Shepherdized!
(Recent Entries)
(Archive)
(Friends)
(User Info)
(Reuse your Keurig K-Cups!)
(Virginia Law)
(The Seeing Eye)
(Greenberry's Coffee (local to C'ville))
(Bookshare.org for accessible texts)
(Unsolved math problems (not updated, but cool anyway))
(National Federation of the Blind)
(List of Neologisms on the Simpsons)
(Graffeo Coffee)
Mar. 27th, 2009
Disney recently re-released Atta Girl, Kelly! to commemorate The Seeing eye's 80th anniversary. (The link takes you to a page on TSE's site with some photos of memos and things from TSE's archives, and an audio greeting from Disney to TSE grads. I have to try WebVisum on the memos to see if it will actually OCR them for me.) The movie is only available to Disney movie club members...and eBay shoppers. I got mine today.
I saw it a few years ago, but it seems especially relevant now, and not just because my dog is from TSE. The movie is about a German Shepherd who was a bit goofy as a pup. She became the guide for an attorney who had a major case of second-dog syndrome.
Uhm.
That's kinda my life. (Except the attorney was a guy, and also, he was an attorney.)
I was teary-eyed while watching it. There's also a TSE featurette at the end.
The dog who played Kelly while she as guiding became a TSE breeder.
Jan. 17th, 2008
This morning was...not our best trip that we've had here. Ah well. These things happen. She was not interested in stopping for some small steps, which made me nervous, because we did platform work today (but, of course, she was fine for that, since there's an element of self-preservation involved, except that my nervousness was making her unsure, etc., etc., etc.). I *know* I must have had trips like that when I went for Glaze. And they did just take our ID photo, s it wasn't *that* bad. :) They also took a pic of Yani alone, and they are going to email this to me. When they do, I'll send it out or post it or something.
But, anyway, my LJ needs a new title. I'm totally blanking on what would work. Please offer suggestions.
Oh, weather permitting, I'm definitely going to Lush tomorrow. Yay!
Jan. 16th, 2008
I get to leave on the 24th, with the TSE retrains!
Yani did fantastic work today, working past a truck that totally blocked the sidewalk, and working through a group of many children on a field trip. She's going to develop into a *phenomenal* guide.
Jan. 15th, 2008
We got our new harnesses today, and I applied the first coat of oil this evening. They're very similar to the old-style (from 2001 or so) GDB harnesses, but the chest strap does look lower to me. I'll have to compare when I get home. Since I have an offset handle, my handle doesn't say "The Seeing Eye" on it, but the harness body does, as do the leash and her collar tag. The straight and ergo handles have the school name on them. Cool.
E asked me where I wanted to freelance. (I should know tomorrow if I get to come home at the end of next week.) I said I'd like some work on a college campus. (The law school is not on the main UVA campus, but I do go over there from time to time.) I'm also going into the city. He asked if there was anywhere I wanted to go, and I said I'd like to go to Lush. (He'd mentioned this earlier as a freelance possibility.) He said he thought we might be able to coordinate that freelance with C, one of the other instructors. "I'm sure she'd love to go in there with you." I asked if he didn't want to go to Lush. "I went once," he said, "And C went with me and carried my bags out of there." He's not all into Lushness, but I know he'll do what he can to arrange a freelance there.
Yani is becoming more and more my dog. This is good. She (like most of the other dogs in class) was exhibiting a bit more stress than usual today on the Elm Street Route. E says this is the hardest week. It seems like at GDB, the third week was hardest for new students, but since retrains come at the start of class here, I guess it makes sense that the second week is harder here. But Yani's stress isn't a big deal, and I'm sure we'll be able to work through it.
I can't wait to get her back home and work her in the law school and at Barracks Road. She's apparently quite striking, and I'm already so very proud of her. I want to show her off!
Jan. 14th, 2008
10:50 am
We started the Elm Street route today. Tihs training route is more complicated than the Maple-South Route, which we just finished with a solo on Saturday. I think we solo this one on Wednesday. Yani was super hyper and very definitely ready to work this morning. I had to steady her down a few times.
