Internship- Day 4

Before I start talking about today, I just realized I forgot to mention 2 important things that I did yesterday! First, Jill in the Vet office took me out to lunch yesterday afternoon, which was AWESOME! (Thanks again, Jill!) She lives fairly close to me back home, and I am actually going to be house/dog sitting for her this month! She has a Career Change named Chief who was raised in my club, as well as a pet yellow lab named Fancy who is absolutely adorable. So that was super fun! And then after I was done for the day, I met up with a puppy raiser from the area that I met on Facebook! She is the owner of retired breeder Heloise and raiser of Heloises' daughter, Omaha! We went to the Northgate Mall and looked around Forever 21, and then we went out to dinner at BJ's. It was really fun (and delicious!). And it was also really nice to see a puppy in training again. You know how we puppy raisers act when we see a working Guide? (OH MY GOD, is that a working Guide Dog?? I have to go say hi, or take a picture, or ask who the dogs parents were, and where they were raised, and if it's their first Guide Dog) Or is that just me? Well anyway, that's how I acted when I saw Omaha...lol. It's just been really weird seeing all of these dogs....but no puppy coats! The other end of the Guide Dog spectrum I guess you could say.

So, back to Day 4. I arrived at GDB at 7:30 again and went back to Kennel 3. Everyone was cleaning kennels so Shannon, kind of the head CWT I think, had me start preparing breakfast. I had never done this before, so I assumed it was the same as the dinner feeding schedule. WRONG! The special feed dogs are the same, but all the other dogs get 2 cups of food, unlike at night where they are either 1 or 2. Luckily I caught this mistake before wetting all the 1 cup bowls. Shannon was super nice about it and helped me quickly fix it. (Which I'm glad of because I wanted to die...I HATE making mistakes!) Some of the trainers came in from 2 and 3 to help with anything that needed to be done, which I thought was super cool. Everyone at GDB, regardless of status, walks to the other kennels after their own kennel is done to see if any help is needed. To be honest, I was pretty star struck by the trainers. I closely watched the way they fed the dogs, and tried to imitate what they were doing (YES, I'm that weird!). They had their spiffy training jackets on with reflective images of Guide Dogs, leashes wrapped around their waists, clickers hanging from their waists and full bait bags strapped from their hips. Yes, these people are like movie stars to me, people that I hope to be like one day in the GDB world. After they left, Shannon had me accel the front and back east kennels. Taking care to fully accel each kennel, I really started to think about everything I was experiencing at GDB. I don't think I had fully taken in the fact that I was HERE, at GDB doing what I have dreamed about doing since I receieved my first puppy back in 2010. And now, my foot's in the door, and I'm starting something that may very well turn into my career one day! I stopped for a second to listen to everything that was going on around me. The sound of the accel foaming through the nozzle, food pans clanging together as they are collected to be washed, a chorus of clickers clicking and numerous "what a good boy!, "such a smart gir!," praises from the many dedicated trainers, and the laughter and happy banter of CWT's, Volunteers, and everyone else in between came together to create a joyful GDB orchestra!  Now that's an orchestra I'd like to listen to everyday.

