Service Dog Identification

Day 4  Good morning boy!  Our first night at the hotel together and May was wonderful, she started on Joe's bed but got to hot and preferred her kennel, but she slept without a peep!

 Just a little more play time before we get ready to go back to school for another day!

 The morning at school Jeremy the trainer was answering everyones questions, I think May just got bored and decided on a nap, Joe was off playing with some of his new found friends.

 Work time, I put May in a "Down" and all of us people just walked around and around, and May didn't move.  She's amazing us.  So smart, I'm the one who needs to remember everything she can do.

 Now we left the room and May stays in the down position, Jeremy the trainer was in the room, but he even left and all the dogs stayed in their "Down" command. Incredible I know but it really did happen.

 Now we came back and practiced stepping over each others dogs, partly a distraction and also a safety piece the dogs practice and know.

 Oh, a wonderful command to do with my boy "Lap" and I put my head in his lap and he pets me, it's so calming for both of us.  May will actually do this command with anyone, even if your sitting on the coach or in a chair you can give the command and she will do it. Sometimes she does it on her own...for attention. She's so smart!

 May loves the "lap" of her boy, oh how calm they both are.

 May just had to sneak in some play time during class when she got bored again she army crawled over by Caesar for some play time.

We also learned how to command May to bark, most of the dogs in our class are trained to bark for seizures in children, May was taught to bark on command and we can use it for whatever we'd like, we will use this for matches and lighters, although they said she will probably bark whenever anyone has one, she may or may not differentiate that Joe is the only one to not have it, so we just have to tell her ok once she barks. 

The other big exciting thing today was we got our harness/vest for May.  This will be her identification and although it is not a law that Service Dogs wear identification it is 4 Paws for Ability requirement.  This will help us avoid any confrontational issues in public.  May's harness/vest has a pocket for our identification cards that we receive on the last day of training. We decided to get both a tethering vest and a tethering harness, the vest will be used most of the time in public, the harness is when we are going to very crowded places or places where Joe may not listen and offer resistance May will pull him to get him moving, and or if Joe wonders in another direction May will keep in close by being tethered.  Tethered is when Joe wears a belt and May will be attached to his belt, Joe also has a separate leash he can hold, different from ours and place on the vest, ours will be hooked to her gentle lead or her training collar so we will be the commander in charge or May's controller at that time.

Tomorrow afternoon will be our first public visit, we are going to the Mall to transfer everything we have learned to the community.  We have already been able to take May down to the lobby for breakfast and dinner, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable, she obeys all commands and did an "under" the table perfectly.  She is so amazing, it's me that has to remember everything she knows, if I say the wrong word she gets all confused, yet she does whatever I tell her...but I'm the one who has to say the right word.