Going to the fair, plus harness training

Lately we have been going to fairs and doing harness training with Kaline (what it says on the tin). Two weekends ago was the street fair in Menlo Park, where we live, and then last weekend was the street fair in Redwood City. Vendors at both were pretty disappointing, but it was definitely good for the pups.

I have discovered that while Kaline has no problem doing walks, or even trotting briskly, in shoes, he does not believe he should be asked to do what I think of as fine positioning work while wearing them. We're talking swinging into a block position or coming back to heel. He kinda freezes up and then you have to ... unfreeze him. Other than that, he was fantastic. We did a lot of going through crowds, and Kaline's sniffing was exceedingly minimal. Most of the time he didn't even turn his head at all. He mostly ignored the various other dogs around too. I won't get into a rant on those but let's just say a lot of people brought dogs who were not prepared to be in that situation, either in a physical or a mental sense.

Kaline at the street fair in Menlo Park.

People lost their marbles over Kaline and Juno's shoes. I enjoyed spreading the Gospel of Shoes to anyone who asked where they could get such awesome protection for their dogs' feet, but the pointing and squealing got tiresome very quickly. I told several adults curtly, “It's rude to point.” We met another Doberman, Duke, a month older than Kaline and significantly larger and goofier! So adorable. Kaline also worked on ignoring people petting him (I want to do a practice Public Access Test with him soon, just for shits and giggles).

The Redwood City fair had even worse vendors, was much smaller, and had great blues acts and freaking delicious barbecue. It wasn't that hot, but Kaline started doing the dance on the pavement so on went the shoes. We met up with Sonja, Chief, Hendrik, and their two friends from Germany, which was delightful. Later we all went to Crissy Field to let the dogs run about.

Kaline and Chief at the blues concert.

Kaline and Chief ignoring the delicious barbecue.

On to harness training. Kaline is going on the Michigan trip, due to the fact that all the people I know who normally would be able to take him cannot—and neither can a shit ton of people I don't know. Juno is going to have a delightful spa week with Sonja, Chief, and the “old ladies.” She's obviously much lower-maintenance than Kay and more importantly, can be trusted to be around Chief without a human hanging onto her front paws.

Obviously, going on the trip means Kaline's duties are going to expand, at least temporarily. He's not old enough to do counterbalance or brace work, but thankfully he is old enough to do what I need most in terms of mobility: momentum pull. Basically it's the same as when you see crazy dogs pulling like sled dogs in back-attaching harnesses, only Kaline will be paying attention, pulling at an appropriate level, and not going nuts. And instead of pulling on a leash he'll be pulling against a handle. Point is, doesn't hurt a young dog.

Our first session was really short and kind of feeling things out. I just took Kaline outside with the Petjoy harness on, and any time he made the floppy handle taut, I rewarded him. Then Juno decided to come participate, so I put her in a down stay by our house walkway and took Kaline away from her. Then I just let him walk back to her—he pulled beautifully and slowed to a stop right in front of her, so we started practicing a stop command too. Saying “easy” was not so good at first as a slow-down cue because that usually means he's about to be told to sit. We've worked on it since, and now he's just slowing down, and not turning to face me as much.

We did another session where I gave Kaline a target like I give Juno. BAD IDEA. Well, bad idea in the sense that I used Juno as the target. Kaline practically pulled my arm off in his frantic efforts to catch up to the Holy Grail of his big sister. He freaking hates it when he can see her pulling away from him and I make him keep heeling or whatever. Yeah, need to work on that. I took the harness off and just made him do very basic obedience with Juno far in front. Any time I asked him to sit, for like fifteen minutes, the word “sit” would elicit the most agonized shriek from my puppy. It was almost funny.

