Nurse Joy reporting for duty! 🏥 Anyone else dressing up their doggos today?

Hey guys! I made a little video edit of @Stepho Wilson and I’s day at Epcot yesterday with Atlas! I know it’s super quick, I tried to include info about most things we did while keeping it short! If you gave any questions after watching, I’m happy to answer! A few things I wanted to include but couldn’t because I didn’t have enough clips: 1) When loading onto rides, I go in first then have him come after me, I loaded him wrong on Living with the Land and he decided he didn’t want to move so his mom had 0 footspace 😂🙃 2) We use the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) for the boat ride in Mexico because it doesn’t have a huge step between the floor and the seat, so Atlas gets confused and wants to sit on the seat (which they don’t allow). So I just ask for the WAV to avoid this, and he sits in the flat part where a wheelchair would go. I also do this for Small World at Magic Kingdom. P.s. I’m finally putting my video editing skills from my journalism degree into practice 🤣

So James had a Dr. appt today and the lobby is big, open and has stairs. Great place for a first experience for all of us. She held a tuck for over 20 minutes! She even shifted hips and then got comfy under the chair, so relaxed! We did learn that we need to work on her backing out in public. When James was called Saffy and I practiced “snuggle” (sits between our legs) which is our modified seated “over”. She also did a few touches! Then we moved to the stairs. We worked on this and had many people distractions! Going down was great but had to work on going up one stair at a time. James got done and ran into us on the stairs and got some video. Great timing!! Then off we went to the grocery store for a quick run for our first time. James asked me to take Saffy since we were already in working mode and he would shop while Saffy and I managed the cart. She did amazing for her first visit. Was SUPER proud of her. We even saw another service dog and she did a beautiful leave it!

Riley is learning to leap over my leg, then go back under my leg and return to a seated position. This was unexpectedly challenging for me, because when Riley returned to her seated position she would go into a pretty sit and rest her front paws on my legs. It was so darn adorable and hard not to reward such cuteness. 😍 I need to make a tough decision… Should I have her end this trick wit her returning to the regular seated position or a pretty sit with her paws on my legs? 🤔 💕 The e-collars are used to Level-Up Amica’s & Riley’s Leave-It and Recall Skills that we work on in between playing, exercise, and learning a new skill. With Riley I didn’t use the e-correction after Leave-It, because she was in the midst of learning a new trick, and I think it’s important to keep it as positive as possible while laying a the foundation for a new trick. Did I do the right thing?

I have been working with Bruno the chocolate poodle today on adjusting to wearing a service vest! We did a couple session of just sniffing and a little bit of him putting his head through the vest. Then, he got comfortable enough that I could put it all the way on. He was able to walk around for a little bit with his vest on!