Sayonara

Posted on January 5, 2009
Filed Under Firsts, Major Steps, Mitigating Symptoms, Things That Make Me Want To Cry, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

i got to work today all excited to tell everyone that i had my fist vacation in years where i didnt spend at least half of it sick. instead i come in, settle down and got the long walk to HR. yup, i got laid off today. as you can gather from my previous posts its not like i didnt see it coming. i tried desperately to turn todays negative into a positive and went home, changed into service dog academy clothing and went to the dog park. the high it gave me worked for a couple of hours. ive been up for a while now and i think the reality of the situation is finally hitting me.

“Service Dog In The Building!”

Posted on January 3, 2009
Filed Under Firsts, Mistakes, Service Dog Laws, Tips and Tricks | 1 Comment

we went to the seattle aquarium a couple of days ago. right before we were about to enter the aquarium the front desk clerk made what i would have assumed was a general staff announcement that there was a “service dog in the building.” i didnt understand it at first and thought it a little insulting but then it occurred to me that even though liame had been introduced to all types of environments that the penguins, otters and octopus might be a little taken aback by the fact that there was this furry predator staring them down. sure enough when we came to the octopus tank, the octopus started squirming around in him tank and tried to hide behind a rock. according to the attendant the octopus had barely moved all day. when we came up to another tank which happened to be really long and at liames level, he spotted a fish swimming really fast in it and tried to chase it down the wall. telling him to “leave it” worked but it bugs me that i have to be so reactive all the time. i wonder if his age is causing this impulsiveness or maybe its because he is the product of champion hunters? when i picked out liame i knew i needed a dog that would be an active participant in my life, a dog with a lot of energy and drive to encourage me to get out of the house. guide dogs have such passive personalities that they seem to be more like an assistive device rather than a living breathing animal. i know they select their breeding stock so that they turn out that way. sometimes though liames constant on the go, inquisitive personality makes me wonder, did i screw up and get a dog with too much drive?

Snow Rules!

Posted on December 16, 2008
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liame had his first experience with snow on sunday. i was kind of concerned that he wouldnt want to walk around in it but it didnt seem to phase him at all. infact i think he found it rather exciting. he kept freezing, shoving his head down into it, digging his nose around, taking in its aroma and then bounding around in complete and utter joy to the next spot where he would repeat the same sequence over and over again. his response to the snow also illustrates how important it is to make sure your puppy experiences everything you can introduce it to during its first developmental window and that those experiences are all positive. all the exposure training we did during those first 10 weeks has laid a foundation for an inquisitive, confident, happy, 1 year old puppy.

Meeting A Hero and Trying To Become A Real Life Hero Myself

Posted on December 6, 2008
Filed Under Care, Clubs And Organizations, Firsts, Major Steps, Things That Make Me Smile | Leave a Comment

today i went to the Epilepsy Advocate conference with liame and met Greg Grunberg from Heroes, Alias and Felicity. who knew 10 years ago while watching felicity with my college friends i would eventually be able to meet one of the cast members. anyway, enough fangirling, back to the conference.

in the last couple of weeks i have decided to expand my services to helping people train all types of service dogs. i heard greg was going to be there and that it would be an intro to epilepsy. not knowing much about epilepsy or seizures except from what i had seen on episodes of House, i decided to attend to educate myself on this condition so that i could help someone train their dog to detect them. i met a number of people at the conference who were interested in my services. it was so energizing to talk to people about dog training. i now know that i was put on this earth to help others with service dogs. and although it will never make me monetarily rich, it will make me spiritually rich, the type of rich i so desperately long for.

Which Hand?

Posted on November 25, 2008
Filed Under Firsts, Things That Make Me Smile, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

i think liame has finally learned a little bit of self restraint so today we tried to work on the “which hand?” command. first i told him to wait. then i let him sniff one hand and then the other. i then asked him “which hand” and he placed his paw on the hand with the treat. we did this another 30 or so times with a success rate of about 90 percent. yea!!! he and i have finally figured it out! the “which hand” command has nothing to do with service dog training, i just thought it would be a fun parlor trick to train him and show off to my friends (and possibly clients) how smart he is.

