Graduation!

 We graduated!!!!



Rocky has 2 handlers now!





Tucker - got a perfect score all around!  Go yellow labs!



Samantha has added more to her plate!





Saffron gets to visit even more!



And me, I'm just waiting for my next hike!



Field Trip,.....

Sorry for the delay in blogging, my mother wouldn't let me on the computer.  I wonder how everyone elses blogs are doing?  Is training still happening?  My mother is still training with me but she did get a little lazy for a bit,.. but she's back now!  Sometimes its good to take a little break,.... but not to long I say!

Lots of things are happening!  The last 2 weekends we went on Field Trips!  Last week I just walked around outside a nice nursing home and my  mother went inside to help some of my classmates.  This week I got to go inside with my mother!  It was,,... interesting.  I wasn't to sure what to make of it at first but I think I did okay.  We met quite a lot of people who really like dogs and a few who LOVE labradors!  How fun is that.  I learned to sit in a chair so that a nice lady could reach me better.  My mother and I learned that one of the things we need to work on more is my backing away.  Hmmmm,  I can be kind of stand offish sometimes, I wonder what we can do?  My mother is not quite sure either so we might need a little  help with this,....

And, I was also helping my mother paint this weekend, oops, did you know that labrador tails do not  make good paint brushes?  BUT I did find the paint stir stick for my mother, it only has a few teeth marks on it,... :>)

Next week is our practice test, and the teacher promised pizza,.... LABRADORS LOVE PIZZA!

almost there!

Hi Everyone!  We are almost done with Therapy Dog training.  I hope I pass the test, its going to be very hard I think, but my mother and I are training all of the right things!  This week we did a lot of review, it was hard because my mother was a little befuddled because her car broke in the afternoon and things did not go as planned for the day - sometimes that happens but it throws us for a loop for sure!  We have been working a lot of sitting, staying, chin and cheek.  I think that this week we will work with other dog distractions because that was REALLY hard for me in class. 

practice makes perfect, as long as it is perfect practice! No new pictures this week, so just so you don't forget who I am,...

Chin, Cheek, Nails anyone?

wow, the class we did this week was hard.  we had to help out a stroke patient who could not use the left side of their body.  my mother tried to be creative in our skills to get this person to move, ha ha, desperate was more like it.  I could tell my mom was nervous about this! 

but guess what, cheeks, chin and nails work really well!  the hand signal my mommy taught me for our nails trick is with her LEFT hand, and leaning to the RIGHT.  And chin and cheek must be done with both hands so we did pretty well!  I love doing chin, as you can tell by some of these pictures,............. and cheek!  And nails, well, its just cute, at least my mother things so, me, not so much, but I help my mom out once in a while with it,....

and we're walking, walking,.....

this week we also worked on walking nicely on a leash.  I heard from other dogs that there is a big test this weekend, we have to walk nicely on a leash to get into class! 

so my mother and I practiced nice walking on a leash in the woods, on the walking path, and at Evergreen Walk.  It was lots of fun because my mommy gives me lots of cookies for walking nicely. 

at Evergreen walk they were having a Halloween Pet parade, but you had to be in costume. 

No costume for us but probably thats okay 'cause look at what someone did to their dog!  no way, not me!

what do you do for fun?

when my mommy and I are not training, I play with my brother Zenny a lot.  sometimes we get to "recycle" things,.... check it out

whats in the dish?

This week my mother decided to work a little on "paws up" and leaving things alone.  Some people call it "leave it", my mommy tries to use my name instead to get my attention off of something that it shouldn't be on and then to reward me for paying attention to her instead of that other thing!  that goes for things on the floor, things I'm not supposed to have, stuff like that.

for some reason she decided to use a food dish as part of this exercise.  Boy, was that hard!  usually things in a food dish I get to eat!  But, we tried really hard and think we are on our way.  I can walk past the food dish when its on a chair and sometimes when its on the floor.  and thats with food in it!  my mommy was pretty nice about it, she started really far away and clicked and treated me with delicous cookies from her pocket for looking at the dish and then looking at her!  that  was kind of easy, but got a little harder as we got closer and closer.  my mother says this is great practice for all sort of things, something about working with "distractions".  I keep hearing her talk about wanting to do something called obedience work as well as therapy, she has so many things she wants to do and I just want to run, hike and play! 

we are also working on paws up in a chair, so I get can closer to people for visiting.  last time I was at the vet I sat on a really cool thing called a "scale" and it said I was 65lbs - guess that's to heavy to put my paws on someones lap so we are doing the chair thing.

but how come she lets me get into her lap?  hmmmmmmm

playing hookey

well, I would like to be able to tell you that my mom and I worked really hard on learning to be a good therapy dog this week, but, not, my mother I think is playing hookey.  We did go to a new place, I discovered the ocean!  Off to NH on Wednesday, something about my mommy used to spend a lot of time there with my older sister Sarah who left us.  Well, let me tell you, I know now why Sarah loved it there so much.  Birds, water, birds and more birds,  I did get a lot of cookies for not ripping my mothers arm off trying to get to the birds,.....  and whats with the long line?  oh yeh, thats because I don't come back when called if I am chasing birds, on land or in water - not very safe my mother says. 

my sister Sidney and me (Lucy Lu) in NH on the beach!

but it was fun - and we still have time before Sunday's class to do some training - lets get going Mom!

