the average blog by an average blogger

Great Concert

2012-02-23T01:21:00.006Z

Tonight was the
Country and western concert
I mentioned in my last entry.

My friend and her mum picked me up at about half 6. When we arrived, we thought it would be too loud as the band were rehearsing. I wasn't really looking forward to it if it was going to be so loud that we couldn't hear. I know that yes it is a concert, but if it is so loud you can feel it in your chest almost, it's not so good. So me and my friend sat at the back just in case it would have been too loud. Plus we were near the bar lol. My friend got herself a guinnis and i had a west coast cooler.

We waited for about half an hour as the concert didn't start until 8 o'clock.

The man who organises these concerts all the time for different charities stood up first and welcomed everyone. He is also blind. Next our branch organiser said a few words about Guide dogs. She was very nervous but it sounded great and she didn't have anything to be nervous about in my oppinion.

A band called the Steve Farlo Duo were first to perform. They were okay but tended to be too close to the microphone.

Next a young lady called Zolene sang a few songs. She is only 18 and is from Larne. Here is
One of her songs
She sung last night. (I was going to buy her CD but she has never sung in front of a live band so hasn't got one).

Next was a guy called Jamie Johnston. He was good too.

Next was another girl from Larne called Donna Duffin. She was good too and had alot of audience participation going.

It was a guy called Billy Joyce next. He came all the way from Dublin. Him and the branch organiser used to have a thing going on about 30 years ago, but i don't think it has ever died. Anyway he dedicated some of his songs to her which i thought was nice. He allowed us to copy his CDS and all the money from his CD would go to guide dogs too.

Finally a guy called
Boxcar Brian
Sang. Again alot of audience participation.

By this time it was about 11 o'clock, but we still had the raffle to do. The compere we had was great and whizzed through all the tickets. We didn't get home until about half 11!

Some of the branch had made sandwiches and buns for the artists to enjoy before they went on. So they were all busy in the kitchen.

We raised a massive £2237! Well done to everyone involved and it was a great success! I wasn't expecting it to be good for some reason but i'm glad i went!

The branch organiser has now suggested that we have another concert in October for Guide dog week and one every year after that!

Ushi chilled at home and slept while i was away. She didn't even get up when i got home!

I'm glad it was such a good night though!

Country Concert For Guide dogs

2012-02-21T23:43:00.002Z

I just thought i'd let you all know about a country and western concert the Ballymena and Antrim branch of guide dogs are holding. It starts at 8 PM and there will be a raffle too. One of our local papers,
Has published a piece
About it listing all the artists who will be performing.

I'm not taking ushi because there would be nowhere for her to go if she didn't like the music. If there was maybe a room off to the side or something i would have braught her and we could have sat there, but she can have a night at home instead.

I know alot of you probably won't be able to come, but i thought i'd mention it anyway. It's always a bit of craic anyway. I'm not really looking forward to it but i should be alright when we get there.

Maybe i'll see some of you there!

Happy Birthday Ushi

2012-02-20T00:24:00.002Z

Today three years ago little Ushi entered the world. I don't know who her brothers and sisters are but happy birthday to them too.

I don't think i wrote a post last year for her 2nd birthday. Bad me!

In the past while i've noticed a huge change in her. She listens to me almost instantly now, she sometimes doesn't need to be called back on free runs and will just come up to me randomly and expect a treat. (We give a treat when they come back to keep them coming back if you know what i mean. This is something small).

She barely needs correcting now when we are out.

She mostly comes up from her busies without me having to go get her.

She hasn't got the urge to dig thankfully but that could start in the spring. She always dug down though and not out thankfully.

When she is being groomed she no longer wanders around lots after i have got her to stand up so i can groom her other side. I would love to be able to just roll her over but i am scared of hurting her so she stands up.

She has become quite the affectionate girl and will come for a random pet, or lick you, slap a paw on you so you will scratch her armpits, or put all her weight into her head and put it on you.

She is a great little traveller in cars, and has always been.

She has a great time with all our talks and loves getting compliments. Our branch organiser jokes that she adores the two CS:carpets and compliments.

She can still be a madam when it comes to rain and if she is bored she will walk very slowly. I still have major problems getting her to go into a down on the long lead, but she will do it eventually. She does it perfectly when we are out though which i don't really understand, but hey.

She has been quite healthy through her life. The only times she had needed to go to the vets are for her check ups, once when she had a scratch above her eye, and when she was attacked last year. I think that is pritty good going!

She still needs me to be quite firm at times when she decides that she doesn't want to go somewhere on a route and wants to go another way. If she does sniff i have to give her a check on her collar but it's only the once and she gets back on track. She used to be really terrible and i would have to give her a couple of corrections to get her going.

Sometimes she will try and take the easy way out and will try and do an off kerb obsticle when there is plenty of room for her to get around it.

She still loves her bed and would spend most of her time there if i let her. She won't work unless she has had a sleep after a walk.

I love having her and find she is not just a great guide but a good companion too.

