Day off

So today was a day off. My class spent the afternoon going to wine country, which was fantastic! We went to the Jacuzzi Winery in Sanoma County and it was great! I tasted some wonderful wines and got a couple of bottles to take home next week.
I was also able to catch up with a friend today, we took my dog for a walk around campus, and ate some great food! It was nice to catch up with him and spend some time together; I really enjoyed it.
Not much else happened, my boy was overjoyed to see me when we got back from our class trip and was ridiculous! He wagged his entire body, roled on his back, and was cute in a way that only labs can be. Pete, one of our class supervisors, spent the night tonight. I like hanging out with him, he has a great sense of humor. This evening, I was walking down the hall and he was joking with me he said, "Go to bed, or I'll put you on tie-down! " It was so funny! We had a nice dinner of chili and cornbread. I have enjoyed the food here, but I'll be glad to get home and do some cooking. I'm not sure what's happening when I get home on Sunday, I guess I will have to play it by ear. I'll be glad to start my life with Jim, but as I said yesterday, I am really going to miss the bay area. Tomorrow, we go into San Francisco, and I'm not sure what else is on the schedule!
I'm off to bed, but I'll check in tomorrow, as usual!

Training, day 9

I can't believe that I'm basically two thirds through class. Things here went well today. We did another bus to lounge route, and Jim did a great job. He got all the crossings correct and ignored a dog distraction. I was very happy with his work.
My class supervisor decided to move him from a martingale color to a choke color to help improve his sniffing issues and the move was a success. He was much more responsive to corrections today and two instructors felt like the choke was the right color for a big, active, high energy dog like him. Apparently, the choke was the standard color here until very recently when they switched to the martingale for some dogs, largely because of public image. In case you don't know, the Martingale is a flat color with a little chain piece, I liked it, but I do feel that the choke gives me more control and quicker response when I need to correct my dog.
When I was finished with my route (I went last because I was the time keeper again) I met some classmates for coffee at the Royal Ground, we worked our dogs down there as a group and they all did great!
When we got back here, we got a tour of the kennels which was a lot of fun! It was great to see where our dogs lived, and pet a puppy! He was a black lab named Keiko, and he was socute! After that I rested, had dinner, and went for a swim. It felt great to get in the pool after the heat we've had today in the bay area!
Tomorrow's a day off, so I'm having breakfast with a friend who lives here in San Rafael, and in the afternoon, my class is taking a trip up to a winary which should be fun! I'm looking forward to the day! I'll probably end it with dinner and a swim and on Monday, I'll start my last full week of training. This time next week, we'll be getting ready to go home. How did that happen? Part of me wants to go home, while the other part will miss this place and, of course, I'll miss the Bay area a lot. There's plenty to be excited for, and I'm up for the challenge. I think Jim is, too, and I'm looking forward to transitioning into our new life together.
Well, it's bedtime here. We're both tired and looking forward to tomorrow!