Whats that stick?

Hey, so did you know sometimes you might meet people in the therapy world that use sticks to walk?  or hang out in these really cool chairs that have wheels?  as therapy dogs we need to know that these are not things to play with or to be scared of! 



Izzy the cat helping!



THE stick,...



 The stick thing, thats a little weird.  Sometimes you might be bumped with a stick.  Thats okay because your mom or dad are there to protect you so you don't have to be scared.  Izzy my cat is helping me check out the stick. 

maybe if I give it a little play bow,....

Those chairs with wheels?  my mother told me they are called wheelchairs.  They are used to help folks get around if they can't walk well.  last night my mother took me to training and we got to practice with folks in a wheelchair.  Here's a really cool trick my mother taught me!



Chin or Cheek - do you know how to do these?  Once you learn to put your "chin" or "cheek" on something, you can do it on anything!  Your mom may ask you to do "chin" or "cheek" on the wheelchair or even on the leg of someone sitting!  Hey, this is pretty cool, here's a wheelchair, I do chin, my mother gives me praise, tells me "all done" and then I get a cookie!  Wahoo, what fun is that! 

Sometimes, I practice doing "chin" on the cat, just for practice of course ,...



exercise, exercise,....

did you know, a good therapy dog is also one that has been exercised a little bit before they hang out with folks?  some dogs need more exercise then others, some just need a little walk around the building, some might need more.

and also, did you know, that exercise AFTER doing a fun therapy job is important also.  it helps us to work off some of that stress we might have built up AND its a nice reward for having done a job well done!  play ball, tug, or take a nice hike!

Lions, Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Lions, tigers and bears, if you saw some of those, might you be stressed?  How would you act if you were stressed?  That is also something we talked about in therapy dog class today.  Our instructors spent a lot of time talking about stress, why dogs might stress, what they do when they stress and made sure our moms and dads know that a stressed dog is a unhappy dog. 

In the therapy dog world, even though we want to help people, the most important things to remember is US!  Your dog.  Our handlers, you, must watch us very carefully for signs of stress because we cannot talk to tell you "hey, get me outta here!"

Signs of stress, there are lots of them and every dog is different just like people.  Me, I do a lot of avoidance, sniffing, head down, head away, forget how to do things, just CANNOT do the things I know even though we all know I know how to do them!  Like Sit, I might forget how because my mind is somewhere else. 

Another stress sign of mine, moving away, and ears down, panting and yawning.

Really Really important to pay attention to this stuff Mom!  No pictures of this please, it isn't a pretty sight!

Smells and Such,..........

Hi everyone, Lucy here.  Just wanted to bring you up to date on my therapy dog training.  In this class we talked about a lot of different things and we got homework to do also!  One of our homework assignments was to work on smells.  I LIKE to smell things, a LOT.  It drives my mommy crazy sometimes.  But this exercise is to make sure that we are used to a lot of different smells. 

This morning I watched my mother put little pieces of paper in little plastic bags.  I can't read so I don't know what she wrote on them, but I heard her say things like bleach, vinegar, shampoo.  Do you know what those are?  Not sure but I'll bet we will be doing some training later today, maybe I will get to look (or smell?) those bags!

grooming,..............

did you know, that being a therapy dog means you have to be a neat and clean dog?  sounds like an easy job, doesn't it?  but my mother, she works really hard at it.  You would think, since I am a labrador and all labradors love water, right?  that grooming would be easy - but somehow jumping into a pond after a toy is WAY different then getting washed and brushed! 

my mother tries to get my brother Zenny ready a few hours before we actually go so that we don't have to rush.  Sometimes, things like nails and ears we do the day before.  we have a whole collection of things that my mother uses to make us pretty and clean, check it out

shampoo, brush, ear cleaners

my brother Zenny, he is already a therpay dog

the beginning of therapy

today we went to our first therapy dog class.  I am very lucky because my brother Zenny has already done this class so my mother knows a little about what is going to happen.  I am also lucky because I have been asked to be the dog that helps to show some of the therapy dog skills that we need in order to pass our test.  this is great practice for me and my mother and plus I get to be a star,... I love being a star! 

I got to spend almost 2 hrs just with my mother on Sunday.  we went away with homework already!  we are going to talk in our next post about the homework we received and what we will need to practice on.  I'm pretty good at stuff but we can always use practice! 

the instructor, her name is Alice, she said my mother has to keep a journal about our training for this class.  lucky me, my mother loves to keeps journals, so here it is!  we hope that the instructor will like it,........

thats all for now!