Laveau puts on a show, and other randomness

Sometimes school children take field trips to my place of employment. They learn about assistive technology, modified ways of completing necessary activities of daily living, canes, and of course assistance dogs. We had one such tour today. I was right in the middle of my speech about what a guide dog does, (I've affectionately named this the dog and pony show), when the fire alarm went off... again!

And Laveau flew into action, got me out of there, down the hall, out of the building, down the sidewalk, and across the road. We were the first ones out of the building. I felt bad that I couldn't explain what was going on to the kids, but when she alerts, I go.

It was a perfect "Animal Planet" alert and response! I mean picture perfect. I was so proud of her.

They are adding on to the building where I work, so lately there have been many fire alarms as they install, and test the alarm system for the new part of the building. I'm glad Laveau is responding so well, but honestly I'm ready for these alarms to stop ringing because it is extremely disruptive.

laveau has also made progress on her working retrieve. She will now put her teeth on the dumbbell for about 1/2 a second. She is about 80% about putting her teeth on the dumbbell without nosing, but I don't want to start adding duration to the "hold" until I get teeth grabbing 100% of the time.

Yesterday I went shopping for a new bait-bag and for treats. It took me three hours to find everything I needed. Laveau has a soft trachea and can only eat soft treats when doing rapid-fire clicker training, or when working. She also takes too long to chew hard treats. I think she's the first Doberman on record who actually chews things before eating them. With the option of hard treats out of the picture, I needed to look only for soft treats. Only my dogs are raw fed, and do not eat cereal grains. Laveau won't eat treats unless they smell meaty. See why that took me so long?! I'm excitedly waiting for my package from
<"Clean Run">
to arrive via UPS.
Shopping at this store always makes me long to build Agility courses in my backyard. I first need a large enough backyard for obstacles!