Christmas and New Year Greetings

I hope every one out in Cyberland had a great Christmas! Mine was pretty good considering that Nala had to have surgery. She is doing very well now.No further problems.Shaman is being pretty good lately. I am going to see a movie next week,and I am taking Shaman with me. I know he will be fine. Well, I hope every one's New Year is a good one. To be continued......................

Nala,my retired guide dog had to have emergency surgery

I had to take Nala, my retired guide dog to the vet for emergency surgery on Thursday morning. The night before, the dogs were outside and I heard a commotion and went out to see what was going on. The dogs were fighting and I yelled for them to stop. They all stopped and I called them in.I did not notice that Nala had an injury until the next morning.Her right K9 tooth and part of the upper jaw were broken.The vet had to remove the tooth and a part of the bone.She will be fine but I now have a $500.00 vet bill.We think she must have gotten her K9 caught on another dog's collar to get this kind of injury. That pretty much wipes out Christmas for me.I will have to make gifts.At least I will be eating Christmas dinner at Carla's house this year.I had to go to PetsMart to get crickets for Puff, my Bearded Dragon, and Shaman was pretty good.He only barked and growled at one dog and I told him to leave it. All I had to do was say leave it when any dog walked past us.Why couldn't he be that good when we went to the street fair? He barked and growled at every dog he saw there. It was very embarrassing.The guy with the 2 pit bulls has really undone a lot of Shaman's training, as I had him pretty well dog socialized. Every time he walks those dogs by my house and they fight with my dogs through the fence, Shaman gets more dog aggressive.Animal Control has done nothing to stop this from happening.The guy just laughs at me when I ask him to control his dogs.I have tried to keep the dogs in when I think he may walk his dogs, but he does not do it at the same time every day. I have to keep working on Shaman to correct this behavior as I am afraid of what might happen if we meet another dog on the bus. To be continued..................

Shaman was very good on Thursday

I went to the bank on Thursday. No one petted Shaman as the bus had a ramp and we went up together. No one distracted him at all the entire day and he did his job flawlessly. Why can't it be like this every time we go out?If people leave him alone, he stays focused on the job at hand.I really like it when he is so good.I don't worry that he will get us in to trouble. I was able to get some of my bills paid and go to the grocery store with no problems. It was a rare day, a good day! To be continued............

People keep distracting Shaman

I had to go to the pet shop to day. I dreaded getting on the bus. When the bus pulled up to the stop,it had a short lift so the dog and I can't fit on it at the same time. I undid the leash to full length and Shaman went up the steps. Since I had him on a long leash,I had very little control other than him being attached to my hand. The hands reached out and petted him and I could do nothing to stop it. I went up on the lift and tried to get into the wheelchair bay,but Shaman was busy making the rounds to every one to get petted. He would not back up so I had to ride backwards, because the driver said she did not have time to wait on the dog.Shaman has been petted so much that he now goes up to people to get petted.I tried to correct him first with my voice and when he ignored me ,I gave a leash correction. I was yelled at and told I was being cruel to my dog. Why can't people mind their own business and leave my dog alone. His training is being compromised by these people. Some of these people are petting Shaman just to annoy me,as they are the same people I have asked repeatedly to please not pet my dog. I am at my wits end. I dread going out now because I know what will happen.I can't have a dog that is constantly distracted. It could be very dangerous. To be continued...................

Shaman was on TV !

I was watching the public TV channel 6 the other night, and after their news broadcast, they showed some of the highlights of the Fireman's Chili Cook Off. I thought maybe they would catch Shaman so I got close to the TV and sure enough they did show Shaman laying next to my chair when we were listening to the band. It wasn't 15 minutes of fame, more like 15 seconds. LOL. Several friends called to tell me they had seen Shaman on TV. To be continued.....................

Shaman was distracted and I ran over his foot

After my doctor's appointment, I ran some errands and then went to the grocery store. Several people petted Shaman and he got distracted. I gave him the command, Left but he did not turn left,instead crossing in front of my chair to go to some one petting him.I ran over his foot and he yelped! I told the man who had distracted him that it was his fault that this happened. He told me that I should watch where I was going. People just don't get it. The dog is my eyes, because I can't see where I am going. When you pet the "cute doggie" and "doggie" gets distracted,he is not watching out for me. I hate it when I run over my dogs foot and I am quite sure the dog is not pleased either.The man said to me,"are you going to punish the dog"? I told him that I was sure that the dog already knew that he was wrong and that his sore paw would remind him of that. Why can't people just leave guide and service dogs alone to do the job they were trained to do? Why must they always interfere? This man acted like I ran over Shaman's foot on purpose just to teach him a lesson. I would really like to run over this man's foot and teach him a lesson. I am so sick of people interfering with my dog. I have tried to be polite and educate them but they don't care.They just want to pet the "cute doggie".Then there are those people standing around and whispering about what just happened.Looking at me with disgust, and making snide comments. I feel like yelling at them to just leave me and my dog alone,but I hold my breath and bite my tongue and just roll away with Shaman limping.I did not get all the things I needed to get as I was disgusted and poor Shaman was limping. I just wanted to get out of the store and get home. I checked Shaman's paw and it did not seem to be broken, but he still limps slightly several days later. I will wait until it is better before I use him again. I am hoping that he will learn that he can't get so distracted by people. I know he is still young and he is so friendly that he does not realize he must ignore these people. I feel bad that I hurt my dog. I guess I will go back to using a sign again,although that did not work before. To be continued..........................

