Day 19 of GDT

What a day! It been a busy one that's for sure. Odene is wiped out!

We started with our very early journey on the bus to my St Albans office. We stayed about an hour before making a return journey by bus. We had a couple of hours back at home before doing the bus routes to my Watford office and back.

Going to Watford by bus was our first time at it and unfortunately there was a foreign market on the high street. It meant that my normal quiet walk to work was instead incredibly busy. Odene coped very well however. There are shared streets in Watford Town Centre which are streets without curbs. Obviously Odene has been trained to stop at curbs which means I don't just get taken into the road. With there being no curbs to stop at however it is up to me to say 'sit' at the right time, not hard in the daylight hours but it will be harder in the dark. Hopefully Odene will learn in time but it can't be relied on. I'm defs not a fan of shared streets thats for sure!

We then had a bit of fun and gave Odene a free run where we met up with Maz and Bella, Maz and Gab's Japanese Spitz. It went fairly well but Odene and Bella weren't automatically best friends. We're going to have another free run next week to see if they get on better next time. The meet was going much better towards the end but due to the heat we thought it best to take Odene back home as she was starting to pant a bit too excessively.

It's a break for the weekend and we start back up on Monday morning!

Day 18 of GDT

It's been a really good couple of days. Yesterday we did my St Albans route to work and back again using the bus with a nice 1/2 hour break at work. Odene performed brilliantly although it was incredibly hot and I think she was suffering from black dog syndrome with the heat getting to her. We certainly moved a lot slower than normal and it can't be put down to Odene's limp as that has completely disappeared now, woot!

Today we decided to make a trip to my Watford office. As it was another hot day so it seemed like a good idea to not make another lengthy trip to St Albans in the heat of the day. Instead we took Odene in the car along with her 3rd bed to Watford. Kelly and I went in first without Odene to check out the space that had been created in my absence. We set up the bed and filled up her water bowl and just generally warned everyone that we were bringing Odene up and to continue working as normal.

Odene we've decided is the perfect office dog. She happily sat down in her bed, took a drink and we did the trip up and down the stairs several times to get her used to where to go with her heading straight for her bed every time. She seemed to need no encouragement, instead it seems that getting to the office to have a relaxing lie down seemed encouragement enough! The only problem with the heat meant that she didn't constantly want to lie in the bed, it was too hot for her so instead laid down under the desk. Luckily I'm next to windows which we can open up with blinds to stop the heat of the sun coming in.

Tomorrow is going to be my first full on day. We're going to head to my St Albans office for my normal working hours, meaning Kelly is getting here for 7.15am! Then temperature permitting for the afternoon we're going to the Watford office again. With us ending with a well deserved free run with my best friend Maz joining us part way through with her dog Bella!

Day 16 of GDT

Today we took Odene on the journey to my St Albans office working in harness. As we had been cleared to work by the vets we were watchful of her limping but knowing that to harden her paw pads we should get her out and about. We saw a dog up in front and that seemed to make her forget about her poorly foot completely!

She remembered the route from when we last did it and went straight to the traffic light signal box when asked and the same for the bus stop. Here I experienced a truly silly question, 'How do Guide Dog's read the bus numbers?'. I'll start at the beginning, we arrived at the bus stop, yay lots of praise. We then took her to sit within the shelter but before quite managing to do this a fellow (who turned out to be the bus driver) tried to start making a fuss of her. This is where I had to be quite firm as Odene shouldn't react to people fussing her, unfortunately she turned towards him so I said 'no' and corrected her. Once ignoring the fellow I gave her lots of praise again, it's all about balancing the bad girl with the good girl you see. I thought my 'no' was enough to scare off the guy from speaking to me again but instead as soon as I sat Odene down he started coming towards us to give her a stroke again! Kelly acted as a human shield and was like 'seriously, you can't pet a working Guide Dog'. He still didn't really get it so Kelly started answering all his questions, to which he asked 'How do Guide Dog's read bus numbers?'. I was looking at him disbelievingly but he was adamant that they could. He had seen Guide Dogs either waiting at the bus stop, letting a bus go past if it wasn't the right one and other Guide Dogs trotting right up to the bus when it's the right one. Kelly explained rather tactfully that, no, Guide Dogs can't read numbers and that either the passenger with the Guide Dog has some remaining vision and can see the numbers, or another person waiting at the stop would have told them. I think the driver saw sense in the end and at least we came away knowing we had educated someone about Guide Dogs. I'm tempted if asked by someone again to just say 'I get her to read the timetable every night to practice'. Mike said that someone had actually said that to a reporter once and it got printed in the local newspaper... I don't really understand how anyone could've believed it but there you go!

