Tag: Frolic

I am writing this post from my own couch, with two dogs asleep at my feet and a cup of tea on the table beside me. I have been home from Seeing Eye for a little more than a week, and while at times it’s been a bit of a bumpy transition back to reality, I’m very glad to be sleeping in my own bed and cooking my own food and of course snuggling with my Neutron Star again.

I could probably write a whole post on what it’s been like coming home, and maybe I will, but for now, I want to talk about my final week of training at Seeing Eye, before I forget all the details.

Last time I posted, I wrote about our trip to New York City on Friday. After that, we had all day Saturday off. I used the time to play with Frolic, and of course groom her and practice obedience, where I give Frolic a bunch of basic commands to strengthen her training and our bond. I also got to attend my biweekly writing group, which meets virtually, which was a bonus I hadn’t been expecting. And I hung out with some of my new friends in the common lounge. On Saturday evening, the retrain students, those of us at the Seeing Eye for a successor dog, had the going home lecture, where we talked about transitioning back to our real lives and how to keep up our training with our new dogs. It will take six months to a year for us to really gel as a team, so in a lot of ways we are still training. We are always training, really.

Sunday was kind of a magical day!

When we got back, I met up with some classmates, and we decided to walk around the leisure path on campus together. A big snow storm was supposed to be coming in the afternoon, and on Monday it was supposed to get bitterly cold, so we felt like it would be our last chance to walk on the leisure path with our dogs. I went out with one classmate, my partner from the Elm Street route and the New York trip, and we had a great time walking the paths, our dogs kind of racing each other, trying to take selfies in the gazebos. It was cold, but not terribly cold, and when I got back inside, I actually decided to join another group of classmates to do it again.

In the afternoon, my small class met up and we got our dogs’ puppy profiles. Frolic grew up in a family with a mother, a father, a couple college students, and one high school student. The high school student was her main caretaker. I found out all the places Frolic visited as a puppy, including that she went to some high school classes with the mother, who was a teacher. This made me happy, because I have to admit I was feeling a certain way about Frolic being my first dog not to attend school with me (the sort of way has to do with being a real adult no longer in school and nothing to do with feeling like my dogs need an education). Frolic’s puppy raisers also said that when she had to go out, Frolic would ring a bell hanging from the doorknob, so I got bells for my front and back doors and I’m retraining her to use them with me (she was in the kennels at Seeing Eye for several months before she came home with me so she’s picking it up but still a work in progress). Finally, Frolic’s puppy raisers talked about the kind of toys she likes. She loves bones, which I had definitely noticed. She isn’t a huge fan of balls—she mostly just wants to play with her humans—which I’d also noticed. They did say that she loves stuffed toys and doesn’t destroy them, which I’m glad about, because so does Neutron. And they even sent me the toy stuffed pig, which they’d named Gilbert, and which was Frolic’s favorite toy as a puppy. When I gave it to her, Frolic just rolled around on the floor with it in her mouth in absolute delight. I’ve never gotten anything more than the basic info in my puppy profiles—no toys, no pictures—so this felt really meaningful. And Frolic was so happy about it!

After getting our puppy profiles, we got to play in the Seeing Eye’s outdoor free run. As Frolic’s puppy profile said, she wasn’t super interested in the giant toys they had out there, but she was interested in running around the free run at top speed and then running back to me and flinging herself bodily at me. We practiced the “here” command for off leash recall. I don’t have a good place for her to be off leash outside, and since I can’t see her anyway that’s never a good idea anyway, and for the same reasons dog parks are a big no-no, but it’s still a really useful command to work on. She was very good, and very enthusiastic about it.

The snow was really starting to come down by this point. I went to the common lounge and messed around a little bit on the piano, trying to see how Frolic would react to me playing music. She flopped onto the pedal, so obviously she was hoping to contribute.

By late afternoon, a bunch of us were feeling a little stir crazy, so we decided to try the leisure path again. We didn’t get very far, because the snow was coming down so much that none of us, human or dog, could even find the path. But we did get to play with our puppies in the snow, and Frolic got an incredible case of the sillies.