I Really Can Train Dogs

Posted on November 12, 2008
Filed Under Care, Firsts, Mistakes, Things That Make Me Smile, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

last sunday the most amazing thing happened. i finally realized that i am a dog trainer. liame would play fetch at home really well but at the dog park he would come within about 5 feet of me and then conveniently drop the ball IN THE LAKE. argh!!!! after numerous failed attempts at calling him to me in this high distraction environment, i had an epiphany, i need to somehow communicate to him and motivate him to stop directly in front of me. so, the moment he got close to me, i turned around in the opposite direction and ran away from him. this turned a game of fetch into an even better game, chase. it worked like a charm. when i eventually stopped about 20 feet from the shore of he lake, liame caught up to me and dropped the ball. we repeated the game of fetch and chase until we both were exhausted. in all honesty, i dont think i have ever had so much fun at the dog park as i did on sunday.

24 Commands And Counting

Posted on October 28, 2008
Filed Under Class, Firsts, Things That Make Me Smile, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

today we learned the command “open”. having mastered the commands “take it” and “tug” we chained them together to produce “open”. this is the first opportunity i have had to chain a command. i think i like it! i want him to be able to do the “get me a beer” party trick one day to show just how special he is. so far, these are the commands he knows:

sit
down
roll over
shake
high five
bow
turn around
back up
touch
go lay down
off
leave it
take it
drop
wait/stay
come
heel (well most of the time)
thats enough
open
focus
tug
get it
nope
no

Bowling Alley As Training Opportunity

Posted on October 26, 2008
Filed Under Clubs And Organizations, Firsts, Major Steps, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment

today we went bowling with the university of michigan alumni club. neil asked me to not make him go because he wasnt feeling good but i told him that i couldnt bowl without him since i needed someone to watch liame while i threw the ball. i was absolutely flabberghasted at liames behavior. he was friendly, wasnt afraid of the loud noises and (this is what was amazing to me) “stayed” as instructed while i went up to the lane, grabbed a ball and threw it down the lane. a retriever did not go after the ball, now thats a small miracle in and of itself. i guess those sessions i have been having in the parking lot with him working on his distance stays are paying off. the only real thing we had a problem with was liame stealing food wrappers off a table at his level. he has SUCH a problem with trying to eat everything in his line of sight. i need to figure out a way to be more proactive rather than reactive when it comes to this eating things off the ground, tables, chairs, etc. so as it turned out, i really didnt need neil after all. both neil and i wore our michigan shirts and as we arrived at the alley i realized that we had a u of m bandana from neils mom we could have put on liame. darn it, that would have made him an even more popular attraction at the bowling alley. i wish a few more drunk and stumbley people would have approached him, it would have turned this into one of the best training opportunities we have ever had.

The Day After

Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under Care, Firsts, Major Steps, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

i picked him up yesterday evening. the way that they shaved him for his surgery made him look like a poodle. he was bald from his shoulders all the way down to his dew claws! he didnt seem too overly exited to see me but when they told me of his morphine patch it kind of made sense. i was really surprised to see only a small bandage over his morphine patch and no casts. he was walking around fine and seemed no worse than when he came in. infact, he even pulled me down the stairs to try and go smell the grass outside the building. im so glad he is OK. i cant even tell you how worried i was that he wasnt going to wake up from the anesthesia.

in all honesty, i was hoping for the cheaper surgery option and hoping that he only had bony fragments in one elbow. but as it turned out, the doctor said he was a “classic” case, with the fragments being in both. no wonder why these guys charge so much – they actually gave me the vial of what they took out of his elbows as well as a cd with arthroscopic photos of the insides of his elbows and a mpg movie of the operation!

since he cant go up and down the stairs for 3 weeks and has to be confined to a small space (essentially a crate), i bought a cheap air mattress and am now sleeping in our office next to his crate. i didnt get much sleep last night because i had to make sure he didnt pull off his pain patch, bandages or stitches out. he was pretty good about not licking/itching things so i didnt have to put on the elizabethan collar they gave me.

Mary McNeight, CCS

Posted on September 29, 2008
Filed Under Class, Firsts, Things That Make Me Smile, Things That Make Me Want To Cry | Leave a Comment

the boss I loved so dearly was just fired today. no one really knows why. this is not good news. i hope it wasnt for helping to accommodate me. i wish him the best of luck in this job market.

we passed our test! i am now Mary McNeight, CCS. actually if you want to get technical about it, im really Mary McNeight, BGS, CCS. isnt it interesting that i havent been crediting myself with my bachelors degree from the university of michigan but am marking my name now with a CCS, like somehow my bachelors degree isnt relevant anymore? anyway… i am tracking my hours training Liame (and Jasper) and I am over half way there to qualifying for CPDT. at least I have something to fall back upon if I was to get fired too.

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