Our latest session went really nicely. I had gotten a lot of great suggestions on harness training from others with mobility SDs, and one of them was to take Kaline on a routine walk (i.e. he knows the exact path already) with the harness. So we did that, and mostly it went really well. Without the target, he did not pull nearly so hard. We worked on our various harness commands: forward, easy, stop, left, and right. For left and right, I'm making these huge ridiculous hand signals right now, exaggerations of the ones I do when we're heeling. Kaline got a break in the middle of the session to pee and sniff and all that; I had to hype him up about pulling afterward. Like Juno, he seems to like having a sidewalk to follow, and we were in a parking lot. So, I made a fool of myself, got Kaline all bouncy again, and off we went home. I was really pleased with his progress!

Juno has been busy as well. She came to a play with me and my bestie, Rachel, in Aptos. We did a walk along the beach, where a little girl saw Juno and said, “That dog is alllllllll princess!” Most adorable thing ever. I was stiff and in a lot of pain after the play ... something about the seats. Juno supported me carefully and slowly down the stairs, and in the lobby afterward. She's just the best.

Juno at the beach.

Full day for the pups!

The dogs had quite the full day today. We did the Farmer's Market, the bagel store, Borrone's, a street fair and then up to our ex-neighbors' house to play with one of their two dogs and also meet their horses.

Kaline only had to work in-vest for the market and bagel store. Dad took Juno into the market unvested—they don't enforce the no-pet rule at all, and it's not like Juno will do anything naughty, like poo or snatch produce. Kay was super cute. I had to let out his vest a bunch on Friday; massive growth spurt, I guess! He's getting longer right now, not so much taller. His chest is already super deep.

For the first time, I took Kaline in the bagel store and actually did the bagel buying—normally I just take him in and work him and come out. He did well focusing on me, blocking a little, not sniffing things while I was busy making the purchase. Woohoo!

We came home briefly to watch the very exciting and satisfying end of the Tigers-A's ALDS Game 2, in which the Tigers won 5-4, and then headed to the street fair in San Carlos to meet Mom. We had lunch in the outdoor space of a restaurant, and I took Kaline around the fair and let him socialize with polite people (i.e. people who actually asked to pet him instead of just reaching for him). He had a lovely time and did quite well. He met beautiful rescued Greyhounds raising money for—what else?—Greyhound Rescue, went into a bunch of stalls and immediately settled on the ground, charmed oodles of Doberman fans. He got to meet a firefighter by a fire truck, and the guy knew all the best scratching spots. Within seconds Kaline had melted onto the ground and one of his back feet was twitching in pleasure.

At the end, Dad and I confronted the hateful "pro-life" (read: anti-choice, anti-feminism, anti-separation of church and state, anti-sex for pleasure, etc.) people at their stand. It got really heated. Kaline ignored it all, curling up on my feet for the duration. Good job, buddy. It's very important that he not mirror my emotions, but only reflect calm back at me, no matter how anxious, fearful, or angry I get. When I get in conflict, part of my brain kind of turns off and I have trouble recalling everything I want to, and saying everything the way I want to; so I thought it was interesting that when one of the patronizing godbots at the stand called me a "poor little child," I angrily replied, "I am not a poor little child! I have a beautiful Doberman!" My dogs are the best thing in my life, what can I say. Of course, as soon as we got away from the stand, the adrenaline rush abruptly shut off and I had a meltdown with Kaline in my lap. Sigh.

After the fair, we drove to Woodside, where our former neighbors, Becky and Kip, now live on a big property with their two dogs (Jack Russell and Chihuahua mixes), their horses, and multiple boarders' horses. Kaline and Juno got to play a bunch in the huge backyard with their younger dog, Badger. Pinto, the older dog, recently injured himself so unfortunately he wasn't allowed to run around. Pinto is the real runner; Badger is more into bitey-face. So there wasn't a ton of running, but Kaline got pretty tired out anyway. Becky brought two of the horses, Slick and Aladdin, down to meet us; Juno was super interested and sniffed noses with them energetically through the fence. Kaline came over but didn't really want to sniff noses with something that big! It was lovely to get a horsey fix. I used to go up there all the time in high school to work on Parelli with Becky's horses. Both dogs are crashed out now.