Happy birthday little Sushi Ushi pups. I hope the next year is as good as the last one and that we discover new and interesting places to go. I don't know what waits round the next corner for us but i hope it is something good.

I'm not planning anything special, just our usual walks and there is a frozen kong with some of her dinner from tonight in it. It really is a push to get her to work for her food and this is the only food toy i have since she hates working for food. She spends alot of time whining at her kong, but she does eventually get the pieces out.

I'm meeting up with my friend P today and was going to take her for a run but i think it is meant to be wet which is a shame.

I can't wait to see what the next year brings for us! Happy birthday again, and sorry this is so rambly.

Third place!

2012-02-17T19:16:00.004Z

It's me Ushi just letting you know that i won third place in the
Mango minster 2012 compitition
For my
Antix
In the "bad sports" categry of the compitition.
Hound dog mom
Has very kindly donated my prize which is a goodey bag of stuff. She even emailed mum to ask what i could and could not have. Mum emailed back and just said i couldn't have balls or food related toys since i don't like working for food. I can't wait to see what i will get!

Thank you so much again for those that voted, and you had to actually comment on the entry with all the other people rather than the individual entries to vote. Oops! I missunderstood that one.

To see who else won,
Go here

Thank you again!

Be Very Very Careful

2012-02-16T23:12:00.002Z

Today my dad was telling me about a very scarey thing that is going around.

My dad has had his computer for about 6 years. He was away yesterday so had it off all day. When he turned it on last night he said that a dialog came up and said something like "Your computer is critical. You have no ram and your computer is running at 20 % less speed" or something. He clicked to see if he could fix it and it said he would have to pay to fix it. He also said that anything on his C drive wasn't there and he couldn't see anything.

He thought his computer was on its last legs so turned it off and hoovered out the fan as he thought it was over heating. (He has a desk top and takes excellent care of it). When he turned it on again still the same thing happened with an error. He typed in the error code and found
This website
Which has been set up because of this.

What had happened was malware. AVG or Spy bott programs hadn't detected this. The malware had created fake logs in Windows and the only difference was that they were different coloured. It even mimicked the Windows symbol. The author of the above website said that to prevent this happening there were a couple of programs you had to download off the site. I always find that suspicious but apparently they are legit. Apparently this particular malware hides in the opporating systim.

Dad was seconds away from buying a new computer. He is not particularly technical but even he knew something wasn't right. His computer is working fine now but his colour scheme has been changed.

This is very sneaky. If someone isn't all that technical or is knew to computers this could be very very bad. People could be seriously taken advantage of.

The website i mentioned takes the details of what it is when you download the programs and i think they are reporting it to whoever it is they report these things to.

Just be very careful. This is very scarey. I would recommend people downloading these programs or at least saving the site in their favourites should they need them. Please be careful!

I just thought i'd put this up here. I didn't think they would be allowed to be so sneaky with this. I think alot of people could be taken advantage of. Let's hope nobody spends money on something they don't need!

Mango Minster Voting

2012-02-14T09:30:00.004Z

Just a quick one before i go and do my quilting.

Voting for the Mango minster 2012 Bad sports categry is now open. I even got a nice email from Mango saying that voting would open today and she asked if i could leave comments and all. She emailed because she had put the voting details in a picture and didn't think i could read them. How thoughtful! I really appreciated it.

So voting closes at 5 PM eastern time but i'm not sure what time that will be here in the UK. If you wouldn't mind, go vote for
Ushi's Entry
I think you vote by leaving a comment. Let me just say that i entered this compitition for fun so i'm not really in it to win. If i do that would be nice though.

You can see the other bad entries
Here

Good luck and happy voting!

An Ode To Jane

2012-02-14T00:29:00.002Z

I've decided that today will probably be the last day of my
Quilting course
Mainly because i don't have anything else i need the woman to teach me and because the
Bed covers
Can be done at home. So i thought i'd write how much i appreciate her since i'd get all emotional if i said it directly. I've baught her a little candle to show my appreciation for her too. I don't normally use names, but i'll probably only mention her name once. Here goes:

Dear Jane

Thank you so much for teaching me over this last year. First of all thank you for willing to let me try the quilting even though i am blind. Other sewing shops thought it would be too complicated but you said why not give it a go. I think you were a little nervous about teaching a blind person how to sew but you didn't show it.

I liked how you improvised and braught a roll of masking tape along to help me stitch along. You were really thinking and it wasn't to look good.

When I said that straight lines were boring you went with the flow and let me follow my stitches.

You let me experiment and didn't criticise me. You let me prick my finger without rushing to get a plaster or to not allow me to sew because i pricked my finger.

You totally understood when i said that i would get a bag to carry my sewing stuff in since it would be hard to work a dog and carry a bag in my hand.

When i kept knotting the thread, you kept untangling it for me and didn't care how much thread i wasted. You even got me thread that i could feel as the normal thread was too thin. Was it egyptian cotton i wonder that i use? I'm not sure. You even gave me wool to see if that worked.

You braught different needles until we found the right one for me to work with.

