Vomit Comet

Not much has happened this morning. The usual. Hopefully I’ll have more to say later.

Tired. Tired. Went for morning route, but before route happened, got upset, couldn’t focus on route so didn’t go on route. Sat at lounge and felt guilty, but knew it wasn’t a good idea to go out on route.

Came back at lunch, lunch was good, grilled chicken sandwich, salad, and a really good cheesecake.

Came back from lunch, groomed her, and found out picture day was Thursday and I was worried about my dark pants blending in with my puppy, but they told me that the photographer was really good, so to not worry about it.

Had two lectures this afternoon and then relieved and went out to lounge again. Went on route, and she kept blowing down-curbs! I was furious! She got one hell of a correction. She did it a whole bunch of times, but after the correction, she got better. Then we were uber late getting back, at almost 6. Why the hell do they schedule a last feed/water,relieve at 4:45 if we’re never back? I could barely get her to stand still long enough to get the harness off. I could barely get her fed and watered and then we had to get down to supper and I was crazy late. Somehow, Meredeth managed to finish before I started! Finish! And she was on my bus! She’s a fiend!

So much to do, and I still wanted to brush her teeth, play with her, wash her dish, and somehow a bunch of us were
coordinating the outing for easter Sunday. We have to decide by tomorrow where we all want to go Easter Sunday. The consensus seems to be Fisherman’s Warf. That doesn’t really tickle my fancy, but maybe it’ll surprise me. Whatever, I don’t care. Tired.

Came back from dinner and brushed her teeth and tried to play with the cong. The devil doesn’t like fetch. She’d rather eat leaves! What toy will you like? You’re breaking my heart.

And Carmen thinks we’re going to rehearse? Is she high? We’re tired. If we have to, we’ll read the words off braille. We do not need to goddamn rehearse. I love Carmen, but I do not have the energy to deal with her perfectionism. I didn’t even make it to yoga because I didn’t have the brains left to deal with it. I just needed time to settle my thoughts, and that drill sergeant of a yoga instructor just wasn’t going to make me relax. I love yoga, but I didn’t have the energy to deal with her pushing our legs around. The nurse was like you could sit on the couch and breathe. I’m like na.

I really hate this time difference. When I want to phone home, I can’t because it’s too late, and when people want to call me, sometimes it’s too early. It’s amazing how much of a difference 3 hours can make. It doesn’t seem like much, but when your day’s so tightly packed, it does.

I think it’s almost time to relieve. Then I’m going to hit the pillow. No rehearsals, no screwing around, nothing.

It’s Monday again. Drag drag drag. I’m so tired. And another week is beginning. I’m still worried about that missing key cap. It would make me happy if someone found it, and not in some dog’s poop either.

Poor Amy. Dynamo puked this morning. What’s with all the sick dogs? I guess if they all came from the kennels that’s a fine place to pick up bugs, so as long as they’re just little bugs it’s ok. Some other dog hurled in the relieving circle. Poor puppy.

Breakfast sounds weird. Vegetable something. Lunch is grilled steak of some kind with a bunch of veggies and dinner is Chicken Parmesan.

Today is a busy day. Oy yoy yoy. Two lectures in the morning, then we have to do obedience on route! What the hell? Then pooping and watering and lunch, and this afternoon, it’s a lecture on advanced corrections? Huh? More corrections? Then tonight it’s dinner, and a workshop on ear cleaning and heelling practice with a gental leader. Gimme gimme gimme a gental leader! That helped to reduce the sniffitude with the Babsy pup. Then it’s relieve and fall down.

Alright, time to eat this mystery breakfast. I’m sure it will be good.

It was a long day, but a good day. First off, I found that key cap, safely on my bed. Yea, no dog ate it! Breakfast was good, a little weird, but good. The lectures were short, one about orientation and learning routes, and one about leaving puppy unattended. Then we went to town, and I finally got the basic route straight! Now if only I could master the damn turns from dorm to bus! I think I’ve got them now, but now it’s just a matter of getting them down.