Other stuff we've done lately ... Friday I took Kaline to Stanford Shopping Center to work on stuff. We went in a ton of different stores and had a great time. He got to do a bunch of buttons and work on obedience in all kinds of different stores. We did more escalator exposure, ignoring displays of stuffies and Christmas trees, and desensitization to the various water features outdoors.

We met a wonderful woman at the Bath and Bodyworks store. She loved Kaline, and it turns out she really could benefit from a SD. It was odd—just before, I had met a guy in a stationery store and stonewalled him completely when he asked about Kaline's work/my disability. When this lady asked, I started telling her about fibro tasks. Maybe subconsciously I could just tell she was asking for a different reason?

She told me she's had so many surgeries on the left side that she physically cannot get up without help if she ever falls. Her husband won't let her go on walks alone, ever. If she falls at home, alone, she is out of luck till someone comes. We talked a little about mobility dogs and I gave her my card and a PDPM card. Might go back in and see if she'd like more info on program dogs, because it didn't sound like she wanted (or felt she could) train her own.

Saturday we had no class, but the dogs got to the vet. It was the best visit we've had in a long time! All is well with the dogs, and we were not sent home with any sort of medication! Kaline's white spots on his hock are merely a sign that things are healing up. Juno's periodically red eyes are from allergies, and she should just have Benadryl, nothing stronger. YAY.

Palo Alto Craft Fair

The work on walking nicely and being attentive continues—Kaline was really good today! Our first order of business was the Farmer's Market, which is difficult because I have to work him and Juno together. It's always crowded, so it's hard to make your way through when you're walking three abreast; plus two dogs attract exponentially more attention than one, so you get stopped more often.

Nonetheless, it was quite productive! We worked on Kaline's stand/block with all those people around, as well as his attention. I spotted two cops, and they were happy to say hi to Kaline. I want him to be totally comfortable with people in uniform, and he quite liked these two. When we went to get our berries, Mikey (the guy who runs the stand) obliged me by doing his funky whistle repeatedly while I rewarded Kaline for ignoring it and watching me.

Then as we were walking through we ended up talking to a woman who had recently lost her dog, who she called her life companion. I did my usual recommendation of Peninsula Humane Society, and the woman said she was wary of going to a shelter because so many of the dogs might have "pit bull blood" and she didn't want a dog who was so "unpredictable."

I can't hear that kind of nonsense without trying to educate, so I went into my spiel about the true, wonderful nature of pit bulls. How cuddly and sweet and smart they are, and what great friends they make. I of course mentioned my various friends who have pit bulls or pit mixes as service dogs, and recommended exploring the website, StubbyDog. I think I at least made something of an impression. Gotta try. She was definitely surprised and impressed to learn that Stubby was a pit bull and a war hero, and that pit bulls used to be nicknamed the Nanny Dog. People used to think those stupid things about Dobermans; they're just as stupid when applied to pit bulls.

After the market we went to Borrone's for our Sunday breakfast; once I set up Kaline's mat properly (this took a little bit of experimenting) he did a fantastic under and stayed there, all curled up and adorable. The bustling cafe with all its people and dogs and food is becoming old hat to him.

We came home for a bit, had naps and all. We had a lot of cleaning up to do, since the house basically got taken apart yesterday for the rug cleaning. Once everyone was sufficiently recharged, we headed out to the Palo Alto Craft Fair.

The fair was way more dog friendly than the Menlo Park one simply because of its location and today's weather. University Avenue is very shaded, and is fine for walking dogs on all but the very hottest of days. Plus, today was pleasantly cool. No hot pavement to burn dogs' feet, and no scorching sun to heat them up and make them pant unhappily.

Dad took Juno and I worked Kaline, totally focused on attention and walking with a loose leash. Obviously this will be a work in progress for some time, but we definitely had stretches where Kaline was brilliant, walking along at exactly my pace and looking up at my face very attentively. There were tons of dogs and he did as good a job at ignoring them as you can expect from a baby; Juno also did very well at ignoring other dogs, and we ran into a bunch of shepherds, which she tends not to like.

