Just finished my first day with my new guide dog, Pat. Turns out I did, in fact, hear correctly when I thought I heard my trainer tell me over the phone that my dog’s name was “Patsy.” I ain’t calling him “Patsy," so he’s Pat, and that’s that.
Pat’s inky black coat is so luxuriantly wavy and thick that when I first felt him I was sure he was a Golden and Labrador retriever cross. Steve, my trainer, said he thought so, too, but Pat’s papers say he’s all Labrador. He has the classic Labrador boxy head, but he’s not stocky and stolidly-boned like Trace. Pat is slim-boned and on the small side, around 65 pounds, which is perfect — easier to cram into cars, buses and planes than Trace was at 75-80 pounds. Pat’s just over three years old, and was assigned to another handler and then returned to GDF, not for any problems but because the handler was not able to use a guide anymore. (No idea why … could have been anything, including death.)
Today we worked out a short half-mile-or-so walk from my house around the neighborhood and back, patterning him to up- and down-curbs, sidewalk cut-outs for the street trees, and of course the brick light pillars at the sidewalk marking the walkway to my front door, and the door itself. We also took him to my weekly weight management meeting and patterned him to the building front door, the elevator, and the door of the meeting room.
I’m a little rusty on my dog work, not having used a guide dog for more than two years until now, and there are things I’ve never had to pay attention to before. For one thing, Steve wants my left arm held a lot closer to my body than I’m used to. (Guide dogs are usually trained to work on the handler’s left side.) So he told me to imagine that I’m holding a baseball to my body with my left elbow at all times. He says “Baseball!!” everytime my elbow drops it to remind me to crook and tuck that elbow back in. He did that a lot today.
But he also says I have a good way with dogs and that I’m the kind of dog handler “all guide dog schools really want.” I didn’t remember that when I was dropping all the baseballs, but it’s sure nice to remember now at the end of the day. Remembering Pat’s name is another story. I’ve called Pat “Trace” and “Pace” a few times, and once I even called him “Trap," but that will work itself out. (Steve liked my story about calling Trace “Trayple” at first and telling him “Trail!” and “Treel!” when I meant to say, “Trace, Heel!")
Pat’s pace is brisk but not too fast, and he didn’t blow a single curb today. He’s smart and was right on the mark remembering all the new patterns so far. He’s full of pep and very affectionate. We’ll make a good team.
The biggest difference I’m noticing between my Leader Dogs training with April and Trace and the training I’m getting now with Guide Dog Foundation, apart from the differences in commands, is the focus on food as a reward for doing things right. I suspect this difference is broader than just Leader Dogs versus Guide Dog Foundation. I think the movement toward using food to train and reward your dog for doing things correctly is a universal thing. When I got April in 1999, using food to train a dog was actually frowned upon. It wasn’t so frowned upon when I went back to get Trace in 2007, and in fact I recall that a bag of treats was included in the bag of free feeding bowl, grooming tools and other items that we all got when we got our dogs. This time around, though, I’m filling up my pocket with a bunch of kibbles, and routinely praising and rewarding Pat with a kibble for just about everything he does right, and “jackpotting” him (giving him three to five kibbles, one at a time but all in a row, one right after the other) for the big things like finding the doors and elevators. We even taught him to be quiet when someone knocks at the door in about five minutes with this technique. It really works. Tomorrow we’ll do a new route, this time down to my fave coffee-ice cream shop, and use clicker training.
Once he gets all the routes down, the kibble rewards will start decreasing and he’ll only get them when we do new things or when we’re doing the routine obedience maintenance games. Right now everything is new to him here, so he is getting a lot of reward for good work.
One little problem is that he’s too interested in squirrels. Not enough to drag me off my line of travel, but enough to turn his head and be focused on the squirrel instead of where we’re supposed to be going. After Steve alerted me to what was happening, I was able to catch Pat at the squirrel distraction on our second workout — could see just enough to see his head turn, and give him short, sharp leash corrections. I didn’t catch all of them, though. So, in addition to the clicker training tomorrow, Pat will get some serious “varmint ignorance” training with a Gentle Leader.
And a big problem is that he’s way too excited about Bella and Patches, our cats. It’s going to be a cold day in hell before Bella ever comes up to me again when I have Pat next to me. I’m not sure how we’ll solve this one, but I am sure I’ll find out tomorrow! Pat and Trace seem to be fine together, however. We kept Trace outside for the first hour or so that Pat was in the house and Steve and I were going over introductory matters, but after our first workout, we let Trace and Pat have some extended but supervised sniffing time. Then Trace plopped down on his bed behind the breakfast nook table and Pat (on leash) plopped down on the floor next to me at the same table. It will be a while before they’ll get to go out and just play together, because right now I have to focus on developing the bond between Pat and me before I let him be buddies with anyone else, canine or human.
And he whines. I’ve been around dogs who do the whining thing when they’re stressed or want to go play (as Pat does right now with Trace), but I never had to deal with that in either April or Trace. I wonder if it’s really that Pat’s just a tired puppy who’s had a long hard two days, first traveling across the country and then working all day in a totally new place with a totally unfamiliar person, and now he just wants his trainer back. So that’s another thing I’ll be talking to Steve about tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, it’s bedtime for this tired puppy and her tired puppy.
