Oh such a ball dropper!

Sooooooooooo very sorry I dropped the ball and stopped posting during training! Training was busier than I thought it would be (even though I was warned ahead of time that it was going to be busy!) I just thought I would be able to hang but found out quickly that I wasn't. Anyway so this post is going to be mostly high lights!

So first there was the day that we got Taz together with two of his siblings, Tye (who was unable to become a service dog do to some problems with his hips) and Tashi who is in next months class. They were so cute together!

One of the main reasons I did not update is because after class we were taking Taz out in the public as much as possible to practice. We ended up taking him to Red Robin, a bowling alley (on LEAGUE night no less!) the swimming pool, different stores, etc, etc. He did really good everywhere we went and after just a few minutes getting used to everything he would go to sleep (as you can see from the pic here at the bowling alley!)

Since we were on the 4th floor of the hotel Taz and I spent a great deal of time in the elevator. His first ride in the elevator he wasn't too keen on but after that he was right as rain. Here is a pic I took of him on one of our elevator rides.......he is sitting without being asked so he wants a treat (and yes he got one!).

Taz is a still a baby at 16 months old and loved our bed at the hotel (as did we!). Here is a pic of him during one of his favorite things to do!




Sorry to say that I don't have any pics of him when we were at the mall. I was concentrating on our practicing as that is where we had to take our public access test so I wanted to make sure that we did the mall well. Especially after I learned my lesson! Jeremy had just talked to us that day about learning what is normal and what is not with our SD's. Well we were in the mall and Taz was acting strangely, not healing well, etc. Very odd behavior for him. Well let's just say that I learned first hand the importance of paying attention to unusual behavior from your SD! Taz had a rather messy accident in the mall! I was assisted by a very, very nice cleaning staff lady cleaning it up. How embarrassing! That WILL NOT happen again!

Anyway we are home now and everyone is bonding well with Taz except the cats! The cats are not happy with me right now let me tell you. However we are very blessed with Isis, who has been our loving pet dog for the last 7 years. She really has helped Taz transition well and fast. They are good buddies and play all the time!

And once we got home the real bonding between Lily and Taz has started! Yay! I was a little worried at training because Lily seemed to have little interest with Taz, but at 4 Paws there is so much for kids to do and there were so many kids for her to play with she was just busy, busy, busy! Now she loves to have Taz cuddle with her in bed and it has made her fall asleep easier! Yay!

Would you quit with the pics already lady?!? I am trying to sleep here!!


So far Taz has pre-alerted for one small seizure Lily 2 hours before she had it and then woke Tracy (my husband and Lily's dad) while Lily was having it (he was trying to push in between Lily and Tracy). Taz also does behavior disruption and he does this totally unprompted by me. Whenever CJ or Lily cries he goes over to them and touches them with his nose, tries to put his head on their laps, etc, etc. It's so very cute and it turns those frowns into smiles like nothing flat!

All in all Taz has been totally worth the work and the wait. I wish I knew the name of the ER Dr at Children's that first told me about about seizure alert dogs! I would love to buy her some flowers and take her to lunch! I will be forever indebted to her for telling me about these amazing animals!

As always, thank you for reading! Please keep your eyes here if you are in NE Ohio and would like to meet Taz and Lily. We are planning a meet and Greet with Taz and Lily sometime in October. I will post the details here as soon as we get them figured out!