End of Guide Dog Week

Friday May 26th – We spent the morning with Justin who is one of the instructors training a string of dogs while incorporating the clicker. We wanted to take some video footage and Justin was very generous with his time. He worked three dogs who were at about 22 workouts, and they all looked really good. He gave Sue and I the chance to work each of the dogs for a part of the route and they did worked very nicely for us as well. We got to pick his brain about GDV’s training techniques, commands, and footwork, which is all very similar to what we do in the US with only subtle differences. Sue got some good video footage and I took a few more pictures, of course.

The afternoon consisted of Mark finishing up the lecture portion of the Guide Dog week, talking about the process of matching dogs with clients. This afternoon we all got to see an sneak preview of a commercial that GDV had recently made. It was a very well done commercial and reminded me somewhat of the type of ads we at GDB are producing. The commercial shows a man in his early 30s riding on a bus. There is a voiceover in which the man is describing a relationship with a female. He talks about loving to have her around and about her fun personality, and then he comments about how she doesn’t mind that he is blind, and that she loves him anyway. You see the bus pull over, he gets off, and begins working his dog down the street and the voice over says something about how the female he has been talking about is his guide dog. Very professional ad and the man in the ad is actually one of their graduates.

On of the highlights of our day today came when we headed over to the Flight Centre and talked with the agent who helped us plan our trip to Tasmania. We had decided that we needed to get serious about planning our last three weeks of travel. We accomplished a lot during our meeting and ended up booking all bit one of the flights as well as a tour package we wanted to take when we go to Uluru. The part where we had to pay was not quite as fun.