So after I finished with the outside kennels and doing the breakfast dishes, I was assigned to another CWT named Addie. The first thing we did was run a group of dogs in the community run. She let me pick some of my favorite dogs, and then she added some she thought would play well with everyone. While she was putting dogs out into their outside access part of the run, I did quiet work with the dogs. They do this everyday to try and keep the dogs calm and from barking up a storm. We load our bait bags with cookies and say "quiet" and hand out treats accordingly. Not unlike the idea behind food protocol with puppies in training. Once I had gotten the dogs calm and quiet, Addie started letting them out two at a time so they weren't all overwhelmed with eachother. She also showed me how to take a stool sample, because one of the dogs had some questionable looking poop in their run. They keep these nifty feces collector things in the box in each play yard. They keep them out there so they don't have to run inside the kennel to grab one if the dog is in the play yard or something. You pop it open, dip the end in the poop, and drop it off at the clinic. While Addie did this and took the sample to the clinic, I worked on quiet work with the remaining dogs waiting to be let out. I got them sitting calmly and quietly by the time Addie returned, and we began adding more dogs to the pack in the play yard. Only really experienced CWT's are allowed to have more than 6 dogs in the play yard at once. We had 6 dogs in the run with us. All females, 3 blacks and 3 yellows (happened to work out that way....I picked 2 of the black girls and Addie added the rest). We each held what's called a Shepherds crook, which looks exactly like what those sheep herders in Scotland or something carry around. Only these are tall, more than 5 feet, metal, and painted red. They aren't neccessarily for hooking dogs around the neck. In fact, most of the CWT's don't do that because if not done properly, it could harm the dogs neck. They are more just an extension of your arm to get in the middle of rough play, or they bang the ends on the ground to get the dogs attention. We also put some of the dogs on long lines if they are exhibiting bad behavior and we can't catch them. We don't attach them to their training martingale collars though. They have black regular pet store nylon collars that we put on then attach a long line to. The ropes are white fabric type material and aren't actually that long. Probably about as long as the leather leash at it's full length. We also brought some toys out, and Addie told me they ALWAYS have more toys than they do dogs. This prevents resource guarding and all that. The toys that have are the Nylabone knots, Jolly Eggs, and the Jolly balls with the balls inside of them. After letting the dogs play for a bit, we put everyone back and cleaned up all the toys.We then started doing some of the Medical walks, which are priority walks as well. The kennel has a chart with every dogs name on it and two boxes next to their name, marked "AM" and "PM". Each dog is supposed to get a Community Run and/or walk twice a day. I say "supposed to" because sometimes they don't get out twice, but they do always get out at least once a day. The dogs marked with a green dot mean these are the dogs that need to be walked first. These include any high energy dogs, ones that need to lose weight, or ones that have been spayed or neutered and need their daily 5, 10 or 15 min walk depending on where they are in the recovery stages. We took 2 5-minute walks, and then me and another CWT named Mitch took 2 dogs on a long cemetery walk. Then, it was time to set up the kennels for nap time. We locked everyone in, turned off the lights, turned on the classical music, and then Addie started telling me about other enrichment things they do for the dogs in the kennel. One of them is spraying different scents in the kennels. Like Orange, Lavender, Almond, and she said they even have one called Maple Syrup! We walked down to the CWT office and Addie let me choose a scent. I picked Lavender since it was nap time, and it seemed like a calming scent. We went back and I sprayed it throughout both sections of the kennels. It really did smell relaxing! The dogs started falling asleep as we were leaving the kennel. I put the scent back, and then it was time for lunch!

When we got back from lunch, I was assigned to another CWT named Jessie. She is super nice (As are ALL of the CWT's I've met so far. Seriously, they are so awesome.) She had already been cleaning K3, so I was sent over to K2 to see if any help was needed. I scooped a couple of runs, and rinsed pee out of a few others, but there really wasn't that much to do. K1 was done by the time i finished rinsing, so we went back to K3. She got out one of her project dogs, a sweet yellow female, and I did the body check on her, and brushed her teeth and cleaned her ears. Then she said we could take some dogs for a walk in the cemetery. She took her project dog, and I chose a big yellow male that is in breeder evals. Seriously, this dog may have the biggest head I've ever seen. I had been working with females all week, and it had been a long time since I had handled a big yellow male like Keith, so I couldn't resist :) We had a nice walk and we talked about eachother; where we're from, what we want to do, etc. Jessie lives in San Fran and is a CWT that is going to apply to be an apprentice instructor. I told her some stuff about the puppy raising end of GDB, and it was alltogether a really fun walk!

We put the dogs away, and then we decided to take a few dogs to the grass paddock to play. I picked a spunky little black female who's in breeder evals, and Jessie took a sweet yellow breeder. On the way there, Jessie introduced me to Jason, one of the mobility instructors, and none other than Mr. Keiths trainer!!!! I was so ecstatic to meet him and hear what he had to say about Keith. He said that he is a big goofball and such a sweetheart, and that he was glad to meet me! That totally made my day.

The girls had fun playing, and were very tired when we put them back in their kennel. Jessie had to answer a few emails and do some paperwork, so she asked if I would like to bring a dog into the kennel office area to cuddle with while she finished her work. I picked a sweet black female and she hung out on my lap with a nylabone until Jessie was finished.

After that, Jessie showed me how they refill the accel bottles. You have to wear gloves and goggles to do this. We take the empty container and go to an outdoor storage area in the back of the GDB complex. There are all these big, plastic, blue barrels full of accel. There's a pump attached to one of them, and you have to literally pump it out of the barrel. Once that was done we started prepping dinner and doing afternoon medications. Jessie showed me how to give ear medicine to one dog, eye medicine to another, and we also checked suture sights on 4 different dogs. Then we wet the food and started serving everyone!

We both did the dishes together, and then we went down to the vet clinic and Jessie showed me how to pick up medication, log it into the book in the kennel, and then right it down on the board. Jessie had the night shift tonight, so she took her lunch at 4. She said I was welcome to leave, or I could stay and walk dogs for a bit if I wanted to. I stayed and walked a little black female who is recovering from being spayed. She's a 10 minute medical walk, so we took a short, relaxed walk around campus. It was a nice end to a really good day at GDB :)

Tomorrow is Friday, which marks the halfway point of my internship! It's already going way too fast! I also found out where Keith is going today! He will be living with a man named Ronald in Forest, VA! Far away, but praying he will stay in contact to make up for distance!

Random note, but a month from today I will be 21! And I don't look a day over 12! ;)