Day 4 of Guide Dog Training

For our first harness walk today we went to the same area as yesterday and for one of the road crossings a van was parked on the corner completely on the pavement (which I've learnt is actually illegal) and Odene navigated round it like a pro. Apparently this is level 3 Guide Dog work so I was very proud and she got tons of fussing afterwards. She had to go into the actual road to navigate round and normally she would be told off for going so far into the road but in cases like cars being in the way Odene is allowed to go into the road briefly if she feels that it's safe to do so. I was well impressed!

I'm more tired today, not sure if it's a combination of lack of sleep or just so much mental energy being used up trying to remember everything. I've got hubby Mike coming over this evening which will be nice. Normally visitors are not allowed to come and see you till the Sunday but as Odene has already met Mike the trainers suggested that he could come and visit a bit sooner. I was given lots of do's and don'ts for visitors with firm instructions on what Odene should do, what I should do and what visitors should do. So if you are one of the few visiting me - be warned! :-)

The second harness walk went well as well, a different area with more distractions. We passed a park and I noticed the difference in behavior almost immediately! So many dogs running free with so many smells! Apparently there has been improvement in my firm 'no' but it's still not quite growly enough! The thought is that if you say one short firm 'no' and the bad behavior stops it's tons better than having to say it loads of times with you being unable to move forward for longer. Saves on repetition and the dog tuning out.

Had my first problem today with putting the harness on this afternoon. As previously mentioned she is very body sensitive and doesn't really like the harness going on. Even the treats weren't getting us anywhere which for a labrador is really quite amazing. I was patient however and eventually she let me put it on for which she got tons of praise. As soon as she realised we were off walkies she promptly forgot about the harness, tis so funny! As a result of the extra time it took to put the harness on however I was a little bit late meeting Kelly and Nicky. Kelly though was really pleased that I didn't rush the process and would rather me be late than make putting on the harness a bad experience.

After the walk Kelly came back to my room and I showed her what Odene was like earlier, luckily in some ways she performed the same way, walking away, looking back, sniffing the food but backing off when the harness was a bit too close. Kelly had some pretty good suggestions and we've come to the conclusion that the treats maybe aren't a tasty enough encouragement for her. The treats are one's that Odene has never had previously so it may well be the case that the treat just isn't tempting enough. Kelly tried the process again with some of Odene's evening feed which she definitely prefers and suddenly we had no problems. We're to try that next time but if that starts not working we may try something else as we don't want it to become that Odene is just being cheeky and realising that the worse she is at the process the better the treat becomes!

The veterinary talk went well and answered a few questions on who I should get in touch with in the event of any concerns or emergencies. We also today had a talk on the 'straight line principal' which is a case of basically being that we are the navigator as humans and the dog is the pilot. We keep a plot of where we need to head and give the commands, left, right etc and the dog will just keep going straight unless told otherwise, stop at curbs and avoid obstacles.

Hope you enjoy the new tweets from Odene, thought it would make a nice addition! Thinking straight to bed once Mike goes back home this evening, feeling knackered, didn't even ask what the plan was tomorrow!