Day 1 of refresher training is very much like day 1 of class.  Your dog comes to you, you have a chat with your trainer, have time to get (re)acquainted with your dog and then you do a short training route.  On this route I was advised to allow Sadie to go to the down kerb that I’d spent around 5 months battling to get her to walk past (its her most favourite of routes – the way to my sister’s and her amazing garden!) and from there make a right turn. It worked and I was amazed.  Will it work the next time I walk that route?  Who knows with Miss Pops! I also learned a new arm position which helps reinforce the command I give my dog (similar to the way foot positions and hand signals aid command).  We went into the Spar as a destination point for Sadie and I was very pleased that although she had a wee fly sniff as she walked down the sweets aisle, it never amounted to more than a natural scenting as she walked along.  On the return route, Sadie typically slowed down as soon as I effectively told her that she still wasn’t getting to go to my sister’s garden and although I tried a few ‘hop ups’ they had no effect.  My trainer demonstrated a way of holding the lead in my right hand almost parallel to the side of Sadie’s head as I gave the ‘hop up’ command. It had a minuscule temporary effect on her speed but my trainer advised that Sadie may have retained her slower speed because we were going up hill, rather than because she was ignoring the command I had given her.  It might have only been about a 10 minute walk, but I’d seen a change in Sadie’s previous behaviour and learned two new techniques so for my first day I was happy with that.  On returning home, after making a plan for day 2, my trainer left Sadie and I together and we had a wee play with some of her new toys.  I had planned to groom Sadie as would have been our normal post-dinner routine, but Sadie was sound asleep in her bed so I let her sleep on undisturbed; as religious as I am about tooth brushing and grooming, I recognise when its more beneficial to allow Sadie to rest.

Day 2 dawned and after a relaxed start to our morning I groomed Sadie and brushed her teeth – being delighted to see that she remembered our routine perfectly and still wagged her tail when her toothbrush made an appearance.  I had an early lunch ready for my trainer’s arrival for a vet appointment for Sadie to have a general health check.  One of the theories which could account for Sadie’s sometimes (previous) chaotic behaviour was health related so we wanted to rule anything and everything out.  The good news is that nothing showed up and the reason for the change of food Sadie had in late December is working but the bad news is that despite another reduction in the volume of food that Sadie gets each day 3 weeks ago she has continued to gain weight.  This is counter intuitive to reducing her food intake at the same time as increasing her workload.  After discussing this with the vet, we decided on a final further reduction in her food intake (she’s now at the stage where although we are reducing her calorie intake, we are risking her not getting sufficient nutrition as a working dog) and if there is no weight reduction in 3 to 4 weeks the vet will screen her for a possible thyroid problem which could account for her continued weight gain and potentially her sometimes lack of interest in working.

We then did a route partially along the high street in my town.  My trainer noted that Sadie’s ability to ‘find the pole’ (the pole that the green man pedestrian crossing box sits on) has been degraded due to non use so she plans to reintroduce the clicker to refresh Sadie’s training over the next few weeks.  We had a really interesting (to me) conversation at the pole in relation to the command ‘find the…..’.  As newer techniques are trickling into the training of guide dogs (some of what I term purist positive reinforcement techniques), the dog has learned to try and find a physical thing when they are given the ‘find’ command.  This means however that I can no longer ask Sadie to for example ‘find right’, find straight’ because it will confuse her as she tries to find a physical thing to locate on her right etc.  This would account for a significant amount of Sadie’s confusion on occasions the last while when I’ve unknowingly being asking her to find things that were impossible for her to find!

My trainer also noticed both yesterday and today on the way to the vet’s that I’m doing too much of Sadie’s work.  That’s no surprise to me as that was the only way I could keep Sadie having any forward motion over the last few months, i.e. remove any expectation or responsibility of guiding but that stopped as of today. The biggest thing I learned today was to put full responsibility back to Sadie to safely guide me.  I’m sure through habit and the trust process between Sadie and I taking time to build back up again, that on occasions I’ll forget but that’s the great thing of having my trainer close by so she can remind me when need be.  What was the biggest thing my trainer learned about me today? That my harness flicks are are useless as they ever were! I’m not sure I will ever completely lose my reluctance to correct my dog using harness or lead but I can work on using a more authoritative tone with Sadie (again that has degraded to actually asking Sadie to do things  or using a questioning timbre to my tone because of all the problems I’ve had the last while).  Back to practising my ‘no’ voice in the shower in the mornings I guess.

As part of this afternoon’s route we visited our favourite cafe.  One of the reasons its my favourite is because of all the versions of hot chocolate I’ve tasted in cafes they serve the best. That was until today.  I think unknown to me they have renamed it ‘vaguely warm chocolate flavoured water with frothy milk on top’.  What happened to my squirty cream and marshmallows?  Thankfully there will be more cafes to visit on the various destinations for Sadie over the next few weeks of training and hopefully more (actual) hot chocolates to try.

As I reflect on today’s training I’m left feeling sad, despite my best efforts as I always do to find and focus on the positives in situations.  I think I’m sad because today has started to really demonstrate to both myself and my trainer just how derailed my (working) partnership with Sadie had become the last while as I sought to keep going until I reached rock bottom and couldn’t go on any longer.  Tonight I question why I did so when it harmed me, harmed Sadie’s training and potentially harmed Sadie. The answer is because I was trying to do my best by Sadie and hope that eventually the help I needed would kick in. I’m not wasting any energy or blog space on going over how things could have been (?should have been) different.  We are where we are today and I am encouraged by the many ideas my trainer has to get Sadie and I back on the rails we were on during our initial training and I absolutely saw from Sadie today the work I know she is capable of, and the work that at moments over the last few months was the only reason I hung on.  And tonight I am so glad I did.