You let me sew little beeds then moving onto bigger ones. You didn't mind that i liked the smaller ones!

When you explained how to tie a knot in the end of my thread you were incredibly patient until i got it.

When i couldn't thread my needle you went and got me a packet of needle threaders. I couldn't sew without them now! When the needle threaders broke you didn't care and kept letting me work.

You described colours to me and weren't afraid to use normal words like look and see.

You were patient when i took ages to stitch something.

If there were roadworks, or it was too windy or if it was snowing, you came and got me and didn't mind having Ushi in your car.

You didn't have a dog but you were and are extremely kind to Ushi scratching her ears and just loving her company. You didn't mind if you went home covered in dog hair or got licked a million times.

When Ushi was attacked you checked her over thoroughly and even offered to drive me home if i needed it going home.

If there were obsticles you always acompanied me and Ushi until Ushi was able to get past them.

You didn't mind at the very start how unsettled Ushi was.

If i slept in, you didn't mind at all and always told me to "chill". (I was panicking!).

You always had something to tell me whether about your family or stitching.

When you were explaining a stitch you always let me find my own way of doing it.

If we did a stitch wrong, we just took it out and started off again.

You even baught three cheap pairs of jeans from a charity shop for me to make ushi's bed cover. You didn't think it was silly or anything when i came to you with the idea.

You were always taking an interest in what i was doing and how i was getting on.

You even took me to an exhibition because you had heard it was for blind people and wondered why it hadn't been more advertised.

You are even going to a concert next week with me but i'll write more on that later this week.

When you guided me you were a total pro at it and it had been like you had done it for years.

You understood right from the start that Ushi couldn't have any human food.

You always explained things in detail.

When you saw me outside of our time together you talked to me.

You are an amazing woman and i thank you so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much for letting me try to quilt and succeeding. I really hope you don't think it is anything personal as to why i am leaving, and hopefully we can stay in contact.

Take care and thank you again.

Yours,

A very contented woman and guide dog.

I know that was longer than i had planned but who cares.

In other news

My sister is going to be going to belfast on her own and is staying at my Uncles house. It is going to be very strange not having her around because i am normally the social butterfly. I hope i don't get emotional or anything when she comes back though. She'll only be gone for a day. I'm glad she is getting the confidence to be more social but i will deffinetly miss her company especially as we share a room. I'm sure it had to happen sometime though and if i can be a social butterfly why can't she? I hope she enjoys herself, and i hope i find something to occupy my time. Everyone else will still be there in the house though. I'll just notice it more since i spend alot of my time up here in my bedroom with her.

I'm off to bed now but just thought i'd write that beforehand.

To Sit Or Not To Sit...

2012-02-12T21:00:00.005Z

I got an email the other day asking me if i would like to be an associate member of the
Angel eyes Northern Ireland
Committee. I did a
Sponsored walk
For them back in August, and it was great fun. I didn't think i'd hear anything more as everything was in Belfast that they were organising.

The chair person emailed me the other day asking if i would like to sit on the committee. It is made up of parents of visually impaired children. They decide on policies, fundraise and organise events. She said that she basically wants me on the committee to share my oppion as a young person and that it might help parents to know that i am a young independent blind person. She said that it would be until next January when people are re elected. There are three committees, a fundraising committee, an education committee and the main committee i think. They only meet three or four times a year.

I'm still on the fence really. On the one hand it would be good experience but on the other would i be in over my head? Would i get something out of it? I have said to the woman that i will give it a go and if i don't like it then there is nothing lost. She hasn't replied to this yet so i'm hoping it will be okay.

What do you all think? Would it be a good idea?

I just thought that i should put this up there. I really do hope that it is okay if i decide i don't like it, but i guess i'm only going to know if i like it if i go to a meeting.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Do you want to be kept up to date with the developments re United English Braille Code (UEB)?

2012-02-11T19:21:00.006Z

I got sent this email yesterday. I have removed the names of the person it was from and was being sent to but thought i'd put it up here. I'll give my comments in a minute but i'll post the email first.

From:
Sent:
Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:33:15 -0000
Subject:
Do you want to be kept up to date with the developments re United English Braille Code (UEB)?
Dear ***

This News item is being circulated for your information. If you are interested in being kept up to date, please reply to Alan Thorpe direct at: Braille@eyecan.org.uk

At the end of last year, UKAAF (the UK Association for Accessible Formats) voted to adopt the Unified English Braille code (UEB) for the United Kingdom.
The changes are not dramatic and it is hoped that the new code will make braille easier to learn, easier to convert into print, and easier to share with
other English Speaking Countries amongst other things. If you would like to find out more about the adoption of UEB then please visit the Frequently Asked
Questions section on the UKAAF website:
http://www.ukaaf.org/formats-and-guidance/177

If you would like to see the differences between the current braille code and UEB these are also on the UKAAF website:
http://www.ukaaf.org/formats-and-guidance/176

Although UEB has been adopted in the UK, implementation is still some way off. UKAAF has identified 2012 as a planning year when organisations will be
looking at:
A) Updating teaching and reading materials
B) UEB translation packages
C) Updating coding books
D) Exams
E) Training for teachers
F) Method of implementation

Also high on the list of issues identified by the UKAAF braille teachers group was that of effective communication with Braille teachers during the process.
We would therefore like to invite teachers who want to be kept up to date on the developments relating to UEB implementation to reply to this email. Please
send us your name, email address and job role.

