We are now on day four and what a day it was. I was extremely tired at the end of the day, so it was nice not to have any lectures in the evening. Wait, I am getting ahead of myself.
We took the dogs out at 5:30 AM and then returned and fed them. I found it easier to do all the prep work before taking the dog outside so that things would be ready for mealtime. This also seemingly encourages the dog to part. I found that the dog was much more eager to complete needed tasks outside.
In typical fashion I completed some work and email before breakfast and then we were told about the schedule for the day. Here is how the day played out:
• We went into town after completing door work. We arrived at around 8:00 or so.
• We worked on the modified Maple Avenue route again to verify things with the new harness handles that were distributed to some of us. I am now using an offset handle due to me stepping on feet. I am hoping that this isn’t the case as these are a bit more difficult to travel with when getting dogs under chairs or tucked away. If it is needed then no worries. We will see. I will ask about this this weekend to see if a longer handle will work instead of the offset. We did these routes individually, more on that in a moment.
• We then returned to the Seeing Eye and had two class lectures. The first on traffic and traffic checks. The second was on the rules of working the dogs inside the house, which was scheduled for the afternoon, but we got it done early. Woot! More free time for us later!
• We then had lunch and then returned to the training center downtown.
• We were then paired up with another student and we were first on doing the South Street route. I will put the routes up here later for those that are curious. It is about a 1.25 mile or so walk but is a bit longer if you account for reworking issues and the like. It basically is about 10 blocks in length with the pattern for this route being four blocks up, turn left, 1 block, turn left, four blocks up, turn left and walk one block back to Maple Avenue. We then turn left to work a half a block back to the training center. I believe I have that correct but it is early so I will triple verify this and correct it if needed.
• Greg, our instructor, was very pleased with our performance on the route. We will solo the route on Sunday.
• We then returned to the training center to wait for our rides back to the school. All of us were extremely hot and tired from the afternoon route. Temperatures were up there, close to 90 with significant amounts of humidity.
• I came back and rested a bit before we needed to feed, park and harness our dogs up for working them in the building for the first time. We are now working the dogs throughout the building with one exception, that being if we are just on our floor then they want us to heel the dogs if we are not navigating to other areas of the building.
• We had dinner and dessert was delicious!
• We then had a small lecture on degree of corrections and worked with the stuffed dogs in the downstairs lounge.
• After this we were free for the evening!
Friday and Saturday will be pretty much the same as far as activities are concerned. I expect we will do the South Street route twice on Friday and once on Saturday. Soloing the route will be done as I stated on Sunday when we will put our eyes on the Elm Street route. Elm Street routes will be completed on Wednesday morning and then it’s freelance time! The Elm Street route is a much longer route, and it is much more complex.
Oh, rumor has it that we will get toys for the dogs Friday evening. This should be interesting.
See everyone on day five!