Seven Days and counting

I haven't blogged much this class as many know--its been quite the wild roller coaster of emotions. Let me start by saying I got a female lab/golden cross--she is black and primarily looks like a black lab. She is actually 75% lab. She is 21 inches tall and weighs 61 lbs. She shares her birthday with one of the most prolific days in history--the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Yes--she turns two tomorrow. Her name is Richman. Where do I start--she pulls like a train and moves at the speed of light--just what I wanted. We have had our share of communication issues but work wise, she's brilliant. One interesting note for those of you that knew my previous dogs, there won't be any poop picking up with this dog. She has a tendency to walk when she poops so she is trained to poop in a bag. When its her park time, I put the bag on her, she does her business, I take the bag off, tie it up, and off we go. It took some learning for me to get use to this but its a cool thing. So, what has class consisted of besides really good food. We worked three routes, each progressively longer and more complex than the previous. They include street crossing, traffic checks (basically meaning we get tested to see how we both handle getting cut off by cars in the middle of the street, ETC.), dog distractions, barriers, ETC. Most of this is about us as a team learning to communicate so that we can function in real life. This all went well and we worked through issues as they came up. At the end of the second two routes, we soloed them with the instructor only watching from afar. We are now in what is referred to as freelance work. This include such things as going through stores, riding escalators learning how to pattern your dogs to find things such as elevators and push buttons for redlights on street corners, going into New York city, amongst other things. Well, that's all for now, we have a busy week remaining before we go home next Thursday. I will be posting the text of the going home letter they provide for our family, friends, and co-workers. It is important to remember that this is a new dog and old habits just must be that--old. To get ten years out of our partnership, it takes everyone doing there part.