I talk a lot about the amount of work these dogs require, and will continue to for the rest of their lives. When I mention to friends that we are going to a training session, or that I take the dogs out and work obedience with them, they often times just assumed that would eventually end. After all, these dogs have been through 1-2 years of training with some of the best trainers around, so what gives?
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| Raven working with distractions |
We have a 10 year old type 1 diabetic daughter and a 5 year old son. Whenever we go out, even if it’s just to the grocery store, we require a lot of stuff.
But for the sake of this post, let’s assume we are going out for a whole day. Let’s say we will meet some friends for a trip to the Arboretum, and then head off to dinner. How much stuff do we need to take to make sure we can get through the day? Without a trip to an ER? More »
This weekend was a busy one. We celebrated my son’s 5th birthday all weekend, and went with a couple of Canine Hope families to the Arboretum.
We started off at the Lazy Dog Cafe for lunch. It is one of our families favorite places to go for lunch, and it has “dog” right in the name, what’s not to love? The picture above shows the family waiting for our table. They are in the “missing man” formation, as I should be in the seat on the right 🙂 More »
Last week I covered the first reason why we have a DAD, night alerting and back-up plans for zombies. Today, I will cover my second reason, which for the uninitiated sounds crazy, but once you’ve witnessed it, never ceases to amaze. We call it “remote alerting”
Yesterday here in the U.S. was President’s Day, a school holiday for our kids. I didn’t have the day off, but my wife has the amazing good fortune to be able to work from home. I came home from work at about 4:15 pm, and both of our kids were playing in the backyard. Running around, riding scooters, getting dirty, burning off energy. I came in the back door, put my stuff down, and found my wife in the kitchen starting to prep dinner. Major was on a place (a mat where we ask them to “down, stay”), and Raven was tethered to my wife doing some training. We started talking about our day. More »
We are having a beautiful Saturday here in So Cal. It’s the first weekend in awhile where we didn’t have a full day planned weeks in advance. I started off with a 7 mile run with Major and Raven, then dropped off Raven at home to rest and headed out to Stella’s riding lesson.
We give Raven a lot of crate time in the morning as she is up so often during the night keeping an eye on errant blood sugars. She seems to like to sleep/rest in her crate between 7-10 am.
After her lesson, we came home and swapped dogs again, then took Raven out to lunch, some shopping, and back home again. More »
Raven wants to say “Hi!”. Meet Raven, Raven is the second half of Team Black Dogs Rule. She completes the circle.
She is no prissy princess. She leads with her tail, and when it get’s going, she has a hard time walking straight. This girl is a BIG personality, with a zest for life. She goes head first into everything. No, really. That’s why she has the tell tail white whiskers between her eyes. Old battle wounds from chasing a ball into a palm tree:) More »
This is Major. He is a Diabetic Alert Dog, my daughter’s service dog. He was matched with our family back in October of 2011. This is the only other man (aside from me & my son) that my daughter is allowed to love 🙂
This post is designed to help you learn a little more about our DAD’s and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Just like you and I, these dogs have their own personalities. If you have a service dog, or are in the process of getting one, considering one etc, it is very important to understand that each dog is different, and will require some molding both of you, and of the dog, to fit into your life style. More »
So, aside from the question “Why 2 dogs?”, the next question comes up alot.
“Why do you need a DAD?”
I will share just 1 of many specific reasons here. This will probably be the first of an on-going series of “Why a DAD?”.
As Type 1 parents, we tend to walk around in perpetual exhaustion. There are multiple checks at night. Our night goes like this, and I will keep it simple, based on an average night: More »
