SD Photo Shoot

There was a request on the level training mailing list from a Canadian SD trainer. She needed pics of SDs in action for a presentation. So of course we volunteered what we have on our blog. But we didn't have much that showed the girls in action that much, especially not Molly in uniform in action.

So DH helped me out and we did a little photo shoot Saturday. The situation may be posed, but the work is real. This is some of what they do for me on a daily basis and even these better shots don't do their jobs full justice. I don't know what I would do without the Bookends. On a day like today, I probably wouldn't even get out of bed if it weren't for them. But enough of that. Here's the shots.

This is how I put on and remove Molly's vest. Bending over to do it just isn't an option.





We couldn't forget to include Shawnee. I think it is pretty clear that she has earned an SDiT status!

Shawnee Reports "Please Vote fur Jin"

A puter frend wunts ta be a servis dog like Molly. But hiz peeple arn't as happee doin it demselves as Mommee iz.

So pleeze vote fur dis hansum fella in da hopez dat hiz peeple kan win enuff monee ta pay fur his skool.



Not all dogz kan be as luckee az me n Molly n be homeskooled by sumwon like Mommee!

Laundry Duty Problems

I am feeling very guilty and a little heartbroken today. I tried last weekend to film Molly emptying the washer. She started out okay, but then lost her focus. I thought initially that she was just distracted by DH, his friend, and Shawnee outside. It isn't normal for her to be so distracted, but it was my best guess.

Then when reviewing the film, I saw that she had banged into the tripod. It all went downhill from there.

I tried again today. DH suggested putting the video camera in the window sill on the minitripod. But Molly was still hesitant and insecure about her work. Throwing in an item she hadn't worked with before probably didn't help. Usually she doesn't blink at new items, but this was a rug from the kitchen floor with a rubberized bottom. It was hard to pull out and made noise against the sides of the washer. I had to help. (I am totally crashed now from the effort)

So we will be trying a lot of laundry for the next while. With even more frequent and higher quality rewards to help her build up confidence and get looking forward to the job again.

Boot and Sock Removal

It didn't work out well, but DH helped me film Molly removing my boots and socks the other day. Note that these are VERY new jodphur boots with strong elastic in the sides. Removing them is very difficult, even for DH--and he has hands! So it is QUITE a task for Molly right now, but one she is eager to tackle. She gets furious if someone else does it for her!

Another Pictureless Trip Report

We're so far behind maintaining our blog. We've been really busy experiencing things on our trip and haven't always had Internet access.

I last wrote from my brother's. We had a really nice weekend there visiting with the family. Molly didn't perceive his dogs as playmates, but she did try to herd the golden retriever. I'm not really sure what she thought of his smaller puppy. I think she was too busy herding the GR to notice her.

From there, we headed to the Smoky Mountains, where we had a cabin reserved. We spent Monday driving through the park, including one of the back roads. We saw 3 black bears on the backroad and turkeys, deer, and other wildlife in the rest of the park. Molly worked at some of our stops and just came along on leash at some of the others. She behaved really well and played SD ambassador with many of the other guests.

We ran into a lot more of those "I can't talk to you because you are working" people, but also met several who were very respectful of her SD status and either asked to pet her or refrained from giving her too much attention. While DH and I sat on the porch at one place, she got to talk to a few people, including a nice woman who really wanted to pet her but had refrained from asking because Molly was in her vest. We met a lot of people who knew she was a BC or asked... some hadn't realized there were tricolor BCs.

Tuesday we went to Cherokee to the museum and some shops there. Molly worked in the museum and one of the shops and did really well. She did get a bit frustrated with all the other people around, especially those who talked to her in silly voices and disturbed her. The floor outside the bathroom in the museum was a rough stone tile, so when I took Molly with me and couldn't get my wheelchair over the edge, she did get rather upset on my behalf. After Cherokee, we took a scenic drive back through the park then did some shopping in Pigeon Forge. Molly got to relax in the car while we shopped because I felt like she needed a break when she'd gotten so frustrated earlier.

Then Wednesday we headed to Nashville. I don't remember all the details of stops and when Molly worked or didn't.

Wednesday night Molly stayed crated in the hotel while we went out to dinner at Wildhorse Saloon. We brought a doggy bag back for her that we added to her meals the next two days.

Thursday was a long hard day for Miss Molly. She started working around 9am at the Country Music Hall of Fame and stayed on duty until about 4 that afternoon. She was perfectly behaved through the entire Hall of Fame. Then we walked through the park with the walk of fame in it and gave her a chance to potty.

