Taking Control of the Wheel

The Nin at work!

In Team Training when they give you the leash to your dog it is like you are 16 and you are getting the keys to your first brand new car.  This car is in exceptional condition and it is a wonder after you practice driving a few times that the car still runs.  If you can remember back that far, you revved the engine too high, grinded the gears, slammed on the breaks before your foot was off the gas and probably backed into a light post or two before getting the hang of that driving thing.  Getting a CCI dog is not much different.  These dogs have been trained by the best, they have been in the best puppy raiser homes where they learned their basic commands and then worked with the best of professional trainers.  They are fine tuned furry machines.  Then they come to us...we tell them to sit as we are wheeling along in our wheelchair dragging them behind; "no" when they did the exact command that we told them to do and they have to endure us always forgetting their name until it just becomes "good dog". During Team Training, at the end of the day you see the relief on their face when they get to go to their crate - not to mention the relief on ours when we get to go back to our dorm with our homework, a list of commands, articles on canine behavior and a hope that tomorrow we will be better. (Which happens, in time, and support from CCI, it just seems slow.)  It is amazing at that end of Team Training these dogs are still willing to do anything that we ask, generally by then, they are a bit smarter and begin to figure out how to work us, just as we have been learning to work them.  I am always even more amazed that that the dog is willing to jump in the car and leave the home that they have known for the last six or so months and come home with us, but they do and Nin was no different.  I am not saying that she did not hesitate but she did get in the car with Mom, Dad my wheelchair and six weeks worth of luggage (after all, I am a girl, two weeks away requires 6 weeks of luggage)!  And back to DC we went.  The one thing that no one told me is that the reason the dog jumped in her car is because she had spent half her life slamming her head into things and probably did not even know better, a trait that I would later learn about at 3:00 am morning after morning.