Things only got sillier at park time. Trying to get eighteen dogs to relieve themselves in a blizzard when they just want to jump around catching snowflakes was an experience.

On Sunday night, we ordered pizza and hung out in the common lounge, playing with our pups and singing along with our classmate who played guitar, which had become a near nightly tradition at this point. My small class also went downstairs to the gym area, where Seeing Eye had two rows of actual airline chairs for us to practice maneuvering our dogs under the seats in front of us. Frolic, being the smallest of the dogs I’ve had so far, fit beautifully, and at this point I think she was just sorry that our flight on Seeing Eye airlines couldn’t last longer, because she was ready for a good snooze.

The last three days were spent on more freelance work. We mostly stayed inside, because it was something like 3 degrees, with a windchill of -7 or something. Let’s be real, none of us go outside in those conditions unless we absolutely have to anyway, and while taking our dogs outside for park time is definitel an absolutely have to, it was not fun.

So on Monday, we went to Walmart and practiced navigating store aisles some more, along with some more work on the “follow” command, which is something we teach our dogs so they can follow people we’re with. It’s a really useful command, but you also have to be careful that you’re not always following the same person, or your dog will start to think that they’re in charge, not you.

On Monday afternoon, I also went to a pet store, where I got Frolic a tag for her collar, resisted my instructor’s attempts to get me to buy a fish or a hampster, and navigated around all the distractions in the store—the dog food, the toys, the squeaking animals, the dog that I kid you not leapt off the counter to bark at us as we attempted to leave the store.

On Tuesday morning, we went to a big indoor plaza type place in Morristown that was a bunch of interconnected buildings. We practiced using revolving doors, and I think I finally have it, actually. Go through backward! I did not traumatize Frolic, even though I did bump her a little bit with the door. She’s made of pretty tough stuff, this girl. I probably won’t aim to go through revolving doors if I have a choice still, but now I feel a lot more confident about navigating them than I did before. Third dog is the charm I guess.

We also navigated through some indoor construction and then practiced more clicker training, this time having Frolic target a specific credit card scanner on the counter at the movie theater. She took me to the same one every time, even though there were several along the counter. We worked on this specifically because I was asking about teaching her to target a specific badge swipe when I get off the elevators at work, in an area where there are multiple badge swipes that lead to different parts of the building and it’s easy to get a little turned around. We even tried having her target the cash register coming from different directions, and she was fabulous at that too!y

On Tuesday afternoon we worked through the courthouse in Morristown, which has a metal detector so we could practice going through a TSA-like situation, or a whole host of other situations in D.C. honestly. The courthouse also has lots of twisty turny hallways, with lots of short flights of stairs in random places. It was a good place to practice following our dogs in tight quarters with surprise obstacles. We also did some more practice on elevators there. After the courthouse, I had an appointment with the vet to get Frolic’s medical history and records, and I met with the head of admissions and graduate services to check out and pay for my dog and equipment and get my Seeing Eye ID and everything. Frolic is now officially mine!

A quick note for those who don’t know: first-time students at the Seeing Eye pay $150 for their dogs. Returning students pay $50. Veterans pay only $1. We get the dog’s harness and grooming equipment for free, and we can buy other equipment at cost from the school. The Seeing Eye is run largely on donations, but they believe that we should pay at least a nominal fee for our dogs so that we own them. This is different from how most other schools operate, and it’s one of the reasons I chose the Seeing Eye in the first place. I like the fact that they trust me with full ownership of my dog, that all decisions about my dog’s food and health and how much they work and when they retire are mine, and that they will never come and take my dog away from me for any reason.

On Wednesday, I needed to start to pack. Frolic was a bit nervous about this, especially when I packed up all her toys. In between packing, we still had two more trips to do.

On Wednesday morning, we went to the hospital and worked a route through the twisty halls, which were full of people and obstacles to navigate around. Frolic was a pro, and it was a good exercise for me not to let my stress travel down the handle to her. I don’t like hospitals.

