Mia had a great Thanksgiving...

Of course holidays mean getting a manicure for some women, including Mia. We do this using the command "roll over". She doesn't love this, but will always cooperate for a few bits of dog food. She does love having her teeth brushed, and sits attentively while I put the paste on the brush.

Thanksgiving this year included many visitors to our home. She was pretty good with them, not jumping up or too much licking. It helped to run off steam at the park where we practiced really reliable recall.

Mia has never taken any people food, but still loves to find an unattended shoe or remote control. We are working on the finer details of "take it", "hold it", "carry" and "give".

Mia had a lot of field trips this month, the library, jewelry store, art store, Target, Caribou, Post Office, hardware store, Purgatory Park, Fresh Season's Market, and more. Some of these trips involve working with the wheel chair and some are on foot. She likes the stimulation, and to look out the car window en route. We can see she is settling down a bit and we are more confident of her good behavior with guests and while out in public. We praise her a lot and sometimes say to her, with pride, "You are special Mia. You are a service dog!"

So what does it mean to be in big dog class...

Mia and George are going to big dog class once a week. In this class her skills are being strengthened by lots of work on using her many skills in daily life. She is working more with the wheelchair and going on more outings with us. She has been to lots of new places, including Dairy Queen, the Liquor Store (because the Caribou Coffee we were going to was closed) twice to the vet for shots, and to the post office. We are learning there are many types and locations for the door switches.

Mia continues to explore nature. We take her to a park where there is an area for dogs. She loves this and gets all excited on the way in the car. We take a walk for about 45 minutes and play with other dogs. They are pretty well behaved, and many of them are becoming her friends. One day she found some crab apples under a tree and decided to eat them. That was the only time she would not come for the "really reliable recall" we use. Today's picture is her resting after a run in the park.

She is working a lot on stay. I have her stay on the mat outside the shower while I take a shower, and we time her stays with the kitchen timer. For a good long stay...about 7 or 8 minutes, she gets the last of her food from the training session, or a small dog treat.

She has started paying attention more to TV and wants to see what we are doing when it is on the counter or table. We can tell because she starts bouncing up and down and strains her head to see over the top of the counter!

Stay tuned for more Mia adventures...

Mia's class has not met for a few weeks...

Mia and the family are seeing what it is like to train without having class the last few weeks. We have been "on break" and are using this time to review old classes and see what commands we need to focus on. Today we worked on really reliable recall. She recalled that command right away because she got a really good treat, some sandwich turkey meat, for coming.

Last Friday we all went to graduation which was great fun. There were eight teams graduating and the dogs and people were on their best behavior. On Thursday Bonnie went to Southdale with Team Training and helped with the training. The dog owners are expected to show how they can safely work with their dogs in public, and actually get tested on this after a few months. It seemed that everyone was well on their way to a successful team experience.

Mia goes to the Helping Paws gala...

Mia, George and Bonnie had a busy weekend with the Helping Paws Gala on Saturday night. Mia helped George give a short talk about what it is like for a foster/training family. He talked about love, generosity and legacy. We also heard a wonderful talk from a recipient of one of the service dogs. She reminded us of the many ways her dog helps her, as well as brightens her life. We are happy to report that Mia is fully sponsored, which means $5,000 has been donated toward her preparation for serving. We thank all her sponsors!

We are working on longer stays, in the stand, sit and drop position. Mia will stay longer when she knows some food is waiting. Look at this picture of self control! We continue to chain together commands and also to try things out in new locations. Last week she went to the post office, Kinkos and to Petco. Petco was pretty exciting, so it was good to work on staying calm and the command leave it.

Mia barked Happy Birthday (on command) to Michael over the phone tonight. She misses him, I think.

Mia goes to KMart...

The KMart in our neighborhood closed this week. Since Mia had never been there it was our last chance to try it out. It has the automatic doors that open when you stand on a mat, which made me realize that that method has been replaced by the motion sensors above most doors. The doors were narrow, and I used the commands go ahead, around and back to pass through them. We walked down various aisles, looked at some shoes and heard some loud noises. At first Mia was startled, but we walked to the noise and saw it was just men taking down some shelves. She was just fine after that. I used leave it and practiced M&Ms (positions side, front and heel, which make an M shape if you do them in sequence). Checking out while sitting in the wheelchair was a new experience for me. The cashier was curious about Mia. We are very careful to leave the windows down a little while shopping so the car is not so hot. It is very important not to leave pets in the car when it is warm out. Since I was too busy to take a picture in the store, I took this one getting ready to go home...and the store sign lined up just right for a fun shot!

Mia is learning to work with the wheelchair...

Mia is allowed to go to more places now and this includes practice with George or Bonnie using a wheelchair. There are many more logistics involved and we are learning how to maneuver the chair through doorways and around shopping areas. She has been to Ridgedale, Knollwood Mall, Target and also to fast food type restaurants. When we use the chair she attracts more attention, but it seems like fewer people approach us as we are obviously working. When the door switch at Ridgedale did not work and elderly lady worked very hard to open the door for us...not realizing I could stand up myself.

This photo is just before a roll around the neighborhood. We are building up some arm strength working on this. Even so we sometimes have to get up and walk on the uphill sections.

Today Mia got hot and just plopped down in some cool shady grass and refused to go on! I had to realize how hot it must be wearing that nice brown fur coat.

Mia goes to Van VAC 2009...

It seems as though Mia remembered going up north with us from last year. This year she had a completely great time. No crying in the night and lots and lots of swimming and retrieving tennisballs from the Lake Burntside, near Ely. The weather was cold and windy, but that did not slow her down. After all that exercise she was happy to lie by the fire and take it easy.