Dakota's Tails: Off to a Great Start!

When we puppy raisers turn in our well-trained (we hope!) dogs at the end of our time with them, there's a pretty normal phenomenon that they seem to go through to one degree or another...we call it "regression." The dog can seem to go backwards in his training, as if he's "forgotten" what he had earlier done so well. As I understand it, a lot of this is due to the stresses of the transition, and the dog being a situational learner just takes a while to get back up to speed. So, to be honest, although I was confident that Dakota "knew his stuff" I didn't really expect to see much out of him for a bit...it seemed only realistic that he'd take a while to transition to his new handler & new surroundings.

Now you know why you could've knocked me over with a feather when I got a call from Michelle early yesterday afternoon saying that within 20 minutes of being handed over to Ben, his new owner (yeah! I got permission to tell you his name!), Duckie accurately alerted him to high blood glucose levels. GO, DUCKIE!!! :-) I was literally choking back the tears (of joy!) in Wal-Mart (which is where I was when I got her call)...I'm sure everyone thought I was a bit odd but hey, I'm sort of used to that by now! I thought I couldn't be happier until...

...later in the afternoon, I got the email that...Dakota did it again!

...AND...a note later on that he'd done it again! Can you say WOW?!

Now, I know that as a team they've got a lot of work to do, and I'm sure Dakota still has much to learn. But you really can't ask for a better start than that.

Michelle & Ben's Dad have sent me a few photos & said they were OK to post so...meet Ben!

What a great team, don't you think? Yeah, I think they were pretty much made for each other. Duckie needed his very own person to look after. He's going to get to go to school with Ben & everything. Way cool! Here they are getting ready to go on their first walk...