July 13th, 2023
My day started again at 6 AM. From 6 to 7 I took the time to get myself ready. At 7 AM I offered Eve the ability to go to the bathroom and then I brought her in to get her water and breakfast. She ate. I took her back out to go to the bathroom one more time before heading to breakfast.
After finishing breakfast, my classmates and I completed our first obedience session of training. This session consisted of us doing a series of sits, downs, touches, and placing our dogs into a healing position.
Once we were done with obedience, we were instructed to go back to our rooms in order to get our harnesses and other things we would need for the training day. Once we had everything, we needed we were instructed to go to the vans to load up to go to a training facility. When we arrived at the training facility, our instructors decided on who they were going to take first.
On this day, I chose to go first. Overall, the route went well. I was getting more comfortable with the movements of Eve, as well as the different commands that I would have to give. The only challenge I was having due to my limited dexterity in my left hand, was occasionally losing parts of my leash. After this happened a couple times, my instructor and I realized that the leash that I was using was too heavy, so we had to switch it out for a Biothane leash, which made life a little easier.
After returning from my route, I was given the option to take a break and talk with my classmates about their routes. Once the other students returned from their routes, we had lunch. After lunch, we went on our second route of the day, which was very similar to the first.
Once we completed our routes for the day, everyone piled back into the van, and we went back to campus. Once arriving on campus, our instructors gave us a mini lecture on leash corrections, and when they should be given. This was all to prepare us for the events of the next day.
After completing the lecture, we went back to our rooms in order to give our dogs dinner, water, and a bathroom break. Once this was done, we had some downtime before dinner. At about 6 PM, just like the previous day, we went up to dinner. After dinner, we came back and took our dogs out, then had more downtime. At about 9:30pm we took our dogs out for the final time for the evening and went to bed shortly after.
