What a wonderful day as we get to celebrate the addition of a new family member - Ozark. Ozark loves people, is energetic, and not only keeps up with me but may possess even a little more energy than I have believe it or not. I am so excited to have him in my life and can't wait to introduce you all to him in person on March 19th (or March 17th for my family).

Today was spent learning how to train our specific dog to our needs. Ozark  has already allerted me twice today on dropping blood sugars and even stopped me on our walk to tell me it was going low! How did he do it? He stood right in front of me and refused to let me move until I had given him a big treat, checked my sugar, and eaten myself. Even after that we had to stop every few yards for me to reassure him so we could get back to the house. In training, we call that hitting a "jackpot" because he alerted me spontaneously.

I know this is a shorter post than normal, but Ozark is waiting for his dinner and I am still trying to figure out how to adjust to always having a leash in my hand. There are a lot of routines I need to get used to with having a dog by my side 24 hours a day and I am exhausted from a long day of learning. I hope you all had a blessed day too!

Smile ,
Mrs. Lovdokken

P.S. I thought it would be fun for you to see their orange and lemon tree in the backyard. We don't have them around us in Oregon and I was excited to see my very first ones!

Good Evening!

Well, I should be in bed but I forgot ot let you all know that my web address is now www.mrslovdokken.com. So, if you go to logon you can leave out the weebly. If you enter the old address it will still route you to the right page. I thought this might just be a little easier for everyone to remember.

Sleep tight!

Mrs. Lovdokken

    Today was a great day! I learned a lot of information and I felt overwhelmed, but overall I feel much more confident. One of the things I am learning best is to just laugh at my mistakes and keep going. Another thing that the trainer kept telling us today is that if we act like we are confident in ourselves even when we aren't sure of what to do, the dog will still think we know what we are doing.
    To start the day today we played a game teaching us how dogs think and learn. It was called a clicker game and we had to pretend to be the trainer and the dog. The one of us that was the trainer had to use just a clicker, nothing else (not even our voice), to get the person to do a specific behavior. It taught us what it feels like to be the dog when a human is giving unclear commands because all the dog hears is blah, blah, blah! LOL. 
    After the games we were given a single dog to work with for the day. Today I worked with Ozark. The first training I did was learning how to get a dog in and out of the car safely. I also learned that the safest place for the dog is on the floor or in the back seat of the car. The pictures down below will show you more of the story :0).
    In the afternoon we worked on distraction training, which was really hard. The trainers put out food and tried to hand the dogs food as we were walking past them. Our goal was to get the dogs to ignore the food and only follow our commands. I struggled on this part and learned that the straighter I stand out the more Ozark listened. By the end of the day he was following most of the commands - YEAH! I have included some pictures below to show you working with Ozark and when he allerted me of a low blood sugar.
    Tomorrow is a very exciting day since around 3:00 in the afternoon I will be given a dog for permanent placement. I'll be sure to post as soon as I come back to John's aunts house. Good night for now, I am off to do my homework and go to bed. Enjoy the pictures and remember I miss you all.

Love,
Mrs. Lovdokken

Good Evening Everyone!
    Ok, so this is take two since I finished my last post, didn't save throughout, and then accidentally erased the whole thing before it posted - I felt like screaming... AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! There, now I have it out of my system and am ready to write again. Hopefully this time I can write it quicker and I will definitely remember to save throughout.  
    Can you believe I have already been here for two days of training? Both days have been filled with everything from excitement to fear to smile to frustration as there is so much information to absorb in such a quick amount of time. I decided the best way to tell you about my days would be to give you a breakdown of each day and then some interesting information I learned. A lot more learning took place than can fit in a post so I will try to summarize it to the best of my ability :0).
    Monday we worked a lot on learning information about dogs behavior and had a dog trainer named Mo come in and work with us. The morning was spent learning specific behaviors along with various commands we will be using with our service dog. We also learned how to use a figure 8 collar. This type of collor can be used just around the neck, or it can go around the neck and also loop over the top of the nose to give you a little more control over the dog. 
    The afternoon was spent working with "nemo", a fake dog made out of a rolled up towel. The trainer would walk around with "nemo" next to us and make him misbehave so we would begin to learn the correct commands. I laughed at myself often because you realize that when you are under stress you even forget the easiest of commands (like heel) without a lot of practice.
    Today, Tuesday, when we walked through the door all of the dogs were in their kennels. It was exciting to see them as we came through the door. Part of the morning today was spent learning dog postures and stances so we would better understand how to "read" what a dog is saying to you. A dog will say A LOT just through their stance and posture, so learning these cues on the dogs is very important. 
    We spent the rest of the day working with the dogs, both inside and out. During this time the trainers were observings us and taking notes about the interactions between the dogs and people. The reason they take notes it to find the best match for the person and the dog. They also worked with us to reinforce and correct our interactions, voice commands, and work with the dogs. I felt like it was a successful day because even though I made a lot of mistakes, I learned from them, started correcting them, and became better at them throughout the day. Since we worked with all of the dogs today, and traded between dogs frequently so the trainers could see our interaction with all of the them, I left at the end of the day tired and anxious but excited to start the next day.
   I am now off to eat dinner, read some more of my manuel and take notes for homework, and then get a good night sleep. I miss all of you a lot and can't wait to be home in two weeks. I think of you often and send my hugs and smiles your direction. In closing I will leave you with just a few of many things I have learned in just two short days...

A dogs scence of smell is 200-1000 times stronger than a humans (depending on what source you read.) For example, it can smell each individual smell in a spray of perfume (sometimes 14 smells) when we just smell the single smell of it mixed together.

A service dog and a person are like a pilot and a copilot. Your dog needs to know that you are the one in charge but will step up in times of need.

Everytime you pick up the leash, you have the opportunity to train or detrain your dog - it is up to you!

Interesting strategy - if your dog gets loose, get it attention and then run in the opposite direction to where you want it to go. It will think you are playing a game of chase and most likely follow you!

A dog with a specific job is a much happier dog.

There are three parts to praise - verbal, physical, and treats! 

Good Morning Everyone!

Wow, what an eventful morning this morning. I woke up at 5:33am to a 4.0 Earthquake. This was the first time I have woke up to the whole room shaking an my bed moving. LOL. At least I couldn't sleep through  my alarm. LOL.

An earthquake is when the plate underneath the earth shift and it makes the top of the earth shake. A 4.0 is considered a small earthquake and really it just give you a good shake. The bigger the earthquake the worse the damange.

If you want to look up some great information on earthquakes click on the following link. This fun site to teach you all about earthquakes and give you the latest information on them.

What is an Earthquake?
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kids/eqscience.php

Earthquakes for Kids:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kids/

I miss you all already. Enjoy your day and be awesome for Mr. Gill and Mrs. Shadwick!

Love,
Mrs. Lovdokken

I am starting a blog this week. For the next two weeks I will be blogging about my Early Alert Canines Training in California. I hope you enjoy watching the progress and I will miss all of my students!