Do Border Collies Dream of Sheep? by Carol Lea Benjamin & C. Denise Wall

Author:Carol Lea Benjamin & C. Denise Wall [Benjamin, Carol Lea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938701740
Publisher: Telemachus Press, LLC
Published: 2012-11-16T23:00:00+00:00

After my swim, I’d move Sky to where the hot tub was, hook her leash to the fence there and warm up in the swirling water. The gym is built on an enormous pier that sticks out into the Hudson River. From the hot tub, I could see the boats passing on their way to the ocean and the Statue of Liberty, green and majestic, welcoming all who passed. Much closer to me, I could see Sky. Sometimes just looking at her would cause my body chemistry to change and if I felt poorly, in no time I’d be feeling better.

When I got out of the hot tub, Sky would lead me in reverse back to the locker room and to the shower where I’d put down a towel for her and ask her to wait. There I was dependent on her good will and training. There was nowhere to hook the leash in the shower room. In no time, she had the whole routine nailed, even reminding me with her eyes, should I forget, that when we first got to the locker room, she’d get a cup of water. I was really pleased.

People were used to seeing me at the gym with Flash and knew they should ignore him and let him do his job. But now I was there with a half grown puppy. There were people who couldn’t resist trying to pet her. One lady even tried calling her away when I was in the shower and Sky was lying on a towel just outside it. Covered with soap and shampoo, I saw my dog get up and begin to disappear. It must have been quite a sight when I stepped out of the shower, dripping all over the stone floor, to call her back.

If it had been Flash waiting outside the shower, he would have turned his head away when a stranger tried to woo him away. But Sky wasn’t even one year old, and learning not to respond to strangers when on the job is one of the more difficult things for service dogs to accomplish. After all, a service dog is still a dog. It’s natural for dogs to want pats and kisses wherever they can get them. For working dogs of all kinds, some of the job is natural, based on inborn instincts. Other parts are not. Some, in fact, require the dog to go against his instincts. That’s why it takes time and proper training for a dog to learn how to behave when on the job. Sky was doing very well for a young pup. But being enticed was simply more temptation than she was able to resist. That amount of self control would only come with time.

Sky loved going to the gym. I would have thought that waiting for me to swim and shower would be pretty boring for a dog. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps she liked it so much because of the heightened responsibility for my care.

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