Then came a more challenging bit--we headed up to Broadway to find a place for lunch. There was live music and she still settled nicely under the table. We gave her a bunch of ice cubes, which she loved. Then after lunch we rolled back to the car. She was really hot then and seemed to be hurting her feet on the hot asphalt and sidewalks. I was kicking myself for having left her booties in the car. But as long as we kept moving she was fine and she was happy to get into the car again. For a last stop, we went to the Tennessee State Museum. We were running on a tight schedule because of parking difficulties and rather regret not having had mroe time to enjoy the well-made exhibits. Molly, however, was tired and I think rather happy when we called it a day and headed back to the hotel.

She was so beat that she got the evening off to relax and sleep in her crate while we went out to dinner. We fed her more of the doggy bag and she ate really well.

Friday was a long driving day and for the most part I slept through things and so did she. We made short stops at two Indian mounds though. She worked at the first one and got to be a dog on a leash at the second.

Then we went to a Cracker Barrel for dinner. The place was really crowded, so Molly really had a chance to show me how much she had learned from her training session with Erin and all her experience. She did very well ignoring the other people, even children, and just focused on her job.

Now today we are heading to a powwow and she will be working as long as we are there. Tomorrow is Cass Railroad and more work for Miss Molly.

Another Update

I'm sorry for falling behind in posts. Molly is not very happy about it either. But I've had a bug or something and been sick for a few days.

Molly hasn't had much in the way of training sessions, but she's been working with regular retrieves and taking care of me. She's also really been showing off how great she is at coming when called.

Friday we took my Quarter mare to the stallion and Molly came along, of course. It was a lot of slower driving in really hot weather, but she didn't seem to mind. We did have to make sure that she got plenty of water. She stayed calm in the car despite other dogs barking at her and horses round.

On the way home, we took a different route that included a ferry crossing. She was so calm that we're not sure she even noticed the change! The ferry was noisy and much different than driving.

Today Molly had a big first in public access. We took her into a very busy regular store. The store is called "Tiger" and is the Danish equivalent of the dollar stores in the US. I was in my wheelchair and DH pushed. With him pushing, I could focus on where Molly was and what she was doing.

She took everything in stride and was quiet and well-mannered the entire time. I had decided to take my chances on being asked to leave--DK law doesn't guarantee SD access to that sort of store--but even though store workers saw us, no one said anything. She was in her vest and perfectly behaved. The store was really crowded and there were people all over. Molly didn't solicit attention although she was very alert to all the people. The worst for her was a little kid in front of us that kept staring at her and was swinging around a toy golf club. But she could still sit on command and stay with me.

We also discovered how little attention people pay to people in wheelchairs. A very rude man butted in front of me in line like I wasn't even there. We'd been leaving a little space so Molly wasn't right up to the kid, but not that much space. When my DH commented to him that we were there first, the man got very rude and insulted my husband!

Even then Molly stayed calm and behaved perfectly. She was also great just walking in the street. I kept her leash pretty short so she couldn't get all over, but still--she wasn't fighting me and just ran along beside my wheelchair.

Needless to say, she's gotten lots of praise. We also spent a little time playing outside all three of us together in a shady area here at home. If we can, we'll make a quick run to the beach, too, so she can have a good play.

The Meaning of "Work" and "Working"

If Molly were just about anything but a border collie, I wouldn't have to talk about this. She's a BC through and through, so it's an important issue to put on the table.

"Work" has a very special meaning in the BC world. It means herding. Nothing else is really work when you're talking BCs. It is what they were bred for. Yes, a BC can be very happy in a range of other jobs or even several jobs. But they're only really working when they're herding. It isn't meant to be a snobby thing, but it is an important nuance of language when talking to serious BC people. A quality BC is working bred, which means its parents are good herders. A border collie that doesn't have this herding background, well, it's just a dog. In the old days when BCs worked for a living, this was also a test of health. If they could stand up to the trials of working day in and day out, they had to be healthy.

Today a lot of "border collies" are bred without having their working ability tested in any way. As the offspring get further and further from these lines, they often lose the instincts and features that make the breed what it is. The BC as a breed isn't defined by its appearance or size, but by its nature and its working features. Without these aspects, you have a dog that is not a border collie, no matter what its papers may say. Unfortunately many of these dogs are registered, but in organizations like the AKC that do not prioritize the dog's working ability. Instead dogs are bred for appearance or in sports or obedience lines. Like the dog I met Saturday, it is not unusual for these dogs to lose all understanding of livestock and herding and even the basic signs like the border collie crouch and the border collie eye.

