Major on the moon
Tackling our 3rd reader question today, and it’s a good one dealing with “life with a service dog”.
Pasha-Anna Federov asks: “I would like to hear your thoughts on travel with a DAD, amusement parks, airplanes, long car trips, zoo/fair with lots of other animals around. Also, does Stella go to sleepovers, or visit grandparents without you? And, if so, what happens to the dogs? Do they go with her? Stay home with you?”
On our Facebook page last week, I asked if any of our members had a topic about DAD’s or diabetes, and several great topics came up that I will be covering here soon. The first one I wanted to cover was from Jenn Demchuk. She writes:
“I would like to hear more about the bonds developed between the DAD’s and family members. How have they developed, which DAD is closest with Stella? Does Stella have a preference for one of them? What about with the other members of your family? Do you have a preference? Who’s personality meshes best with who? And I know they have different strengths and weaknesses as DAD’s (why you have two) but which one is the stronger or even more consistent?”
On Sunday, 9/15/13, we met up with a big group of Canine Hope members at a local mall for some public access training. We had several families that were self training, several puppy raisers, a few placed dogs (like Major and Raven) and several of the families recently matched with dogs in the program. This particular mall had all the requirements we needed for training, elevators, a food court, stairs, a loud toy store, a kids play area, a dark bowling alley with a huge arcade and all the noises and spinning lights, lots of foot traffic, and several long narrow hallways for recall and heeling work. And air conditioning 😉
Meet Canine Hope’s Lexi. In the picture above, she is the black lab. 🙂 More »
Earlier this week, we took Major to our son’s kindergarten class to educate them on all the wonderful things service dogs can do, and how they should behave around service dogs. Every time we mention Major going to school, everyone wants to know why Major isn’t always with Stella at school. I figured I’d finally put it all in a post, so I have a post to link to when it comes up again. More »
Our family has spent 2 years now with a service dog. I’ve seen a lot, screwed up a lot, and learned a lot over those 2 years. (Major became ours on 10/1/11, there will be a post about that on that date). There are a tremendous amount of things that I had no clue about when we started this journey, so I would like to share some things you may not have thought of either.
This week Stella is at a camp for diabetic children, and will be there for 5 days. She comes home Saturday afternoon. She doesn’t take Major or Raven with her. Why not?  More »
Let me preface all of this by saying that I am not a dog trainer or a breeder. I’m just a dad that decided that getting a service dog was important for our family. Since then, I have become more and more involved, met a lot of people, and learned a tremendous amount along the way. These are my thoughts on considerations that should be made on the journey towards aquiring a service dog. As always, take what I’ve made here, and salt it to taste. 🙂
Okay, so you’ve officially decided you want to pursue getting a Diabetic Alert Dog for yourself or your family. Now comes some big decisions. Many organizations offer different types/levels of dog. There are puppies for self training, started dogs, and finished dogs. I’m going to discuss these, and the responsibilities required of you for each type here. But first, let’s talk about several of the most common deciding factors families use to determine which type of dog to get. More »
