Yesterday I arranged to meet my trainer at the shopping centre to do some more practice on a route within it to a particular shop.  Or so I thought!  My trainer is clearly getting to know me well and knows that if she tells me something ahead of time that I would find stressful, I will endlessly worry about it.  So when making our arrangements for yesterday’s training session she suggested a meeting point (with Sadie and I doing the first part of the route on our own) and then that we would be practicing a route within the shopping centre.  We met up as arranged and then she told me that she had arranged with the other trainer, as well as the trainee trainer, to come along with a dog and sit in the outdoor Costa café area.  I have mentioned previously that I can get anxious if a dog comes too close to Sadie, even if they show no aggression, which reflects my anxiety to keep Sadie safe but also that if a dog is overly friendly to Sadie, she has a tendency to respond in like which she shouldn’t do so my trainer had said we would do some specific work on this…and yesterday was the day.

My trainer very patiently talked me through how I should handle Sadie if she showed any dog distraction and reassured me she would be right behind me for support and any further instruction needed.  As I was about to set off with Sadie my trainer then told me that the dog they had brought along wasn’t a guide dog puppy or even a guide dog in training but a pet dog.  Gosh, she was really piling on the pressure now!  So with me starting to shake and my mouth dry as a bone I set off with Sadie to walk past the café area.  Because the other trainer’s dog (who is a withdrawn guide dog puppy, although he is no longer a puppy but a mature dog) was very interested in Sadie she responded with great interest too and was corrected by me.  We walked back and forward a few times with me getting practice in keeping Sadie focussed on safely guiding, but each time we walked past, the other trainer allowed her dog to get closer to Sadie, at one point deliberately dropping her dog’s lead entirely.  We then moved away from the café area and started to walk around the shopping centre with the other trainer going ahead of us to position her dog to walk past us or come up behind us, again getting closer with each passing and with her giving her dog less correction so it was initiating a greater level of interest in Sadie who happily (for me) quickly picked up she needed to completely ignore it but with my trainer being able to see that Sadie couldn’t quite resist a peek at the dog as they passed each other but responded really well each time I instructed her “straight on”.

After we had gone past the dog a few times in different situations, my trainer asked me how I was finding the training. I confessed that I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and also felt that although I was successfully getting Sadie past the other dog, it felt very messy.  She said she wanted to continue for a short while longer but reassured me that even if I felt my handling of Sadie was messy, it was being very successful and Sadie was responding appropriately to each command or correction I gave her.  On one of the final passes to the other dog, Sadie, bless her, tried to take me in to a shop clearly realising that she was going to be asked to guide past the dog and be expected to ignore it so tried a diversionary tactic.  It didn’t work as I told her “straight on” so she resigned herself to her fate but also to completely ignoring the dog, not even a sneaky little peek.

I then popped into M&S for a sandwich while my trainer caught up with her colleagues and prepared to accompany me on the route back to work as I had mentioned Sadie was a little slower and more unfocussed on part of it than she had been previously and I wanted to ensure there wasn’t something I was missing or forgetting to do.  As it turned out I was much relieved my trainer did accompany us as Sadie decided to stick on a turn she had previously done fine, if a little reluctantly.  I did get her to make the turn successfully by being very firm with her, but even I heard the too high pitched tone in my voice which reflected my anxiety at her sticking (this is the first full stick Sadie has done since she came back from her assessment period).  Sadie walked up the hill clearly in a huff with me for not allowing her to stick or go towards our trainer and ignored my attempts to get her moving a little faster until we were nearly at the top of the hill. She wasn’t very pleased either when my trainer asked me to go back down the hill a little and practice getting Sadie moving and was quite unco-operative.  Despite this, Sadie is learning that I am more determined than she is so will persist no matter what behaviours she throws off now, whereas previously I accepted them and tried to placate her.  Once we reached the brow of the hill Sadie took off with her usual gusto.

At the end of the walk my trainer said she didn’t want me to walk the last part of the route without her being there as she wants to work with me to be more confident and assertive with Sadie when she starts to stick.  She did say she wonders if Sadie is having an extinction burst on the turn she doesn’t want to make, partly because she knows she has to walk up a steep hill but also because she wants to go straight on rather than turning.  An extinction burst is when the dog makes one last gasp attempt to get their own way before giving in and doing what they have been asked to do with no resistance; this is when it pays to be more stubborn and determined than your dog is because if you do give in or alter the route to avoid the sticking point, it effectively reinforces the unwanted behaviour of your dog and it persists.  It does mean however that I now have a sticking point at both ends of the shopping centre routes so need to avoid walking back to my workplace, getting the bus instead, until my trainer has the opportunity to do some focussed work with me. As I said earlier, I am actually pleased that Sadie has stuck as it gave my trainer the opportunity to see her doing so and to come up with a plan of action to tackle it.  And this is one challenge with Sadie’s behaviour that I am actually relishing learning how to manage.

Both Sadie and I really benefitted from yesterday’s training with me gaining confidence in handling her around another dog, but a safe dog, with Sadie hopefully remembering in future that I will correct her and not allow her to respond to another dog (somewhat ironically Sadie had walked past a guide dog puppy earlier in the week being completely calm and disinterested despite the pup being up on his back legs and straining on his lead to get to Sadie…was that because I recognised it as a guide dog pup so felt no threat from the dog so was completely confident in my handling of Sadie?).  Before we parted, my trainer asked me if I felt I had learned what I wanted to from the dog distraction training and whether I felt I needed another session.  It would have been very easy to say that I was completely confident and avoid another training session I found daunting but that would do Sadie and I no favours in the future so said that while I was more confident, if it was possible, please could we do a little more training even just so I felt my handling of Sadie was more automatic and felt less messy and disjointed.  My trainer will kindly arrange this at a future date that I will have no prior knowledge of thankfully, but in the meantime I will endeavour to put into practice all that I learned yesterday.

When reflecting on my training yesterday, I realised I wasn’t the least bit self conscious at doing dog distraction training in such a public place and didn’t even notice other people, really only hearing my trainer’s voice as she supported me through it as well as spotting the other trainer and her dog.  From the very first time I held a guide dog’s harness and was guided by them, I have felt completely comfortable with such an outwardly visible and obvious sign of my disability as well as knowing without a doubt that this is my preferred method of safe mobility.  For me it feels very natural to walk with a dog which allows me to concentrate fully on working with them to go about my everyday life and not think or worry about anyone else’s perceptions of us.  Despite all the work the other trainer’s dog put in for us, it was clearly a fun activity for him and hopefully also a useful learning experience for the trainee trainer in how to personalise the training an individual partnership needs, although I have to confess to not knowing where she was for most of it.

I have always viewed guide dog ownership as a privilege rather than a right.  I also feel very privileged and enormously grateful for Sadie and I to be given the ongoing support we need at this time in our partnership.