July 21st, 2023
On this day, I got up around the same time as I had been and took care of eaves needs. Once that was taken care of, I headed up to breakfast before completing an obedience session.
After the obedience session ended my classmates and I grabbed our stuff to start training for the day. This day was a little bit different from the previous days because we had to complete our final traffic check. This traffic check consisted of one of the class instructors driving a vehicle at us three times in different locations in order to have Eve either back up or stop before the obstacle came towards us to keep me safe. This is one of the most challenging parts of guide work but is really important because of how often it happens.
After this traffic check was completed, we headed back to campus in order to have lunch.
Once lunch concluded, we grabbed our stuff to head into PetSmart to complete some more indoor work with added distractions. During this route I realized that in high sent areas Eve can get very distracted. When this outing concluded we started heading back to campus but stopped about a mile from campus to work on shoreline travel. Shoreline travel is when a guide dog has to hug the left of a path that does not have a sidewalk to keep their handler safe from potential oncoming traffic. The conclusion of this route had us on campus. Before heading to a 4pm meeting on campus we were instructed to feed our dogs and give them a bathroom break.
At about 4 PM we were instructed to go into the alumni hall to meet with the Director of Client Experience in order to sign our graduate agreements. Once this was done, my classmates and I got ready to go to dinner together in order to celebrate one of our classmates, who would be going home the next morning. It was honestly an amazing evening to get to know each other more while also getting us out of our comfort zones.
Lindsay having dinner with her classmates.
Once dinner was done, we headed back to campus in order to take our dogs out two more times before going to bed.