The issue isn't how the dog is used--a working bred BC is often just as suited for and very happy with a life as a sports dog, obedience dog, dog dancer, service dog, or active family pet--but how it is bred. Unless you have a BC with proven working ability, please do not breed it. Check out a site like the BC Rescue Resources Forum for information about finding a BC in rescue. If you can't find an appropriate dog that way (most people can, but there are exceptions, like when you live in countries that don't have much in the way of rescues), try to select a breeder and dog carefully, especially if you are looking for a service dog candidate.

When DH and I went looking for a BC, we already knew we wanted a dog whose parents could herd but didn't care about papers. We didn't do a 100% perfect job shopping, because we didn't make sure we saw the parents working, but we lucked out. Although her parents are probably chore dogs and have never been tested with real work, Molly has shown potential the time she has been on sheep. She has those traits of a BC. She isn't registered but her parents are. Another mistake I made was not studying the copies of her parents' papers well enough before getting Molly. It turns out that her mother had failing hips, so was not qualified for breeding within the Danish Kennel Club. Fortunately a recent x-rays shows that Molly's hips are looking good. Another lucky point is that research of Molly's ancestors shows a strong working background, including a Danish National Herding Champion as her paternal grandmother. We could just as easily have ended up with a dog with bad hips and no herding background because we didn't do our homework well enough.

Obviously Molly isn't working in the BC sense every time I use the word "work" in this blog. I just wanted to explain the nuance of the language in BC and herding circles.

I use "work" in the SD sense. A service dog is working when it is helping its person by doing the tasks it is specially trained to do. It can work with or without its vest, but a lot of the time "work" means putting on the vest to go somewhere. For example, I want to teach Molly to switch into work mode when her vest comes on. In the vest, her default behavior should be restrained and controlled. She shouldn't be soliciting attention, licking herself, or jumping on sofas.

Without her vest, I'd still like her to help me, but mostly she's allowed to be a dog. If she needs to scratch, she should go ahead and scratch. It's also fine for her to talk to people and find toys and ask us to play with her.

I hope that makes sense to everyone. Molly is a dog with a job and will soon be a working dog in the SD sense. But she will never be a full-time working dog in the BC sense. We'd like to get her trained enough to be able to work as a hobby on both sheep and cattle. Right now we don't have the finances to devote to her training. Herding will have to remain a future dream for the three of us at least a little while longer.

Dressing Miss Molly

We got a long awaited package in the mail today from The Raspberry Field today. I am now the satisfied owner of a service dog vest. Molly is a fashionably dressed service dog. It took a little while to get because the vest was custom made to order and included a embroidery. I can only find a very minor editor's nit flaw on it, but not something I'm going to complain about.

The quality seems superb. Everything is sewn securely and they will repair things if problems do occur. The pockets work, of course, and it is pocket clear through over the top, so I could actually get a larger flexible object in over her back if I needed to.

The fit is very adjustable and is also excellent. I will probably cut off some some of the extra strap from the belly strap, but not until we've used it a bit more. I may wait in case I want to use it over a warm shirt in the winter. She does get cold sometimes if a chilly place and not active. It's that short coat that does it.

I ordered her "In Training" patches unattached, so I sewed those on after I took those pictures. I wanted to hurry and see how it fit and took pics to share right away. Then I sewed the patches on with bigger stiches (but not ugly, just so I can more easily remove them) above the zippers. They are above the SD patches but under the DO NOT PET embroidery. I sewed only into one layer of cordura, so it is still a tunnel up there if I need to slip something big into it.

Practing Shoe Removal

One of Molly's everyday jobs is helping me take off my shoes. She's done it for a while, but I change what shoes I wear a lot and some, like my cowboy boots, are really hard to take off. With all these variations and challenges and because she took on the job quickly out of need instead of having been trained slowly for it, Molly talks a lot when she does the job. This talking makes it unacceptable for me to use this task in public and it is just generally bad manners and annoying. When I really need something I can't always be picky, but it's time I started cleaning this up--she should have enough practice under her belt to be able to do the job quietly now.

