Service Dog graduation!

Congratulations to the graduates of our first Service Dog Level 1 class!

December 4th found our Service Dog Class working at the Fashion Mall on Keystone to do their Public Testing. We worked in and out of various stores, finding different floor surfaces to work and test on. One of our dogs, Sophie, found that she liked the hardwood floors to lay down on because of the cooler surfaces, but prefered the carpeting to walk or sit on.

We also needed to show that our dogs could *shop* in tight places without knocking things over.  Believe me getting a young Goldendoodle to be able to do this takes a LOT of work. Kudos to Sophies owners Anita and J.D. Dudley for working so hard with Sophie over the past year to bring her successfully to this point.

The dogs also need to be able to sit and wait quietly, without sniffing the merchandise or becoming overly distracted, while the handler/owner is doing their shopping. Lugnut shows how well he can do this for his owner Jeff while testing at Bed Bath and Beyond.

When training and testing with the Service Dogs they need to become familiar with shopping carts. They have to learn to walk with the owner/handler, turn with them with the cart and even back up without becoming confused, upset or out of control. Here you can see just how well Shawn with her dog Sophie; and Jeff with his dog Lugnut have trained and learned how to handle shopping with carts.

We tested on the elavators (Kudos to Jeff and Lugnut as Lugnut was also able to touch the elevator button to call open it!) which all three passed without issue. While walking through out the mall we called upon a couple of other shoppers to help us test them with other issues. They needed to stay laid down with a stranger stepping over them and not move, they also needed to stay sitting while a stranger petted them. Of course that was the best part for the dogs! Who doesn't like to be petted! We had plenty of opportunity for them to remain in control and focused even with children approaching them as there were kids galore in the mall shopping with their families. I am happy to report all three dogs passed these tests with flying colors!

Once we completed the mall tests, we moved on to phase two of the night's testing. Dinner out! I wanted to choose a place that had action, without being TOO disturbing for us or the dogs, yet plenty of opportunity for the dogs to be put to a real test. As you can see with the following two pictures both Sophies tested excellant (so did Lugnut, in fact he slept through the entire meal!) at dinner. They needed to be able to remain out of the way, not bother anyone while they were eating and not focus on or disturb the other patrons. Not only during the meal, but while we walked in and out of the restaurant. For this test I chose Claddagh's Irish Pub (thank you Claddaghs for welcoming us!).

The dogs all three were put to a true test, not only by the smell of our dinners, but with other people coming and going, or our servicing staff taking excellant care of our needs, but there was also a young girl who (once completing her own meal) took to bouncing back and forth across the floor from our area back to her families table. Not once did our dogs break their positions from under or close to their tables!

CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATING SERVICE DOGS

LEVEL 1

Sophie Dudley, Lugnut Day and Sophie Roberson