Acadia Visit with a Shadow - October 13

Our visit at Acadia Rehab today was shadowed by a college student. Studying pyschology at Millersville, she needs 20 hours for a course and this counts. She also attended the KPETS orientation on Saturday. A different therapist, also a Terri, was at today's session. She has been present for at least one other session and is a dog owner, and had been well briefed on the details.

We made some effort to have Ump match hand and verbal signals, but mostly this didn't happen. I realized that he has never tossed River a treat to catch. Thinking this would be easeir, I demonstrated how to drop a treat straight down, from directly above River's head and say "catch it", but when Ump did it, he held it in the right place, said "catch it" but never released the treat, then reached down and gave it to River saying "Awwww". I didn't get a chance to discuss if this is still a goal or not. Our plan to start with and focus on a single trick and it's signal/verbal command has not been very effective. Ump wants to do all the tricks that he has seen and can think of and not necessarily repeat the same one multiple times. I guess it is up to the therapist to set the goals and format if they want to work on it.

We had a pleasant visit overall. River demonstrated his usual, down, roll over, play dead, beg tricks. He did a littel heeling with Ump, which he seems to enjoy. He always remembers to tell him to sit when he stops, although River does do that automatically.

We did one "find it" with a treat, then River also spotted the basket of toys they keep for dog visits and he snagged one of the stuffed animals, so we played a bit of keep away with everyone. River got treated to some homemade dog biscuits that Ump had made. He is planning to take the rest to the Humane League.

One idea that came up when we were discussing the puppy, Noche and I mentioned that I would try to bring in a new picture - I suggested we should take a photo of River with Ump for him to keep and Terri suggested that a fact page about River might be a good plan as well. I was thinking about this as I drove to Philly today. How about a board game - like a lotto board, with photos of River alone, River with each of us, with Noche, etc. Matching cards, maybe with names on the back. I don't know if Ump's impairment precludes reading, but it would be useful for anyone else to have. I'm interested in hearing what the therapist thinks of this idea.