day five

Today is day five.

BIG announcement!  Today we had our first solo flight!  As with all solo flights, this one was a bit rocky.  Jeter was Mr. poky; I can except this seeing that he had a big morning and it was not the most pleasant day because of the amount of work we had asked of him (riding the metro , going in the mall, walking around in the store and coming back home).  It is damp it has just finished raining.  I went around the block to see how Jeter would be.  Pete had asked me to do a solo job today since he wants to get Jeter doing two guide walks every day now since he will be require to guide on an on-going bases. 

Let us start with last night shall we?  Last night was a very interesting one.  First off, Jeter decided that he would be Mr. I am just going to do everything my way and you can just go take a flying leap.  It was not that bad, but he is most definitely pushing things now.  He wants to see how far he can push and still be okay.  Being on the far right of sidewalks is going to be very old very quickly.  I cannot count how many times I have twisted my right ankle.  Street crossings; Jeter is now consistently stopping short on both up-curb and down curb.  I have not asked Pete why Jeter is doing this, but my guess is that he is still trying to understand my needs. 

Okay, things I need to work on.  First of all, I need to work on giving Jeter clear and concise directions not come on or some such.  I am also needing to give gentle corrections since this dog is soft and we do not want to damage Jeter’s sensibilities.  He is doing a good job now; I just need to keep my hands out of it…  Listening to Jeter, knowing what he is trying to tell me.  I do believe that he is getting better, but it is all part of the same theme of being consistent.  There was a pizza place on our rout today and I wanted to check it out.  I let Jeter just walk up to the doors.  By doing this, I gave Jeter unclear directions.  When we walked up to the doors, Jeter thought that we were going to be going in the doors.  What I should have done was at the up curb, told Jeter to go forward and then to go forward again.  As previously mentioned, Jeter has having issues with on things being on the right being two close.  I need to keep a better eye on how I am correcting Jeter on these issues.

New activities we did today.  We went to the mall and went to apple.  I purchased the new Apple 4s and I really like the phone.  I worked with the agent with the phone and kept an eye on Jeter.  He was very good and was quiet.  He went under the table and that was that.  After I worked with the Apple rep, we worked our way out of the store.  He did a very good job; seeing that I was new at this and Jeter was new at it as well.  It was great walking around in the mall.  After we walked around three floors of the mall, we went to the grocery store.  I picked up a couple of things and Jeter got more practice walking around.  I had Jeter follow Pete (that was cool as well because of the dog following someone).  I told Jeter forward and then follow.  I think as  this dog gets used to someone, I could use the command follow Jack for example.  I did notice that Jeter was pretty good at it, but did at times get sidetracked.  As we went through the store, I kept a very close eye on items on the right and if items we were passing got to close to my right side, I gave the harness handle a tap upwards like to say watch our right side.  After the store we went on to the metro; actually, we took metro both ways to and from the mall.  Jeter is an old hand at this metro stuff, it did not even faze him one little bit.  This is so nice that he does not care about all that noise and travels so well.  I am very glad that both trips went so well today with Jeter.  I think this dog is getting the hang of what he is doing.  I always like to think about how I feel about having a guide dog again.  I am still feeling pretty ambivalent towards the guide work.  There is so much that is going through my head these days.  First of all, I often think about Juan; could I have made the match work?  Did it have to end as it did with retiring him?  These questions go through my head as the bond strengthens  between Jeter and I.  Jeter is a very good dog and I am starting to like him more and more.  When I think back on Juan, there are several critical things that run through my mind.  First of all, Juan never understood what overhangs were and how to avoid them.  Secondly, Juan and I never seemed to really click.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, we were a good working team, it was just that Juan never really showed a great deal of loyalty; he really liked my mom.  I keep thinking about what went wrong and what is going right with this match.  First of all and I think the most important aspect of this is that Jeter is starting to follow me around.  I had him off tie down a couple of hours today while in the apartment.  He would walk away, go smell and then I think he would forget where I was.  Because I would hear him start to pant and start to pace.  Then he would ketch sight of me and he would come bounding over to me.  We played fetch (he came up with the idea were he would hold the bone in his mouth and want me to chase him.  I got tired of chasing him and wanted to see what would happen if I gently tossed the bone.  Dog went after the bone and went tearing around the loop I had described to you yesterday.  Today he decided to include the bathroom and bedroom in the loop.  So I would toss the bone down the hall, he would go tearing after it, run through the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and come tearing back in to the living room.  I need to get some more toys for him, like a squeaky toy.  I will see when Pete would like to go to Pepco and get a brush and some toys for said dog.  I do feel that I made the correct decision by going with Fidelco.  They are taking all of my concerns to heart.  Pete is helping me understand Jeter and what needs to happen in order to grow the bond.  I like his approach!  All and all, things are improving much faster than I had expected.   Thought I would be still walking around on the streets; but, Jeter and I are going to the mall, stores and making lots of mistakes.  I think it is a good time to talk to Pete about my concerns about Juan and Jeter so that I do not make the same mistakes that were made last time.    In terms of the sleeping issues, yep!  I definitely thing they have installed alarm clocks in these new guide dogs.  The only issue is that it is not possible to reset the darn thing!  3:00 AM is still when Jeter is getting up.  At least now, he is going back to sleep.  I do think that Fidelco is a good school and I am  starting to believe more and more in this school.  Let’s give one big hurrah for Fidelco.

Well, that about does it for today’s installment of Jeter and Reinhard.  Do not hesitate to ask how things are going.  I may have forgotten to give an update on something.  Oh, like I just did.  Eating.  This dog is still not eating breakfast and last night did not finish all of his dinner (adding water helped).  Pete gave me a treat log for him.  I am to add this to his feed tonight (just a couple of pieces so that he gets the taste.  For breakfast, Pete wants me to give him about five or six pieces of it.  This is raw meet that can be used to entice dogs to eat.  Let’s see if Mr. funky eater will decide to eat.  I told Pete that I bet this dog will only eat with the treats in the food.  Oh well, if Jeter does not want to eat his food, it is not my falt that he starves.  Pete and I often joke that if Jeter starves himself, it is all his fault and not ours since we tried to feed him and that I need another guide dog since this one starved himself.

I hope all of you will have a good day and I am looking forward to seeing what comments I get from you on this one.  BTW, Jeter is storing up for tonight’s alarm clock wake time.