Tashi's Web Photo and Storybook

June 7 -- On Tuesday this week, I went to meet all the other CCI puppies here in NM to have our pictures taken for the golf tournament fundraiser coming up next month. This is one of the pictures taken during the photoshoot. Stan had another really tough week at work, so we didn't really have a chance to do a lot of other stuff. One day this week while we were out on our usual lunchtime exercise walk we met up with some people we had seen before. A lady and her three daughters. Stan decided that we would take a break and talk with them for a while. They were selling homemade loaves of bread and were going to donate the profits they made from it to a charity. They haven't decided which one. I had a good time laying in the cool shaded grass while the three girls sat there and petted me. The oldest girl is about to turn 6. Stan also bought me my own pool like the one I played in at Cadence's house. I like when Stan throws my ball in the water. I jump in with a splash and get the ball from the water and bring it back out with me. Sometimes I do a round of zoom butt with the ball in my mouth. Here is another picture from the photoshoot. This one is of Jibar and I.

June 20 -- Yesterday while Stan and I were out for our walk, we met a boy with a beautiful chocolate lab named Daisy. I'm not sure how old the boy was or how old Daisy was. Daisy might have been a puppy still, but could have been a small lab like I am. Daisy and this boy were probably close to same weight and Daisy might have weighed more than the boy. Anyway, both Daisy and I were excited to see each other, but I of course have a job to do so I know I can't go running up to Daisy or any other dog to say hi. I'd like to, and I would if Stan released me, but if I'm working that comes first. Stan saw Daisy and the boy before I did, so he led me off into the grass and used that time to let me "hurry". About the time I was done, the boy noticed us and he went and sat on a bench. Stan and I resumed our walk and as we were going by, Daisy got so excited that she literally drug the boy who was doing his best planting his feet into the ground and pulling back to keep Daisy from coming over to meet me. Stan recognized that Daisy was just excited and wanted to meet me, so Stan let us introduce ourselves to each other. Daisy wanted to play, but I'm not sure she's really learned exactly how little you can do when you are on a leash. Stan dropped my leash a couple of times to keep them from getting tangled with all of Daisy's excitement. After things settled down a bit, Stan decided to give the boy a copy of some basic information about gentle leaders that he put together and keeps in my vest. He did that because people kept asking him why I was wearing a muzzle. He thought the information would be good for the boy's parents to look over because Stan thought that with a gentle leader Daisy would be far less likely to drag the boy around like she had.

About this time, Daisy couldn't contain her excitement anymore, and she started jumping and trying to play again. I wasn't too impressed with her idea of a game and wasn't very keen on joining in, though I was happy to get to meet her. Anyway, somehow she managed to tangle her training collar, both of our leashes, and my gentle leader together all in the space of about a half second. Stan saw the look on my face as my gentle leader was getting pulled tighter and tighter and it wasn't very comfortable. Also he noticed that Daisy was starting to choke. It took Stan about a second to reach down and unsnap my gentle leader, which freed me and took the pressure off of Daisy's training collar. Stan grabbed a hold of Daisy and while he was holding her told me to "down" and "stay". I wasn't sure what was going on, but Stan was calm and in charge which made me feel good about listening to him. Stan found that the clasp of my leash where it attaches to my gentle leader had somehow also attached itself to Daisy's training collar. He untangled them and handed Daisy's leash back to the boy and let go of Daisy. Daisy was still quite excited and took off toward me, pulling the leash out of the boy's hands in the process. I started to run away from Daisy, but Stan called me, so I ran in kind of a loop toward him with Daisy following. That worked pretty well as Stan grabbed Daisy leash on her way by. He then put me in another down-stay and laid my leash next to me. Somehow during all of this Daisy managed to remove a type of muzzle she had been wearing. The boy was trying to put it back on Daisy, but Stan thought that Daisy was too excited for that, so he told the boy to give her a minute to calm down, and he tried to get Daisy to relax a little. That seemed to work, and the boy was able to put the muzzle back on Daisy. As soon as Stan let her go after making sure that the boy had a good grip on the leash the muzle came off again, so Stan helped the boy put it on again. Since Daisy was more calmed down, Stan suggested that the boy try to walk away with Daisy before she got too excited again. That sort of worked. Stan put my gentle leader and leash back on me, but about the time he got that done, Daisy had drug the boy back over to me. Stan told the boy we would leave so Daisy wouldn't be so hard to control. The boy hadn't had any trouble with her until she got excited by seeing me. Hopefully the information about the gentle leader that Stan gave to the boy will be useful to them and the boy can get one to use with Daisy.

As for other news, Stan had a talk via e-mail with my CCI trainer, Ken, a while back about how my sound work was going and some things I was doing that Stan wasn't sure about. He didn't want my work to get off track and he thought there might be some problems showing up, so Ken told him some things to do differently. I kind of like the changes now that I'm used to them. It means I have to do the WHOLE sequence of alerting Stan AND taking him to the sound before I get any treats. DRAT!!!!! Oh well, it was fun to con Stan out of some extra kibble while it lasted. All in all, though, it's more fun this way.

Stan also just told me that he got an e-mail that one of the people we met at Elon's party before he went to CCI Advanced Training was just contaced by CCI and is scheduled to go to Team Training in August. So, we're going to have another service dog graduate in New Mexico in a couple of months. Earlier this month Stan learned that there are actually four graduate teams in New Mexico. There is a skilled companion team in the Santa Fe area, but they don't interact with the rest of the CCI people around here very much. So when Gwen graduates, that will bring the total number of CCI teams in New Mexico to five. Oh, and here's a really fun part. It's one of those WOULDN'T IT BE REALLY, REALLY COOL IF things. It may be too much to hope for, but on the other hand you never, never know. Elon could be ready to rotate into team training in August. It will be enough time for him to have completed his second semester of Advanced Training. I know it's a very long shot, but I think it would be cool if Elon came back to Albuquerque where he was raised as a graduate service dog. Stan says we're going to try and attend the graduation.