In reflecting back on this past year with Stan, I of course have to send out another round of thanks to Cindy and Jenny for raising me from a puppy that cried every night for the first week I was with them, and through my times of getting into things I shouldn't to a young adult dog ready for the challenges of CCI's advanced training and of course my life of working with Stan. I also should thank the trainers at CCI's Northwest Region and especially Ken who took me into the hearing dog training program and taught me all of the advanced skills I now do everyday without much effort or having to think about it. I should also mention that there are many CCI puppy raisers who read my stories and all of them deserve a round of thanks. Some have raised many puppies, some are raising their first. Some have had one or more of their puppies graduate, while others are only able to dream of the puppy they have wearing the CCI blue vest and going to work everyday. Just remember CCI always leaves that choice up to the dog once they get to advanced training. Many dogs find they enjoy working for a CCI graduate, while many others just want to be a well behaved pet or choose to work for someone in other ways.
Can't remember if I have mentioned it already or not, but Becky, Stan's wife, is out of town until February. She left about a month ago, and Stan has really counted on me to do my job since he has to do all of the household chores himself. From the alarm going off in the morning, to any sound I'm supposed to alert Stan about that happens throughout the day, I do my job. Stan says that all those little sounds really add up to make a huge difference and it makes it much easier for him to just get through each day. One other thing that I talked about last month is that I've learned to detect when Stan's Meniere's disease is going to act up and make him dizzy. Sometimes he is dizzy for a few minutes and sometimes like this past week he is dizzy for a couple of days at a time. Before he gets dizzy and during the time while he is I stick very close to him and touch him with some part of my body if possible. Nobody officially trained me to do that, it's just something I've learned on my own that is helpful to Stan so I do it. Stan is learning to trust me when I act that way that he will decide whether or not to go to work or to work from home. Stan started working from home while he waited for the car parts store to open. Then he checked the battery for himself and was sure it was bad. He took the battery out and brought it to the store to buy a new one. They deicided to try and charge the battery and test it just to make sure it was bad. After a little over an hour that was all done and the battery was confirmed as bad. The lady at the store asked Stan if he had the receipt from where he had purchased the battery. Stan told her he didn't and that he had bought that battery over 4 years ago and the warranty was only three years. The lady said that was the 100% free replacement warranty period but that the battery still had something called a pro-rated warranty. The lady took Stan's phone number and looked up the date when Stan bought the battery back in 2005. I wasn't even born in 2005!! After the warranty credit, Stan got a new battery for less than half of the price marked on the shelf, over $50 off.
After Stan got the battery installed in the car, he decided to go ahead and eat lunch before heading in to work. As Stan was finishing lunch, my body language and behavior changed. One of the things I did was to lay my head on Stan's lap. I knew what was coming for Stan, and I wanted to tell him not to go to work. Stan picked up on the change, and told me OK he would wait for a little while before leaving. Well within about a half hour Stan noticed the first "waves" of a Meniere's attack and told me it looked like I was right...again. About an hour after I first knew about it and changed my behavior, Stan was heading to the bedroom to lay down. We laid together for a couple of hours and then Stan started feeling better. Stan is learning to watch my body language and behaviors to know if it's OK for him to leave the house and go somewhere, or if he is not at home to know that he needs to get back home quickly. I'm not real "blatant" about telling him when the attacks are coming like I am when I alert him to sounds and nudge him to get his attention, but we have figured out a way to communicate with each other so I can let him know. In fact, if you were to see the two of us together you probably wouldn't have any idea if I was letting Stan know about an attack or not.