Training Talk and Moving Day

Tuesday April 18th – Back to school and we spent the first half of the day giving a presentation to the Guide Dog department about our training techniques and the use of food and the clicker in our program. It was really fun as the staff was extremely interested and there was lots of sharing of ideas and techniques. It was heaven for a dog training geek like me! The manager of the GD department has already scheduled a second session for us to be able to continue the discussions.

The afternoon was spent with the staff from the ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) Department. They were having a ‘professional development day’ which means they get together as a group and participate in an activity to further their skills. The activity today was to travel to a very busy bohemian beach area of Melbourne and follow directions while wearing the simulator goggles. It was like the ‘treasure hunts’ that we had done in class during the first couple of weeks. The area is called St. Kilda and had tons of funky shops and funky people! Sue and I will definitely be going back there to do some shopping and people watching.

At the end of the day we moved off the GDV campus into an apartment nearby. Because GDV has clients every other month the residence where we have been living will be closed. The apartment we moved to is the same one we stayed at on our first weekend here. It’s quite cozy and the manager is very nice and helpful.

Today’s Aussie of the Day is brought to you by Laura. She was telling us a story about her Easter holiday where some of the family members got into a disagreement. She made the statement that one person “cracked the sads” to the other. This apparently means to get upset. It was so unfamiliar sounding I had to have her repeat it 3 different times!