On Wednesday afternoon, our whole small class went to the mall. We worked up and down escalators; up and down those little flights of stairs that malls so often seem to have in the middle of everything; around the food court; through the kids’ play area; through a store, where Frolic did run me into a watch stand because she thought going under it was the correct way, oops; and past a dog and a human, both of whom felt the need to bark at us. Besides the minor collision with the watches, it was a really good last trip in training, and it was also nice to hang out for a bit with our whole small class back together again one more time.

On Wednesday night I finished packing and then hung out in the common lounge for one more cup of hot cocoa and one more singalong. Then Thursday morning we were doublechecking my room for anything I might have forgotten, and I was getting on a train back to D.C. and my real life, now with Frolic at my side.s

Thank you all for coming on this adventure of my training with Frolic at Seeing Eye. It was very different from my previous classes, because it felt like so much more of a roller coaster. It still feels like a roller coaster at home, but Frolic and Neutron are becoming fast friends, and I’m glad to be home, even though I miss all the friends I made in New Jersey. I’m loving having two dogs in my house, and my own bed and shower are still making me very happy.

Welcome home Frolic!

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 D.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. She had her tail straight up in the air, waving back and forth, and her ears were waggling the whole time..

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!

My adventures continue with Frolic!

Wednesday afternoon, after our successful solos on the Elm Street route, we began freelance work. Basically, this is when we go off the planned routes and instead work in other situations we might encounter with our dogs in our daily lives. This training is tailored to our daily lives and is a little different for everyone, but there are some standard things we do and that I’ve done in every class.

It was good timing for a change, because our dogs were getting a bit bored with all the planned standard routes that are basically loops. These dogs are destination oriented, so loops, however many challenges we put in front of them, are going to get boring.

Also, while we had a few days where the weather was reasonable for January, the temperature is supposed to drop dramatically, and so yes we were all chanting “Indoor work! Indoor work! Indoor work!”

Wednesday afternoon, my group went to a Wegmans grocery store. We sat in the cafe area and practiced settling our dogs in public while we worked our dogs through the store one at a time.We practiced using a cart a little bit, but we only did it for a couple aisles, because I usually don’t use a grocery cart to shop because I’m often walking and so use a basket to make sure I’m not buying more than I can carry. So we switched from a cart to a basket (actually my instructor’s reusable grocery bag because we couldn’t find the baskets for some reason). We practiced going up and down the aisles and settling Frolic safely between me and the shelves so she’s out of the way of grocery carts and everything while I was looking at items on the shelves. It was a relatively chill trip while I still learned, or relearned, a bunch of tricks. It was also fun to be back with our small group. They switched up our lunch tables last Saturday, which felt like eons ago, so this trip all together felt like we were getting the old gang back together.

On Wednsday night, we had a lecture about dog food, treats, and toys, along with things that are very very bad for our dogs: chocolate, alcohol, garlic and onions, grapes and raisins, macadamia nuts, rqwhide, animal bones, antlers, chews from butchered animals, and toys that are too small or that they can destroy are all big no-nos.

On Thursday morning, we traveled by bus to a neighboring town, then walked to the train station, and took the train back to Morristown. Something about commuter trains, with the really steep steps to get on and off and me being irrationally worried that I’m going to get somehow stuck on the train made me a bit stressed about this one, but Frolic was a champion.

On Thursday afternoon, we did country work, which is work in neighborhoods without sidewalks. We walk on the left, facing oncoming trafic. We check frequently to make sure our dog is hugging the curb or grass line. We didn’t do a long trip for this work, because I really don’t have a lot of areas without sidewalks in D.C. But it was really good to get a refresher, and I learned a few new good tricks. Actually, Frolic was so good at this I almost felt bad that we don’t have much of this kind of work. But I didn’t feel too bad about that after what we did on Friday, which I’ll talk about tomorrow.

