Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Morey traded his Longhorn collar for a dapper green collar. What do you think, should this collar stay for more than a day?

The day was beautiful and Morey spent part of it hanging out at our church while the humans worked on cleaning up the flowerbeds. Morey did an excellent job of supervising!

Shocking

If we have rugby practice on the weekends, I usually leave Morey at home. It gets a little cramped in the Mazda with Morey and all my rugby gear and I figure he would rather sleep at home on my bed than on the hard floor of the gym. When we practice in the evenings I usually come straight from work and then Morey is already with me.

I recently took Morey to a rugby practice and settled him as usual on his blanket bed. During a break when I came over to check on him, I realized he was shaking all over and had his ears pulled way back on his head. I held out my hand and called him over to me and he slunk to me. When he touched my hand, he got shocked and I realized why he was so scared.

The floor in that gym is rubber and it builds up static electricity so if you aren't careful you can get several good shocks during a practice. Poor Morey must have been getting shocked as he moved around and wasn't able to figure out how to avoid it. I moved his bed away from the metal strip of flooring he was laying next to and didn't touch him the rest of practice. Afterward I had to "jolly" him up and get him excited so he would approach me and the rest of my teammates. I was glad to see that he recovered quickly once he stopped getting shocked and soon was romping around like usual.

I will have to  figure out how to keep that from happening in future practice!

Lazy Boy

During Spring Break I was able to work a few days from home (nothing like sitting on the deck in the 75 degree weather while you work! : ). One morning I was sitting on the couch working and Morey was sleeping on my bed when the doorbell rang. It takes me a while to transfer from the couch to my wheelchair and get to the front door and after the doorbell rang the person knocked on the door. It was the Pest Control guy and so I opened the door and talked with him and signed the bill and he left. Through all of this, the doorbell ringing, a knock on the door, me opening the door, and the sound of a stranger talking to me, Morey didn't move or make any noise. Not a woof or a bark or getting up to come see what was happening. In fact, when I went in my room to check on him afterward, he sleepily stretched as if to say "Thanks for taking care of that, it disturbed my morning nap".

I appreciate the fact that Morey is quiet (our neighbor dogs who bark constantly make me even more thankful for a quiet dog!) and friendly, but I have to say, I wouldn't mind it if he would at least get up to check on things when something unusual happens. Then again, since I typically send him to his bed when the doorbell rings, maybe he figured he would just stay on the bed he was currently on and save himself some effort!

Into the Lion's Den

Last week I gave a presentation to UT's Police Department and naturally Morey came along as well. As soon as Morey got out of my car, he immediately started getting jumpy which is very unusual for him. I looked around, but couldn't see anything that might be distracting him, so I did a few basic commands to get him focused back on me. Once we got in the building, he alternated between pulling me and sniffing the floor; not being a very good example of a well-trained service dog. The officer who was escorting me said "I bet he smells our dogs" (meaning the two canines who work for the department). That made a lot of sense and with that in mind, I increased my reinforcement to Morey in order to keep him focused on me.

Before we went into the meeting room, the officer said, "Just let me make sure the dogs aren't in here". Given how jumpy Morey was by just their smell, this seemed like a good idea and I was relieved to find out that Morey was the only dog attending the meeting. Morey has met Spike before through the window of the patrol car and they have exchanged some friendly woofs. Apparently, though, the other dog on the force, Modgie, is not quite as sociable and we will try to keep our distance if our paths ever cross!

Lending a Paw

I was doing some studying in my room and had a notebook on my lap while needing to refer to a book. The book kept closing so I "borrowed" one of Morey's paws to help hold open the page I needed.

As you can tell, all that studying made him pretty tired!

Sunday Swim

After running over Morey and then forgetting him at a meeting, I realized that Morey was overdue for some TLC. (Ok, I also want to have something positive to post about before Morey's fans, or his Grandma, decide to repossess him!) Today was a beautiful sunny day in the 70s and so I decided to take Morey swimming on our way home from church. He was also needing a bath so I figured I would let him have some fun before "torturing" him with a bath.

For the first time at the dog park, we encountered a dog who wouldn't play nice. Morey had brought a tennis ball and I was throwing it in the water for him to retrieve. Then a boxer came over who would growl at dogs until the dropped the ball they had. The boxer would then grab it and run around, growling if any dog got too close. Several times the owner would take the ball back and throw it back in the water. Morey would jump in a swim to get it but as soon as he got back to the shore the boxer would be there waiting and growling. Morey, aka Mr. Nonconfrontational, just dropped the ball and then followed the boxer at a distance, hoping for a chance to get his ball back. I didn't like seeing my boy being bullied so Morey and I took his ball and decided to play ball somewhere else. Morey then had fun chasing his ball on land while he dried off. After getting his bath when he got home, he was ready for a nap!

Can you find Morey?

 

"You Forgot Your Dog"

I had what could be my most embarassing service dog partner moment at work last week. I had had a very long week at work and was exhausted. It was a cold drizzly day and I had a meeting to attend from 3-5pm in a building across the street. Although I often leave Morey in my office when I go to meetings, I decided to bring him with me so I could be lazy and let him help pull my chair, Once we got to the room, I settled Morey under the table as usual.

The meeting was very long and really didn't have much information that actually pertained to me or my work (I serve as the representative from our office; sometimes the information is relevant to us and sometimes it's not. That day it was not.). After 2 hours of talking and discussion that didn't require my participations, I was more than ready to go home. The meeting adjourned and I joined the line of people filing out the door. I was waiting in the line for the elevator when I realized that I had brought Morey to the meeting but had not left with him!

I rushed back into the room and as I opened the door I heard someone say in a perplexed voice "Um, she forgot her dog". The absurdity of the situation hit me and I started laughing as I said "Yep, I just forgot my dog. Guess he did too good of a job of being unnoticeable!" Morey was laying alertly and had obviously noticed my absence but remained in his down stay as he had been instructed to do at the start of the meeting. I sometimes do leave him in a room if I just need to run to the bathroom or step out for a moment so it wasn't entirely unusual from his perspective (or maybe I have just been telling myself this to make me feel less guilty!).

I called Morey to me and he came eagerly and then we went home together. When he wears his pulling harness I sometimes don't put a leash on him and just use the harness handle. However, I am now reconsidering this and think I may start tethering him to my chair; not to keep Morey from wandering off, but to keep me from wandering off without him!

All Work and No Play

The last few weeks have been busy for me (and Morey). Sometimes trying to juggle a full time job, part time grad school, and then rugby gets to be a little much. Thankfully we are done traveling on the weekends for rugby until Nationals in April, so hopefully that will give me a chance to catch up on life!

Last week Morey gave me a reminder that even when I'm busy rushing from one thing to the next, it's important to take time to play. We were stopping at the store on our way home from work and I couldn't reach my reusable bags that I keep in my car. I asked Morey to "get" and pointed in the general direction. Laying underneath the bags was the "flinger" that I use to launch Morey's tennis ball and so guess what item Morey retrieved for me? He was giving me a hint that rather than going shopping after a long day at work, he would have preferred to play ball. He had a good point and so after we got home I gave him a good ball session. After all, all work and no play makes for a sad service dog!