Performance Under Pressure

Sometimes–a lot of the time, actually–Cor does things better in public than at home. Example? Load up.

What is he supposed to do? Stay still while I take off the vest, harness, and leash. Jump into the van on the command words “load up”.

In public? Perfect, lovely, 9 out of 10 for holding the collar just in case.

At home? …and you’re sure you’ve trained him? Like, actively? Because he’s running into the neighbor’s yard to sniff their dog’s pee.

True story, as it happens.

Here’s another example. Under. Supposed to lay under my legs (or chair) calmly. This position allows him to remain close in case of a needed response, as well as keeping him out of the way of people walking by.

At home we managed maybe thirty minute segments where I’d have to lure him back under my legs several times. (We timed these using episodes of Duck Dynasty as well as using the sounds as a distraction.)

Overall, that’s not bad–if you think it is, I challenge you to try. Except the reason we train this is for going to the movies, eating at restaurants, going to a concert, or…

Going to church.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of many of those whose time allotment is less than half an hour.

Meaning, I was nervous about bringing him to church this Sunday.

Let me preface this.

Religious institutions are some of the few places that can legally refuse entrance to a service dog. My understanding as to the reasoning for this is [as I understand] Muslims and Jews consider dogs ‘unclean’ (again, this came from brief research in which I also found that an exception can be made for hunting dogs in Islam. It’d make sense that that would extend to service dogs, but I can also see that hunting dogs are for getting food and technically I could ‘get by’ without a service dog. And I’m not Muslim or Judaic, anyway, so it’s not like it has huge repercussions in my life. Long story short, I’m by no means a knowledgeable source on this; please don’t crucify me if something in this paragraph was off). Makes sense that they can refuse service dogs entrance, then, right? I’m not going to spit in the face of anyone’s faith by demanding my dog be allowed in.

Also, as I said, we’d managed a half-hour this week. Church is generally three times that–and includes loud music.

So, all told, I was a *bit* nervous.

We’d talked to our pastors about it, and they were fine with it but suggested we sit near the back in a less populated service–something we’d already been planning on anyway. Just in case something happened.

The pastors had okayed it, I’d worked with him, I had good, high-value treats (post on that coming later), and we were near the back door. We’d stacked the deck in our favor–now all that was left was to pray.🤞🙏

People, he did fantabulous! He was unsure about the loud music, but stayed where he was. Throughout the message he would shift positions, but the times I had to lure him back under were minimal–I ended up having extra treats (I had been really worried I wouldn’t have enough), and, for the most part, people either ignored him, didn’t know he was there, or were very nice about the entire situation! 🥳