On Thursday night, we had another lecture on odds and ends. Basically, how to stsart giving our dogs some time off leash in our rooms, how to start allowing free access to water, and how to leave our dogs in their crates for small amounts of time. So far, we have kept our dogs on leash, attached to us basically all the time unless we’re sleeping or showering. This has helped with bonding and and also helped us make sure they weren’t getting into anything because they are still puppies. We’ve also been restricting their water as we basically re-potty train them, because they’ve been living in kennels during training for the last several months. And we need to enforce in general that we are their people and we are in charge now in all things, so they have to have good recall and also go to their crates on command in order to have small amounts of freedom. W also start practicing leaving them alone in the room because there are places we might want to go where it would not be appropriate to bring our dogs. Like I’mnot going to bring Frolic tandem biking, so she will need to be comfy hanging out without me. We started small, just five minutes at a time on everything. But as with all things, Frolic is awesome!

In the odds and ends lecture, we also talked about the importance of always having our dog on leash outside. Fenced in areas aren’t always secure, and dog parks can be dangerous because you don’t know anything about the other dogs who might be there, and since our dogs are working dogs they really don’t need that outlet. The instructors read us a letter they read every class, from a man who took his dog outside off leash, she saw a deer and took off after it and was hit by a car. It’s a letter that makes me cry every time and has successfully instilled a strong need to have my dog constantly on leash while outside, but unfortunately our instructors told us this is a situation that still happens.

I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the great adventure of Friday! New York City! Spoiler alert, we crushed it! It was awesome!

Goodnight friends! 5:30 comes early.

I recognize that I’m a bit behind on posting from where I wanted to be. Please understand that I’m starting my days at 5:30 AM and not finishing up training and other activities until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. So please bear with me as I try to capture everything.

So on Monday morning we started our second planned route, called the Elm Street route. This is a route that I’ve had a little trouble understanding the shape of the last two times I was here. Well, third time’s the charm. Also my instructor is an orientation and mobility specialist, so she explained it in a way that just clicked for me.

So this route is basically the shape of a pizza slice or pie slice. We start at the Seeing Eye’s downtown training center, walk down to South Street, where we cross and turn right on South. We walk two blocks on South Street, crossing Pine Street and coming out on Elm. Pine is kind of a tricky intersection, because cars have to creep up into the crosswalk in order to see around the corner. Then on the block between Pine and Elm, the school set up a planned dog distraction, where an instructor holding a safe pet would approach and be a bit obnoxious about trying to get her dog to play with our dogs, even circling us as we try to navigate around them. I never successfully made it through that obstacle on the first try, but more because Frolic was familiar with the instructor holding the dog. She was really good when it was an unfamiliar person and dog, which we encountered frequently. But once we get through the dog distraction, we finish the block and turn left on Elm.

Elm Street is a steep hill down. About halfway along the block, they set up a fake construction barricade for us to work around, including going into the street to get around it. Frolic rocked that every single time!

At the bottom of Elm Street, we turn left on Morris and climb back up to South, curving around and crossing five intersections—some with stop signs, some with traffic lights, and some with no control at all. Morris is like the crust of the pizza or pie slice connecting the edges of South and Elm. The hardest part of this stretch is all the pedestrians and other things on the sidewalk we have to weave around, and of course keeping track of all the intersections and how to cross them. Once we get all the way back up to South Street, we turn left and find the audible pedestrian signal for the mid block crossing, and then it’s just a slight jog around a building and one block back to the training center.

And of course throughout this whole route, we’re following our dogs and responding to their guiding, because our class manager was out to get us with the van to make sure we understand how it feels when our dogs stop or pull back when cars cut us off.

The cool thing about this solo is that I was working in a pair. I did a lot of this when I was training with Neutron, but I haven’t done it so far during this class. Basically, one of us would take the lead on each block, and then that same person would decide when to cross the street, and then we would alternate who leads on the next block. It was nice to have a partner to work with to talk through some of the trickier intersections and keep ourselves oriented on this route. My partner also lives in D.C., and we’ve already started planning some city adventures together, because we work so well together as a team. Actually, our instructor told us if we don’t she might kill us.

