Epic Fail at The Dining Room

It was bound to happen. An epic fail. Sooner or later. It had to happen.

Saturday night we went to see the school play The Dining Room. The night had hints that it wouldn't go well when we were driving over the bridge and Fred asked when the play started.

"Oh, 7 or 7:30. Look it up on the website." I said. He had gotten a new iPhone for Christmas and likes to look things up, plus our school has a new website that has a cell phone app.

"Is the play Our Town?"

"No, that was last semester." Uh oh. Flying blind on time. So we assume 7 pm and eat a hurried dinner at Mitchell's. Of course when we get to school, we discover it starts at 7:30 and we have 45 minutes to wait. So, we walk Bingo up and down stairs to tire him out. Good plan we thought. It didn't work.

We waited until about 7:20 to go to our seats. Then we sat in the back, on the aisle. We know the drill. Bingo was very good. He was lying down, calm and quiet. Then the lights went out and the show started.

Whine. Rustle. Rustle.

Whine. Whispered NO. Heads turn. Mind you there are five empty rows between us the next row with people in front of us, but still, parents. You seriously don't want to annoy parents watching their children.

Whine. Fred looks at me. The husband of the play director on the opposite side of the aisle looks at me. I tell Fred we need to leave. Time: 7:50. I make two major mistakes: I bend down to get my purse and I don't tell Fred that there is a curtain covering the doors leading out of the theater to mask the light bleeding in from late people.

When I bend down, Fred thinks I have a hold of Bingo's collar. I am getting my purse. Fred turns and I think he has Bingo, He doesn't. Bingo senses movement and BOLTS. He races up the aisle and shoots under the curtain and disappears. Unfortunately for the two girls who are the ushers and are standing between the curtain and the door to help people navigate between the curtain and the door, Bingo surprises them. They aren't expecting a 70-pound black lab to come rushing the exit, startling them so they SQUEAK! Not good.

Fred is standing in the aisle and all he sees is Bingo disappear! He rushes forward and runs smack into the curtain, and flails around trying to find the slit (mind you there isn't one, you have to go around, but he doesn't know that), so finally he follows the leash and goes under. There are the two ushers with Bingo, the door opens, Fred and Bingo go through, I follow. It seems like light bleeds through, but I'm really tense about the bolting, the flailing and the squeaking.

It all seemed like a lifetime. However, the good news is that my friend's son was an usher that night and he didn't even know we were there or that anything had happened. So I guess the incident wasn't as big as we thought. Still, Bingo won't be going to the musical in March! I'll stick with the anonymous crowds in movie theaters.

Mea Culpa

Today we had our monthly big area meeting at the St. Pete Pier. On our way down we met up with John and Bagheera (his well trained and very well behaved dog). We took the trolley down to the pier where our meeting was to start. Bingo doesn't seem to mind public transportation at all. Neither the trip on the trolley bothered him a bit.

These meetings are always part obedience and part informational. Today, for me anyway, it was a bit more informative because it was information that I could relate directly to how I was training Bingo or how I was training Bingo incorrectly.

Normally, at school, when Bingo pulls I will say, "No Pull." I learned that the command is NO. Simply No. For all things bad. Just No. Don't have a conversation. Don't discuss it with him. NO.

I also learned that I correct before he has a chance to do the action. I also realized that his "teething" is actually biting and it is my fault for not stopping it. I learned how to stop the biting. I learned that when he pulls I am to change direction, and to do it again and again and again until he is so confused that he finally looks to me for an indication of which direction we are going to go. "Ah, perhaps this person on the other end of the leash knows something. Let's look to her and see." See photo above of me changing direction on him.

I learned that at five months that he's still young enough that I haven't ruined him, that I can still undo all the things that I have unknowingly instilled in him. I learned all these things, so while I started and went through most of the meeting completely filled with a sense of failure, I left it with a very small, tiny seed of hope. One tiny seed that I might be able to grow into the owner that Bingo needs me to be in order for him to be the guide dog I know he can be.

Bingo, as you can see, is filled with hope.