Tashi's Web Photo and Storybook

November 30 -- Well it's already been a month since I last updated my page. Earlier this month, Stan, Becky, Ty, and I all went to Bosque Del Apache Wildlife refuge. This is a huge (over 57,000 acres) wildlife refuge along the Rio Grande river. Tens of thousands of different kinds of wetland birds come and spend the winter here. I know, New Mexico is a desert, but this place is a naturally occurring wetland oasis right in the middle of it. When we were there, they were estimating there were almost 30,000 snow geese, along with almost 20,000 sandhill cranes, and many many thousands of canadian geese and ducks also. There was even a bald eagle who had moved in for the winter and we were fortunate enough to be able to see him. Of course the birds were still arriving so the numbers are higher by now.

Of course I don't need to remind those of you who read this page that I am Labrador, 100% pure bred, through and through, thank you very much!!!! But it also won't come as any surprise to any of you that since I had my working clothes on and Stan never gave me a release command, that I impressed everyone by standing and sitting quietly at Stan's side. But, if I had the chance, I would have loved to have gone for a swim in that marsh and chased the birds. Temperatures in the teens would not have slowed me down at all. The refuge did not have a problem with me being with Stan at all, and the birds didn't seem to mind me hanging around. Becky checked with them before we went down just to make sure it wouldn't cause a problem for the birds for me to come along, and their response was quite warm and welcoming. They just wanted to make sure I stayed on my leash whenever we were outside the car. That was no problem because Stan makes sure I'm on my leash anyway.

Stan has been working on teaching me a new sound in the last couple of weeks. This is a very hard sound for me or any other hearing dog to respond to since it starts and stops so quickly. It doesn't keep making sound like all of my other sounds do. It really makes me have to pay attention. In fact, just today after two weeks of working on it I can finally say I've learned the sound and what I'm supposed to do. Now, Stan is starting to make it more difficult just like it will be in real life when we're not practicing. So, you're probably wondering what my new sound is. Stan carries a little plastic case in his pocket that has two hearing aid batteries in it. Stan has lost a few of these cases and the batteries that were inside them when the case came out of his pocket along with his car keys and it dropped on the ground without Stan knowing it. Then later, if Stan needed a fresh battery for one of his hearing aids he wouldn't have one since he had lost the spares he was carrying. My newest job is to listen for the sound of this battery case hitting the ground and keep track of where it bounces to after it hits. Then I alert Stan and when he gives me the "What" command I go to the case and "get" it and come back to Stan. Stan then gives me the "drop" command while holding his hand under my mouth and I drop the battery case into his hand. This has been a very fun challenge for me to learn and I've been enjoying it. So far we've only been working on this on the tile floor of the entry way by the front door. I've been doing well enough on this that today Stan moved to the next phase of training me on this sound. Starting today, Stan is pretending to accidently drop the battery case onto the tile floor.

Stan started out a couple of weeks ago, by kneeling down and calling me over to him, showing me the case, and putting it on the floor and telling me to "get". That was the easy part. The CCI trainers taught me the "get" command before I got transferred to the hearing program. What Stan did just helped me to remember it and practice it on this tiny little battery case. Next, Stan made it harder by having me "drop" it in his hand. This wasn't too much harder, since my puppy raisers taught me "drop" when I was growing up. Next, Stan made it just a little harder (and a little more fun) by dropping the case onto the floor and letting me chase it so I could get it. Then it started getting even harder because Stan wanted me to "alert" him when he dropped it. I thought it was more fun to chase and "get" so it took me a while to get the idea of what I was supposed to do. Now that I've got that far, Stan isn't letting me see him drop it onto the floor every time. He's starting to pretend to drop it by accident. Once I'm good at listening for it to drop, Stan says we'll move to the kitchen floor. That will make a different sound. Also, Stan says he going to get more sneaky about dropping it so I'm going to have to learn to listen for it to hit the floor. After I'm good at listening for it on the two different floors then Stan says, he's going to start dropping it on the carpet, and then outside on the porch, then in the driveway, then he's going to start doing it when I'm on my leash, then in parking lots with all the noise that could be going on. Phew!! it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm up for it.