Best Buddies

NIKKI has been doing some work in the schools but as I said in my last post it is a busy time of year in the school and squeezing NIKKI visits in is wanted but difficult. Last week NIKKI did get her bath by the 3, 4 and 5 years in one of my preschool classrooms. They had been "studying" bubbles and bathing NIKKI was the perfect activity to go along with this. As soon as I have the pictures I will post them. It was an awesome activity where the kids had do what they could do to reach NIKKI. For some that was walking up to NIKKI, others needed their gait trainers and others just needed help reaching out to touch NIKKI. I think the kids enjoyed it and I am thankful for the help of the "red room" staff who always love NIKKI's visit and are willing to do whatever to make the visit fun!

Today we got to see Sam again. I just love visiting with Sam. He always says something sweet. Today he said something about NIKKI being his "best buddy". I wish I could describe how incredibly cute NIKKI and Sam are together. I don't think my words can adequately describe his interactions with NIKKI. Unfortunately we did not get to go out to the playground because it started to rain. Nancy, his therapist, wanted to have Sam work with his new braces for his feet. She wanted to work on stooping (which is different when wearing braces) so we had Sam put NIKKI's treats onto the floor for NIKKI. He helped NIKKI work on her "leave it" command for her upcoming Canine Good Citizen test. Needless to say both did well - Sam and his stooping and NIKKI and her leaving the treat until he gave her the OK command to eat it. We also visited 2 of our regular classrooms and read the our story of NIKKI going to school. It was fun and the kids really responded well to NIKKI today.

NIKKI has also been working hard at dog class and preparing for her upcoming Canine Good Citizen test (CGC). I had my daughter come with me on Saturday to take some pictures. So below are pictures of NIKKI and I working on our skills....

NIKKI does amazingly well considering that class is right next to a very large dog park. In this picture above she is watching me. I wish I could say it is because she wants to please me so much that she is so attentive but I do have a piece of cheese in my hand and she is crazy for cheese.

Here NIKKI is working on a stay. Again very attentive because of the cheese!

NIKKI is awesome about sitting when we stop walking. She really does well in the class except.....

sometimes she gets tired of waiting for the next activity and as you can see here she starts barking! If you look closely at her she has her nose up in the air and she is barking! I am trying to give her a calming signal by turning away from her but as you can see on my face - that is not working! We have decided that the cheese might just be too high level of a treat for her since she loves it so much. When we first started class I think she needed this level of a treat in order to tune out the other dogs and the dog park and attend to me. Now that she has the routine down I think I need to lower the intensity of the treat. Next week I am going to try something bland like Cheerios!

Dog class has been really great for NIKKI and I. We have learned a lot and even earned the title of "Student of the Month"! Dog Haven (who we take class from) has created a link from the home page of their website linking to a little story about NIKKI and I and to NIKKI's video! You can check that out here. If you look around the site you can also find a little story about MaryLou and Annabel another p4p volunteer.

Thank you all for checking out NIKKI's video on Youtube....we have over 600 views!! I have gotten wonderful feedback from teachers and parents of the students in the video. Today as NIKKI and I were walking down the hall at one of the schools I can hear people behind me saying "There is that wonderful dog in the video." That just makes me smile! It makes me so incredibly happy to help others through this wonderful dog. Here is the link again to the video - please please share it!!

Sharon