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.

A Contest of Wills

For weeks Willow and Bingo have been playing with a big red rubber bone, and they both are tired of it.

So when Bingo found an old Kong toy under the couch this afternoon, one that had been lost for several weeks, he was thrilled, and he ran through the house like he had won the lottery. Bingo did his best to tease Willow with the Kong, and she fell for the bait, chasing him around the house like a jealous kid.

Then she picked up the big red bone, confident that the young and impulsive Bingo would fall for the trick and chase after her.

Instead, the two dogs faced off, nose to nose a few inches apart, each with a toy and engaged now in a test of wills, a game of chicken that went on for at least 5 minutes.

The loser would drop her toy first and look away ashamed. The winner would sit down on his blanket and enjoy his victory.

Bingo Gets a Bath

By Fred
This weekend we took advantage of the perfect weather to work on the Stand/Stay command and to get a little wet. I'd never used Stand/Stay before we got Bingo, but we've learned that it's important for those times when a blind person wouldn't want their dog to sit on the floor, like in a public restroom. It's also very useful at bath time.

Here's Bingo, suffering through a bath and some taunting by Cheryl.

Also this weekend I repaired the fence to make sure it was puppy-proof. So far, we've kept Bingo on a leash in the back yard, but we decided it was time for him to be free and explore. With the bath over, imagine his surprise when his best friend, Willow, shows up to give him his first tour of the yard.

This also gave us a chance to work on some long-distance "Come" commands. Bingo went back and forth between me and Cheryl, sometimes running at full speed and unable to stop. Oh, well.

Bingo and His Pep Rally Bling

The headband fit loosely and provided him with a little school spirit bling. 8-) He also had a cute little Go Bucs ribbon that I pinned on his coat just for the pep rally. He wasn't into the pom poms. He tried to bite those.

Bingo and the Bagpipers

We had our first pep rally on Friday and I was a little worried about Bingo's reaction to the Pipe and Drum Corps. I had been told by a former student who plays with a pipe and drum band at his college in Canada that the pipes drive dogs wild. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The music the cheerleaders danced to didn't create any reaction, nor did the cheering itself.

In fact, he mostly chilled out and looked like this:

His fan club was in attendance, two the world language teachers, one of the English teachers and a religion teacher all stayed with us to watch the pep rally.

Bingo really excelled today. He showed no reaction to 1400 screaming, cheering children. He showed no reaction to cheerleading booty/dance music. He showed no reaction to a very loud pipe and drum corps, which included an electric guitar solo and a loud drumming segment. All in all, I would say he did a damn fine job.

The Mall and a Movie: Round 3

Destination: Westshore Mall. Timing: lunchtime. We were hoping for an afternoon nap lull to get him through the movie this time as we have been unsuccessful in our previous two attempts to see a movie with Bingo.

This time we had it all planned out. Lunch at Mitchell's. Followed by vigorous mall walking to tire him out. Then a brief bout of staring at the escalator (guide dogs aren't allowed to go on escalators, but they should be brought near them to see them, Bingo was unimpressed). Then on to the movie: Nine (BTW, a more thoroughly joyless and depressing movie, I can't imagine. Please don't go see it. Completely pointless. And heaven forbid, don't take children to see it!). We even had our seats picked out, last row, right corner. We had taped his tags to stop any jingling. We also made sure to have his butt sticking back under the seat and his head poking out by our feet. That way he wasn't sneaking back under the seats licking up stray bits of food, which is very bad for him and just plain gross.


I'm happy to report that Bingo made it through the whole movie! Not one peep from him. That was a real feat for him. The other two movies were plagued with either snores or whines, but he was very quiet the whole way through this one.

We even had a bit of a rock star moment when we were leaving the theater. As we came out, there were a couple of middle school girls and I heard them say, "Oh, that looks like Bingo!" He's a star no matter where he goes. 8-)

He did very well on his mall walking too. This week we have a pep rally on Friday with the Highlander Band playing. I'll take some video of that. Should be fun!

Public Transportation

There is a list. A long list. And on the list are the sorts of experiences that we are supposed to expose Bingo to so that he will become an amazing guide dog. The list includes things like restaurants, theaters, etc. It also has public transportation on it. I think school buses count as public transportation and we took a school bus for a field trip on Friday.

The big yellow school bus is a thing of legend. Big and yellow, it exist almost on another dimension, a clown dimension. The first clownish thing we encountered was actually trying to enter the school bus. "Bingo, stairs up," I said as I tried to go up the stairs at the same time with Bingo and my big canvas bag of field trip necessities, but we all couldn't fit. I became hopelessly wedged in the door, Bingo still on the ground looking up at me with a curious expression. If I were to categorize it, it might fall into that, did you really think you could fit in that space? category, but he's much to sweet a dog to be so caustic. Really. How could a blind person actually use a guide dog to get on a school bus? I don't think they could and get on the bus together. It's too narrow.

Did you know that school bus steps start fairly narrow and then get steadily MORE narrow as they go up? Did you know that they are VERY tall? Taller than normal stairs? This is all very instructive for the small, 18 week old lab who is at my feet looking up at the stairs and thinking, "No, these do not look like any stairs I am used to. I am not going up them. Thanks, but I will not be doing this. I'll sit now."

I give my bag to a student to put on the bus. Then I turn to my recalcitrant puppy. "Really, these stairs are stairs, they are just very clownish stairs on a noisy and smelly and yellow bus. But all the kids you love are on this bus. We should get on this bus too. Bingo, stairs up."

He did it. That first step was a doozy, but he did it. As you can tell from the photo, he wasn't too pleased with the clown bus, but he dealt with it. He also dealt with the walkers and wheelchairs at University Village where we went to see the Veterans for lunch. He's a good boy.