Watching out for me

Tovi saved me from falling the other day and she was off leash and supposed to be on a doggy playdate. Pretty impressive.

For some reason she was walking close to me and my left foot stepped off the pathway while the other remained on the pathway. I could feel my body start to sway and I had that unbalanced feeling I get when I'm about to fall or sprain my ankle or both. I felt Tovi sitting next to me watching me. And somehow that helped me find the balance point so I didn't fall or sprain my ankle. I thanked her a great deal.

Hello! My name is Tovi

I'm Tovi and I'm graduated with my mom in February.

Here I am at CCI posing with her.

In case you're confused, no, I'm not my mom's previous service dog, Hermione. Hermione retired. At graduation, Hermione's puppyraiser came and spoke to us and told us all about how happy Hermione is to be retired and living with her. My mom felt happy and sad, so I rested my head on her knee. That helped her feel better.

I love to go with my mom wherever she goes. I follow her around the house to see what she's doing. Oh, it looks like she's about to do something exciting like go into the back yard. Bye for now.

Pool party again

I'm the dog on the left running. I'm playing chase with the dog on the right, best game ever!


Did I ever tell you I get to run as part of my job? Well trot really. My mom's a lot taller than me, so if she walks at her normal speed, I have to trot. I move like this.
Now I'm on the right. The dog on the left and I are both looking at a ball. Do I let him get the ball or do I go for the ball? Such tough decisions. I can't remember what I did. I do remember that eventually I got tired of swimming and I got some balls from the water by splashing the water until the ball rolled closer to the edge.

Pool Party

Here's Faith, the mom of mom Takia or grandma. I get my highlights from her and my great smile. We also both love flowers. She hosts a pool party every year. Isn't that nice of her? Unlike me, she hates swimming in the pool. I went for the first time this year.


I loved watching all the dogs and balls. That's me watching on the left.

And diving in.
I swam and swam.

More photos later.

Farmers' Market

Every Sunday I go to the Farmers' Market. Farmers sell their tasty FOOD. I love to look all around. Such fun! A girl can look, but no sniffing the food for assistance dogs. Humans..well they sniff and touch and eat the food all the time in front of me. If I look up at them with my most adorable lab look, my human corrects me. Hey, I gotta try sometimes. Let my human know how good I am to ignore all the FOOD.

Big crowds of humans walk around us, not too careful about the looking. I help my human walk around. My human says when she's with me, the other humans give us a bit of space. They don't bump against her.

The other humans notice me. Some tell me I'm beautiful. A few call to me. Or even try to pet me. I ignore them. I do appreciate a good compliment and petting... but these humans are strange. I guess people call to and pet them when they're working too.

Anyway today was like any other Farmers' Market day except my human stopped and talked to a girl who saw me at a presentation. She said "She looks the same" with some surprise. I don't know why I'd look any different. I give her a polite wave with my tail.

Also we saw a CCI Skilled Companion named Jura who's friend with this sweet boy. I wanted to lick his legs, but my human wouldn't let me. I guess they belong to Jura. Jura's an older dog, but he was excited to see me. I was excited to see him too. It was hard to greet him and stay in my short leash and be a good dog, but of course I managed it. My human says we're going on a playdate. Maybe then she'll bring a camera and take some photos. Even better she'll bring TENNIS BALLS!

Reading, running and jumping

On Saturday my human sprayed me with this nasty smelling stuff. My female human puppy calls it dog perfume. [It's a no bath spray] My humans says I need it because she wants me to smell nice. I smell great! Just like a dog.

I go to this place called a library and meet all these other dogs who are also bathed and perfumed.

I lie on a blanket and this boy kneels in front of me with a book and talks to me and pets me afterwards. Cool! [He reads to Hermione for Paws To Read, a program where kids read to dogs]. My mom is read to as well.
I don't remember my mom. All I know is she's fun to play with! We go outside for a drink. She gives a little hop just like me when I want to play and I just can't resist! Then my human tells me SIT, so I sit. Oh well.

On Sunday I go to a party where these humans jump around. I don't get to jump. I have to lie on the sidelines. [It's a place with trampolines] My human smiles a lot, so I'm happy. Lots of kids pet me. My human talks to a couple other humans about how CCI provides dogs for kids on the autism spectrum while I lie down and watch the jumping. She gives one a brochure. I hope they apply and get CCI dogs, because it would have been fun to see more dogs there.

Then I go to another party in a big back yard. I play chase with the best guide dog in training ever! She runs really really fast. My human forgot to take photos, but she's a fluffy German Shepherd. Someone says I smell like a lab and that's great.

I got my ears cleaned, exciting too! Why? Because I get a BELLY RUB afterwards.

Water

Well the life of a service dog isn't all fun, you know. I have to put up with the most dreadful things. It's hot today. So my human ruins perfectly good kibble. Yes, she does. She puts water on top of it. So I have to drink the water before I can get to the food.

I try to tell her I don't like it. When she says OKAY (that means I can eat) I look at her hard, then I slowly lower my head and take a sniff, then I lift my head up again and look her again. She says OKAY again. Then I take a little lick. I lift up my head again. Then I start drinking. You must understand that I really really like FOOD, but I don't see why I have to drink water.

Water is for washing down the FOOD. Water is to help you lick the bowl clean after you eat all the FOOD. Oh yeah, sometimes I drink water after I run around a lot or it's really hot outside. I even drink water most of the time when my human tells me to. I'm polite. I take a few sips. No need to have water in my food.