It turns out that Frolic has a little competitive streak in her. This little dog wants to be in front all the time, and is constantly trying to make moves to pass my partner when she’s in the lead. Passing is allowed when we work in teams, but only if our dogs can do it safely. I did have to correct Frolic a few times because there were places where there really wasn’t room to pass and she was just tailgating my teammate. But mostly Frolic was great at the maneuvers, and I would just narrate her actions as we passed so my teammate would know I was there and passing: “Frolic is getting close, she’s easing left, she’s pulling ahead, she’s merging back into traffic! FROLIC TAKES THE LEAD!”

Of course, Frolic has also decided that no one is allowed to pass her, and whenever my teammate’s dog tried, Frolic would move me over to block her. Again, this is allowed as long as the dogs are maneuvering safely, which for the most part they were. It was a lot of fun. This girl has some spunk!

We did the Elm Street route four times. Monday morning we got oriented to it, and encountered six buses full of elementary school kids while we were at it. Monday afternoon, our instructor stepped back but was close to coach us through it. Tuesday morning she was farther back. We rocked the Tuesday afternoon trip so much that our instructor actually counted it as our solo. We still had to do the trip on Wednesday morning, but it was more of an encore performance, no pressure. And it’s a good thing too, because Frolic was definitely bored with the route by then and extra distracted. Even then, by this point my partner and I were basically playing Marco Polo to make sure we were relatively close and heading in the same direction, and we were having a blast.

I’ve heard this time in class referred to as hell week. Our dogs are comfortable with us now and are starting to test the boundaries, and it’s right when we’re all starting to get really tired from the constant go! go! go! of class.But even with all the little testing of the boundaries, Frolic is a very good girl, and I can tell we’re going to have so much fun together.

Also during this time we had lectures on…I forget what exactly at this point. We’ve covered so much. Dog care, dog food/treats/toys, vets, how to give doggy massages, probably some other things I’m forgetting. They’ve been throwing a lot of information at us in a short amount of time and what we learned when is a bit of a muddle. But I have it all to look over later if I need to. The lectures are starting to slow down now.

After our solo for Elm Street, we began freelance work Wednesday afternoon, which is basically where we train on all the fun smaller things we might need to navigate with our dogs. I’ll talk about that more later, hopefully tomorrow. But I have to save it for now because 5:30 comes early.

This is it!

The big one!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for!

The introduction of my new little buddy!

This is Frolic!

Frolic is majesty in stillness and mayhem in motion! We are going to take D.C. by storm at a slightly alarming 4.3 miles per hour.

Frolic is a lab golden mix. Unlike Neutron, she is 50-50 lab and golden (Neutron only has one eighth golden).

Frolic is 22 inches tall and weighs 54 pounds, and she was bron on May 13, 2023. This makes her the tallest, smallest, and youngest dog I have ever worked with.

Frolic is all black. She is tall and skinny, with a tiny head and ears that are a little too big for her head. I love her ears! They waggle! She also has a tail that’s like a mix of lab angolden. It’s not a big floof like a golden’s tail, but her tail is much thicker than the lab tails I’m used to, and when we’re working, she holds it straight up in the air.

Frolic is a little speed demon, and an absolute goofball. She loves to fling herself bodily at me or climb me like a jungle gym. She also likes to try to shove her toys into my mouth. Her latest favorite game is when she throws her ball under the bed and goes berserk until I retrieve it with my cane, then gets very excited and chucks it under the bed again.

Frolic does not like her booties, but they are very cute!

I’m told that Frolic has some excellent eyebrows, and she looks very statuesque and regal.

I’m also told that she is a velcro dog, like Neutron, and once she fully bonds to me I will be her one and onluy person. I’ve only had her for one week—I can’t believe it’s only been one week!—she’s already started to open up to me. She’s started to roll over to get belly rubs and to give me the classic golden paw thwap. She’s also stopped crying whenever I disappear to take a shower or something.

I’ve only had my Frolly girl for a week, as I said, so there’s so much for me to still learn about her. But I’m definitely loving the Frollypop I’ve gotten to know so far.