megan says the conference is going well and is interesting..sounds like they might be taking "those dane people" seriously.i remember going to the first few and being odd man out-- "you great dane people are nuts"'------ when i had perfectly educated bailey ( white dane) and eveeryone else had some kind of retriever... tan/yellow/ brown .... they had some very straqnge tests for " being a good service dog..- one was to have a kid in a wheelchair call the dog and have it come running and put it's fromt feet in the kids lab and be friendly-- like lick him in the face..
bailey walked right over to the kid and stood there saying "you called?"--- so she failed that.. then there was the retrieving a rolling wheelchair which had a short rope on the back-- teh lecturer was about to send her ( brown) dog to get it when bailey went and took hold of that rope and pulled it without any instruction ..... and so helo me she was never taught to do anything like that.--
then i tried to get them to stop using the hard leather harness on anythibng but a seeing eye dog-- which needs teh firm connection. i showed them teh horse halter we used at that time ( we did not have the felt ones yet... ) it was far more comfortable for the dog than those heavy glitzy leather ones.- i do have one of those--- someone gave it to me... back in teh beginning when i was trying to resemble a seeing eye person so they would let me thru the airport-- it is teh only time i used it-- and for that purpose. it certainly was uncomfortable for the dog to wear all day.
they are marketed "specially made for your dog" -- at about $650.00-- they are a thing of beauty... "saddlery" .
that was my "early harness" phase--- when looking the part was sooooo important- and we all were skating along on the reputation of teh seeing eye organization-- and their work to get dogs accepted.-- then along came ADI-- and-- lacking confidence, i went thru a "service dog in training" episode- on their vests and the back of my shirt... until LU of ecad (east coast assistance dogs in conn) told me not to do that...
mind you ... my dogs were educated.... i never had any doubt about how my dogs behaved... they didn't do tricks like open doors--- i tried that with one dog--- "brownie" a huge merle -after spending hours teaching him to open the car door, he did just that , and thanks to an automatic supermarket door, he came to try and find me- causing the loud speaker to request all shoppers come immediately to the front of the store- i was mortified when he clearly identified me as his owner,.
i decided it took too long to have them do "tricks" of light switches and door opening... better to have them do teh critical walking and stairs-- our recipients coudl bend over and pickup thier own credit card- and save about 6 months of training.
just because of teh way life is... rarely are our recipients more than 100 feet from another human... so yell for help with teh doors and dropped credit cards....
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I THINK I HAve determined that both benedryl and that otc melatonin have residual effects dulling ones senses-- last week i took a minor dose of one or the other- and i went from struggling to complete the hard suduko puzzles to being incapable of completing the easy ones-- and for those interested in these things...i didn't get stuck on the easy ones-- i made a careless error and that caused me to be stuck... there are darn few -- if any--- puzzles in my magazines which have a big x thru them becaues of careless mistakes-- until the week of the benedryl...
i speak truth... it may be subtle-- but ther e is a difference.
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i started to read in the ny times about " the rising cost of motherhood" but my eye caught the words....
"As I learned about companies that track “behavioral biometric” data, I developed a jarring mental image of computers silently recording my clicks, pauses, mouse swoops and typos.
can you immagine trying to make sense of tracking my typso?????