So today I'm putting levels training aside and instead I'm focusing on trying to teach her that it's a better idea to be quiet when helping me with my shoes. I've done this before with socks pretty successfully. I knew I'd need to train this soon, so when I bought a new pair of hiking boots about a month ago, I saved the worn out pair for just this purpose. I stripped the laces out so they'd be easier work. When we get beyond that point, I can switch to the new ones. This way she can take them off hundreds and thousands of times in practice and I don't care what happens to them. I can throw them for thousands of retrieves, too. They're also cleaned off so I'm not bringing any dirt or into the living room when I come in to a comfortable spot to train.

One thing I've learned working with Molly is that she needs a reward or she gets noisier or starts throwing oddball behaviors at me. So instead of cutting down on the rewards, I need to give more or higher value rewards for the preferred behavior but still give something for the basic behavior.

Another thing I've learned is to put the clicker under my big toe. That way I can use one hand for treating and the other for managing items. It makes life a lot easier. I don't know how easily it works for other people, but I can move my big toe quite independently, so I just rest my foot on the floor and only hold up my big toe. Then I push it down when I want a click. I have no problems doing multiple quick clicks or whatever I need.

For my first short training session, at around 7 am, I worked with kibble. I wanted to make sure she got a good base of her quality food before I started mixing in other stuff. We worked through probably about half of a daily ration. DH had given her some before he left for work, too, so she'd eaten already.

My initial goal was to make sure she knew to go for the heel area of the boot. So I spent a few moments shaping that. Clicking for attention to the boot, then attention to the sole, then the heel area. She pretty much knew that anyway, but it is good to refresh. I'd never really shaped the job initially. She only had on the job training a day I came in from outside and couldn't do it so kept pointing and saying "PULL" and praising her and encouraging. Then I switched it onto the "boot" command (for both shoes and boots becuase I htink the word is most unique in sound).

Once that was worked out, I started working on the noise issue. I hung the boot heel up (I often don't have a chair when she needs to take my shoes off, so stand up with my foot lifted behind me) off my hand. She was barking and grumbling as soon as she started to take it, so I had to back up. Could she approach the boot without making noise?

I clicked and treated that for a while. I tried to catch her before she made noise, even if it meant she was just looking at the boot. Mostly I could get her to before she opened her mouth without making noise. Unfortunately I wasn't really making progress and it was time for a break. Plus she'd gotten a good bit of kibble and I didn't want her so full she wouldn't eat more for hours.

We took a second session around 9:30. This time I skipped kibble completely and broke out a can of shrimp. She loves shrimp. For a lower value treat, I used the cut up Frolic, a lower quality softer dog food that she likes. In addition to the boot, I got out a pill bottle that she can retrieve quietly. I was ready with another tactic.

I wanted to get Molly handling the boot quietly even if she wasn't taking it off me. This is what I'd done with socks before. If I first started her doing the basic retrieve behavior that she is good at with another object and giving her high value treats for silent retrieves, I can swap in the boot. If she is really noisy, she gets a low value treat. If she is only a little noisy, she gets a couple low value treats. No noise is a high value treat. If she is low value a few time, I swap back to the easier item. Slowly I should be able to build up the difficult until she is removing the boot from my foot. How long it will take is up to Molly, but it's a good positive way to do it and it doesn't make it impossible for me to keep letting her do the job in the mean time when I need it--I just have to reward with the appropriate value of treats depending on her noise level.

So I started with the boot first. She made noise. I gave her a low value treat. I threw the bottle. She was quiet. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. And so it continues. We worked for probably about 5 minutes. I'm not good at looking at the clock. Instead I watch Molly. I want to stop while she is still enjoying it but not so soon that she doesn't get the chance to learn the pattern. When she stayed stuck for a while, I threw in more items she was good with and also pants that she isn't, so she could see that it wasn't just boots=frolic and bottle=shrimp and the exceptions were me being crazy. That helped a lot. I also try to stop on something she does well if I can, preferably with a jackpot, even if it means I have to stop on the bottle.

We didn't get beyond retrieve successfully in this session though. I even tried having her pull the bottle off a finger then put the boot in the same position. She still didn't have quiet and the boot associated enough yet.

We took a third session around 12:30. Another 10 minutes approximately. Things really started clicking. It didn't take long to start getting noiseless retrieves, but it just wasn't working for that next step--pulling the boot off my finger. Then something clicked in my head--when she retrieved, she grabbed the flaps at the top of the boot. She has to grab the heel to pull off.

