On January 3 I went home with my new full time raisers and it has been a great adventure so far. I love that I get to go almost everywhere with them and feel very proud and am eager to learn and do the right things. One thing I enjoy a lot are walks on the downtown boardwalk. There are lots of distractions; people ice skating, riding bikes, lots of other dogs and ducks and kids. It is a great place to practice getting used to all kinds of noises and different things moving around me.
I also get to go on all kinds of errands like doctor’s visits, grocery shopping and many other things like that. I am learning that I have to sit and be polite if I want people to pet me…which I do!!! It’s hard but we are working very hard on my manners and I think I am doing pretty darn good:)
Last week I visited an elementary school for the first time and was able to stay for 1.5 hours. There were so many kids who wanted to pet me and reach for me and made excited sounds when they saw me. I did great and loved every minute of it. I wasn’t overwhelmed or anything and am excited to start working with the counsellor there every Friday. As time goes on, I’m going to start going for longer periods of time.
I can tell already when one of the children need me to give them a little love or be still so they can relax and pet me. I am going to do great helping my new friend, Lori who is the counsellor there. We are going to make a great team at making a difference.
One other thing I think was pretty great this month was that Hugo was my neighbour so I got to go on walks, play in the snow and stand up for myself with a much bigger dog! Don’t worry…I got this people:)
Submitted By: Shawna and Randall Frasch