From a post I did on Facebook, that I felt deserved some space on the blog: We talk a lot about the amount of training we do daily, and the structure that is required to make sure these dogs continue to work and do their jobs. I get asked a lot if these dogs ever get to be “treated like pets like most peoples dogs?” , if they get to have “fun”, if they get time off, If service dog life is a bad life or a rough life for the dogs.
All the attendees to the 2014 Canine Hope DAD Conference
Once again, my track record for bursting into tears while talking about how amazing these dogs are, and all that they do for our family, is at 100%. If you were there, it was disjointed at best, and cut short as I couldn’t get through it. I always feel bad as I struggle with these. But I will give myself 1 compliment. I am passionate about what these dogs are capable of doing, both for diabetes, and for the general well being of their families. This is what my speech was supposed to sound like:
July 30th, 2010. A day I will never forget. It was a Friday, and I was preparing for a week of vacation to spend time with the family before they had to go back to school. Yes, 7/30/10 was the start of my vacation. I no sooner turned on my out of office notification when my wife told me we had to get Stella to the hospital.
We do a lot of swimming with our labs. Retrieval games, dock diving, in pools, lakes, the beach. We have had several friends ask us how we get Major and Raven to jump like they do, and while I would like to offer up an answer of some sort, a training regimen we went through, the truth is, with Major, it took exactly 3 tries. More »
It’s been a busy week around here. It seems like forever since I’ve done a photo post, so here we go! These are all from the last week. Even snuck in a pic or 2 of Angus!
If and when you decide a Service Dog is right for you or your family, you may already have preconceived notions of what life with that dog will look like after you get it. Perhaps your visions include watching a guide dog for the blind work, or you know someone that has a seasoned team, a handler and service dog that has been together for several years. Maybe your expectations have been set by watching my daughter and I with our dogs here on this page. And perhaps your expectations were set by an over zealous car salesman telling you exactly what you want to hear in an effort to sell you a dog.
With all the recent talk about my daughter and Raven competing in rally, we get asked a lot about why we are using Raven and not Major. I have explained this in a couple of different places, but I thought I’d do a post about it here. More »
