Saturday, September 18, 2010

Can't sleep.

It is 5AM, and I have not been able to sleep.

It's strange.. the first few days Spike was gone, I felt very sad. Then I was feeling better (still missing him to the extreme, of course), and now I'm feeling empty again. I can't stop thinking about Spike. Maybe it's because it appears he hasn't made any progress since he got there.. I don't know.

I kinda wish GDB would do the same thing other schools do. Send out report cards with specifics on what the dog is doing, what the dog needs to work on, personal comments from the current handler, etc. (Is it CCI or maybe GDA that does that? I don't remember for sure)

Am I allowed to call and ask how Spike is doing? haha

Excuse me, but I'm gonna go give Clyde a squeeze now.

7 comments:

  1. It's so frustrating not knowing how your boy is doing. I'd give Guide Dogs a call if I were you. Spike is going to do amazing things, but it is hard not to see it in black and white.

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  2. Aw, it's rough, we only get two reports, one after they pass their medicals and one telling us they are graduating. The not having feedback is excruciating! Hope you hear something soon.

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  3. we used to get weekly report cards with letter grades and everything, but they changed that in the late 90s because of the liability of information being passed to future handlers. Finding out a dog got a few Ds and Cs, or maybe an F does not inspire confidence, you know? Even though every dog that graduates is fully capable.

    Try to be patient with GDB, trainers are pretty busy training dogs and helping change the lives of visually impaired handlers and they don't always realize raisers hang on every single one of those phase numbers. :)

    My last pup Terence was in phase 1 for 5 weeks and finally jumped to phase 5 the next week. It was a huge relief at the time, but for that 5 weeks I just kept saying to myself - if he's progressing in training and they're just not updating the records, I have nothing to worry about. If he's really stuck in phase 1 and/or struggling with training, worrying won't help him! That line of thinking helped me... sometimes, but I definitely feel your pain. :)

    Hang in there!

    BTW - Sister Sparkle goes back to San Rafael at the end of the month.

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  4. I am responding to your comment on my blog about why the dogs in my program have two letters at the beginning of their name. It is a bit repetitive, but the first letter stands for what litter they are (for Llarson the first "L" stands for the L litter) and the second letter is the beginning of their name. I hope this clarifies it. And I totally know the feeling about missing Spike. I hear only once a month about the progress of Llarson. It is so hard for me not to call about him once a week!

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  5. Call guide dogs and talk with Mary over in puppy raising. She will know where Spike is, she won't be able to tell you why he's been in 0 and not progressing, but my experience has been is that a trainer is behind in filling out their paperwork.

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  6. Check my blog in a few minutes - I'll have a picture and an explanation that will interest you! : )

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  7. I found a wonderful answer to your question on another blog. Check this out to figure out what Spike is up to! :)

    http://raisingreyna.blogspot.com/2010/09/reynas-progress-back-class.html

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