Shaman was so good today !

Today,I had to go to the reptile store to get some crickets and supper worms for my Dragon. This was the first time that Shaman has gone with me to this store. I was not sure how he would react to the very large Tegu lizard that has free run of the store, or for that matter, all the rest of the reptiles in the place. But he surprised me and was very calm and behave very well. Even when I was petting the resident Frilled Dragon. Left the store and headed back to the bus stop. When we got down town ,it was 5:30 pm and I stopped at the Fireman's Chili Cook off for dinner. As usual, there was a large crowd. Shaman was very good making his way through all those people. I found it rather frustrating as most people were not paying attention to a person in a wheelchair with a guide dog trying to get through the crowd. Shaman was very patient and got me around very well. We listened to the very loud band and I enjoyed the chili and the music.Shaman did not react to the loud music. He just lay next to my chair and relaxed. Finally we headed for home. I am still getting used to Shaman and he is getting used to working with me. He was pretty perfect today ! To be continued.........

What are people thinking ?

I went to a thrift shop to check out computer monitors for a friend. They had quite a few. I made a call to my friend to let her know about them. I then went on to check out the pots and pans as I need a new pan for cooking. I found one with the help of a fellow shopper. While I was in line waiting to pay for it, a man and his 2 unleashed dogs came into the store. Of course one of the dogs came right up to Shaman, and started to growl . I asked the man to please control his dog. I also informed him that Tucson has a leash law and he did not have his dogs on a leash. He said that since the dogs were in the store, they did not need to be leashed. He accused Shaman of growling at his dog. Shaman ignored his dog and I tried moving away from it but it kept bothering Shaman. At this point, I was getting annoyed. The dog kept growling at Shaman and Shaman started to growl back at it. I gave him a verbal correction and he stopped. I made a complaint about this man and his dogs to the store clerk, but she did nothing. The man said he always comes into this store with his dogs. I asked him if they were service dogs and he did not answer me. Just walked away, leaving me to believe that they were probably not service dogs , just pets. The one dog continued harassing Shaman and I until we left the store. I guess that this man thought his dogs had more rights than Shaman did. My dog is a guide dog. If he harassed a customer like that dog did, I could have been asked to leave. What are these people thinking ? Do I have any rights here ? Next I went to the grocery store to pick up a small bag of dog food and some dog biscuits. There were several people who commented on the shoes that Shaman was wearing. I explained that they keep his feet from being burned by the hot pavement. A woman came up to us in the isle and proceeded to laugh at Shaman's shoes, and said "what will they think of next." "What a pampered pooch".She then proceeded to pet Shaman. I asked her to please not pet the dog and she started to yell at me that she would pet him if she wanted to. I tried to tell her that she was distracting him from doing his job as a guide dog. She just yelled back for me to shut up and leave her alone. She was the one yelling, not me. Does this woman think that my dog was put on this earth just for her to pet? What are people thinking? Do they have no common sense ? So many people have petted Shaman that now when he sees a hand extend out to pet him, he goes right to that person. These people who insist on petting my dog are undoing his training, not to mention the fact that it could be a dangerous situation for me. Do they not even stop and think about this? I could not wait to get out of the store and go home. What are People thinking??????? To be continued............

Good boy, Shaman, good boy!

Shaman and I went to the grocery store last night. We were on the side walk in front of the store and we came across a dog tied up just out side the entrance. Some one left this dog tied out there while they went in to shop. As we approached the dog, it growled and lunged at us. Shaman stopped. He did not growl back at the dog. He was very calm and just waited to see if the dog would move out of the way and let us pass. The dog continued to growl at us. I decided that it was best to just wait and see if the owner came out and controlled the dog. Several people approached Shaman and I and offered to go into the store to see if they could find the dog's owner. Shaman remained calm and never showed any aggression toward the growling dog in our way. Finally, the owner did come out and moved the dog.I am so proud of Shaman. He behaved perfectly and kept us from possibly being attacked by this dog. Good boy, Shaman, good boy. To be continued..........

Pictures ! Finally, Pictures of Shaman on the blog

I finally got the pictures on the blog! I had to figure out how to do it as Nick is to busy with school now. You will have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page as I haven't figured out how to put them any where else. I will keep on working at it. Shaman is feeling the heat when we go out. I try to go out early in the morning to avoid the mid day heat, but some times that is not possible. I always carry several bottles of water for both of us. I stop frequently in the shade or in a store or the mall to let him cool off. I wet down his head and ears and his feet with water, to keep him cool. I am thinking about getting a " Cooler Jacket " for Shaman to wear in the summer. I have also thought of training another dog, one with less hair, for working in summer, and working Shaman only in the Fall and Winter and Spring. I really don't think I want to go through trying to find another dog to train though. It took me a long time to find Wanagi and then I had to career change her because of health and hip problems. It took me over a year to find Shaman . Poor Shaman tries to go into the stores that have their doors propped open. Down by the University almost all the doors are open and he turns to go into each one to try and get cool. When I feel him start to turn , I tell him "not now" and give the forward command. Sometimes I have to give the forward command several times to get him off the bus as it is cool there and he does not want to leave. This can be embarrassing........... Nala is not bothered by the heat as much as Shaman. He has a longer coat of hair than she does. I guess I will go with "Cooler Jacket" and see if that works. Enjoy the pictures for now.**The pictures have been moved to the side bar** To be continued..........