Weeks 15 and 16 with Usher

This week has been quite exciting, Usher and I have completed our Kennel Club Puppy Foundation Award. We have been going to normal dog training classes every Saturday morning for a little while now, as we can only go to the Guide Dog ones every school holiday as they are on a weekday morning. These awards are part of the Kennel Club Good Citizen Dog Training Scheme. There are a series of Certificates to work towards and it is open to all dog owners to promote responsible dog ownership. There are Puppy Foundation, Bronze, Silver and Gold and it does not matter if your dog is the tiniest breed or the largest one, everyone can join in and have fun and learn so much at the same time. Our Guide Dog puppy class is also running them, so at least Usher and I do not miss out.

We had our final assessment and I am pleased to announce that we passed!! We had to learn lots of things and then practise them between each class. Some of the exercises covered were:

• Come when called
• ‘Sit’, ‘down’, ‘stand
• Walk on loose lead
• ‘Wait’
• ‘Off’
• Socialisation with adults, children attending class, and other puppies
• How to greet humans appropriately
• Getting used to be handled, examined, hugged, lifted and grabbed by owners and strangers
• Food bowl, chew/bone manners

 

 

These are all things that a guide dog puppy should learn anyway and it was really useful for him to meet dogs of different breeds and sizes. We got presented with a certificate and a rosette which I am so proud of. Usher wanted to eat it, however I bought him a new raggy toy instead!

We will be starting to work on the Bronze award soon, I am hoping that lots of the other dogs from our Foundation class will be going as well. Usher has rather a soft spot for a little Staffordshire Bull Terrier pup, so he is hoping that she will be going!

The other thing we have done is some fundraising in Crewe. I have not done this before as Usher had not been old enough. I had to check with my Supervisor Jane that it was okay for him to go as for a highly strung pup it might have been too much. However Usher is as bombproof as they come so we were given the thumbs up to go.

So I took Usher, my youngest son and a collecting pot into Crewe and stationed myself in a prominent position. I had loaded my pocket with treats, so Usher sat nicely and ever so often I rewarded him with a treat from my pocket. People had lots to tell us, members of their family who had a guide dog, someone they knew who was visually impaired or just questions about puppy walking. Many people put money in our little pot and my son gave out stickers. So to anyone that spoke to us or made a donation, thank you so much, as Guide Dogs run completely on donations and every penny counts.

After about an hour Usher started to become restless and so we decided to end things on a good note and return to the base. There were other people out collecting that day for Guide Dogs and so we knew that someone else could move to our spot if needed.

Usher did really well and behaved beautifully, I was so proud of him.