One of the retrains, Deborah, is staying in our hall. She’s only here for a week, can you believe it? So she’s in our training, for some reason I’m not sure of.

They took Dynamo to the vet, brought him back, and for some reason his tests will take a couple of days! So my poop test took an hour, but this stuff takes a couple days? What? Meanwhile, Amy has to restle Dynamo into the relieving circle because of his need to pee. The poor woman’s frustrated.

So lunch was good, and then we found out about the advanced stuff. What it was was showing us the collars we can use if the regular collar just doesn’t work. There was an evil-looking prong collar, a nylon collar that just sits higher on their neck, and the good old gental leader. Autumn hated the look of it and I was just like gimme gimme gimme! They fitted it to my woofer. Let’s see if we need it. But I’m glad I have it. So it was relieve and head for the bus and do the basic route again. Holy crap she felt faster this time. I had Brenda the O and M because they were short-staffed today, and she said she didn’t look any faster than this morning, it was my stamina. But she didn’t blow a single curb. She blew a couple curbs this morning, mostly up curbs, but there was no curb-blowage this afternoon. I had to tell her to be careful once because she made my right foot go off the curb and once I thought she was going to take me into traffic, but it was all good in the end. It was raining this morning, but this afternoon the sun came out and it got nice, but not before some people got soaked. Then I fed her and did the usual ritual.

I ran into Becky the counsellor. She can make you melt before you even know you’re having trouble. She’s like how are things going? I’m like good, she’s good. She goes how are you? She does that and it can just turn you to mush!

So then I went to the room here and took food past some retrains trying to get their dogs to heel. Oo I’m providing food distraction. Well I’d better run. Chimes are about to ring.

Well, the chimes didn’t ring. Oh well, supper was good. When it was over I brushed her teeth, and then we learned how to clean ears! It’s so easy! You put this stuff on some cotton, you shove it in their ear and you take it out. Repeat for other ear. Beauty. How come Ottawa doesn’t do ears?

I helped Carmen print a letter she has to send to her landlord, then we sat on her patio and had a long talk. I really like her. She just knows people.

Man the dogs were nuts tonight because all the retrains got their dogs today. Holy crap. Trixie likes Belamie a lot. She licked his ear, the goofy head. Oh, and we also did heeling practice with the gental leader, and I’m still not sure how to do corrections because she didn’t do a single thing wrong. She heeled perfectly. She may end up wearing it.

We practiced the song again. Carmen’s hillarious, just the way she directs things.

That’s about it. I’m crashing now.

It’s Sunday. Ug. Am I ever happy it’s Sunday. I mean I still had to get up for 6:15 or so for the 6:30 relieve, but after that and breakfast, it was back to bed with me. Trixie seemed cool with that too. The poor beast is tired. I thought she’d hate tiedown, but as soon as we get near it, she just flops over. Man tiedown seems short. If that’s two feet, I’d be shocked. It seems so short!

Some things I haven’t had a chance to mention. They got me a shorter handle because with the regular handle, my arm was way, way back. I love how many things they have so they can accommodate all kinds of needs. Other people, like the 6-foot giant that is Meredeth needed a longer handle. She’s so quiet. She hums to herself all the time.

My little rascal doesn’t seem to want to wait until I say the magic words “do your business” before she’s circling, which can be a super pain because sometimes I don’t have the leash made into long leash yet. I’ll have it out of the short hook, but I won’t have it hooked into the other one.

Today, we do doggy massage, I need to do laundry, and of course I need to groom my puppers. I don’t know what else I’ll be up to. I have to send a couple emails.

I’m so happy David’s gone. He kept sneaking around. last night, Autumn and I watched the movie Erin Brockovich and he walked in and paced around a while. That was awkward.

I have to try the cong with my puppy and see if she likes it better than the ring. She just doesn’t seem to be into the tug thing.

Carmen’s diligently working on this song. I should be down there. But I’m tired and I’m waiting for a call.

Lunch is a taco and supper is…what? Um…beef strogonoff.