The UKAAF braille teachers group will be compiling an email list and will then provide periodic updates on progress. So if you are able to respond with
your place of work, its location such as county, job role , who you teach such as children/adults, how many learners and any other information you think
we would find useful please reply to Alan Thorpe at Braille@eyecan.org.uk

-- END OF MAIL --

From what i can understand,
UEB

Is so that each english speaking country has only one code to go by. This is to make it cheaper to reproduce or something.

It has caused alot of outcry and a couple of years ago there was a consultation released about it but they obviously ignored this. I think there is nothing wrong with the systim we use now and it has been this way for hundreds of years. Yes we don't use things like capitals, but if you are in a class with sighted peers you are going to pick up on when to use a capital letter etc.

In fact when i was using my Livejournal blog, I thought it would put the capitals in for me and when i asked for it to be reviewed, i discovered there was no capitals at all and got a very rude response about not including capitals. Up until then i had no idea that my entries weren't in capitals and went back and corrected each entry. I always make sure that all capitals are in the right place now.

A couple of weeks ago,
Radio 4's Intouch program
Covered the topic. I think it should still be available
Here,
But you can only read the factsheet from that date.

I sent off this email to the person who will be compiling the list of people to send updates to, and although the orriginal email is for teachers, it's not teachers who will be using the new systim if it changes.

Dear Alan

I received an email from someone yesterday regarding being kept up to date with the developments of Unified english braille. I know this is mainly for teachers but i am a braille user myself and think it would be extremely useful to have this information.

I am strongly against this new systim and hope it won't be implimented.

Regards,

Torie

I don't even think there is a petition available for us to sign.

Do any of you feel the same way about braille? Maybe it's just me but why change something basically to appeal more to the sighted? I have written before about how
I got told
That i was using the wrong sign for a decimal point back when i was doing my GCSES at school which it turned out i wasn't entered for anyway. I also remember one day i read a square route sign wrong and was made to lay out what a braille sell looked like and the sighted transcriber was braught down too. Would you humiliate someone like that if they read a print letter wrong?

So as you can probably guess, i am not a fan of having things done for the sighted transcriber when it comes to braille.

I really hope this new system doesn't come into effect and hopefully there is a petition or something braille users can sign if they disagree with the changes.

Anyway i'm off for now. I'll let you know if i get any updates on the matter.

Two Great Talks

2012-02-09T20:40:00.007Z

Today I took part in two talks for guide dogs. The first was at the Ballymena Baptist Church and the other was in Colleraine.

The Ballymena Baptist Church

I knew about this talk for quite a while but to be honest i was quite nervous about it. It was for the over 50s and i was expecting lots of
Fat comments
But thankfully all the comments were nice. I was so relieved.

So the branch organiser picked me up at about half 10. I let Ushi walk out to the car without her lead because the car was parked on my driveway.

We arrived at the church shortly after and were met by a lovely woman who showed us where the main meeting room was. From what i could gather it seemed like a big church. The woman explained that the club didn't know what would happen each week so that they couldn't pick and choose what they went to. They didn't even know what hymn they would sing until the words came up on a projector. I think they wanted us to stand when we talked but the branch organiser said that we would prefer to sit as it would be easier than trying to find my way over leads and stuff.

The members started to arrive soon after we got settled. There sounded to be quite alot of people coming in so i was feeling a little nervous. There was nothing we could do about it though.

We were first introduced once everyone had arrived, then they all sang a him. The pastor then came and said a few words before the branch organiser talked.

She talked about all the facts and figures then handed it over to me.

I started to talk but alot of them couldn't hear me so they said i would have to use the Microphone. I wasn't too keen on that but just talked anyway. I just talked about my experiences of being a guide dog owner. I talked abou the training and how it is me that tells the dog when to cross the road etc.

The branch organiser talked for another little bit then we answered some questions.

The pastor then got up to read a few passages from the bible and then explained the meaning of it. He then said that Ushi kept looking at him and it panicked him a bit lol. I said that the most he would get would be a lick but he said he didn't believe me. He appologised but i told him it was grand. He then sang another hymn before finishing with a prayer.

The lady who had invited us then handed me and the branch organiser a little gift bag each as well as a cheque for £35 for guide dogs. I thought it was a lovely gesture. (Any talks we do are just talks and we don't expect any donations or gifts).

Ushi got really excited as there was a bone in the gift bag for her. I got chocolates and a card.

As soon as we got home and i opened the plastic she ran around before collapsing with it and whining. She wouldn't come down when my rehab worker showed up lol because she wanted her bone. She treats it like a bone i think because it is shaped like a bone so isn't so strange to her.

It was a great morning! I'm glad i had no bad comments!

