Friday, August 29, 2008
Ella's Visit

Ella, another service dog who also happens to be a golden retriever such as myself, came for a visit. She's one of the Arizona Goldens LLC dogs.

I should have known something was up when she showed up with her own food and supplies. Silly me though, I thought this was just like any other play date. She's come, we'd play ball with the humans then she'd go. She didn't go.

At first it wasn't so bad having another playmate around. She was just another dog that liked to play with me. I quickly discovered that she didn't always like playing with me, but she also enjoyed helping my human. My human! Mine! Yes I tend to get a little more than slightly jealous with other dogs around, especially when that dog can do everything I can do.

My human tried to keep things as fair as possible. She would give me a task and Ella a task. Once we completed them we both got treats. Ella wasn't fond of the van so this limited the places we could go. We spent most of the time practicing at the grocery store and bank. One day though we met with Gretchen and Annie at the Taco Bell next to the store. That was a nice change of place and I do so enjoy seeing both of them. Too bad we weren't allowed to play.

At home I spent my time keeping one eye and one ear open at all times. Every now and then my human would ask Ella to do something while I was in another room or pretending to be asleep. Knowing full well that Ella liked working with my human I felt it necessary to remind her who was the number one dog in the house. So I'd charge in from another room, shove Ella out of my way and do whatever my human had asked Ella to do for her. Ya I'm ornery.

My favorite part of her visit was feeding time. Ella didn't always eat much of her food. This proved to be a problem for my human as I was always willing to finish her bowl when she walked away. At first it was a race between my human and myself to see who would get to Ellas' uneaten portion first. Unfortunately my human wised up quickly and started putting me in the kennel when it was Ella's turn to eat.

One thing I must also say about Ella is that she's a bundle of energy. She'd play and wrestle with me all the time. She'd make the funniest faces and if things got out of hand my human would step in and she'd put on the most innocent looking expression she could muster. I'd like to think I taught her well.