Miami's finest service dog trainers
After a few hours of no power in my office yesterday I decided that I would give my guys a surprise visit. I often times wonder if, even a year later, they are on their best behavior when they anticipate my visits, or if in fact what I see is who they are each day of the week. To a certain extent one has to know that they do put on their smiling faces and courteous attitudes when I walk into the room. After all, to most of them I am the only visitor they will ever get. As the year came and went, there have been only two inmates in my program who have received a visitor. To Frankenberry’s dismay, Hallie Barry never did visit.
As I was escorted through the compound by a friendly female officer I could see a few dogs and their trainers out in the recreation yard, a few walking along the compound sidewalks at a perfect heel and one playing fetch in the play yard. I smiled thinking about how they had no idea I was watching –and for a moment, it was so nostalgic watching them go about their day unsuspecting of my presence. I entered the dorm through the back laundry door, per the usual, and adverted my eyes like always whenever I hear the showers running. Knowing that there might be inmates showering or in the bathroom –completely exposed — I’ve learned not to be embarrassed because it is what it is. I just walk in, and look the other oppositive direction. Always look the opposite direction!
Rease, Lee and Frankenberry were all inside lounging on their beds reading a newspaper or book. This is where Frankenberry confesses that he subscribes to Oprah magazine and loves it. Their dogs quietly greeted me with a tail wag and those super soft brown eyes. The guys’ faces lit up when they realized it was me and not another guard. My arrival always spreads like wildfire, so within a few minutes everyone had been alerted through the inmate grapevine and was back inside the dorm to say hello. Frankenberry was in one of the most cheerful and silly moods I’ve seen him in in a long time, and Mellor was strangely happy too. I’ve gotten used to Mellor’s unsettling demeanor, as he rarely smiles unless it’s slyly. For the first thirty minutes of my visit we all stood near the back windows where a warm breeze reliably flows through. Even on the hottest days of summer you can find relief standing in this drafty spot as the only inmate occupied building that is A/C is the chapel. We talked and caught up –discussed new articles from the APDT’s Chronicle of the Dog that they received last week. About three weeks ago they started attending group therapy sessions with a professional psychologist — a conflict management course. They reported that class has been going great and that together they are working out a lot of “superficial bullshit.” Maybe the therapy sessions with Dr. Gonzalez are the reason Frankenberry and Mellor were unusually cheerful. Whatever the reason, I hope to see more of it. It breaks my heart to see them sad. About a month ago Keitz had to have a front tooth removed. With cosmetic dentistry completely out of the question he was far from his warm and charismatic self for several weeks. Every week I’d assure him that tooth or no tooth, he was still the same and that his dog Schooner didn’t think any less of him. Maybe Schooner finally had a heart to heart with Keitz because he’s finally back to being himself and isn’t avoiding smiling anymore.
After pow wow time was over I made myself available to help anyone with specific training needs. I was really excited to have inmates Dennison & Dunn ask me for help! I get a big kick out of being able to do live training of their dogs for them since I am usually very hands off. Part of being the fabulous training instructor I am (haha!) is knowing how critical it is to TEACH and not just show students how to train their dogs. Although I absolutely do take credit for the success of the program, I will never deny my inmate handlers the credit they deserve because THEY trained their dogs 99.9%! I rarely ever touch a dog for more than 60 seconds during a demonstration. I have a very ‘hand you back the leash’ attitude when it comes to teaching my inmates and my students in the free world. But yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I got to do some actual training myself with eager eyes watching. It was truly rewarding for me to prove to my inmates that I don’t just make this stuff up —and that I actually do train dogs! Rainier has been refusing to pick up his dish from the ground, so using the principles of shaping behavior we had him first touching, then nudging, then grabbing, then lifting, then bringing the bowl to us. Zest, on the other hand, would not pick up the bowl on cue! He would only pick up the bowl when he felt like it to play it with it. So, again, using shaping we made it worth his effort to do it on cue for us for some tasty pupperoni –compliments of the Doggie Deeva.
“Well I’ll be damned” Relosky said as both Rainier and Zest were picking up their bowls by the end of our session. “You make it look so easy,” he laughed. Experience my friends, experience!
I received a small round of applause, and lots of wagging tails. I left yesterday feeling fantastic. Like I made a difference. Was definitely the right choice to visit them instead of sitting in my office with no A/C. If I was going to be hot, I might as well not have to be bothered too.
Dee the Doggie Deeva 