For the first time since his arrival Jay is beginning to chill, as you can see. He has found a place he loves to settle – the only problem is that his chilling-place is Jerry’s bed. So far this hasn’t been a problem because Jerry stayed over in Cardiff last night with Roy, but I am in no doubt that Jerry will, rightfully, lay claim to his bed on his return. While it is not entirely certain that Jay and I will qualify together in due course, I think you could safely put money on it, so this weekend I am going to buy him a bed of his own.
Today has been varied and very satisfactory. We started by doing some traffic practice. It’s widely assumed that Guide Dogs decide when it is safe to cross a road and lead their owners safely to the other side. In general this is a myth! Dogs are reckoned to have the traffic sense of the average four-year-old child. I reckon that my traffic sense, as someone who has never had sight, is far better than that of a young child, so I make my own decisions (or ask for help if I’m not sure). Traffic practice involves team work between me, my trainer and a carefully-briefed car driver. All we can really do is reinforce Jay’s traffic sense by praising him when he takes a decision, in certain circumstances, to stop. This is one of the situations when he is allowed to disobey my “forward” command. Our practice involved a car pulling across the pavement and out of a drive in front of me. When we are close to the car Jay should stop until the car has passed; I then have to tell him to carry on. We also did road traffic where a car comes towards us from the left or right once we are on the road. Again, Jay should stop until told to carry on. I’m sure you will agree that driving at blind people and their dogs is not generally considered acceptable behaviour, and I know from speaking with our instructors that they sometimes incur public outrage or even police interest when carrying out this exercise. Anyway, that is another thing ticked off the list of things we have to do before I can qualify.
We have also fitted in a trip to the Vet to get Jay registered and a visit to the pet shop to check out the dog beds on offer. I couldn’t leave without buying Jay something, so he now has a yellow rubber ring – great for tugging!!
This afternoon we retraced our route into town – taking in the dentist, etc, along the way. There was a lot of noisy traffic, a busker (Jay really found him distracting) and groups of pedestrians everywhere, of course. I am delighted with Jay’s progress – he learns routes quickly and he clearly remembered much of what we did the last time we went in. This is easy to tell because he finds the doorways, counters and steps without much hesitation. The way it works is that, when I know we are roughly where we need to be I give Jay a “find” command. He will then know what I am looking for because he will remember what we did last time we were in the same place – that’s how it works. At this stage I need to be very consistent in the routes I take and the shops I visit. As Jay becomes more confident I will be able to vary what I do, but not yet.
Tomorrow will mean work as usual for us, though we will start a bit later in the morning. I am hoping to give Jay his first free run; he deserves a bit of frolicking in the woods and squirrel-chasing. I don’t think I’ll be taking him near the river for a while yet, though.
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