Graduation - September 2009 - Day 1

My third graduation started by saving my alarm clock from Ira's teeth...she must "love' it as much as I do! :))

Since I didn't have to be there until the afternoon, I spent alot of my time exercising the dogs, to ease my mind while I left them for 5-6 hours in my 80 degree house.

I arrived at Maryville College early than expected because I wanted to meet the families, and interact with the kids before I was officially on duty.

As was expected, one of the kids was already in full blown, melt down mode, so I went to help entertain our other family, while my boss and the mom worked with the other child. 

Daniel's family was in the hall way bonding with Daniel by walking up and down the hall. This was more so for the child than the dog.

It took a while for Ben's child to settle down, so went spent some time working on how to work Daniel on a leash & child, and set someone to go get lunch for us.

Once again in this graduation, we have two children at the opposite ends of the autism spectrum, one higher functioning,(some verbal skills) and one low functioning (no verbal skills). 

After a good 30-45 minutes, Ben's team was able to get hooked up and start walking around; since the building we are in this time, has NO A/C (WHY ME??!) two trainers went with that team to potty, and walk outside, and another trainer and I did the same with Daniel's family.

While we were waiting for lunch we started to go ahead and start conditioning the child to hold onto Daniels harness.

This will start building the bond between dog and child, as well as keep the team from getting tangled around objects!! (Which is VERY easy to do! Walking a dog with a child in tow is NOT easy!) 

Lunch arrived just as we decided to go inside for a water break. Yes!!

After lunch, Ms. Denyer wanted to squeeze in some lecture time, so we staff memebers were on kid duty. Two members headed outside with Daniel, while I and another co-worker sat inside and kept Ben and his boy quiet. 

 {Yes Dan got a poodle cut! :((}
After that short lecture period, we headed back outside for some more leash work; we stopped in the shade for a little while with Team Ben, and his boy sat and loved all over him....which for the first day is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Ben of course is just happy to be loved. Look at that grin!!

 

We sent them home soon after that! Always stopping while we are ahead!

-This has been the eaiset first day so far!! I'm super excited for the rest of the week!