Last Friday, we did the big trip, the trip I’ve been waiting for since my first route with Frolic. We went into New York City!
Normally, we wouldn’t do New York City until our final week, since it’s like a culmination to all our training. But looking ahead at the weather for our last week, it was supposed to be frigid (and it is frigid, can confirm from the future when I am actually writing this). So we went to New York on Friday.
It was awesome! So much fun!
I was partnered with the same classmate I did the Elm Street route. We took a trip through the city that would more closely resemble C.C., so unlike training in New York I’ve done with past dogs, we didn’t go into Time square itself.
So we started at Port Authority. We walked about nine blocks, from 40th down to 33rd Streets, walking along 9th Avenue. The sidewalks were full of poles and cafe tables and planters and pop up stands. We had to navigate through crowds of pedestrians, some with suitcases, others with dogs. Basement doors jutted out into the sidewalks.
Frolic was amazing! She moved confidently and fast through all of it, while still being super careful. Whe had her tail straight up in the air, waving back and forth, and her ears were waggling the whole time. (My instructor was taking pictures, so I’ll update this post once I have them).
We turned on 33rd Street and made our way to Hudson Yards. There, we practiced escalators and also working through crowds in a large indoor space. We also found a great little place to have lunch.
On escalators, apparently I’ve been doing that wrong for years. Oops. I’ve been working my dog onto the escalator, but I should be having her just follow me onto the escalator on her leash. It worked way better, and I finally seem to have mastered the move of stepping off the escalator with her following behind me and picking up the harness handle in one smooth motion.
After we had lunch and walked around Hudson Yards some more and did some more escalators, we walked a couple blocks to the metro. This metro stop had a long long escalator down, reminiscent of some of the metro stops in D.C.. We even had a commuter rush past us, and Frolic wasn’t even phased.
We took the metro to the Time Square stop and then navigated through the pedestrian tunnels, which were full of people, luggage, and dogs, back to Port Authority.
It was a really amazing day. I felt like I was flying, safely and confidently, through a really busy intense environment. I can’t wait to be back in D.C. doing this kind of work with Frolic all the time!