Day Seven

Today is day seven.

It has been a while since I have written about my adventures with Mr. Jeter German Shepherd dog.  I will start off with what happened on day seven so that you will be able to understand the rest of the events the transpired.  Day seven was (taken at a hole) a day from hades; Jeter was not a fun dog to be walking with.

Pete and I decided that he and I would teach Jeter a new rout around the community.  This rout is in the shape of a very large horse shoe .  The rout started off about a block past my apartment, it crosses over Grand pavilion Way (a street that crosses in-front of my apartment building).  The sidewalk crosses two driveways and hangs a left behind the building directly across from my apartment.  There is a park and additional parking as well.  Finally, the sidewalk comes out to the far left; if one kept going strait, you would walk out to North Kings Highway.  When one reaches North Kings Highway, one can either go back to my apartment complex or go to the metro rail station. So… Pete walked me through this route to show me how to walk it; with the intention that I would be doing an independent rout later in the day.  Let me clarify, I knew that Pete was there, but Jeter did not. 

Morning session:

Pete and I set off walking the above described rout.  We crossed over Grand Pavilion way Jeter walking slowly but surely, crossed the next two driveways and then past the park.  Jeter picked up his pace  when he reached the park and I was satisfied with him.  The reason why Jeter had picked up his pace was that he needed to go number two.  I have come to realize that with this dog, if he starts walking faster, (a harder  drive), this is because he is either distracted by a dog in-front of us or he needs to drop a present.  When Pete saw Jeter step up, he thought it was because he had seen another dog in-front of us.  When I reached a handicapped parking spot, I decided that I would try and relieve Jeter; I was right, he did need to go.  The rest of the trip was uneventful (slow but sure).

In the afternoon:

Pete had asked me if I would like him to stay and watch to make sure nothing went wrong.  I had asked Pete what he meant by wrong and he had told me that he would step in if there was a life threatening situation or if Jeter totally gave up and stopped working.  So… we crossed over Grand Pavilion Way and Jeter stopped working.  He refused to work, as in he stopped all forward motion and would not move another step forward.  With prior guide dog training, I had been told never to correct the dog forward because of a possible safety situation.  In this case, I had no traffic so I gave Jeter a flick with the leash to hop up (of course I had given him the verbal command to hop up beforehand).  With the flick of the leash, nothing.  So I upped the ante, gave Jeter a correction to move forward.  He went, but it was not a pretty crossing.  He decided that he would go down the middle of the street and did not go to the up-curb.  I had a battle with getting him to go to the curb.  He refused and I had to give him a fairly stiff correction forward to get him on to the next sidewalk.  The next two driveways were the same, failing to complete the crossing and receiving a correction because of it.  Once we made it on the portion of the sidewalk where it was open, he picked up his pace.  I thought I was done with Mr. stubborn.  Nope, the fun was just starting.  At the next crossing, he decided that he was going to cross the street his way; the crossing was snappy and he crossed over the cross street fine except that he did not reach the up curb.  Jeter stepped out and walked with a purpose.  The only problem was that he absolutely refused to go to the up curb.  I gave him a stiff correction to get to the curb.  When I noticed that I was in the middle of the street, I asked Jeter to turn right.  He readily turned, but refused to approach the up-curb.  I had asked Pete later why Jeter failed to go to the correct up-curb and he replied that Jeter was being difficult about it and did not want to do it.  When Pete saw that Jeter was not going to reach the up curb unless he helped, he gave Jeter a traffic check to get him up on the curb.  When Jeter saw the van coming at him, he backed up and then finally got up on the curb after Pete herded him towards the sidewalk with the van.  These trainers must be great drivers to be able to know how much is needed to get a dog to cooperate.  My respect for Pete and Fidelco went up because of this experience.  I knew that I had a fantastic trainer, but after this I now know. There was one more crossing after this (a lighted intersection) and I was very concerned that Jeter was going to stall in the middle of the  street like he had been doing earlier.  Well, when we got to this crossing, Jeter gave me a picture perfect stop at the curb for North Kings Highway, I turned left to go to the street that was between my apartment complex and were I was standing.  We crossed,  Jeter cut in to the street a little ways anticipating that I was going to go that way.  The rest of the way home was picture perfect , crossings and all.  I was very rattled and nervous, but I persevered through all of the issues and made it home. 

During my independent rout, I made several critical discoveries.  First of all, some days Jeter will just have a bad day and I will have to muddle through the best I can; while other days will be good ones where dog and handler team will be working beautifully together.  The next discovery was that I was able to constructively dissipate my frustration with myself and Jeter’s inability to work effectively together.  While I was walking home, I was very upset and incredibly rattled from the multiple bad crossings and the traffic check; Pete had spoken to me letting me know that he was there during the traffic checks.  When I was upset with Jeter, I concentrated on keeping my voice even and calm, body posture text book correct and placing each foot down with care.  Would you believe , it worked.  By the time I got home, I still felt frazzled, but did not feel any anger toward Jeter.  Pete and I discussed the day’s experiences and he helped me understand that Jeter was testing me to see what I would do when he stopped in the middle of the street and when he failed to cross at all.  He had also told me that some people would have turned around and gone back home because it was two hard.  To me, this solution is not a good one because it is quitting .  I never quit unless there is a very good reason for quitting.  This attitude helped me get through college while being totally blind.  After Pete left, I through Cuz for a while with Jeter taking out the last bit of frustration out on each throw of Cuz.  Jeter loves this toy!  I will describe that on day eight