Some of my Austin friends have a Great Dane pup. His name is Eli and he is 10 months old. We have been wanting to introduce Morey and Eli and today we finally did. It was a beautiful day-65 and sunny-and we weren't the only ones heading to the dog park.
No matter where we go, Morey gathers a large fan base. We are a good team; I attract attention on the court and he attracts it off the court. : )
This is where I found Morey after leaving him alone in the hotel room while I took a shower. I guess he has generalized his "bed privileges" to include couches as well. Luckily his fur matched the color of the fabric quite nicely!
From my posts, it may seem like rugby is all I am doing these days. At the moment that seems pretty accurate, but don't worry, I am still holding down my job and taking two classes. This is the busiest time of the rugby season and I am looking forward to a bit of a break from all the travel!Services dogs at rugby camps have a rough history. I have heard many stories of people bringing their dogs and letting them eat dropped food in the dorms, behaving aggressively to staff, and getting out of control in the airport. Some people with disabilities feel that if they have a disability, they can call their dog a service dog and get away with it (which unfortunately is often true). When I say I have a service dog I often get people who say “yeah, me too” even if their dog has no real training.
At the tournament, there were several dogs. A few were little pet dogs, but one was a black lab with a blue vest. I wasn’t familiar with the name of the program and it wasn’t clear if the dog was trained or in training. Either way, it was not a good example of a working dogs. The owner was letting kids walk it around the track, but the dog was really walking the kids. It was also dog reactive and when it saw Morey laying calmly on his bed, it barked and pulled toward him. I had to go help the girl distract the dog and pull it away. Morey acted like an angel, interested and alert, but not moving a muscle or reacting in any way. At one point when I was playing ball with Morey, the other dog pulled loose and went charging after Morey. I braced myself for the worst but when Morey saw the dog running after him he ran straight back to me. Morey reacted very neutrally and so nothing happened. They sniffed and although the other dog was stiff and barking, Morey just stood there. Someone else helped corral the other dog and we quickly left. You would think people with dog reactive dogs would keep a closer eye on them when other dogs are around! Since that’s not always the case, it just means that I need to be more proactive and always assume the worst in order to avoid the worst.
When I had initially inquired about bringing Morey to camp, I was discouraged because the past experiences had been negative. However, our team manager knew Morey and knew he would be fine so she gave me permission to bring him. And I have to say, Morey was the perfect service dog role model. He was unobtrusive, obedient, and generally just being his charming self. I have gotten comments asking why I would need a service dog, but when the guys saw what Morey can do they were very impressed and admitted that it would be nice to have a dog to do that for them. Several of the guys said they want to get dogs like Morey, but if they get dogs expecting Morey to be the standard, they have set their expectations pretty high! When we were leaving camp, several of the staff and team members told me that Morey has to come to every camp from now on. He really became a part of the team and was an excellent example of a service dog ambassador! Go Morey!
Morey is not a late night guy. At home he likes to head to bed around 9pm. Even though I let Morey take naps throughout the day while we were at camp, he was still far behind the amount of sleep he was used to. On Saturday night we were done playing and so we were having a late night party. At 1am Morey came over to me and just stared at me, usually a sign that he needs to go out. I took him out and five minutes later he was doing it again. He obviously was wanting something so I took him back to our room. He immediately ran over to the bed and curled up on it, as if to say “Finally! Now turn off the lights so I can get some sleep!” I obliged him and went back to the party while Morey went to sleep. Apparently he wasn’t interested in working overtime!
The gym at Lakeshore is huge. It has three basketball courts with a running track around all 3. There were always a lot of people in the gym, but somehow Morey could always tell where I was. I didn’t give him a lot of “stay” commands so the staff wouldn’t be having him break any commands I gave him when they would take him out or play ball with him while I was on the court. However, if someone tried to take him out or move him to a different location, Morey was hesitant to go unless he checked in with me first.
There is a fine line with this. Obviously it is important to have service dogs be able to go with other people in case their partner can’t take care of them. However, you also don’t want your dog to just wander off with anyone who calls their name. Morey seems to have found the perfect balance. He looks to me first, but is willing to go and behave for anyone else.
During our games, I left Morey over near our team area where we store all our equipment and everyday chairs while we are in our rugby chairs. Morey has his rug and a bowl of water and usually a tennis ball for comfort. He is great about staying there throughout our game. For one of our games though, Mike decided that Morey was lonely and needed to join him over on the bench. I guess as the mascot that is a fitting place for him (Morey). It was good to know that Mike was looking out for Morey as they sat together on the sideline, keeping everything in order.