My human obviously doesn't get it as she keeps ruining my food. Please tell my human to stop putting food in my water and to give me more food.

The Fourth

Today I got to run around and chase a TENNIS BALL and chase after this frisbee made of the same stuff as a Kong. I love to grab it and shake it around. Does my human capture any of these great moments? No. She says I move too fast and if I notice the camera, I stop and try to look serious. Well I have to look my best. She says here's a photo of my back. Well my back looks good too.

My human talks about the Fourth and worries about fireworks. My male human puppy said "I'm scary[scared] of fireworks, because they make a lot of noise." I don't see what the big deal is. They are softer than the drums at the parade we went to. A lot of dogs barked at the noise, but they don't go to parades. Some humans also dropped some loud things near us (firecrackers) when we went outside for a walk. My human did not approve. I didn't mind.

The only thing I did mind was when my human's female puppy cried. I hate to see her sad. She cried so much that our walk was very short and we went home. I tried to tell her it would be okay. She ate some FOOD, and that made her feel better. FOOD always makes me feel better. And my human's male puppy did see the fireworks. Go figure. These humans get so confused.

I was hoping this Fourth might mean four meals for me, but no such luck. Playing with a red frisbee and a red and blue ball was cool though. My human says it's patriotic whatever that means.

PUSH

For some reason my human wants me to point out I work. So here's me doing what the humans call work. I push a button with my nose or paw and the door opens. I LOVE it as you can see.

My human took some photos of me working. She says it's to be considered for the CCI calendar. I dunno what a calendar is, but if it involves taking lots of pictures of yours truly and getting lots of praise, it must be a good thing. I pushed the button more times than I can count. I usually only get to push it once. I like to give the button a single hard slam with my paw. So satisfying.

Did I mention this gets me lots of praise? Sometimes other people watch and praise me too. I like my human's praise best of all, but I'll take all the praise I can get. PRAISE. Oh, sorry got distracted.

Actually on picture day there was lots of smog so not too many humans around outside. It made my nose water. My human says trees are burning. I don't know why humans burn trees. They make great signposts.

Loken

I had a playdate with Loken, a skilled companion who graduated in May with a special boy. Best friend ever.

Loken's a mellow gentle guy. He likes to lie in the sun. Loken played chase with me for a while and fetch. Best games ever. Then he figured out a way to play chase that suited us both. He held the ball in his mouth and turned around slowly. He's a lot bigger than me, so I got to run around him and he could move slow just as he likes. My human didn't get a photo of that, she was laughing too much. She got a photo of the big guy standing around. He got up when she tried to snap a photo of him snoozing.

Hot dog

The weather has finally cooled off enough that I can type. And my human has finally figured out to get photos from her camera, so you will see a lot more posts from me. I mean what good is a blog without photos.

Can you tell how hot it's been? And this was the last hot day when the heat wave was cooling off. My human and her puppies call me "hot dog" and laugh. I have no idea why this is funny, but if it makes them laugh, okay.

The tippy seat

My human, well my human she's not so good at seeing things and sometimes that gets me in kind of a pickle. Some of my guide dog buddies say their humans have trouble seeing. It's not that. It's like she sees thing differently. Tonight she had my big old crate in the mini van. Love my crate and try to go in, except the crate door was closed. And the crate wasn't level on the floor. So I try to go on the seat next to the crate. My human tells me to go on the floor next to the crate. Now a normal dog would go sit on the seat cos that crate's looking mighty tippy. But my human, well she's the boss. So I give her a look that says "Okay boss" and lie down on the floor in front of the crate.

Then we drive along with my human's husband. He stops suddenly and the crate tips up up up and looks close to crashing down on me. I don't move, because my human told me not to. And I'm waiting for it, waiting for it. Suddenly she tells me a bunch of words and not one of them is JUMP. My human sometimes forgets the right words when she's really flustered. Anyway I know what she means, because I jump up onto the seat. My human tells me "Good girl!" several times. She's so very happy and relieved. And that's why I do what she says, even when I know she's wrong, because I get praised for doing the wrong thing and eventually she gets it and I get the big praise at the end.

Playing with my friends

Playing fetch with my friends best ever! The other dogs are all hearing dogs from CCI. They alert their humans to noises by touching their human and then leading them to the sound.

The dog in front staring at her human is Maya II. She's even smaller than me and has to jump to touch her human's leg. The black dog is Mimi and the other yellow dog is Cali. They both graduated in January. Cali and I have the same dad. We look alike and both love the same things -- our human, food and tennis balls. Me, I'm standing looking back wondering why people are taking photos instead of playing fetch.

When we took a walk, Maya alerted her human to a fire truck even though she's never been to our town before. She got a treat for that. My human was impressed. I wish I could have gotten a treat.

Blackberry dog

Here am I facing away from the Blackberry like a good service dog with most of my family except for one human puppy. My human wouldn't let me greet this guy dressed up in the Blackberry costume. So I turned away and she gave me a pat. It was hot and Blackberry was even more hot and sweaty, so was cheered by my presence. But my human said I had to leave Blackberry alone.

I did spread my magic around other parts of this festival in our town including to two women in wheelchairs. They noticed me right away and my human talked to them about CCI and what I do for her... A LOT. I even sit on hot tarmac while my human talks about how wonderful I am. I had fun, but was glad to get home and drink some water.