I’m excited because tonight the retrains come in. Apparently someone else from good old Canada will be here. I probably won’t know him, but cool. More people to meet.

Ooo! 45 minutes until massage time. I think I’m gonna grab some more z’s.

Well, doggy massage was fun. It’s all about the circular motions. At the end, she just started licking me like mad and wagging her tail. Then she turned and started licking Amy to death. Amy? Amy didn’t give her a massage! What? It was funny. Then she almost plopped her butt on my lap. That would have hurt. Then we went out to relieve and I found out my poor beast has Giardia. Now, I don’t know about dogs, but I know when humans get giardia, they’re pretty sick. So now she has to take medicine for 3 nights to cure her.

Then we decided to do laundry, and we left our beasts in our room. We shut the door,, but we didn’t tie them down. We gave them bones and took off for the laundry. When we came back, they were as good as gold…until we came into the room. Then Trixie got up, ran around and grabbed Beauty’s bone! When I came at her, she dropped it, and Then we couldn’t figure out whose bone was who’s. Autumn found one, and then I discovered that Trixie will point her little nose at what you dropped. Cool! She doesn’t nibble it, she just points. How awesome.

I know she loves me, because whenever I leave her and come back, she jumps up and wags her tail. what a doll.

Got the laundry done, and got the puppy groomed. I even brushed her teeth and everything. Yeah yeah yeah! And I met Carmen’s friends. They’re cool. I need to hang out with Carmen for a bit. She wants me to write down the words to her dog song, she says she has them all written down. what will rhyme with Sedgwick?

I need to go bug the staff for Trixie’s Giardia medicine. She’s so smart. she gets off the rug when she knows it’s feeding time. Smart puppy. We get to meet the retrains soon!

Well we met them. I can’t even hope to get all of their names right. There’s Henry whose dog got sick with some kind of cancer, there’s Craig from Toronto whose dog blew its knee out playing on some snow and ice and had to be retired, ouch! There’s Angela who can’t hear very well, there’s Kristy, there’s Lee who’s Frank’s neighbour, there’s Phil and Deborah, and I’m forgetting a couple. I’ll get them. They all seem cool. Henry and Craig sit at our table.

If I could sleep right now, I would. But we have to relieve. After that, I think I’m going to hit the snoozer.

Look at Trixie-poo chomping on her bone. Chomp chomp gobble gobble chew.

Amy is really upset. She thinks Dynamo has a bladder infection because he really really has to go and his guide work gets sloppy close to relieving times and she can’t seem to get that message across. I told her to not mince her words and ask if she and Dynamo can go down to the vets and get it fixed up. Don’t ask, don’t say maybe. Just say I would like to see the vets. If I’d done that in Ottawa, maybe I wouldn’t have gone through that saga.

Now my F key cap has fallen off my Elba. The big question is…where is it? Where did it fall off and will a dog find it…and eat it? I’ll never be able to live with myself if one of them does. I hope I find it so I can put it away.

Oh god. We finished the song, and Al’s going to play the guitar. Al, who never says anything, was whooping up a storm. It was awesome. I sang beside him so he could hear the words and he loved them. He said it was the best fun he’d had the whole time. He’s such a sweet guy, and his hearing loss really keeps him out of the loop. We turned into such idiots, barking and howling in one part of the song.

And finally here’s a mesage to those ditwads who set off fireworks directly across the street when we went to relieve…if you ever do it again…There will be at least 10 angry blind people after you. The fireworks made our dogs spazz out to varying degrees. Trusty ran inside and snorted, which sent Trixie into being spooked. We were mad. I know they didn’t know, but jesus lord. Fireworks? On a random Sunday? Ok then.

That’s it. It was a quiet day.

