The adventures of SD Juno and SDIT Kaline (and their human, Colt).

27 April 2013

A non-guilty McDonald's trip

The parents are gone for two weeks in Holland, so I may be posting more due to there being no one around to tell me to get off my computer! Kaline and Juno don't really care.

Today was mostly a Kaline day, because Juno has been a little bit off, physically, and the vet said to rest her this weekend and see how she is Monday. She's not precisely limping, just not moving quite normally. I had wanted to take her to obedience class and then to meet my friend Marissa and her new SD prospect, Macro, but instead she stayed home and Kaline came.

He did really well at class, and even got a compliment from Anne on his hold & out skills! Woohoo! She wants me to start working him more on weird textures and objects, like Coke cans. At the end of class, he got a little over-affectionate with Lynn, who used to babysit him on the sidelines when he was little. She was kneeling down to him and he went for a hug, and tipped her over! Yikes.

On the way home, Kay and I stopped at McDonald's to grab some lunch to-go. Right as we walked in, this little girl barely taller than Kaline came up to pet him, and I asked her not to because he was working. A few minutes later, I heard her and her mom behind us, the mom explaining to the little girl that Kaline is a working dog. They were on their way out, and our stuff was almost ready, so I told them if they wanted to wait a minute, I'd take Kaline's vest off outside and the little girl could pet him.

Kaline was so good with this tiny little human! He could have knocked her over by just leaning on her shoulders, but he was exceedingly gentle, calm, and contained. No fast movements, no paws coming off the ground, just awesomeness. After confirming that the little girl was okay with kisses, I let Kaline go over and he immediately began washing her face all over. She totally loved it and petted him everywhere. He stood so still, except for moving his head to lick different parts of her face. Meanwhile, the mom prompted questions about service dogs in general and I tried to answer them in kid-speak. (I worry about walking the line between speaking in a way they can understand and being a condescending asshole.) At the end Kaline folded himself into a down and happily kissed the little girl's toes. It was absolutely precious and assuaged my usual McDonald's guilt. (Yeah, I know, I really shouldn't eat that stuff, but it's so YUMMY.)

We came home to a very happy Juno—“I thought you were DEAD!!!!”—and watched a bunch of baseball until it was time to go meet Marissa downtown. Her new little guy, Macro, is so freaking cute. He has the most charming, scruffy little face. He's a mix of Black Russian Terrier and Belgian Malinois, and just a sweet, confident, friendly little pup. He's about twelve weeks old and though he was very interested in everything going on downtown—he needed to be carried sometimes so we could walk faster than a crawl, haha—he absolutely wasn't fazed by anything. Kaline was mostly good (only dabbed a paw at the puppy a couple times), except for being distracted by dogs going by several times and pulling. Freaking pulling, I know someday it'll end but it is driving me nuts right now. It was fantastic to catch up with Marissa and meet her new boy! My ego got a bit of a stroke too cause Marissa, being the wonderfully kind person she is, said that Juno is one of her favorite SDs. Heehee. Totally made up for this guy at McDonald's asking if Kaline was very short for his breed (he is PERFECTLY WITHIN THE MALE STANDARD, dammit!!!!).

Anyway! Juno did get to go out once today, a quick in and out to Draeger's. I figured it was less walking than an average pee break, so why not. She was understandably pissed at being left home twice, and was bursting with glee when I put Kaline in the crate and told her it was her turn now. Put on the vest and suddenly she was walking and trotting normally (we did NO pulling of any kind, just walked in, did a block at the counter, got our stuff and headed out again). Very weird. I would really like to know what is up with her right now.

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