Week of Aug 18th - with pictures

Monday - was a day off from specialty training

Tuesday - Therapy Day! Luke was more relaxed and is starting to get use to all the sounds and sights of the therapy offices. We worked on Paw Push (he is getting more accurate), nose touch with the laser pointer, long down stays, and check in - if he is in a down stay away from Ara and Ara starts to get overwhelmed or anxious he will whine and I will release him to do a check in and help her as needed.

Wednesday - We did basic obedience and some Rally O

Thursday - I gave Luke a hair cut as he was getting very shaggy

Friday - Vest Work - since we do so much training at home I rarely put his vest on, I have noticed now that we are working more and more that he is unsure sometimes how do a task with his vest on. So now I am vesting him when working on service dog stuff. We also worked on Heel position and coming from any direction into a heel position.

Saturday - Shopping Day!! First stop was our local health store to pick up most of Ara's Gluten Free items. Everything went pretty smoothly, even though Ara was having an off day.

Then we went to Walmart and it was CRAZY. School starts this week which I did not realize when we decided to go...lol. Ara was quickly becoming over stimulated and Luke did awesome to help her. A year ago Ara would have been having a meltdown and/or would not want to walk through the store. Ara did great holding on to Luke's vest and he did great moving her through the crowds (with me leading). We worked on "behind" which means that Luke slows down with Ara and gets in line behind me for those really crowded areas, worked on stopping at intersections, Ara asked him for "kisses"/lick when she was getting overwhelmed, in the parking lot Luke took Ara to the side of the aisle for safety and was actively watching and looking for the our car.

The most amazing thing was that while shopping Ara got scared of a man who was shopping behind us (she can get paranoid at times or have a type of hallucination), normally she would yell and try to climb up me, yesterday she just covered her eyes and held on tight to Luke's vest, trusting him to help her and I was able to get them out of the aisle.

Sunday -  We were suppose to work on Rally O today but it is still raining and only 48degrees outside. So we will work on what we can inside :)