Meet Canine Hope’s Lexi. In the picture above, she is the black lab. 🙂

Actually she is the one on the right, from L-R we have Raven, Major, and Lexi. Lexi is staying with us for a week. She is going home soon. Her family are runners, so Lexi is staying with us to get started on a running program and learn how to heel while running. We won’t add too much distance, but we will concentrate on form and distractions when running.

The pictures above are of Lexi and her girl Gracie. Aren’t they a beautiful team? I can’t wait to watch this team grow and bond.

While Lexi is with us, she will get what we call “real time” alert training. When these dogs are initially starting their scent training, it is normally with scent samples provided by the families in the program. Saliva on a piece of cotton that is used to introduce the dogs to the scent of a mow blood sugar. As the puppies advance in the program, they will spend a lot of time with Johanna, an adult type 1 that is part of Canine Hope for Diabetics, living with her and going through the normal, daily life of a diabetic, with actual high and low blood sugar events. We call that “real time” training. Going to work, riding in the car, running errands, going out to restaurants, etc. As Johanna is having a high or low event, she will work with the dog on the scent, the alert, and the reward in all these different scenarios. We are doing the same thing with Stella and Lexi. Of course, at this point, Lexi is already alerting to lows and highs, so we are just reinforcing the reward, and if there is a missed alert, we work through it.

Lexi is a cute dog! Major and Raven are by no means big labs, they are both fairly small, and around 60 pounds. Lexi is even smaller, a petite little girl. She is a GREAT size for a girl, and she has a great gait for running. Sometimes when I run with Major and Raven it looks like they are barely moving, but with Lexi, she actually needs to break into a run 🙂

Lexi has a squarer head/nose, and a really thick coat, with slightly darker eyes. She is gorgeous, and a really neat dog. She is energetic, and a little goofy, she is very similar to Raven. She and Raven have become fast friends. Again, Major is not much of a dog person, and really just wants to be left alone with his people.

We have been doing all of our typical stuff with Lexi, going to the store, grabbing a bite to eat, etc. She has been a trooper. Her place work is excellent, and she rides well in the car. She handles well in crazy busy places like Ikea, and was a perfect dog in the melee that is In-N-Out Burgers. (and yes, type 1’s can eat that, AND have the vanilla shake)

She will be hanging out with us until Thursday, and then she will get some final training and polishing up before heading off to be with Gracie. We are so excited to help out in anyway we can, and I get to run with another dog. Plus, she’s the right color 😉

She even kinda digs Angus. I call this series “One of these things is not like the other”. I’m pretty sure Angus thinks he’s a 60 pound Black Lab

Team Blackdogsrule