Restaurant Time
This has been a busy week for us. A week ago today found our family pack our PT Cruiser and heading from West Plains to Oklahoma City. This was our first LONG drive with Suzy. Due to her car sickness we gave her a non drowsy Dramamine and it worked! She didn’t get sick one time and seemed to enjoy herself.
Hello from Oklahoma City!
It is so much fun to see peoples reactions when you get out with a great big dog in a little car. You can be guaranteed to have a following!! Milton has learned what the “Do Not Pet” symbol on Suzy vest is. He will inform people that come straight to them “it says not to pet”. However, we do allow people to pet her if we are just standing and talking or she isn’t currently working. He enjoys getting to “show” her off.
The kids found out they had a “new” pillow just for them while traveling. It was late when we arrived in Oklahoma City and both kids had laid on her and gone to sleep. She just curls up and sleeps her time away, too.
This was also the first experience of Suzy staying in a motel. The only problem we had was the closet door was a mirror. When she would look at the door she would bark because of the other dog. But over the two days there she got used to it and didn’t seemed bothered with the “doggie in the mirror”.
We were at a church get-together on Saturday and even though she was with us the whole time we let her a Milton be untethered. She got really spoiled from all the lovin’ that was given to her. We saw young children enjoy her and even the older grandmother’s in the church enjoyed her. She took everything in stride and loved it.
Another first came with church on Sunday. Yes, this was Suzy’s first time to go to church and she did great. She kept Milton calmer than he usually is during a service. It was so nice to be able to not worry about disturbing everyone. She did a great job during lunch time when we all gathered together and had a big lunch. She laid on the cement floor and watched everyone around her.
Tuesday night, another first! Beth came up later this time because she brought Jenny with her. We had a great time talking together and watching Suzy for the first time allow not only Chaka to be here without tearing her apart but also Dot, Jenny’s dog. She was protective of her territory still but when we assured her that Chaka and Dot were okay to be here, she seemed fine with them.
After Michael got home and Sharlene came over to watch the kids, the four of us and our dogs went to Ziggie’s. It was a shock for the crew there to see us walk in with three dogs but they seemed to enjoy having them there and asked a ton of questions.
Beth had to work with Suzy for the first 15-20 minutes to get her to lie down and stay but once she caught on she did great. It didn’t take much to get her to respond after that. She is such a great dog!!
Worn out, at the motel, supper time.
For those that are reading this and looking at the possibilities to get a service dog of their own, it takes lots of work to train a service dog but it becomes a family “fun” time. The kids love getting her to do her tricks and rewarding her.
Her “trick” this week that Beth taught her was praying. Beth wanted to teach her to pray with us to help Milton out when we pray. She is so sweet looking when she does it.
Yes, it has been a very busy week. But my week got busier with the new “job” that we have taken on. We were asked to join the board of the At Your Service organization. This is the group that we are working with to train Suzy. We are working to get more dogs into the handicap people in the Southern Missouri/Northern Arkansas area. This group is run basically off of donations. We are working with people in the area that need the dogs and only charging a very small fee. We are trying to get them into homes that can’t afford paying $20,000 + for a dog by the big organizations. Our hopes are to keep the cost very low and under $500.
Due to Michael and I having contact with the autistic families in our area, we are hoping to be able to help families out the way Beth and Jenny have helped ours out. We can’t begin to say how different things are here. Even his therapist notice a BIG difference.
We are headed for a big weekend with the homeschool community at Silver Dollar City Homeschool Weekend. It will be interesting to see how she does around a big, noisy crew.
We are making big strides and we are excited to see what lays out before us. If you are at Silver Dollar City tomorrow, look around you just might see Milton and Suzy enjoying their day together.
October 1, 2010 Friday at 5:40 am
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