The Macular Disease Society

My rehab worker phoned me yesterday afternoon to ask if i would like to come to the Macular disease society in Colleraine for a talk. He wanted to get an older person but there weren't any guide dog owners available. So he asked if i wanted to do it so i said yes.

He picked me up at about half 12. Ushi didn't want to come down because she wanted to play with her bone she got from the earlier talk.

There was a woman in the car who is the "community engagement officer" for guide dogs in Northern Ireland. She will be taking over the talks to potential applicants and will be involved more in the community. She wanted to observe how a talk would be done.

When we got to Colleraine we got some lunch first before heading into the RNIB building where the talk was being held. Unfortunately when we got out of the car i hadn't got her harness on as we were in the middle of the road just by the way the car was parked. Ushi pulled a little but whatever way she pulled she must have pulled a muscle in my arm. So i put her harness on as soon as we were off the road and she was okay then. I used to put her halty on getting out of the car but i just carry it now as i don't think i need it.

There were about 10 people we were talking too altogether. We talked about
The myths of guide dog ownership
Which is usually the way these talks go with my rehab worker to potential applicants for guide dogs.

We were presented with a box of chocolates each and Ushi got a packet of what seems like dried chicken. I think this should be okay as she won't get it too often and it doesn't have any bones since it is dried. I think because it is for dogs she shouldn't think it is human food. I hope anyway! I also heard that they were going to make a donation to us!

I would like to thank both groups for their kindness and i hope they found it useful having us there.

Our last stop of the day was for the engagement officer to visit one of the social care trusts to mee the rehab workers there and just to say hello since some of the referrals come from social services to guide dogs.

So it was a busy but enjoyable day. Thanks you again to the two groups.

Bed Cover Business

2012-02-06T18:05:00.007Z

I'm not sure if i told you, but in my
Quilting course
I do every Monday morning at a local coffee shop, I decided to make a bed cover for Ushi's bed. Ushi's bed is from a company called Pets Incorporated. It is like a big massive pillow. It is much wider though. It comes with one cover but you can only wash it but i think if you the actual bed part it was fall apart. When we had her bed cover off her bed Ushi put her claws through part of the bed so i thought i'd make her another one so she could have one spare.

Me and the quilting woman decided we would make a bed out of dennum jeans. We baught about three pairs of jeans both mens and womens out of a charity shop. We then cut them up into squares as the woman said this would probably be easier to do rather than a big bit to work with. We measured Ushi's orriginal bed cover first. It was 27 inches long by 38 wide. (I actually thought it was metres or centimetres but that would have been too small).

I first of all started stitching squares together using
A technique called Quick stitching
Which is basically where you put the needle up one side and down again from the top. So you would put it underneath then bring it up and put it down again. That took too long though so we moved on to a stitch called a
Running stitch
Which is where you put the needle in one side but instead of going up and down you push it a little and kind of bunch up the fabric until the point of the needle comes out again. Then just pull it through. They need to be small though. That was okay for stitching the squares together but we decided to do a Jab stitch (can't get a link for that one) to stitch the two sides together. This is basically where you hold the two sides together but making sure it is the sides with the stitching so that when you put it on it will be on the inside. A jab stitch is where you put the needle in pull it out the other side and loop the thread once over to the other side. So you go in one side and out the other with a loop before you go out the other side. It sounds more complicated than it really is.

I am then going to use those little popper things that you get on duvet covers to actually keep it on Ushi's bed.

I will post a photo of it when it is finished.

I have quite enjoyed making this bed cover and was thinking that i could do more for other dog owners. I talked to my dad about possibly doing this and he said that would be good. I looked up on Google to see what i would need to start an online business and it said that i would need to create a business plan and all. That sort of scared me.

I said on twitter but was kind of thinking it was a silly idea and that nobody would buy them. But then i got a tweet from
L^2
And we had a good chat about it. She said that i should basically go for it. She said that you wouldn't need a business plan and i could just set up a shop on something called
Etsy
Which is an online shop. Once i had a couple of covers done i could post photos of them and start listing them. Etsy said that they charged 20 cents (not sure what that would be in Pounds) to list something for 4 months and 3.5 % when someone busy but again i'm not sure how much that would be. You can use a credit card or Paypal which would probably be my prefered option since i can link that to my bank account.

So that deffinetly sounds like a good option.

I'll let you all know when or if i decide to persue this venture. I would deffinetly like to though! Thanks again L^2 for giving me a spur on.

Pet Blood Bank UK

2012-02-01T23:52:00.003Z

I was reading the
Sponsor a puppy
Blog from guide dogs, and they write about other things guide dog related too. I came across a very interesting charity they had written about called
Pet blood bank UK
Which is basically like a blood donation service for dogs. It would be quite useful and i'd say it would be okay for a guide dog to enter, but i would always check with your particular organisation if this is okay to do.

The website even has a "blood bank locator" where you can type in your postcode and then you can see which clinics do it. I don't think that Northern Ireland does it since when i typed in my postcode Glasgo was the farthest away :(. There is even a section on
What happens at a session
And where your blood goes. I really would love to take blood from Ushi but our vets don't seem to do it.

