Last Updated on: 8th May 2023, 10:51 am
Good day, and welcome to day 12. I just had to do that for my fellow Canadian in class. To find each other once, we made the Bob and Doug call. I’m sure the instructors thought we were loopy.
I’m not sure what we’re doing. The schedule is a little vague. I think we’re going to a place called Fairview to do escalators. There are lectures and who knows what else. I hear thunder in the distance. I wonder what that means.
Well, it meant rain. I had to wear my raincoat, but not the rain pants or boots. It wasn’t quite that biblical.
We had a lecture about bringing our dogs home, and then we headed out. On our way to the vans, they videotaped our pace. We went to I think a Fred Meyer store. It had an escalator and a Starbucks. We sat at the Starbucks while each of us did some escalators and then walked around a neighbourhood. First, we walked through the store and got to feel Domino make turns when there is no straight line. It was still purposeful even though I didn’t tell him to turn. People talked about how cute he is. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when I was in Portland, 2 different people yelled out their car windows that Domino is a good-looking dog.
We did the neighbourhood and halfway through, it started to rain. I did not enjoy wearing a hood, and my instructor said I should invest in a waterproof ball cap. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
During this route, the instructor tried to let me do more problem solving, which started to feel good. One time, I crossed and turned, and I thought my alignment was off because of the way a car sounded in the rain, so screwed it up. My instructor eventually told me I did it right the first time. As a goofy aside, we discovered this morning that Domino loves it if you blow raspberries at him.
We got back to campus and I toweled off a drenched Domino. Lunch was a cheeseburger and tater tots. Dessert was chocolate cake.
In the afternoon, I did a little more work on sidewalkless and it felt better. Domino stuck close to the curb. On our way to sidewalkless, they really tried to distract us with a very playful dog. Domino tried his best to ignore him, but he eventually gave in. They said that would be one of the worst distractions I would have, and I had to correct him hard to get him past it, but he got the message and the correction was way milder than I’ve had to give before.
We went out to a neighbourhood full of narrow passages and things he had to stop to show me. We got pretty good at navigating stuff. And the rain slowed down for a while. She also showed me how to click for pace, so how to click when he’s at a good pace in case things get weird when I get home.
We then went to a lecture about the vet financial assistance program and client services. It was a lot of stuff I’d heard before. One thing I learned was I asked if the BeMyEyes special help service worked for Canadians because I could never get through, and he said he is one of the few people who answers the BeMyEyes calls. So he was probably busy. So what I should do is call the support centre and book a time. Marketing should really explain that better.
During this meeting, I realized that one of my pills was not in my pocket. I could not focus on the meeting as I frantically searched the immediate area as quietly as I could, because we were on a Zoom video call. Eventually I had to confess that one of my pills may have fallen out. We looked in the room and in the van and there was no sign of it. The vet said if a dog got it, the worst that would happen was a bit of lethargy because it was a blood pressure pill. But I have to contain my pills better so that doesn’t happen again. The last time I dropped a pill was when I thought Babs got some Cortef way back in training.
Then we played with the flexi. Domino is much more subdued than Tansy ever was. I just have to worry about him trying to eat pine cones.
then I was late for supper. Oops! But they were nice about it. Dinner was this roasted cauliflower and a twice baked potato. And I couldn’t resist the chocolate cake.
Then we went to the instructor’s office and picked up a tiedown, plus a collar that can be used to loop around furniture so you don’t have to use any of the tiedown’s length, a bag of food, and some paperwork including all the stuff I’ll need for flying. There’s also a paper copy of the vet records and the school ID.
I’m so tired that I misplaced the dog’s dish. Who misplaces a dog’s dish? A zombie, that’s who. Then I got a phone call from the Resident Advisor. Apparently someone had given my puppy raisers her number instead of mine! So I called them back and we had a nice chat. They’re driving up from Nevada tomorrow and they’re bringing their current puppy in training. I guess the guy is originally from Vancouver. So cool.
Now I need to fall down go snore. Tomorrow is the last day before graduation. Eek! The nurse says I should make up some words to the Domino song and sing them at graduation since I’m always talking about songs. I don’t know if I can pull that off. It would be a funny idea though. I do have to write the thank you note to go with their gift. That I can do.
