Busy day.
We continued to work on commands in the classroom today, first of all. Susan napped yesterday during command training since the trip to Olive Garden and Borders did not allow for a nap as usual. So today we worked on having Leeta "get" an item (pen, keys, remote, etc.), "hold" it in her mouth, "sit" down, "visit" Susan by putting her head on Susan's lap (all together: awwwwww) and "give" - open her mouth and place it in Susan's hand.
I mean, come on, there are 10 year old humans who probably couldn't do that correctly and this is a d-o-g! ;~}
Directly after that, we saddled up the ol' PT Cruiser and headed for the Florida Mall. Last time I was there? 1994, July 4th, working for the Supervisor of Elections to do voter registration. I've lived in Orlando since before the place was built and I'm not sure where it is!
First off in the mall we headed into Macy's - my first time in one of those and it was to ride an elevator. Our team (S, L & T) got on, went up a floor, watched the doors open and close and went down and got out. No, even Leeta didn't think that was all that exciting. Of course Leeta is an old hand at elevators. We were learning the correct and SAFE way to use one.
More than one person looked at the 7 dogs, 17 human students and 6 trainers &; CCI staff and said outloud that the dogs must be training. Of course it was the dogs who knew what to do. I'm surprised that none of the dogs corrected the viewers. . .
Today's excursion was a precursor for Thursday afternoon. That day we head back to the mall to take our official "Public Certification Test" which in non-doghandling terms means if we past it, we get to take Leeta out in public to places that restrict animals except for service animals. If we don't pass the test, we can't take Leeta with us when shopping, eating out, to church or other venues that say:
NO DOGS ALLOWED
except service dogs
There are 3 parts of Thursday's test that are automatic fails - one is not holding the door of the elevator until the dog is all the way inside.
After the elevator excursion, we headed out into the mall proper. Did you know there is an M&M Store there? I don't want to offend anyone who happens to love that store, but come on, an entire store for M&Ms!?! We didn't go in but hung outside to test the dogs in their ability to withstand having food dropped in front of them. Leeta didn't do as well as we hoped, but I saved the day. One bit of kibble was dropped by a CCI person and rolled right under Leeta's nose. She slurped it up, but good old Tom was there to rescue her in case it was poisonous or at least fattening! I did as previously instructed and pulled open her mouth and stuck my finger deep into her throat to dig that damn 3 calorie kibble out of her mouth. After what seemed like 5 minutes and me just touching the errant nugget a couple times, I was rewarded with praise by the trainers and when I didn't succeed in getting the offending bit of crunchy out of our lovely Leeta's gullet, I got the comment, "Well at least she knows that that was unpleasant." Proudly holding up my soaking hand, I replied "And she's not the only one." Gotta remember to bring a towel on Thursday.
From there, the trip was better. We did the crazy stroller test, the person stepping over the dog test, the random act of petting test, the standing in one place while your dog was napping peacefully and comfortably on the floor test (OK, the last wasn't really an official test, but it sure was a pain in the patut.
We did better than the team who's dog, Julia, pooped in the middle of the mall, though my response when hearing that was, who'd notice if it was close enough to Crabtree & Evelyn? By the way, that is NOT one of the automatic fails.
We all ate lunch in the food court (not Leeta, of course, we've taught her better than to eat fast food) and did a second food test - this time with goldfish (the cracker). Leeta did excellent that time and I didn't have to do anything but praise her. Then after 2 hours of dealing with foreigners and noise and odd smells and giant M&M characters waving to us around every corner, we we're released, but told we still have a bit of time to shop if we wanted to.
30 minutes later we were back at CCI and Susan was napping and I was downing three Goodys packets and a Mtn. Dew to kill a headache . . .
The other 2 automatic fails? Got me, I don't remember anymore. Apparently I didn't do them, or I would have been corrected, but I expect we'll bremindeded just in time to stew about them before the actual test.
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