Myron Update

Well it has been a while since I have talked about my furry Guide Dog friend.

He is currently happily chewing on his Galileo bone. Weird name, but tough for strong teeth! He is now 7 months old and I have him for about another 6-8 months before he goes to formal training. He still loves to go to work with me and play an occasional game of hide and seek at church (lots of rooms and places to hide). I do the hiding and he does the frantic seeking. It is his favorite game.

He has gone to many football and volleyball games, restaurants, meetings and shopping. His latest new event was coming to the kids fall party this past weekend. He went on his first hayride and he thought that sampling the hay was part of the fun!



The most recent neat thing he has learned is some clicker training. We went to a big training in Eugene with about 30 other guide dogs in training.


Clicker training is basically where you wait for the dog to do the appropriate behavior and then mark them with a sound or command that they know gets them a treat. What we are trying to start them on learning is go to your mat. But instead of showing them go to your mat we let them figure it out by starting really simple and waiting for them to sniff the mat. Once they figure out that they get a treat for sniffing the mat then we raise the bar and wait to step on the mat. They pick up on the game so fast. I got him standing on the mat to sitting on it to laying down on it in a matter of one day.

Now whenever I bring out his mat he immediately goes over to it and lies down on it. And I never said a word the whole time. Amazing.