Day 10 ~ We're almost there, and May is showing us that she still have energy in the morning but she comes back exhausted in the afternoon. Today we started are day with the usual question and answer, many families with seizure alert dogs had questions and feedback and some families are now realizing their dog needs more exercise right away in the morning, we figured this out with May right from the time we met her, so we have showed up every morning about 30-45 minutes early just so we can take her to the back fenced yard and let her run and chase tennis balls. She also loves the Jolly Ball and running with other dogs.
So we worked on a couple of new commands "tricks" as well. Here May is doing the command "side" but with the hand signal we can add any words like go to sleep, and eventually if we wanted we could add "bang" and she will play dead. We will not focus on that as that take your hand being in a gun shape, which school does not allow, so we'll keep it to go to sleep May. We can also use this command to get her to lay on her side for grooming.
Off to the Mall and ready to work. So today we practiced being around lots of people and letting them approach and pet May in public. We then worked on going down stairs, weaving in and out of a clothing and a toy store, automatically sitting when I stopped walking. We rode the elevator, she does fine in a closed in elevator, but still get anxious in the glass elevator. We then hooked up the tether and the trainer played the part of Joe and pulled and resisted and she kept her eyes on me the whole time...you rocked it May! She handled walking past food, kids, elderly people using a cane and walker and even when I practiced accidentally dropping her leash, although we are never to do that in public we practice it just in case and it will be on our test on Friday, she did it, stayed in a heel and just stood while I picked up the leash and then returned to a heel easily.
One more day of class at 4 Paws and then it's test day and Graduation! We are excited, we're feeling ready and confident and May is ready and very confident as well, she's a hard worker and a hard player! A perfect match for our family!
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