I began my month with an outing to Burnaby Village Museum, where I got to walk through massive crowds, ignored people trying to pet and talk to me, and, most importantly, where I was treated like a king! Upon entering the gate, an employee came over because they saw my cape and retrieved a special VIP bracelet for me. They also made a call on their radio to announce my arrival. How cool is that?! From there, I encounter lots of very small humans, some of whom did reach out to pet me as I passed by. Over the months, I’ve worked on ignoring humans unless my raisers say that it is time to greet. She was SO impressed by how much I’ve improved. I finished my trip by settling next to the entrance, where tons of people were quickly passing by.
The rest of the month was pretty average. I visited the supermarket, library, (human) university, and puppy classes, napped, and played. But the raiser says that they’ve noticed how much calmer I’ve been and how well I’ve been doing with staying engaged with my people. I’m quicker to settle and immediately shake off stressful moments. As we walked around, the raiser “accidentally” kept dropping her jacket on me, having me quickly change positions, and lightly bumping me with her bag, and I just rolled with it (although this was all slightly rude behaviour). When I went for a bath (BOO), she was so impressed with how still I stayed, despite not being thrilled. And then, when we got home, she made me carry my OWN kibble pouch! Can you believe it?! I was very good and ignored it, but cannot believe that someone would do that.
Since all of the humans have noticed how much I’ve improved, they arrange for me to show off my skills at Petsmart and Canadian Tire. It turns out that I completed the same tests the bigger dogs do to get their full public access! I walked around, did some cues, ignored some distractions, and tried to do a go-in (I didn’t fit in the space, but you can’t say that I didn’t try!). The trainers watched closely and looked very impressed.
A few days later they called to tell me some big news…I’m going to PUPPY UNIVERSITY!! Ever since I was a wee puppy, I’ve looked up to the advanced training dogs and have dreamed of the day I get to try on a blue cape. Not only am I going to Advanced Training, but I’m going to be an international student! Well, not quite, I’ll just be in Calgary, but that is still very far away. Hopefully, they have polar bears there. I’ve always wanted to meet one!
My raisers are all very proud but are preparing themselves to miss me very much. We have spent 20 months together, so it’ll be an adjustment for all of us, but I know that it’ll be worth it! We had a special photoshoot so that they can still have me in their house even when I’m off at university.
Thank you for tuning into all my puppy-raising pupdates – I can’t wait to share updates from my new home in Calgary!
Submitted by: Fiona Mak