So I went back to shaping just the grab portion. I held the boot with the heel towards her. I took a big handful of Frolic and started shoving them in her mouth and clicking like mad as her mouth opened near the heel and she didn't make noise. It worked!

She started being able to touch the heel without talking. Then as soon as she made heel contact and started to pull, I used my thumb to gently shove the boot off my finger. YES! She "pulled" the boot off without making noise. Clickity-click-click-click. Lots of frolic and a shrimp. I didn't want to mix tasks yet, so I gathered up the boot from the floor and repeated a few times.

After several successful retreats, I had Molly also pick up and give me the boot. SUCCESS! I gave her a shrimp jackpot and a Molly pet and praise party. Then I took her outside to her fence in the yard that she loves for more petting and to let her have a good break.

When she came in again, the boot was lying on the floor where I'd dropped it to throw the party. She looked at the boot and up at me and back a few times. So I said "take." She quietly picked up the boot and brought it across the living room to where I lay on the sofa. Then she handed it to me without making a sound. Frolic jackpot.

So that's 3 sessions already today--a pretty intensive training. I'm not sure we'll do more. It depends how we feel. If we do anything, it will probably be refresher stuff instead of something as intense as what we've been doing with shoes.

More Public Access Practice

Practicing public access is essential for Molly's training as a service dog. We're still waiting on her vest but it should be in the mail (international mail does take time and the fact that we had a national holiday yesterday doesn't help).

So since we're vestless, we're still restricted to outside areas and pet stores. The other day we went to a pet store again and Molly showed real progress. There weren't many people in the shop. She was still excited about the shopkeeper and wanted to jump up, but responded well to sit commands so she was on all fours instead. It's a great way to keep her from jumping--if we get her down in a sit, we can abort the jump and give a positive task to praise her for instead of worrying about restraining her all the time like so many people do. Also jumping is self-reinforcing, so it helps to offer a behavior with even more reinforcement. It is additionally a step closer to the end SD behavior we want--a dog in control of itself and focused on the handler.

Once she'd been greeted, she was able to settle down and walk with me on a loose leash. She sniffed things a little but discretely and in a way that didn't disturb the merchandise. She wasn't trying to eat the treats and bones in buckets on the floor, so I'm really happy about that--I didn't even need leave its.

With our upcoming US trip and my worries about the different terrain, we wanted to try some dog boots on her. She took it totally calmly. DH did the fitting because I couldn't get down very well. But she stood still and patiently while he put boots on her front feet and adjusted them. Then she walked around, awkwardly, but without signs of distress and still with her brain and interest in other things. They actually seemed okay, but we want to look another place yet.

After we got those off and were standing and talking, Molly just relaxed and stood next to me. I hadn't given her something to do--she just settled calmly on her own. Some other people came in during that time. She was especially interested in the kid that came in and it didn't help that he kept staring at her, but she stayed in control. She looked at him but stayed with me and didn't pull. A simple no got her to settle back by my side.

The shop keeper offered some taste tests of some treats for her. So it was a perfect time to test how well she could sit and lie down in a strange environment on a single command. She did perfectly, took the treats, and was very nonchalant about the whole thing. She didn't used to be interested in food away from home, so that and her quick response to commands shows how far she has come with public access.

I'm sure she'll just keep getting better with more practice. I'm eager for her vest to arrive so we can try to vary the environment more. It should also help with public reactions to her.

All Work and No Play Makes Molly a Dull Girl

Service dogs shouldn't work 24 hours a day. Like their human counterparts, they need the chance to have fun and relax. They also need to get enough sleep. Now Molly, for example, likes helping me, but that still doesn't mean she should be in her vest and expected to behave perfectly all day long. She'd burn out quickly if I demanded that of her, especially when she is so young still--she isn't ready for it yet. A long day once in a while is one thing, but long days day after day can stress a service dog.

We also need to accept that our dogs are like people in that they can have bad days and make mistakes. We train them carefully to try to prevent things from going wrong, but they can get sick of just make a mistake. Or we might make a mistake and confuse them, causing them to do something we didn't expect.

For the most part, Molly is "on call" when we're at home. She can lie on the couch with me, play with her toys, nap on her bed, or whatever else she wants. If I need her, I will call her and I expect her to come pretty quickly to help me. If we get visitors, she can talk to them and she can try to get either me or my husband to play with her. We tell her if we aren't in the mood. Basically she just gets to be a dog with that little extra of coming to help me when I need her and call her. But she spends much of her time near me and doesn't seem to mind helping me. She'll come running with a toy in her mouth then drop it to pick up my crutch for me. Once I'm all set, she picks her toy up and goes right back to her game.

