post, and I apologize for not being more faithful in posting updates. Life has been hectic.
Currently, we are in DC at a training event for me for my day-to-day job. My husband and I had a long talk about whether or not to bring Hoagie with me (as it would mean taking him on the Metro (subway) and having sit with me in class all day long with people I and he don’t know.
Right now, Hoagie does not go with me to work on a daily basis. I do tend to take him if I am working on the weekend (and the office will be mostly empty.) I feel it is important to have him when there are not many (if any) people who could step in and assist me if something should happen to me medically, but for the training, the class has 19 or 20 students and an instructor, so there is little chance that if something happened no one would think to call 911.
As far as training goes, Hoagie has passed the Canine Good Citizen award from the AKC. He also took several classes in Show preparation (before I had him neutered) because I thought perhaps his breeder and I would decide to show him. She agreed that he was as good if not better than his brother, but I decided that I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with what would be involved in entering the Show Circuit, and I didn’t want to hire a professional handler who would take him from me for travel to and from the shows. As a service dog, he can’t serve me if he is away from me. Showing him was at cross purposes with what I wanted to do with him, so I had him neutered and stop taking him to Show Classes.
I continued with Obedience lessons until the middle of August, progressing from Beginners, to Sub-Novice, to Novice and into a pre-Field/Companion Dog/Rally type class where we worked on various skills including retrieval of dumbbells, jumps over hurdles, off-lead healing and other off-lead skills, and such. Hoagie did well, but there were several times that he would break long stays or long owns, or break from heeling to alert me that something was wrong with me (my blood sugar was dropping, or something else like that) and would go to my purse to retrieve medicine). He also nearly missed canine good citizen for the same reason. He was antsy when I left the room because he can’t keep an eye on my needs if we are separated.
I have started working on dropping objects other than just pill bottles and having him retrieve them by name. Bottle lids (for bottles of drinks like my flavored water), pens,and other small items that I may drop during the course of the day and need him to get for me. I have gotten to the point where I can drop multiple items and ask for a specific one, and about 80% of the time, he can figure out which one I want when I say its name. He isn’t perfect, but he is getting there. He can tell the different between medicine (which is either my daily medicine container, my weekly medicine container, or a bottle of medicine – all of those are “medicine” in his mind right now); a “pen”, which is anything roughly pen shaped right now; a lid, which is a bottle lid, like from Fuze, vitamin water, or bottled water.
I am working on getting him to retrieve his comb and brush, but he is hesitant because he doesn’t always like grooming, and he knows that if I have the comb or brush, he will get groomed. He can retrieve his ball, of course, as well. Once he gets the current items a little more consistently, I am going to work on collar and leash. He is usually wearing his collar, but there are times I take it off (like before a bath). I would to work on the remote for the TV, but I may have to have that in some type of case in order for him to carry it. Same for my cell phone. I don’t think his mouth is big enough to carry it unless it was in a case with a handle. My purse is way too large for a <5 pound dog to carry.
As well as he has done this week, I think I could easily bring him to work everyday, since I wouldn’t have to deal with the metro everyday. He has been fine using the metro (well, he is in a carrier), but on an average day, he would be in my personal vehicle, and only stuck in his bag during the actual work day. There is little grass for him to use at work, but enough (I think) that we could make it work.
On a bad note, I haven’t been back to regular obedience class since August. I quit because we had a 2 week vacation, and I didn’t want to pay for classes I wouldn’t attend, then when I got back, things at work needed my attention, and I have been working 60-72 hour weeks. That doesn’t really leave me a lot of time for obedience lessons. However, as soon as the content is migrated to SharePoint 2010, I will have shorter weeks. If you are interested in SharePoint, and want to read my SharePoint log, Follow this SharePoint link.