It’s Saturday. Yesterday ended off on a strange note. Amy, Jill, Autumn and I went to the instructors all for different reasons to complain about David. I think we upset them because we didn’t seem to be following the communication protocol because we were all in there together, seemingly conspiring against him. But it really wasn’t that. It was more that we’d all seen things, we had talked to David about them, and he just didn’t care. So Autumn and I didn’t want to be the only ones going in there. Plus we really don’t like the way he plays with Maylee. Apparently he’ll grab her paw and twist it around behind her head until she whimpers. And he made Maylee jump on Amy’s bed. Dynamo is black too, so it looks like Amy put her on the bed and Elizabeth, the one who cleans, hates that. So we all had a meeting. Audrey was mad that we were all in there, but we had to do it this way. At least I felt like we had to. So they took notes and they’re having a meeting about David today.

Did I mention how Trixie only seems to want to play with Beauty’s things because they’re beauty’s? Silly girl.

So anyway they said we’re all supposed to stay away from David. So this morning, we all sat on the couch together so he couldn’t sit with us.

When we left the meeting we found Carmen at the piano. She was making a song for all our dogs! What a doll! She’s such a show business kind of girl. She said she’d try and hook me up with these people in Toronto who do shoots and give them tech advice on how to be blind. Sweet! She’s cool. Anyway, she’s working on this song with all our dogs’ names in it. So that was the end of last night.

This morning we were taught the basic route so we can do it independently. We had obedience stuff with doggy and toy distractions, arg! We met another instructor. She’s a float and her name is Carrie, not sure of the spelling. She’s very quiet, more like an O and M in a way, very serious. That’s cool.

At obedience, Mike was late. Can we guess why? He seemed very grave at relieving. Then David didn’t go with us downtown but we just thought it was because he was sick. We did our route,and she missed more curbs! Which makes me ancy, but it will pass…hopefully. Not Babs stuff again. Then we got back on the bus, and Mike got on and told us that for a million reasons, David was kicked out. So, yeah! He’s gone!

Alrighty, off to lunch, Trixie’s been chomping on her bone a whole bunch.

Lunch was good, a beef stew and a chocolate eclaire. Mmm. Frank tried it for the first time, and he was very much a fan. It’s good to see him in better spirits.

After lunch I groomed my baby. She loves it. I love when we’re in the downtown lounge and she snuggles up and sleeps by Val. It’s so cute. they sleep head to head, while Carmen calls me Twinks and works on the computer. She’s met the guy who plays Victor on The Young and the Wrestless and she says he’s an asshole. She has all these pictures of people who she’s met. Pretty cool lady. I guess her husband died. She’s about the same age as my dad.

Did I mention the grooming supplies we got last night? Two kinds of toothbrush, doggy toothpaste, a zoom groom, a slicker and a comb. I think that’s about it. Pretty cool grooming kit. They think of everything.

This afternoon we do Juneau so we can rework errors and such. Then I think we just discuss some basic rules for visitors etc for tomorrow, all that jazz. Can you believe it? I’ve been here a week? Wow. That’s amazing.

So this afternoon we learned about reworking errors. It’s not that confusing, just degrees. If they just miss it, you gently bring them back and say careful, but if they blow by, the no gets stronger. It’s really weird to praise her after you’ve brought her back to where you want her, but it makes sense.

Tomorrow I learn how to massage a puppy. Yea puppy massages. Tonight we learn how to clean woofer teeth. Ooo! Woofer teeth.

My dog does not like tug rings. Boohoo. Cong for you.

Oh, Frank knows sign language. Add that to the list of languages he knows.

I’m nervous about next week. They’re cutting back on the help. This is good, but scary. Am I ready to lose some of it?

Trixie’s just done something really weird. She jumped at my dresser! That was weird! She also likes to gnaw on her toenails. She looks like she’s chewing her nails in worry. It’s hillarious, but I might ask about it in case it’s anything to worry about.

I found out her poop wasn’t just watery, it was bloody! Aaa! But they say that’s normal. Ok. They say she may have caught a bug from another dog or from the kennel. But they say they’re looking better.