Training,day eight

I can't believe that Jim and I are already on day eight of our training, and a little more than half way through class. This time in ten days, we will be home together, I think we will be ready to take on the world as a team, and I am excited, though I will miss this place, and the friendships I have made here.
Today was very good over all. This morning, we went into San Francisco, and worked on Chestnut street. We crossed a large street, went to an Apple store, and took a city bus. Jim did great until we encountered a pet dog on a leash in the Apple store. He got completely dog distracted, and I had to do some obedience to get him back under control. Apparently, we let pets into our stores, I didn't know this, but I asked someone who said that as long as they are well behaved, they can be in the store. If they cause a problem for anyone, including my guide dog, we ask them to leave. So, that should be interesting when we get home. I will need to work with him on his dog distractions, but his trainer says he responds well to the gentle leader, and it should be easily fixed. We also discusssed keeping him in a crate in the office sometimes, so thathe has somewhere to take a breather if things get crazy. I will have to figure out all of the logistics when I get home, but I feel that it's all workable, and not a huge cause for concern. I just hope that we don't see to many pets, and that Jim doesn't missbehave when I'm with a customer. For a moment, I had horrible images of me saying something like, "let me tell you about our macbooks," my dog seeing a dog, and me having to completely stop in my tracks and get him back under control, but I don't hink it will happen to much, and if it does, I hope people will understand that we're just fresh out of training and still bonding and learning. I kind of wish we didn't just let pets walk in off the street, but there's not muc I can do about that, and I know that my rteam will give me a heads-up that a dog is around and if I know in advance, I can get things under control. Apart from that, he did really well in the city. Once the dog was out of the way, he seemed to like the Apple store and did a great job at navigating through the crowded aisles and displays. I'm not to worried, I think he should take well to his new environment.
When we were finished at the Apple store, we took a bus which he had no issues with. We ended up at a coffee shop and I had a latte with some classmates and relaxed for a bit.
After lunch, we did our first real indipendent route, called a bus to lounge. Basically, the instructors drop us off a few blocks away from the lounge we work out of when we're in downtown San Rafael, tell us how to get back to it, and designate someone to be the time keeper to make sure that people are spaced out every three minutes. People leave the spot every three minutes and begin working their way back to the lounge indipendently. There are instructors on street corners who step in if something goes really wrong, but the idea is to work the route by yourself. I was the time keeper, so I had my iPhone and made sure that people left every three minutes. I gave everyone a one minute warning, and made sure that people left when they were supposed to. I left last, and so was the last to make it to the lounge, but Jim and I nailed the route! Instructors didn't have to step in once with me. I made nice use of my iPhone's GPS features to check that I was going in the correct direction, and my instructors said that I'd made good use of the resources available to me. My classmates joked around with me and said I was cheating because I'd used a GPS system, they asked me where they could get one and I said, "well, for 199 dollars you can GPS it, too." One asked how he could swipe his credit card, I joked that I'd left the machine at home, and everyone laughed.
After that, we headed back to campus. I took Jim to run in a fenced in grassy area which he loved, talked to my friend, Rebecca on the phone until dinner, and after dinner went to a tribute for retrains run by our class training specialist. The tribute gave us all an opportunity to remember our previus guides, and many funny stories were told. Everyone cried at one point or another, for me, I cried when I talked about my Stoney, how he died, and how much we still miss him. I told the story about how he got the Apple pie of my Mom's counter, and about this time when he tried to bring a couch to show my Mom and her friend when my Mom came to get him.
The best story came from my friend Garry, I asked him, and he said it's OK to share it here. Garry had his first guide, a male yellow lab named Langer, and he was considering dating a woman, though he wasn't really sure about her. The two of them were hanging out at his apartment in Baltimore one day, and Langer was in front of them. Apparently, Langer didn't like the woman much, and he showed his displeasure by peang right in front of her feet, even though Garry had taken him out a few minutes before. Obviously, that relationship didn't last, and Garry decided he didn't like her anyways. Apparently, Langer aproved of Garry's wife, because he lickd her toes under the table the first time they met. That was a light moment in a pretty solumn hour long tribute session, but I'm really glad that we all got the chance to honor our previous guides. Both of mine really deserve it!
After the tribute, I hung out with my classmates Garry and Rebecca and we shared some laughs in the computer room. Rebecca was frustrated that she couldn't get the computers to load her gmail correctly, I tried to help, but had no success (I was reminded why I only use macs when I went through the frustration of trying to get a windows screen reader to do what I needed it to) so Rebecca is going to have her first macbook lesson tmorrow night, because she really neeeds to write an email and can't sign into her account on these computers. I hope I'm able to teach her a little, it will be a challenge with only one laptop, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.
Today, I also found out that Jim was raised in Palo Alto, which is pretty cool because I have friends there. I don't know anything else about his puppy raisers, but I guess I will find out more in the coming week. I was amazed how far away some of the puppy raisers are, one dog in our class comes from Washington State, I think Jim was one of the closest ones to the school in Palo Alto, the rest come from around Sacramento and the central Valley of California, I think. It's really great that there are so many dedicated volunteers who are willing to take these puppies in for a year, they have so much to do with shaping these creatures into the wonderful dogs they are, and I am just so greatful to all of my puppy raisers for the dedication and love they've shown to my guides! Thank you, guys!
Tomorrow, we go into San Francisco again. I am not sure what else is on the schedule, but what ever it is, I need to go to bed so that I can wake up feeling rested and ready to take it on!
As always, thanks for reading!

