Early...Early...at about 1:30am Trapper woke up
giggling. Crazy giggling...this went on for a couple hours.The day started with tracking again. Zion was awesome. It took Trapper & I at least 20 minutes to get out to our hiding spot. Zion watched & barked & pulled when he saw Trapper & I walk off. We want him to bark when he sees Trapper heading off to warn us. We were given the choice, do we want him to warn us or not...we say YES!
The grass was long & wet as we hiked out from the parking lot. We had to cross over a meadow, then over a hill & down near a creek & around a long bend into some trees & brush....and there was a lot of trash every where near the creek. Trapper & I sat down and I occupied Trapper with his GFCF cookies & juice...but not for long. It took Zion all of about two minutes from the time Rob said "track" to find us today.
He didn't hesitate at all & Rob said today he never looked up or back...and Rob had to run pretty fast to keep up with our awesome tracker! Zion was rewarded with his all time favorite reward of hot dogs & all kinds of praise. 
We wanted to go on a couple other tracks today, but for some reason the road near the parking lot was really busy & we couldn't keep Trapper away from the road. We went ahead & headed back toward the 4 Paws training facility and stopped to mail some of our "stuff" back to Alaska on the way.The afternoon was spent
working with our dogs on listening to our commands. These dogs are highly trained and listen immediately to the people involved in their training. However, now they have these new handler's , some with strange accents, deeper or softer voices...and it seems to take a couple days for them to understand what we may be asking. A few times Zion has tilted his head while standing waiting for my command to make sense. In some commands he listens to me really well & not Rob. In other commands, like "track" he gets much more excited by Rob's tone then mine. Our trainer's (& the dog's trainers) have reminded us over & over that practice daily is the key. Zion's main goal is to make us happy. He loves treats, but he loves praise & hugs, too.Also this afternoon we went over all last minute concerns, travel issues, ADA laws, health expectations, the re certification that is required annually, equipment options/needs...and the biggest question we all had, "what will the last day of class look like?"
We were all given a time slot starting with the first Service Dog's & handler's Public Access test at 9 am & the last family of the day starting their testing at 1 pm. We were second to the last @ 12:30. I was pretty nervous, but that was silly really. Zion was awesome, he has only one issue in public & that is that he loves children. This isn't a bad thing at all. It is important that people ask prior to petting Zion, but as long as he is not in the middle of working on a command (like in the middle of a "track" at the store or a disruption of behavior for his child Trapper)...then it is fine to ask. We would love for people to ask Trapper, but because he will most likely not respond the handler's will answer, but it will still be good to start asking him as this is his dog and a great social beginning or building block.
We headed back to the hotel after getting our meeting time. The test will be at the mall the next day. We went to Toys 'r us & Pet Smart, then back to the hotel to eat. We sat with some of our new 4 Paws friends & it quickly turned into a party. I left Rob to visit & brought Trapper to the pool next door. He really likes swimming! Problem is, after I was dressed I thought if I took his life vest/float vest that he would not be comfortable back in the water....well not the case. He jumped in & my new friend Kelli & her son Zach got back in the pool because he kept getting closer to the deep end. He had no fear at all! I had to carry Trapper kicking & screaming all the way back to our hotel room...past the dinning room where the 4 Paws party now included a guitar & the party was getting bigger & now people were singing...including Rob. I am curious as to how much beer got him singing.
After Trapper & Zion
were sleeping were were able to visit a little more before bed. What a great group of people we have in our class! The hotel let us know we were the "more vocal group"? When we asked what this meant, we were told that we were all so much fun & all the staff just loved being included in our celebration of life, children & the dog's that are trained to help us. That was nice to hear. I thought they were meaning that we were all obnoxious.:o)~written by Jami (mommy)
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