We also ended up talking to a lot of different people about service dogs, including a woman who, like me, has fibromyalgia. She also has diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis (major drag!). So we definitely had a lot to talk about when it came to how a service dog might be able to help her. That stuff was fun.

Less fun: People who insisted that Juno and Kaline must both be part Rottweiler, which is ridiculous. Juno is 26 inches tall and weighs only 60-65 pounds, there's no way she's part Rottie. And Kaline is a Doberman, end of story. His ears confuse people so much. But I wouldn't have them any other way, because they're beautiful.

There were also people who would say something nice about Kaline's behavior and then go, "And, he's a Doberman!" As if you wouldn't ever expect to see a Doberman be focused and calm. I don't think I'd even say that to a poodle-mix owner (at least, not to their face!). All these people kept telling me how Dobermans are ADD, how they're crazy, etc. I was kind of like, How many Dobermans have you met? I could understand if they said something referencing his age, but not his breed. Oh yeah, one person asked if Kaline was nine months old, because he's big. Ha! (Side note: Kaline's brother Montgomery is 45 pounds already! Way bigger than Kaline.)

Back to good stuff. There was a guy playing an accordion at one of the intersections, and he was in a full body suit! Even covered his face. It was bright pink and black, with little puffballs attached at various places and just crazily designed. He was kind enough to let me bring Kaline up to sniff his hand; the pup didn't seem all that impressed by the getup. I thought it might at least give him a bit of pause or something. When I first saw him, I jumped, not gonna lie. But no, apparently Kaline got that it was a person and no big deal.

Kaline also had to deal with golf carts passing really close by, and of course smothering crowds when we'd hit one of the many bottlenecks. The only issues we had were nearly running into lots of different people, because we were both working on eye contact, haha.

Just measured him tonight—as best I could, using a miniature flag as a ruler on his back with him wriggling in a stand next to the wall—and he is approximately 21 inches tall already! Woohoo!

Dog boots

Or shoes, what have you.

I took Juno back to the fair on Sunday, in work gear because I knew there would be crowds. Dad and I were hungry, and we were like, “Hey, there's yummy food at the fair!” It was hot, though nothing like disgusting Saturday. Hot enough that the pavement would be uncomfortable to walk barefoot on. So I put on Juno's boots.

I don't think I had to answer a single of the usual unintentionally rude, sometimes annoying service dog questions. All I got was, “Why is your dog wearing boots?” It was actually kind of nice, in a way, since none of the people who asked had dogs.

The first person we met, in fact, turned to look at Juno and while I was bracing for the usual questions, she said with feeling, “Thank you for putting boots on your dog.” It's one of her pet peeves when people bring dogs to hot places and don't protect their feet; she will often, apparently, confront people about the fact that their dogs' feet are burning, and get nastiness back. Good for her for keeping on, though.

I don't understand why you'd be defensive about it. As soon as I saw pavement was starting to bother Juno (which it hadn't before), I got her shoes as quickly as I could manage. The idea that if I wouldn't walk barefoot somewhere, I shouldn't force my dog to do so, makes perfect sense. If it's hot, you prepare your dog for the environment with as much care as you would prepare yourself, or you leave the dog at home.

Anyway, Juno was the only dog at the whole fair wearing any kind of protection on her feet. We actually saw a big, very furry Collie-Shepherd-looking dog dancing his paws around because they hurt to touch the street. And people were asking why she was wearing shoes. “Why are you wearing shoes?” I sometimes retorted (in a gentle, laughing way).

Junebug did fantastically well. There was a much bigger crowd than in the morning, unsurprisingly, and she led me through nicely, if at a slower pace than normal due to heat. We tried to keep to the shade, took lots of breaks, didn't stay long. There were several areas where dog water bowls were available but Juno took a couple sips and was done.