I think this is a great idea! If you can have human blood banks why not have one for dogs?

You can also follow Pet blood bank UK on Twitter, facebook and Youtube. It's a great idea though!

Stop Sopa Ireland

2012-01-29T19:41:00.003Z

Recently there was a law that was possibly going to be passed called the "stop online piracy act" or Sopa for short. There was one called Pippa too. These laws would have major affects on everything online like
Youtube,
Facebook,
And
Twitter

Alot of sites went black for a day and Wikipedia would not let you search for anything in protest. Everyone thought that that had stopped the acts from happening as they were being "postponed". But i read an article saying that
Sopa and Pippa are still there, along with a new act
That could be passed.

I tried to sign the Sopa petitions, but since they were american you had to be living in America to sign it. I did find something to sign but it did take alot of searching.

The minister in The south of Ireland has decided to have irelands own version of Sopa now. There is a very easy petition
That you can sign
To stop this happening. There is even a toolbar you can download if you have a
Wordpress
Blog. I'm not sure if there is one for Blogger yet though.

Digital Darragh
Has written a
Great post
On why this petition should be signed. I don't even know if people outside of ireland can sign this but i presume they can.

Let's hope we can stop this too. I reckon the government are probably downloading things too, so i don't think it's right they want the likes of even Twitter to stop. That's just my thoughts though.

Oh PS sorry i haven't blogged in a while but i don't think i've got anything new at the moment to blog about. I hope to get back into it soon though.

I'm A Bad Sport

2012-01-18T22:42:00.005Z

Hi. In case anyone is new here, my name is Ushi and i'm taking over mums blog. I haven't been on here in such a long time and heard about this awesome competition that I am allowed to enter. I'll have to have words with mum as to why i am in the "Bad sports" catagory though.

So anyway as i told you, my name is Ushi. I am a 2 and 3 quarter year old Labrador retriever cross. My birthday is in February so i am nearly 3, but lets not be picky. I am mums guide dog. (Could i be entered into the "working stiffs" category instead?).

I don't think i'm gonna get changed into "working stiffs" so i may as well explain why i'm a "Bad sport".

I am quite a stubborn little girl when i want to be. If i don't want to do something, i'm gonna make sure mum knows. Like for instance when mum first got me i was working fine but then after about a month, i decided to just stop one day. Just came to a total stop. Of course that got mum all worried in case she had done something wrong so she phoned our guide dog association and the instructors who taught us to work together told mum to be more positive. So i played along for a few days until i decided to do it again. She had to get someone else out from the association and again i worked for a few days after that. I was then evil and would hardly let mum take me out of the house. The manager for our team from the association said that i was just getting bored and that she just needed to be more firm with me. I didn't like that so i was a good girl and didn't stop...as much. Plus i heard her say that she would give me back and i certainly didn't want that. If i do stop now there really isn't much point because mum just tells me to "get on with it" and i don't get told i'm a good girl.

If mum is getting ready to work me sometimes she just takes far too long so i have to go back to bed. I love my bed quite alot and would love to sleep all day. Mum always makes me work though. I do like working but can a girl not enjoy her beauty sleep too?

I'm really evil and sometimes like to play a game called "find the Ushi". This is basically where once i've came in from my busies in the garden (that's a ladylike term for going to the toilet, by the way), and mum goes to put my harness on, i'll walk as quietly on our carpet as possible. She then goes to reach for me, and i'm not there. It's really funny to do but i eventually get caught. Plus she could grab my tail which just wouldn't be cool.

I'm not really a fan of water. Mum says i must have forgotten that i'm a lab lol. If it is raining, I will walk about two miles an hour to see if we'll go home. We never do though unfortunately. One day i even tried to go behind mums legs but that just didn't work either. But sometimes if i have to busy and it's pouring, i'll stiffen up so mum kind of has to push my bum until i move then she closes the door until i've gone. She doesn't push hard in case you all think she is cruel.

Finally there is my whining at certain foods. When i am fed i have to wait until mum blows a whistle three times before i can eat. I wait a little longer though until she puts it away and sits down. If i am given a carrot, Dental stick, kong or dog chew, i have to whine just to make sure they won't attack me. Once i am satisified i can eat whatever it happens to be, i'll tuck in. Sometimes i think carrots are toys and just play with them. Oh and i will not touch unpeeled carrots and will run away if you give one to me.

I guess looking at all that i am a bit of a "bad sport", but don't let mum know i told you.

This has been my entry for the
Mango Minster 2012 competition
For anyone else wishing to enter,
Here are the rules

Thanks for reading! Ushi x.

Is It Wrong?

2012-01-15T18:44:00.007Z

I'm not sure if i have mentioned, but i have two older brothers in england. One is 24 and has a baby and the other one is 22. The 22 year old sometimes comes home but has been recently going through a tough time so decided last week to come home and sort himself out.

