Freaky Fraxie Friday!

Lisa Vaught
May 15, 2015
3 min read

You want me to stay camp 2011_edited.jpg

* This picture is of Frax showing me how well he stays down. Training class November 2011*

Hello!

It's Friday, and the weather looks...gooooood! Here's hoping we all have a wonderful time this weekend with our families and dog companions! I know it will be difficult not to have a good time when Frax is around! Check out that picture today! Now, I ask you...is he a nut, or what! lol!

We went for a routine MD appointment recently and the doc just stepped over Frax splayed across the entire width of the exam room (he'd had breakfast a bit before and was into his scheduled morning nap after the exhaustion and excitement of breakfast!). I said to Frax, "You know, Frax you could move, so the doctor can actually walk in the room you know! Immediately Frax got up, moved off to the side of the room, and settled down there. The look on the MD's face was priceless. "He understood you!" he exclaimed. "Yup" I replied with a grin. I didn't have the heart to let him know 'move' is a cue word for Frax. LOL

It is true that once a service dog team has been together awhile the canine part of the team is able to figure out often before we speak a command what we want. They are masters of watching our movements, a shift in position, raised eyebrow, a certain look that their person gets, and they nine times out of ten understand way before you give a command what you want.

The other thing that we've touched on in the blog is how psychic canines are. They are. In the class that Frax and I teamed up at, there were other folks who had come to recieve their sucessor dogs just as I had. None of us had been without an assistant for more than a short time, so we didn't have to go through a second week of training as we had when we recieved our first service dog.

After we had been teamed up, we would have our short sessions of working with our new partner in between lecture with updates on training, health and other interesting things we needed to know. One of our first commands was 'down'. It's one of the harder ones, because the dog is acceding that you are in charge, not their handler. They know the command down cold. They don't know you from beans! When the majority of the dogs looked at us like we were crazy, Jennifer said "Ok, don't move, don't say the command again...what I want you to do is form a picture in your head of your dog lying down in front of you...stare at your dog and think the picture. That's it, OK?" There were some doubtful looks but ten recipients looked at their dogs, said not a word and did what Jennifer asked. Every dog was intently staring back at their new 'person'. Every dog lay down just as pleasantly as you please after a short interlude of about one to three minutes.

So. Now if you hadn't already suspected your dog was psychic. You know. And you know that your dog hears the running commentary in your head if you two are truely bonded. Service teams are. This is how packs of wild dogs communicate as well as vocalizations and certaing movements as cues. Try it. You'll be surprised. Your bond will get stronger with your dog as well. I sorta kinda knew this was what was up with Jet, but didn't have the time to fully test it out. Now that I have had the time with Frax, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is another layer of communication our dog helpers have to use if their person is open to trying it!