It has been a whirlwind of activity the last few days. I will briefly cover some of the highlights though. The big thing was traffic checks. Basically, these checks are designed to measure the dogs and owners responses to traffic conditions in which a car pulls in front of you, or pulls up behind you. During these checks, a hybrid car was used. In one particular incident, I told Andy to hop up because I thought a walker was distracting Andy. When I told Andy to hop up, he would not move. I repeated the command, and still he wouldn’t move. Finally, the instructor that I was working with told me that he had not moved because of the hybrid car coming toward me. All I could say was, “wow”! There were also several times when a car would pull out directly in front of us, and Andy stopped for each one! What a good boy!
And now for the bathroom experience/experiences. First of all, Andy is now consistently taking me to bathroom stalls. This is fantastic! No more stumbling around until I find something. One command and we’re there! Almost as good as microwave popcorn. The other cool thing is that the other day, we went to Starbucks. When we first went into the place, I had someone show me to the bathroom. After the coffee and the rout, I had to go again. I pointed Andy and I in the direction I thought the bathroom was, and told him to move, and within 45 seconds, I was at the door to the bathroom.
Andy is very cool, and sometimes I think he loves to work, more than he loves to play. We were able to show him to find a chair within 10 minutes through the use of a clicker! I can’t wait to start using clicker at home. Well, that’s about it for now. We graduate on Saturday, so I’ll be posting more later, if I’m not too tired.
Best wishes as you return home!