Yes it's great that he is coming home but he can be a little chalenging at times. He is quite an independent kind of guy and does what he wants. That's not to say that he has been braught up that way because he has rules like everyone else, but he just has that very independent personality.

He likes to go out quite alot and gets bored quite easily. Before he went over to england, he used to have turtles but we ended up looking after them. He braught a rabbit home one day for my 8 year old brother, but again he didn't look after it.

When he was in England he decided to get a staffy type dog. I think it was crossed with something else. The very first owner had been conditioned to fight and was regularly put on a tredmill. The next owner apparently spoiled it and it had no boundaries. Then my brother got her.

He said that the dog didn't know how to play and would have bitten rather than played. When Ushi plays if she gets excited you'll sometimes feel her teeth but she gets told no and she would never actually hold on. It's more like the edge of her teeth hits your finger but she will usually stop playing and go to her bed even before she is corrected so she knows she isn't supposed to do it. But apparently my brothers dog didn't just get excited and did bite.

he said he "was going to take her to classes" but the person who ran the class was related to his ex girlfriend or something. (There are other classes are there not?). Anyway the dog had to be rehomed because the new flat he was living in didn't allow pets.

Tonight he was telling us all this and said "i'd really like a bulldog". Was it wrong that my heart sank a little? Yes i'm going to get flack because it's not the dog who is bad it's the owner, but anything i've read about bulldogs (mainly Pitbulls i must admit) is that they are bread for fighting. I found out
Some more information
And while they are quite affectionate apparently they can have that agressive instinct towards other dogs.

Maybe i'm just thinking that my brother won't look after the dog, but i'm not willing to have ushi's work potentially effected. We already have ushi and ash so would it be fair to have another dog in the house?

He seems to be respecting the rules so far with regards to Ushi but would he look after a dog full time? If he did get a pitbull, for instance, he would
Have to go to court
Under the new Northern ireland dog law to apply for a licence and meet certain conditions. Is it wrong that i am hoping this puts him off? I'm not saying that no one can get a dog because i have Ushi, but i think Ushi takes priority.

I'm just hoping that he has some common sense and doesn't go through with it.

Here's hoping that he thinks before he gets it and just doesn't bring it home one day.

Why Should It Matter?

2012-01-07T00:33:00.004Z

There was an article posted on twitter on Thursday and i just had to post it. I'll post it first, then i'll comment. It was posted on
This Website

Dear Customer who stuck up for his little brother,

you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.
Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome.
He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were
talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play
games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game,
and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink
and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he
needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince
him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a
full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.

That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your going
to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying
quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games.
There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother
then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother
is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.

First of all what do you think of the article? I'll say what i think.

First of all why should it matter if you don't like certain colours that you are "meant to like"? Is it really that much of a big deal if a boy likes getting make up on/his nails done/his hair done a certain way/wants to dress in womens clothes/do "girlie" things? Should it matter if a boy wants to choose "Girlie" games?

My uncle is in fact gay, and got extremely drunk before telling my mum because he was worried in case he couldn't see us. (We were quite young). Of course mum didn't mind at all and we are still in contact with him. I am not bothered at all. He is a nice person and that is what i go on. I don't think "He is gay. I can't hang out with him.". I don't think that he is disgusting or anything. I don't see anything wrong with it at all. Being gay is part of him.

A few years ago my then friend sent me a message on facebook saying she was Bisexual. I sent her a message back saying that we could still be friends and that it didn't affect that. She wrote back saying that she was totally shocked and that she thought our friendship would end. (Unfortunately it did end but not because of that).

I'm probably offending someone but if you're hung up on the fact that a person is gay, then you can just stop reading. Why the hell should it matter?

When i first read the article i thought that one of the brothers was autistic or something the way he was saying about what colours he liked. He wasn't.

I recently watched a series called
"My transexual Summer"
Which followed the struggles 7 trans people felt living in a normal society. It was quite sad to see how unconfident some of them were. Even some of the reactions from employers and such.

I always smile when the media covers things like this. How would you feel in that persons shoes? I'm sure many people wouldn't like some of the comments that can be made against them.

It really doesn't and shouldn't matter what you are. It's the person inside and you can't "catch" anything by being around someone who is gay/trans/bisexual/black/white/etc.

Sorry this sounds more like a rant, but i just felt like i needed to write whenever i read that article. I know this isn't my usual writing. I really do hope nobody is offended.

What do you all think?

2011: A Year In Review Part 4

2011-12-31T22:02:00.002Z

This is the final part of my review of 2011, you'll be glad to know!

October

In October, I
Talked about how blogger
Was considering changing its editor. I still don't know when the change will take effect, but if you are
Thinking of moving blogs
Then check out my blog post on changing to wordpress.

I attended the
80th birthday bash
For guide dogs at Stormont, and the
Celebration
At the city hall.

I was worried about going away on a weekend and
Having to pick up
After Ushi as i thought it would be so disgusting. Thankfully
It was easier than i thought

Finally for October, I attended
An exhibition
Put on for visually impaired. I got an audio CD and put all the tracks up using
Audio Boo

November

In November I attended
Our fundraising branches meal
To thank all the volunteers for their hard work throughout the year.

