Tuesday, December 22, 2009
My Protégé

Sorry I havent posted much lately. My human has been working a lot and it's hard to get her away from work long enough to let me use the computer. However this hasn't been wasted time either. My little understudy Atlantis has taken to my tutelage quite nicely and has developed a myriad of new skills.

Ok ok so maybe my human has been helping in her education a little. Now that Atlantis is a tad older and learning to focus on a task for longer than mere seconds she is being a far more useful service dog in training. She's opening and closing door, this includes the fridge, turning lights on an off and of course retrieving items. She's also slowly getting the concept of giving an item or payment to a cashier at checkout.

All that said, I have been teaching her far more important tasks while my human sits quietly working for hours on end. She has all but mastered the task of running in to the office, pushing my humans' keyboard in then running away. She has learned to flop down nest to my distracted human and gently nudge her chair away from the computer desk. I've also been teaching her to "shake your booty" a favorite trick of my humans and it always gets her attention. And let's not forget the all important "spit a rock in my humans lap", again it's a distraction technique and while my human is working she needs to be distracted.

Maybe what I'm teaching her isn't exactly what you'd call a service dog skill but I'm sure these skills will come in handy at some point.

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