People were better than normal about not touching her and not letting their dogs screw around with her, right up to the end. Then two people, who were together in some way, one after the other let their ill-behaved dogs run right up on Juno. I'd watched the dogs pulling their owners through the fair—we kept seeing them. In the crowd and trying to stay in the shade, there was no way to avoid them. The first one pulled the dog back as soon as I said, “Please don't let your dog run up on her.” The second one, the guy, let his bigger dog get his nose halfway up Juno's butt before listening to what I was saying, in a vastly peeved tone: “Do NOT let your dog run up on her! She's WORKING!” Grrrr.

Other than that, though, an excellent outing for Juno, an interesting one for me.

Big brag on Juno, and Kaline's first street fair

Last night, Juno and I went with the parents and some neighbors to see The Intouchables, which was a fantastic movie. Juno's new BLD leash came, which I plan to use for outings where we're going to be sitting a lot. She has a rare talent for tangling herself in her 8x8 in such situations; the 8x8 is awesome though if we're going to be walking a lot, especially if I might have to carry something. The new leash is great, but Juno was even greater!

A little way into the movie, Mom dropped the bag of popcorn we'd been eating all over the floor—all over Juno. It was at least half a bag. Even before I whispered, "Leave it," Juno never even reached for a single piece. She slept the entire movie away with an enormous mound of popcorn just past her outstretched feet (she likes to sprawl, if the opportunity arises). I tried to take a photo after the movie was over; it didn't come out great, but you get the idea.

Today, we got up real early to do the Connoisseur's Market, the annual Menlo Park street fair. We went early for several reasons. It wasn't prohibitively hot, as it will be later in the day, brutal on pups in general but especially their feet. It also was not crowded, which it will be later. Juno is a pro at crowds, but obviously Kaline hasn't had a chance to become a pro yet. And, now that Kaline is thoroughly worn out, the rest of us get to have a relaxing afternoon. (He was a terror last night before he fell asleep. An absolute horror.)

Dad handled Juno while I handled Kaline, and he did so well! As I had expected, he got to meet a ton of new people, one of the biggest reasons I wanted him to go to the fair. After the first little bit, he also did really well matching his pace to mine, much slower than we are used to walking. He also had to ignore a lot of other dogs, both well-behaved and basically out of control.

(Tangent for the day: I cannot believe people come to street fairs with their dogs on Flexi-leads. You're going to be in a crowd, and you think that having your dog 26 feet away is a good idea? Also, Flexi-leads attached to prongs. Saw those everywhere. A Flexi, by its design, keeps constant tension on the dog, one of the reasons they teach dogs to pull. A prong collar is meant to have no tension on it unless you are giving a pop-and-release correction to the dog at a precise moment. Why would you ever use the two together?! End tangent.)

First we went to breakfast at a bagel place. Kaline was not really into lying down under the table; we compromised with a sit. He was super antsy to get going, at that point; he was ready for his walk! So as soon as we finished, we headed out into the fair.

Kaline at Bagel Street Cafe.

We stopped at a bunch of booths, and Kaline was very polite most of the time. Early on, he would whine if we stayed especially long, but after a while, he would just collapse in a puppy puddle to wait. He was definitely running on fumes by the end! He is asleep now and probably will remain so for a good long time, hehe.

He's out.

So's the big girl.

Kaline was definitely not overwhelmed by the atmosphere, though. Anytime I asked him to get up from his puddle, he immediately did and trotted by my side to our next destination, then plopped there. He only tried to chew on one person's tablecloth, and I quickly stopped him. Amazingly, he did not pee anywhere inside the fair. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had done (it's outside on a street, after all), but I'm very pleased he didn't! He was his usual super-social self, and no one could resist such a cute, well-behaved puppy.

Just try and resist this face.

Totally different subject: Kaline has been meeting a lot of cats in the past few days, and I'm pretty happy with the interactions. He is cautious but curious, and the cats have shown very plainly by their behavior that they don't find him threatening at all. Kaline shows no urge to chase them—he would just really like to smell one, please and thank you.