In the comments of another post, someone asked about what it's like to be guided by a Shepherd vs. a Lab. I don't know how much I can generalize based on my limited sample, and my answer will probably make more sense once I've been working Yani for a while, because I'll understand it better myself. I do know that her movements are very different. I guess GSD's have a longer stride, and their gait is different fromt he Lab gait. For me, this meant that it was harder to follow her when she moved around something. Her movements are much more suttle than Glaze's--Glaze just...pulled me around stuff. :) Or at least, that's how it seems. Yani seems to plan to move around things sooner than Glaze did. Instead of deviating from her route because of an obstacle, she takes the obstacle into consideration when she's planning her route. I think if you graphed the pathways they took, Yani's would look more linear. (Sorry for nerding it up.)
Yani seems to have the same kind of stubborn initiative that Glaze had. Both will let me know if they think I don't *really* know where I want to go. Right now, Yani needs more reassurance from me. I don't know how much of this is her personality, how much of it is because we're new to each other, and how much is due to the fact that she's so much younger.
Yani *loves* to work. She will often shove her head through her harness. The down side is that she sometimes tries to charge down the stairs in her haste to get out the door. But we're working on that, and I'm certain this will get better with time. I think that's a young-dog thing, not so much a GSD thing.
She still makes her little vocalizations from time to time, but she isn't whining all that much anymore. I'm learning how to correct her in ways that work for her. She definitely can take some firmer corrections, but she will require less physical handling than Glaze. (I still do not know why GDB said Glaze was a soft dog.)
Jan. 13th, 2008
She's 23 inches tall (this is what I'd guessed, since she did feel taller than Glaze) and 58 pounds. E says she will fill out, most likely. She was born on 12/23/05.
We're coming together as a team. I think we're making good progress. She was a bit...difficult in the beginning, but she's getting over it. I told E that I wwas glad she wsan't my first dog. E said that they probably wouldn't have given her to me if I hadn't had a dog before.
Time for breakfast--they do have good food here!
Jan. 12th, 2008
I don't know why, but the internet is working properly at this moment. Yay!
Training is going well, for the most part.
I'm not going to write aboutg the details, because...well, those of you who have done this know that sometimes, you're too exhausted after living through some of those routes to then go and write about them. :) But things really are going pretty well. Yani's movements are very different from Glaze's, so I'm having to adjust. But she's super smart. She's also very pretty. My instructor says she has "old-style" GSD ears, like Buddy's ears." She's proportionally long, apparently, even for a GSD. Since Glaze is proportionally short, it's very different. :) I wonder how she'll fit in those puddle-jumper planes...but I know we'll make it.
Maybe I'll read the friends page while the net is cooperating. If anything major has happened that you want me to know about, comment on this entry, in case I miss it when I'm looking back over past entries.
Jan. 7th, 2008
Dec. 16th, 2007
I had another dream about my new dog.
In this one, my instructor was one of the instructors I've heard will be teaching in the January class. And TSE handled "dog day" but taking all the students to a big room, releasing a bunch of dogs, and letting each student try to find the dog they had chosen for him or her.
After two or three guesses, I found my dog, a female GSD. I asked the instructor what her name was, and she said, "It's so horrible that I don't want to tell you."
Eventually, I was able to get her to say it. The dog's name was...Calcium. Yeah, Calcium. And before you ask...I don't know why.
I asked if I could shorten it to Callie, and they said that would be all right. My grandfather has a sister named Callie, so I was thinking that people were going to think I named the dog after her...
Three finals down, two (the worst two) to go. Patent law was remarkable, because never before have I burst out laughing while reading a fact pattern.
Nov. 21st, 2007
I got the official email with more forms to sign and everything. And I know what time my flight is leaving on January 5. So I guess I really will meet my new dog in a little over seven weeks.
This is really going to happen!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}