It made me think though that it's a real shame that so many people aren't aware of what that do's and don't are with Guide Dogs and businesses aren't making more efforts in making employees aware of the Equality Act. I actually ended up writing to my local bus company late this afternoon to ask them about their views on the 'talking buses campaign' but also to ask if they gave all their drivers training on the Equality Act and what to do if a Guide Dog owner came aboard. We'll see if I get a response!

Once at work I took the harness off and got Odene settled again. Kelly and Mike left me for 15 minutes to see how she would be. I acted as I would normally in the office, got on the phone, checked some emails and opened filing cabinets. I didn't even get a lift of the head from her! Liz my St Albans work colleague was amazed at how well she behaved and to be honest so was I!

Mike returned for me as Kelly was fetching the car and I put the harness back on and we went back downstairs. Going outside towards the car I made my first boo boo of the day. I was saying 'find the car', which she did but then didn't stop at a curb. Kinda both our faults I guess but seeing as she had done so well we just let her get into the back of the car. Kelly and Mike brought me back home with news that I'd be doing it all again tomorrow but this time would be having a return journey by bus as well!

It's becoming real now, I'm not getting as many instructions from Kelly or Mike with them now just following behind me and only giving the occasional point to improve on.

Day 15 of GDT

We took Odene outside today to see if her limp had gone over the weekend, unfortunately she was still limping on the tarmac. She has been fine in the house all weekend so it must just be that her pad is sensitive on the tougher surfaces. We decided that due to her continued limping despite the rest of the weekend we shouldn't work her so instead to still make use of the day in training we took her in the car to my St Albans office.

It went brilliantly! Kelly and I went in first to set up her bed and bowl in the office and to give everyone the heads up that we were coming in. We then went back for Odene and heeled her up to the office. We had filled her bowl with a bit of her evening feed so she went 'wow, this place is amazing!' and once she was a little bit more settled we shut the door to the office and took her off the lead to have a bit of an explore around.

Once she had ensured that she had sniffed everything she could we got her settled into her bed and got her settled. Kelly and I stayed for a tea so we could give her time to get used to being in a new place. As I say she couldn't have behaved more perfectly and she truly made Kelly and I proud!

Odene had quite a few of my colleagues admiring eyes on her but it didn't seem to worry her at all and she also seemed quite happy when I left the room. Take a look of the picture below of her in her St Albans office! I'm thinking of asking for an NHS name tag for her to attach to her harness, it would be appropriate don't you think? After all, every worker has to have one and she is a working dog...!

Odene having a snooze at the office

Once we were finished at the office Kelly took me to the pet store again to get a few more bits. I wanted to supply her with a kong or nylabone in the quiet times of work to ensure she doesn't get bored just sitting next to me all day or if I have to leave her on her own in the office for any length of time. As a Guide Dog I'm only allowed to leave her on her own for 4 hours at a time just as a bit of extra knowledge. I'm hopeful that I won't often need to leave her this long mind!

We then took her to the vets again for another examination and we were cleared to work her again. Yay! We are still to keep an eye on her and if she were to start limping on every step instead of the random limp that it currently seems to be, we're to then take her back again. Obviously every day that goes by without her able to work is a day lost in getting qualified!

Tomorrow I believe it's another trip to the St Albans office but instead of being driven there we'll be working Odene there. Trainer Mike is joining us and depending on how Odene is doing limp wise we'll assess whether a drive back is in order or a harness walk back will be okay.