Pat’s inky black coat is so luxuriantly wavy and thick that when I first felt him I was sure he was a Golden and Labrador retriever cross. Steve, my trainer, said he thought so, too, but Pat’s papers say he’s all Labrador. He has the classic Labrador boxy head, but he’s not stocky and stolidly-boned like Trace. Pat is slim-boned and on the small side, around 65 pounds, which is perfect — easier to cram into cars, buses and planes than Trace was at 75-80 pounds. Pat’s just over three years old, and was assigned to another handler and then returned to GDF, not for any problems but because the handler was not able to use a guide anymore. (No idea why … could have been anything, including death.)
Today we worked out a short half-mile-or-so walk from my house around the neighborhood and back, patterning him to up- and down-curbs, sidewalk cut-outs for the street trees, and of course the brick light pillars at the sidewalk marking the walkway to my front door, and the door itself. We also took him to my weekly weight management meeting and patterned him to the building front door, the elevator, and the door of the meeting room.
I’m a little rusty on my dog work, not having used a guide dog for more than two years until now, and there are things I’ve never had to pay attention to before. For one thing, Steve wants my left arm held a lot closer to my body than I’m used to. (Guide dogs are usually trained to work on the handler’s left side.) So he told me to imagine that I’m holding a baseball to my body with my left elbow at all times. He says “Baseball!!” everytime my elbow drops it to remind me to crook and tuck that elbow back in. He did that a lot today.
But he also says I have a good way with dogs and that I’m the kind of dog handler “all guide dog schools really want.” I didn’t remember that when I was dropping all the baseballs, but it’s sure nice to remember now at the end of the day. Remembering Pat’s name is another story. I’ve called Pat “Trace” and “Pace” a few times, and once I even called him “Trap," but that will work itself out. (Steve liked my story about calling Trace “Trayple” at first and telling him “Trail!” and “Treel!” when I meant to say, “Trace, Heel!")
Pat’s pace is brisk but not too fast, and he didn’t blow a single curb today. He’s smart and was right on the mark remembering all the new patterns so far. He’s full of pep and very affectionate. We’ll make a good team.
The biggest difference I’m noticing between my Leader Dogs training with April and Trace and the training I’m getting now with Guide Dog Foundation, apart from the differences in commands, is the focus on food as a reward for doing things right. I suspect this difference is broader than just Leader Dogs versus Guide Dog Foundation. I think the movement toward using food to train and reward your dog for doing things correctly is a universal thing. When I got April in 1999, using food to train a dog was actually frowned upon. It wasn’t so frowned upon when I went back to get Trace in 2007, and in fact I recall that a bag of treats was included in the bag of free feeding bowl, grooming tools and other items that we all got when we got our dogs. This time around, though, I’m filling up my pocket with a bunch of kibbles, and routinely praising and rewarding Pat with a kibble for just about everything he does right, and “jackpotting” him (giving him three to five kibbles, one at a time but all in a row, one right after the other) for the big things like finding the doors and elevators. We even taught him to be quiet when someone knocks at the door in about five minutes with this technique. It really works. Tomorrow we’ll do a new route, this time down to my fave coffee-ice cream shop, and use clicker training.
Once he gets all the routes down, the kibble rewards will start decreasing and he’ll only get them when we do new things or when we’re doing the routine obedience maintenance games. Right now everything is new to him here, so he is getting a lot of reward for good work.
One little problem is that he’s too interested in squirrels. Not enough to drag me off my line of travel, but enough to turn his head and be focused on the squirrel instead of where we’re supposed to be going. After Steve alerted me to what was happening, I was able to catch Pat at the squirrel distraction on our second workout — could see just enough to see his head turn, and give him short, sharp leash corrections. I didn’t catch all of them, though. So, in addition to the clicker training tomorrow, Pat will get some serious “varmint ignorance” training with a Gentle Leader.
And a big problem is that he’s way too excited about Bella and Patches, our cats. It’s going to be a cold day in hell before Bella ever comes up to me again when I have Pat next to me. I’m not sure how we’ll solve this one, but I am sure I’ll find out tomorrow! Pat and Trace seem to be fine together, however. We kept Trace outside for the first hour or so that Pat was in the house and Steve and I were going over introductory matters, but after our first workout, we let Trace and Pat have some extended but supervised sniffing time. Then Trace plopped down on his bed behind the breakfast nook table and Pat (on leash) plopped down on the floor next to me at the same table. It will be a while before they’ll get to go out and just play together, because right now I have to focus on developing the bond between Pat and me before I let him be buddies with anyone else, canine or human.
And he whines. I’ve been around dogs who do the whining thing when they’re stressed or want to go play (as Pat does right now with Trace), but I never had to deal with that in either April or Trace. I wonder if it’s really that Pat’s just a tired puppy who’s had a long hard two days, first traveling across the country and then working all day in a totally new place with a totally unfamiliar person, and now he just wants his trainer back. So that’s another thing I’ll be talking to Steve about tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, it’s bedtime for this tired puppy and her tired puppy.
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