Harriet's Back

"What do you mean by that, Harriet?  Where have you been?"  I'm just asking so you won't have to.

Well, it started when my cousins, Loki and Odin, came to visit.

My PR Mom calls us the Trouble Trio.  We really like to play!  Loki is easy to play with as long as he gets to be the boss.  Odin doesn't care who's boss as long as he gets to play.

Odin is an escape artist.  He loves to run.  He got out the door three times.  Once I went with  him.  My people and Odin's people didn't think that was so great.

The third time Odin got out and was brought back, I decided I would just take him for a walk inside the house, where nobody would object.

Nobody but Odin!

But my PRs noticed that my boy cousins were, um, very interested in me.

 


So I got to take a vacation at the doggie spa.

It's a great place.  There were people to feed me and give me lots of attention, and there were lots of other dogs to play with.  Girl dogs!

But it seemed like a long time before I came home!









 Once I was back, I wanted to stay here.  I didn't want to get in the car and go anywhere.  I wanted to enjoy my house and my yard and my cats and my people and my bones.  My PRs thought that was OK, so they let me have a couple of days to do that.

But now it's back to work.  I'll be going to college soon, and I need to be sure I know all my stuff!  (Here I am at the plant nursery.  I'm terrific as a bench tester.)

Sometimes people ask my PR Mom, "Harriet is so sweet..." (I like that) "... that she's sure to graduate and become a service dog, right?"  She answers, "We can't assume she'll graduate until she has graduated!"  It takes a lot to be a service dog.  You have to know your commands, from "side" to "heel," from "hurry" to "wait."  You have to be aware of your person all the time and be willing to do what he or she says.  Something may startle you, but you have to recover quickly and go ahead with your job.  You can't be distracted.  You can't be afraid of things.  (Am I afraid of things?  Well, I was just a little worried about a Great Dane I met in Lowe's one day.  He barked like a dog but he looked like a horse.)

And you have to have a cool head for tennis balls, cats, squirrels, and rabbits.  I love my kitties, I'm used to squirrels, and I like tennis balls but don't think I'm addicted to them.  Rabbits... I wish I could go again out to Auntie Carol's house in the country.  Her back yard has rabbits that are a joy to chase... oops.

The other night I went to a play.  My mom was in it.  It was called The Music Man, and I went to the rehearsals with her for quite a while.  That was fun!  I thought everybody had gathered there to see me.  Then the rehearsals started lasting longer than the bone I was given to amuse myself with.  (I still need to get better at waiting quietly while good stuff is going on and my mom isn't right by my side.)


So then I got to stay home with Dad during rehearsal time.  But I got to see everybody again when I went to the play!  It was fine.  All those kids and grownups did a really nice job, and I got a lot of hugs and pats.


Then my dad took me to the circus.  Lights, sounds, and smells!  It was pretty weird.  (But it looked better than the photo.  My dad says circuses are hard to take pictures of.)  I was pretty tired from my playgoing adventure, so I slept through most of the circus.  Dad said that was good.  He wished, though, that I could have met more lions and tigers and bears, O my.

Pretty soon I'll be going on a trip with my PR dad to a country called Indiana.  He says it's in the opposite direction from California, so I don't know why I'm going.  But he says there are dogs there, and a river - whatever that is - and lot of places to practice the things I'm learning.

Oh, and if you didn't see this before, I'm back to doing a roll with my cape on.  That other attitude was just so puppyish!