An Airport Visit

Spending some time outside until Izzy was able to calm and follow commands.

Izzy is doing great. She is 10 months old! It is crazy how fast time is flying with her. She weighs 63 pounds! She had a wellness visit and is in great health except for a mild yeast infection in one of her ears. We started her on an ear med and she just lets me put it in with out any struggle!

She is just about to graduate from Dog 2 and has made great progress especially with attending to me when there are distractions. She has not been having quite as many play dates due to various reasons but has still been getting some in with her friend Juno and still has her adventure group at her daycare. My focus in the next few weeks will be loose leash walking. It is still our biggest challenge. She loves everyone and every dog she sees. She's doing much better about not trying to pull towards people/dogs on our walks and is walking with less pulling if there are no distractions.

I decided to start working with her more out in the community and took her to the Airport this weekend. That was my favorite place to take Emmi. With Emmi I could bypass TSA and go to the gates, but can't do that with Izzy yet. We could go in the lobby though. I had taken her as a young puppy so it wasn't totally unfamiliar to her, but we really hit a busy time. I considered skipping it but decided to take it slow and we would leave if it was too much. We sat outside for a while first. I wanted to give her time to take in all the sights and smells and she slowly calmed. Once she was listening to me and taking treats, we went in the lobby. It was really crazy inside, and I saw she was getting excited and not listening, so I took her to a quiet corner and we just watched everything. She settled and started attending to me and following commands again, so I took her for a short jaunt down to baggage claim and stopped again. I was happy with what we had accomplished and was planning on getting out the door when one of the U of O women's sports teams came from the gates. Several girls asked if they could pet Izzy. I really felt like Izzy could manage a bit more so I asked if they could help with her training and they were happy to. No pets until she was sitting calmly. Izzy ended up gettting lots of pets and kept all four on the floor. I have gotten good at reading her and also at making sure I can stop her if she did try to jump.

She's got a lot more work to do but I have no doubt she is going to be an amazing therapy dog. It seems like just yesterday I was excited and nervous about raising a puppy! Time flies with this girl!

Giving her time to take in the lobby.

We made it to baggage claim and she's focusing on me!

Getting some pets.

Izzy really liked this young man.

So much fun talking to this young woman. He dad has a therapy dog and goes to LAX with him.