Daisy Graduates

So pleased to hear today that Daisy has qualified as a Guide Dog and is now working in Maidstone, Kent, with a lady who has a child, a Corgi and a cat. So she's part of a family and is much appreciated and loved. That's just great. I'm sure she'll help her owner come to terms with her deteriorating eyesight with greater confidence, and she'll be a lot of fun to live with. Well done Daisy and lots of love to you.

Kristal, on the other hand, is going through the equivalent of her teens. Questioning commands...'do you really expect me to do that?' ... and throwing her weight around a bit.

This is her Winston Churchill impersonation. Actually, she's holding the rolled up instructions to a new household gadget. You can see by the look in her eye that she's not going to give them up easily. This is her 'what's in it for me?' expression.

However, she's maturing into a very good looking dog, now eight months old, and showing that she really 'has what it takes'.

Despite her strong will, when she's out on a training exercise she knows what's expected of her. She has a high energy level and will appreciate being kept on the go, therefore benefiting someone with a busy lifestyle. Her time-keeping is amazingly accurate. You can set your watch by her. She knows what happens when and lets you know about it. She also has a really good memory for routes she's walked previously and can sniff out Cafe Nero even when we're in an unfamiliar town.

In restaurants and cafes she's very well behaved and settles beneath the table for a snooze. She's quiet and unobtrusive, which is often more than can be said for some of the children we encounter. (However, this morning, she was so quiet and unobtrusive, snoozing beneath the table in a coffee shop, that I didn't notice she'd chewed right through her lead. There was I, standing up to leave, holding a lead with no dog on the end of it.)

In John Lewis she likes to preen in front of the big mirrors in the fashion department. In the Ladies Toilets, she's suitably coy and just sits quietly in a corner of the cubicle trying to avert her eyes while I struggle with multiple layers of winter clothing, a scarf that threatens to either choke me or dangle where it shouldn't, a shoulder bag looped around my neck, gloves that keep falling out of my pockets, a wonky hat that heads southward when I bend over, and several carrier bags of shopping. When I emerge, red faced and puffed, she is the one who is calm and collected.

I have high hopes for her.