Molly also has to work short periods at home for training sessions. When I tell her it is time to train, I require her to focus on what we're doing for a few minutes (10 max). Afterwards, she can have a break and go have some fun.

We also have more formal play sessions at home either inside or out. For these, I settle in with her and a toy for a little while to play with her on her terms. We often play with a ball or her kong. She loves to play fetch and variations of fetch that include down-stays and walking slowly to get the item. Molly also likes to chew on sticks, play with weeds from the garden, and go to the beach. She puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that I am happy and safe all day every day. It is my job to make sure that she is happy with her life too.

We rotate Molly's toys to help keep them interesting. We often save her ball for interactive play sessions and let her keep the other toys for playing by herself or playing on her own and bringing to us to ask for short play sessions. After she's had a toy for a while, we'll put it up and get another down. The break makes the toy new and exciting again and limits how many toys we have scattered around the house.

A kong is a great toy for helping a dog entertain itself. If I've been feeling really rotten for a while, I'll often put goodies in her kong so she can have fun getting them out. For example, I fill it half way with kibble, add a teaspoon of peanut butter, and fill it the rest of the way up with kibble. Another fun thing to do is to put a chew stick in the hole. That takes forever for her to get out.

Molly also likes to be outside to run around. To make sure she gets the chance, we put up a fence in the yard for her. I can roll out to it in a wheelchair and let her in to run around. She generally won't stay long without company, but it gives her the chance to run free without any worries of her getting into trouble.

For car rides, Molly is always off duty in the car. It is a good chance for her to rest up before and after working in public so she is fresh and ready when I need her. She has a basket in the back of the car that she loves to curl up in to sleep. If she wants to look out the windows she is welcome to, but usually she naps.

My husband helps make sure that Molly gets the exercise and playtimes that she needs for a dog her age. She needs more mental exercise than physical, but she is young and does need to get out and have fun and experience fun things like playing on the beach. I find it a great help to have a healthy person in the family to make sure that Molly's life is well-balanced and that no side of her development is neglected.

Once she is older and more stable, I still intend to give her a healthy balance of play and work. By then she will be more accustomed to her job and needing fewer breaks for that reason, but she will still get them when she can to make sure she stays happy and healthy and keeps loving her job.

I love the way she comes running eagerly when I call her for help with a toy in her mouth. She'd rather help me than play and doesn't go back to her game until she is sure I don't need more help. That's a dog that loves her job and that's how I want it to be until the day she retires.

Completed Level One

Let's start with a great progress report. Molly and I passed Level 1 in our Level training this morning. This means that she has a really basic sit and down, some self control as demonstrated with doggy zen (if you haven't done zen with your dog, do it), and she can target my hand with her nose on command. Okay, so we had a lot of this (except the targeting) before today, so what's the big deal? The deal is that we redid what she knew in a positive way. So now there is no way she should have negative associations with it. I also put new commands on down and zen. Those were in Danish and now she's bilingual there too. The bigger deal is that we practiced communicating and doing it the right way. It's a trust thing and a bonding thing.

One of the "assignments" for the levels, is to think about what I want to get out of this training.

1. I want to learn how to train Molly to be a fully-functional service
   dog for me.
2. For Molly to be able to become a well-adapted and happy member of
   our family, regardless of whether she can function as a service dog in
   the long run.
3. To give Molly a strong go to mat really soon so she can feel
   comfortable staying put on the airplane and I can worry less about her
   ability to cope on the flight. (in September)
4. To learn the tools to be able to work positively with Molly to face
   any problems or needs we may have in our future together.
5. To improve my bond with Molly and make sure that she knows she can
   trust me, that she knows she can trust me not to let bad things
   happen.
   

So now I'm thinking about what we're doing and what I want and that's important.

About the whole service dog thing--I don't know right now that Molly can be a great service dog or if she'll really be happy as a service dog out in the world. She likes it at home, I think, but out in public is a whole different ball park. So realistically it has to be right for both of us and we need to accept that. She'll always have a home here as the pet and herding dog she was intended to be originally even if she can't make the grade as an SD in public.

Now we're starting Level 2 and have a lot of challenges ahead. It's so much fun!