Archive for December, 2007
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Therapy Dog is Part of Being a Service Dog
Over the past 8 years of training service dogs I have often been surprised at how much my puppies have helped strangers along the way. I expect that they will provide companionship and service
for one person, but they also provide stress relief and happiness to the people we come in contact with during training. I’ve seen crying children smile, senior citizens become engaged (when
they typically are percieved as unresponsive), and autistic children communicate through touch.
The last 7 weeks, Hugo has been going to the U of M hospital with me for IV infusions to treat my Muscular Dystrophy. He helps me relax, but more importantly he’s relaxed the more seriously
ill patients who get infusions in the treatment room with me. Some have Cancer and get Chemotherapy, some are transplant patients, and others get medications such as I do. Typically,
service dogs are not to be petted while they are working because it distracts them from the job they have to do. For a blind person, for example, this can be dangerous if they aren’t focused on
their job. So, when Hugo goes with me the nurses and patients often talk to him but aren’t allowed to pet him.
Well, last week we met a German man, about 70 years old, who was getting Chemotherapy. we talked for an hour or so while we were both getting treatments ( they have 3 chairs side by side
). At the end he asked if he could pet Hugo because he said Hugo “is the best behaved dog I have ever seen.” I decided to let him, so I removed Hugo’s jacket (which says that he’s a service dog
) and gave him a release command. Well, before I knew it the nurses were petting him too ! They said they were dying to pet him for all of these weeks because he’s so cute. It was good
for him and great for everyone involved. When he turns 1 year old, he will be eligible to do pet therapy at the hospital, and visits such as these are “unofficial” but help prepare him for
therapy work.
I put Hugo’s jacket back on and he understood that it was back to work.
Pam & Hugo
No Comments » - Posted in Hugo - Service Dog in the Making by Julie
Friday, December 28th, 2007
The Tale That Wagged the Dog
No Comments » - Posted in Potpourri by Julie
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
A Chorus of Dog Whisperers
The description of the Bark Busters training was more explicit than I have seen elsewhere.
I wish after all these years I knew that dogs are simple.
"_blank">A Chorus of Dog Whisperers
By ANNA JANE GROSSMAN
Finding a dog owner
nursing daydreams of becoming a trainer has become about as difficult as finding a waiter with a headshot.
No Comments » - Posted in Potpourri by Julie
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
My Family and Other Saints by Kirin Narayan
A book we probably should read, in all that copious free time…
Books of The Times: A Groovy Pad Full of Gods and Gurus
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin Narayan’s enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay (present-day
Mumbai).
No Comments » - Posted in Reviews and Comments by Julie
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
The Quest - book review
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Wilbur Smith’s most recent book in his Egyptian series “The Quest.” I am a huge fan of Mr Smith. His book “River God” is my all time
favorite book. So with great anticipation I was ready to get lost in ancient Egypt with my old friends. This book, for a Wilbur Smith novel, was a new experience for me;
I had to force myself to finish the book. I reminded myself how much I loved “River God” and surely this will get better. I bull-dogedly finished the book and was disgusted. I have
no idea What Mr. Smith was thinking? What did he do with the Taita? Is Mr. Smith going through a mid-life crisis and this is how he expressed it?
Taita had been a eunuch since his teens and spending a lifetime of evolving above human fallacies and weaknesses, at the age of 170 Taita all of sudden succumbs to lusty desires and whims and through
the fantastical theme of this book, Taita re-grows his “manhood” and takes up with the re-incarnation of Fenn/Lostrus who is only a young teenager. Huh? When did the Egyptian series
abandon the historical fiction and become a fantasy?
I think Wilbur Smith should claim someone assuming his name wrote this book while he was in a comma. This book is so bad it has even tarnished my memory of “River God.”
No Comments » - Posted in Reviews and Comments by Julie
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Cover Shot
Alta-Tollhaus Kirsch makes the back cover of the GSDCA-WDA Newsletter Sept-Oct 2007.
Kirsch is owned by Garth and Michele.
Remember you don’t have to be on a cover of a magazine to send pictures….HINT, HINT!
No Comments » - Posted in Hoss x Zucca Litter by Julie
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Excellence
In Terry Stanford’s final address to the Faculty of Duke University, circa, 1984:
“Everybody is seeking excellence, or claims to be. I sometimes think we have misused the word or weakened it by overuse. Excellence is not a brand of cheese. It is not even a place. It is more like a
path or a guiding star. A single professor in a classroom in a small and otherwise inadequate college may seek excellence with as much validity as does the total institution of, say, the Johns
Hopkins University. Every individual, every institution, can seek excellence in performance. That does not suggest by any means that they will all end at the same place, because excellence is not a
destination. It is a spirit; it is a determination; it is a set of personal and institutional values…. “James “Terry” Stanford, President of Duke University