End of Week 1

Hi all,

Today was a bit shorter than the other days, we worked to 3 and were let loose.  This morning we continued working on the get - hold - give commands that will be used for picking items up and giving them back to Susan.  We then got geared up for a trip to Super Target in Ocoee.  They gave is a mock shopping list and sent us into the store to "shop."  

We did well, I suppose, no one got hurt or too confused.  Other than the interesting smells, Leeta treated it as if she'd been shopping 1000 times (which she has, of course).  The activity was only about 30 minutes long and then we were back home for lunch.

Lunch each day is being provided by nice people connected with CCI in some way.  Volunteers from Disney & Universal Studios provided lunch for us on 2 different days and today it was all cooked by the mother of the kennel manager.  Fried chicken, chicken & dumplings, beans and squash, corn bread and peach cobbler.

After lunch break we were instructed in proper playing habits for the dog.  Yes, they show you how to play with her.  Sometimes it's even a bit of a push to get the dog to know it's OK to play since they're so focused on working for us.

We're free from training until Monday at 9am.  We still have Leeta with us and we'll be feeding and watering and toileting and grooming her from now on, but for Sunday we can put her in their kennel for the day and we'll be going to church to say hi and answer all the questions.

Then we'll be back and ready to go for Monday.

Monday includes a lunch at Olive Garden.  The dogs will be with us and hopefully Leeta will be better behaved that I usually am.  Apparently they chose Olive Garden because the dogs like the never-ending salad and soup.  Beats having to wait in line at a salad bar.

All is continuing to go well, we answer the homework questions well, apparently and we read all the handouts.  They gave us a binder with 60 pages of info a few weeks before classes started, but we get new pages each day.  There's a stack today that deals with the vet and the dog.

Thank goodness that training is over for the week.  I was feeling rough Thursday afternoon so I need a rest.  Susan's napping right now, though I hear a squeaky toy in another of the dorm rooms so someone else isn't napping.  Probably Charlie, a lady who will be using her dog to work with patients in a nursing home for people with Alzheimer's and dementia.

That's it for now.  I might think of something else later.  Thanks for all the kind comments.