Day two of guide work

Hi Everyone!
Today was another amazing day here in San Rafael, and I know that I'm in the midst of one of those transformative, life-changing experiences that you never forget. I just hope that I am appreciating everything that's going on here and getting all that I can out of these three weeks.
I'll start with the guide work portion of this day. Today, Jim and I did two routs in downtown San Rafael. He did very well both times, though he tended to veer off to the left, so we worked on correcting that this afternoon. Basically, we walked a few blocks at a time with an instructor and learned what we were doing correctly and where we were making errors. Over all, Jim and I are doing great; I have to work on reading his signals, and he has to work on approaching things like curbs and not hesitating a step before he needs to stop and indicate them to me. All of these skills will come with time, and practice on both of our parts, and I feel great about the way things are going for us as a working team.
After our morning rout, and before lunch, I had a wonderful surprise, I learned that Angie, who trained Yahzee and I for Fidelco is now working here at GDB as an instructor. She came to see me while I was on the floor with Jim just petting and rubbing him. She and I talked about so much, about how we thought that GDB was a better environment for me to learn in, about how the lab was a great choice for my nees, and about how Yahzee was doing with my parents. She told me that she loved the in-home community training Fidelco provides, but that she felt that shepherds just weren't the right dogs for some people, and i was one of the people who would do really well with a mellow, yet inteligent lab like Jim, who is serious about his work, but can also play. He's got an off-switch, but when he plays he plays hard. Angie and I spoke about Yahzee's dog encounter with Ivor back in 2006, and both agreed that was probably the beginning of the end in terms of her leash behavior around other dogs, because after those episodes with Ivor and his handler, I was tense when dealing with Yahzee around other dogs because I didn't know how she would react. We don't know if this was the full cause of her leash behavior, but it certainly didn't help things. Sorry, I know most of you don't have a clue what this is referencing, but if you ask me when I get home and am not content but exhausted, I will explain; it's a long story, and I don't have the time or energy to write it here. I also spoke to Angie about Yahzee's irritable bowel issues, and we both agreed that I did the right thing by retiring her.
After Angie's visit, it was time to go downtown for our afternoon rout. Jim worked well when we had to cross a series of parking lots which required him to find his line and not veer to the left, like he had done in the morning. He did much better this afternoon, and I did a better job of being able to read him. My instructor said that we did well and looked like a great team together. I just felt so happy when she said that, it affirms my belief that this bond between Jim and I is becoming more solid with every day, and that we will be a great working team when we get home.
When we got back to school, we were given three toys to use when we played with our dogs. We got a tug toy, a plastic bone, and a kong, which is a sort of round rubber thing that dogs love to fetch. Jim loves all three of his toys, even the plastic bone, which no other dog of mine has ever liked. I let him off leash in my room to play with his kong and he enjoyed bringing it back to me. We played several great games of tug and he talked to me during these, which was so cute! I haven't heard any kind of vocalization from him before, so I didn't know what his voice sounded like. I have never heard him bark, though several dogs in our class have barked at various times. It was great to see him play. he wagged his tail and rolled around and was generally adorable as only a lab can be.
When we were finished playing, we fed and relieved our dogs, and went to dinner ourselves.
After dinner, I listened to tomorrow's lecture on CD with a classmate, and after that, several classmates, one of the training specialists, and I went out by the graduation stage on the grass and just sat and talked. Jim and I sprawled out on the grass and I put my head on him like a pillow. He loved every minute of it, and so did I. This was something Yahzee would never have enjoyed, but this big guy couldn't get enough of it. We had some really great conversation tonight about why we all had guide dogs, and I really benefited from just listening to my classmates experiences. I'm the only one here who has been blind since birth; all of the other people in this class have had pretty serious medical conditions, I won't go into detail here to respect privacy, but listening to them made me realize how lucky I am in many areas of my life even including my health. It was just a really valuable experience for me, and made me think about how great my life truly is. Even when I had some rough spots, I knew that my friends and family would support me and that things would come together for me in theend. Now, they finally are, and as we all share our life experiences with one another and go on this guide dog adventure together, I know that I will continue to enjoy and learn from my interactions with both classmates and staff here.
When we were a bit chilly, we all came back inside, and I had an opportunity to talk at great length with Stacy, our training class specialist, who is also blind, and who has been since birth like me. She is on her fourth guide dog, and it was just wonderful to have an opportunity to talk with someone about Yahzee's retirement who understood and who has been there like I have. We discussed my feelings of guilt about retiring Yahzee, how I had done the right thing, and how I shouldn't fel bad about focusing all my time and energy in bonding with Jim because I realized today that I don't miss Yahzee as much as I thought I would. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I know how incredibly happy and wonderfully looked after she is by my parents, and a lot has to do with the fact that I have really clicked with Jim in these few days in a way that I didn't with my previous two guides. When I first got Stoney, I was young and inexperienced and didn't really know very much. When I got Yahzee, I loved her very much, still do, but she had a lot of dog issues and I was worried about how things would work out. Looking back, I think those issues had an impact on my confidence, which in turn impacted her confidence in me. We worked through them, mostly, and she turned into a wonderful and smart worker, but I'm not sure she really ever loved it like this guy does. My instructor said to me today, "Jim loves to work. He's so focused on working that he ignores dog distractions and veers to avoid temptations. He's born to do this job and is just a great match for you." I can see that focus in him as wel. When he's on his harness he's all business and ignores things like children and dogs, but when he's off he's always up for saying hi. An important note to those of you at home who will meet him! Please DO NOT pet him when he is in harness. I know I was lax about this with Yahzee, but this time around, I'm going to inforce this rule pretty strictly, because I want him to keep his focus and not be distracted by people asking for his attention when the harness is on and he's on duty. Also, please DO NOT feed him or give him treats. GDB has a strict food reward system, which I will explain in more detail at a later date, but it's important that I stick to this system and that I am the only one to offer him food and rewards while we are bonding. I need him to count on me for everything to make our bond stronger. Also, when he's off harness, please wait until I say it's OK for you to pet him. He needs to be calm and listening to me before you can interact with him. This will help reduce some of the excitable behaviors Yahzee exhibited, and it's very important that I abide by these rules. My instructor told me that if we all follow these rules, we should avoid some of Yahzee's jumping patterns, etc.
I'll write a list of rules that I'd like you to follow when I get closer to coming home, but I just wanted to write this now, even though I totally wasn't intending to. I'm not setting these rules to be mean, I want you to interact with and get to know my dog, but it needs to be on my terms in order for us to be the best team we can possibly be! Thank you so much in advance for your understanding and cooperation!
Well, my day has come to an end, and I'm sitting outside on my patio with Jim writing this post. I think that so much of the calm I'm finding here comes from the beauty and peace of this place. It's so quiet out here, no traffic, no one talking, lots of grassy areas, and a patio right outside my door where I can come to groom my dog, or just sit and relax with a glass of lemonaid at the end of the day, like I'm doing now. I also think that this wonderful setting and environment really is contributing to my bonding with Jim. I know that after three schools, I've truly found the right place for me, and I'll certainly be coming back here for my next guide in about eight years or so. The staff are amazing, my classmates are great, and all of this freedom to be outside any time is awesome. It's interesting that not a lot of people use their patios as much as I do. I'm out hre a lot of the time on my laptop or iPhone, or playing with my dog. I think we both love it out here, though we should probably go in soon and head to bed.
I talked to Mom tonight, though I didn't get to skype with her which I missed, but hopefully we'll get to do that tomorrow evening.
Sorry for the lengthy post! I hope everyone is doing well! Tomorrow, we learn how to work in buildings, so I'll let you all know how that goes and what other experiences tomorrow holds!

