A double-shift for Hope and an update on Nick

Hope had a busy day yesterday...she had to pull a double shift! A real "work" day for a dog who is used to living the pampered life as a pet dog now. Every Tuesday evening in October, we will be going to the "Tales to Tails" reading program at the Roseville Library. We began this program earlier this year and both of us have really enjoyed it. She spends most of the hour on her back getting a belly rub from the child that is reading a book to her. ;-)

Since I had to bathe her for the library anyways, I figured I might as well take her to Sutter Hospital for her therapy visit...must not let a good bath go to waste! So that was her double-shift: hospital in the morning, library in the evening. Plus she got to come to work with me and Nick. Here's a picture of the two of them on a bed in my cubicle.

Hope continues to amaze me on our hospital visits. A young girl who we often see was very interactive with her even to the point that she was nodding her head answering the questions I asked of her (something she hasn't really done before). After getting permission from the nurse to see if she could do a "lap" on her, I had Hope jump on a chair next to her wheelchair that the girl was in, then had her do a "lap" command from the chair as her wheelchair was so high. She totally reached for Hope, something she has been doing more and more each time we visit. Hope moved her head towards the girls hand, she just knew what to do so that she could easily reach her to pet her herself! The smile on the girl's face was just precious. All the while, Hope's tail was wagging back and forth.

Nick went to stay with our CCI contract trainer for the day at her house so he could get some exposure to little kids since he doesn't have that with either me or our co-raisers. What a good boy, word from our trainer was that he behaved himself and was good around her kids.

And speaking of Nick, he is going on 7 months old, is over 50lbs, and taller than Hope! Poor Hope, she is just always going to be a shrimp! He has been so well behaved at work that I don't even tether him at my desk, he just stays put, even when I leave my cube. From Day 1, he has stayed underneath my desk on his bed where he couldn't see much, but the past couple of weeks, I moved his bed out from underneath my desk to just inside the entrance to my cube to get him used to more distractions. He has adjusted really well even with all the people that walk by all day long. Today, a guy came by with a huge cart down our aisle to empty our recycle bins and rolled the cart right next to his head, didn't even phase him one bit, he barely opened his eyes.

I've been trying to do a better job of getting him out in public places as I realized I was getting lazy and not taking him to many places. So in the past week we've been to the dog park (outside of it), Petco, Orchard Supply, The Fountains Shopping Center, Home Depot Expo, REI (of course, my favorite store!), Galleria Mall. Last Sunday we went to a Broadway Series show in Sac with another friend and her CCI pup. I'm trying to cram it all in before he goes back to our co-raisers in a few days!