Did I mention we’re working the dogs out to the relieving circle and then taking the harnesses off? I don’t feel like such a lost sheep because A. I know where I’m going, and B. I can walk forward quickly and just wait for the instructors to tell me to stop. They’re wonderful. I don’t know how they handle us all so well. I feel like I’m just one of their dogs in a way, they just gently tell us when we’re wrong, and you can tell if you repeat the same mistake, because they amp up what they say. It’s hillarious. I’ll finish this one later. We have pizza for dinner. Then it’s teeth cleaning.

I’ve got other people calling that stealthy crawl across the floor that dogs do that sort of looks like they’re sprawling, but they’re actually sneaking towards something oozing. Babs used to do it and dad called it oozing, and now I have other people calling it that. Trixie is a bit of an oozer. Not as bigtime an oozer as Babs though, partly because I don’t let her, and partly because she just isn’t.

I feel like my brain is saturated. And this is just the first week. I wonder if I can absorb the basic route. I know it’s basic, but there’s so much to think of. I’m definitely going to have to have a look at it. I know I have it straight when I’m coming back. I feel saturated and unable to speak to people who aren’t here. It’s not because of snobbery or anything, I just feel I can’t get the message across because I’ve lost the ability to speak clearly because my mind is so full of stuff. So if you talk to me on the phone and I don’t seem to have a lot to say, it’s because I’m A. tired, B. having trouble stringing words together or C. both.

Aaa! David is in the computer room. He’s mad! They’re making him pay his way home! He’s mad, mad because he feels that Mike should have proof of what he’s done. So 5 people complaining about him isn’t enough? That’s half of his fellow classmates! Actually 6 of his classmates had a problem with him. But he’s mad and somehow he missed hearing that I was involved. Very bizarre. He blames Autumn for this. Uh-huh. It’s all Autumn’s fault. Forgive me for not having the spine to stand up and say actually I was involved and this is why.

One of the food servers called me a bad boy today. That was funny. A bad boy. I said I wanted to be bad and have dessert and she said, “You bad boy!” So I’m now a boy.

It’s almost time for teeth cleaning. Poor Autumn had her first breakdown. Poor girl. Trixie and I tried to console her a bit.

Tried to brush her teeth. Ug! It took everything just to get the brush in there, let alone the toothpaste. At least you just shove it in one side and then the other and that’s it. And here I thought I had to get each tooth and do it like ours. Thank god it’s not that way.

I think that’s it. I’ll try again at the computer. Let’s hope David’s not there.

Man I was tired this morning. Autumn and I had a role reversal. I was groggy and she was awake when my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. I stayed up until 11 which probably wasn’t smart, but I had a lot of email to respond to after I sent the mass email that said “I have my dog” to all the people who don’t get all the details of my trials and tribulations.

Man, having a dog makes you do things in a whole new rhythm. When you feed the puppy, you have to pick up the rug, so if you can, pick up the rug *before* you put the dog on tiedown. Otherwise, you have to wrestle the rug out from under your puppy. If you sit down somewhere amid the puppies, you have to find a spot for both you and your dog. I know this sounds elementary, but it’s not automatic. Everything from using a bathroom stall to getting on a bus becomes a bit of an art, and when you get tired, your artwork gets sloppy.

So today, we do obedience with food distractions. Oh good lord. Then a lecture on PR, a route, lunch which is salmon and couscous because it sounds better than the salad, then a lecture on playing with our woofers, and then we get our first woofer toys! Heehee! Then it’s another route, then it’s feed, water, relieve, or something to that effect, then we eat dinner which is…what is dinner? I can’t remember! Oh yeah it’s like Christmas dinner! Yea! Then we learn how to groom. The grooming begins. And Autumn thought I was high when I said the list of chores would get longer. Har har I think I should know. I should go for breakfast. It’s getting close to the wire.

So I wrote this whole thing after breakfast, but it went caboom. Curse you. But the main thing is now Beauty is misbehaving, and all I can say is, hahahahahahahah! Well outwardly I’m sympathetic, but inwardly I giggle.

This morning Trixie’s poop was soft, so they’re keeping an eye on it. We had obedience, and she was very distracted. So food is going to be an issue, but what can you expect, she’s a lab!