Guide work, day one

Hi Everyone!
This will be a quick post, because Jim and I are both ready for bed after a long but great day! It started at 6:30 AM when we woke up, after that, I fed and watered Jim and made my own way down to breakfast. Meals have been some of my favorite times here when we're not doing guide work. I sit with two really fun classmates, Rebecca and David, and we spend every meal laughing about something or other.
After breakfast we went into the lounge to practice some basic obedience training, which Jim did really well with. I was very impressed with how quickly he obeyed my commands, considering I've known him for a bit over 24 hours.
When we were finished, it was time to harness up our dogs and get on the buss to go to downtown San Rafael. Jim loved his harness, and was delighted to get on the bus. When we got downtown we waited in the downtown lounge, which is this building that GDB has downtown where students can hang out and wait until it's time to go on route. I was the last person to go, so I spent some time talking to a classmate and listening to some music on my iPod while I waited my turn. Finally, the big moment arived and my instructor came and got us. I picked up that harness handle, gave Jim the command "forward" and we were off and running. He walked very well, and I love his pace and pull. He is a fast walker, and so am I, so we make a great team. He did a good job at turning, and I did a good job at reading him. We're working with him a bit, because he's stopping short on some curbs, instead of stepping right up to them to indicate to me where they are.
When I was finished, it was time to return to campus for lunch, and after lunch we harnessed up and went back downtown to do a second route, similar to the first one. He did really well again, and this time, he stopped to show me curbs better. I absolutely love working him, he's a great match for me in terms of his work and the things he likes. My instructor told me that she and one of the training class specialists, who's also blind decided for sure to match us together last week when they took him on a route in Berkeley and he loved navigating the crazy hectic environment. She said that they turned to each other and said, "Jim, Olivia!" So I thought that was great.
This evening was pretty laid back. I made some phonecalls, let Jim play with my friend Rebecca's dog Dorris, and Dorris, Rebecca, Jim, and I had another video session with my Mom on Skype with the help of our nurse here, Catherine. She was able to get the camera in a perfect position so that my Mom saw the dogs playing. It was a lot of fun. After that, I helped Catherine download skype and showed her some other things on her new mac. I really enjoyed this, and it made me even more excited to go home and start work! :)
I ended my day by going outside and sitting with six of my classmates on a bench. We laughed a lot, hung out with our dogs and each other, and had a great and relaxing time.
Now, I'm here with my laptop, lying in bed with Jim sacked out on his rug beside me. I can't believe I've only known my boy for 24 hours or so. I feel like I've had him for ever, he's just such a natural fit for me and I absolutely love him already! I love his work, how he plays, and how we interact together. I am looking forward to many great years together!
And, with that, I'll leave you for the day. I hope you are all doing well!