Minding Puppy

Yesterday we were asked by a friend to mind her puppy for the day who is also an assistance dog in training for Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland. Her name is Abbey, a 10 week old Labradoodle and the children were delighted to have the opportunity to look after her.

She has met Amber and Skye a couple of times before and is a very confident little thing.

It was very strange seeing Skye being the 'grown up' one and minding Abbey because we still think of her as the mad puppy compared to Amber.
We were due to go to a home educators meet up, working on a science project, so Skye and Abbey came too. We needed to stop off en route to get something for lunch and so took the dogs for a shopping experience, which was Abbey's first venture into a supermarket.

The staff probably thought the shop had been invaded but we had no mishaps and Abbey did very well under Anna's guidance.

We then went on to meet with our group and the dogs settled down on a bed while the guys did their work.

The guys had a lovely day and really enjoyed bringing the puppies along and playing with them with their friends.
Anna in particular loves being part of AADI and being involved in the training of these dogs. AADI's puppy trainer took Anna with her for the day the other week when she was meeting with a couple of other foster families and their assistance dogs so she got to meet other fosterers and see what goes on. She likes feeling that she is doing something real that has an impact on other people and feels strongly about the value and importance of assistance dogs. At home it is Anna who keeps us all on the right track making sure we get the training right and don't do anything which may negatively impact on Skye's future training. Anna hopes in the future to work in the field of assistance dogs and we admire how passionate she is about it and try to support what she is trying to do now. Our only issue is the number of dogs she would like to have in the house at one time...