Yesterday I forgot to mention we got bait bags. They’re little kibble bags. We must call them reward bags according to frank. Mine keeps falling off the damn strap. It won’t fall off on route, but in relieving circle, in my room, anywhere where the instructor can’t see it happen it’s more than happy to do it. It got doggy drool on it because of that.

So anyway, obedience over, relieving time, and all she’d do was pee. She’d pooped earlier, but nothing this time. So off we went to the bus.

She was much better at staying sitting. Oh no, we have a new song. The law on the bus says sit sit sit. We’re goofy.

I keep forgetting to mention that we haven’t seen Tamara for a little bit. She had some kind of family emergency with her dad and the ER. We don’t know what that means.

We went out on our morning walk and it went pretty well, but the little bum missed a curb! Just charged out into traffic! We were lucky nothing was going right in front of us. So it was back to the curb, make her sit, tap my left foot and say careful! What else happened in the morning route? Not much, she just needs a lot of encouragement.

Carmen’s cool. She keeps telling me to wear sun-screen and she’s right, I should. Add that into the schedule.

So we had lunch, which was the salmon thing. It was good. The president, Bob Philips, sat at our table. He seems cool. Oh, before lunch we relieved, and no second poop!

After lunch Laurie came over to see if we needed anything at the store. We asked to rent Rain Man, but she said we couldn’t rent it because you have to have an account at the video store and they don’t. She also told us that Matt, AKA GDB’s own continued assessment Rain man, decided that he didn’t want a guide dog after all because it took too much focus. Yea continued assessments. I think they’re awesome. Laurie said it was really stressful arranging his travel stuff.

We learned about playing with our puppy-poos. They got their bones! They all chewed on them and it was the biggest mass of sound. Chew chew chew chew. They all love their bones. We learned the thing about supervising their play, and that they need some every day. Of course the poor things do. That’s fun. We relieved again and nothing but pee from my pooch. We got on the bus and went back to the lounge. There I read an email from Steve saying it’s supposed to snow! What? It’s like 25 degrees here! Like 80 F. That’s insanity.

So I went out on my route, and it was pretty good, except she was a real sniffer, and once, when she was distracted by a small dog, she made me fall on her. Jen said “look out, the sidewalk is really narrow.” Just as she finished the word narrow, down I went on her tail and Trixie went, “YIPE!” They WERE ALL WORRIED ABOUT ME, BUT i said I was more worried about her because I fell, all of me, on her tail. But they said she’d be fine. It was the finest correction ever because now she realizes how much she matters. I also know she’ll make some noise if she gets hurt.

So after the route,we relieved, and hoo boy! Trixie opened the flood gates. Icky watery poop. So now she has to eat this WD food. WD? It sounds like that would loosen her up. So it’s WD for her for a little while.

I sat down at dinner with the usual suspects, and Frank was not in good spirits. Apparently David prank called him really late last night and freaked him out. I guess Autumn told him who phoned him, and he’s some mad. I guess he told the staff about it. David, you’re working your way out sans Maylee!

Then we learned how to groom, and my puppy likes it. She tries to lunge at the brush a bit, but not a whole bunch. She let me rub her belly-welly!

She tried to escape me as I wrote this! The little ball of fire was sitting here, waiting for her WD, and David went down the hall and she ran after him, ripping herself away from me! I ran after her so fast and grabbed her and then asked if I had her. I really didn’t wanna take Maylee instead, nothing against Maylee.

Did I mention how mad Frank was at dinner and how he was all hostile with David? I think there’s trouble brewing for David. Jill, Amy, Autumn and I all have reasons for approaching the staff and telling them about what’s up. I think they’re mad at him too because of his complete lack of interest in this.

All the dogs like Mike. It’s hillarious. They’ll do anything for him. I think he’ll be the biggest distraction.

I found that fan that Barby was talking about. It sorta does sound like there’s someone lost with a cane.

Anton’s a goof. when he peed, it looked like he peed his name. Hahahah a true male.

I think that’s about it. Should be an eventful day tomorrow.