Saturday, September 22, 2007
Service Dog Awareness Day

Today was an eventful day. Today Annie and I went to the Mesa Southwest Museum to see Power Paws demonstrate their service dogs' skills and teach the public about service dogs. By public I mean mostly kids but they'll be considered the general public someday.

We arrived right on time and were ushered right in by the museum staff and guard. Then we had to break the news to them that we weren't with Power Paws. Rather we came as escorts to our humans who wanted to see what Power Paws could do.

Then things got interesting. Power Paws was late and couldn't be reached. The staff was in a bit of a tizzy and had 5 scout troupes coming in throughout the day to see the dogs. For a short time it was considered that Annie and I would have to stay all day and do the demonstration. Naturally we would have, and our humans would have gladly assisted us as well. Thankfully it didn't come to that and Power Paws did indeed show up.

They came with several Golden puppies a few adult Golden Retrievers and even one Golden-Doodle. That's a Golden Retriever Standard Poodle mix. He was rather tall and very poofy looking.

Of course since we were there and people kept asking questions our humans answered the questions and Annie got to lick and cuddle several of the children. She's a therapy dog so she can get away with that. I on the other hand demonstrated my skills at fetching falling objects, obeying simple commands like returning my dropped leash to my human and heeling. I even upstaged the Power Paws dogs a bit by picking a credit card up from the slick tile floor and placing it on a really tall counter top. Then I retrieved it from the counter and gave it back to my human.

Everyone was very impressed. Well, everyone except this one lady with Power Paws. She did glare at me and my human several times. Of course, to that I can only say. Neener neener neener.

I would like to point out that both my human and I do like the Power Paws organization as a whole and think they do a wonderful job training service dogs for those in need. We donate to their group every year and attend their Walk 'n Roll Dog Walk each winter. Its great fun and we are looking forward to attending again in January.

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