I attended
A christmas fair
At a primary school which was great fun.

I had my
Last aftercare visit
Until next year. I kind of feel sad in a way as i always enjoyed having aftercare to know how i was doing. I know that if i need anything they are at the other end of a phone.

I finally wrote about how one probably shouldn't
Compare voluntary experiences
But that it was only natural.

December

We're finally at December! It feels like this has taken ages! Anyway...I first of all asked you to vote for
Nicky
As he was singing in a compitition. It all must have paid off because
He won!

I reviewed the awesome
Musher's secret
Paw wax.

I talked about
How i just wasn't in the christmas spirit
But i did enjoy
Christmas day itself

That basically brings us up to the
Review part 1,
part two
And
Part three

It's now 5 past 12, so welcome to 2012! That just sounds weird writing that. It just feels like any other day to me. I was asked the other day what i hope to get out of 2012, and to be honest, i just don't know. I don't know at all what the year will bring. I'll probably be just truckin along as usual. All i can do is hope that it will be a good year, and that i discover more places to go with Ushi. I know i've mentioned wanting to learn how to travel independently in the past, but i am determined to have this happen this year. I feel though that we've sort of hit a plateau in that we did all our "firsts" last year. I guess i'll just have to wait and see what happens. I hope we have no more dog attacks and that we continue to grow in our relationship.

I hope to get into the computers again but don't know how yet.

I would love to not be worrying about other dogs, but can't promise anything. I wish i could free run ushi on my own but i like the company of knowing another person is with me in case anything bad does happen.

I hope this blog isn't just about guide dog stuff and that i find something else to write about!

I hope i don't get bored of talking to different groups of people about guide dogs and my experiences.

I hope i remain friends with everyone and that i make new friends along the way.

I can't think of anything else to add, to hopefully you all have a happy healthy new year. I can't wait to read your blogs in the coming year.

I'd better go, but i hope 2012 is a good one!

2011: A Year In Review part 3

2011-12-31T19:43:00.005Z

I'll really have to rush this if i'm going to get these next two parts in before tonight.

July

In July, I finally met up with
Jeniffer
And OJ. We had a fantastic time but unfortunately coming home we had an incident with the trains that has made Ushi a little nervous of them so she tends to rush off and on. The last time i met Jeniffer was when she
Did an interview with me about reading
Back in 2007! Little did i know that 5 years later i would have a guide dog and we would have become friends!

I reflected on
Meeting Ushi
And what had changed a year later.

I had some
Awesome service
At a restaurant and would go back there with Ushi. It's nice when for example your menu is read out to you.

I baught a
Furminator
For Ushi. It is a great job and i find that i don't have to groom her as much after i use it.

We decided to visit
Dublin
For a day. I found it very loud and busy. We didn't really know where to go but apparently there was more than just shopping that we could have visited if we had known where to go. The river Liffy didn't seem too nice either as it smelled a bit as you walked past it.

August

In August I
Celebrated my 21st birthday
Along with my sister. I got some awesome presents. Unfortunately my little brother broke his leg. Now though he doesn't even have a limp, but tells everyone he meets what happened.

The woman who teaches me the quilting, took me to a
Donkey Sanctuary
To see some donkeys which are used to help disabled children with riding and is an alternative to horses.

I took part in a
Sponsored walk and picnic
Run by Angel eyes northern ireland. I didn't know if i could take part because i wasn't sure if we would be allowed to because of the guide dog agreement we have to sign on qualification.

We went over to
Scotland
For the day, but discovered that it wasn't what we thought. Maybe if we had more time we could have gone more places. I would love to go over again to visit ushi's puppywalker.

I talked about all the preparations
I would need to do
Before we went, but i made it sound as if i needed to do alot more.

I took part in
The official talking busses
Pilot scheme which ran until October. (The last i heard was that guide dogs would take its findings to the minister for transport).

I attended a
Bark in the park
Event ran by the dogs trust and had a great time.

September

In September, I celebrated
A year with Ushi
Every time i think about that fact all i can say is Wow! I still feel as if i have just qualified!

I discussed the myth that sighted people have of blind people
Needing to feel faces
Which they don't. Ewww.

I took part in
A guide dogs pub quiz
Organised by our fundraising branch.

The final part will be coming later. I haven't included all the entries as there as just too many!

2011:A Year In Review Part 2

2011-12-30T23:27:00.004Z

Here is the second part of the review. Enjoy!

April

In April, I attended
My first fundraising event
Which was a collection. I discovered then that Ushi didn't like people's faces being covered as there was a security guard who had a big helmet and Ushi couldn't see his face. That was the only time i heard Ushi bark, and it wasn't even a full on one, rather a low one. I want to know what she sounds like lol. She is so quiet when she is awake but when she is asleep she is very vocal!

We discovered that Ushi
Hates the sea
When we took her to Portrush. I think it was a combination of me keeping ushi in harness and the fact that she is an extreme wuss! I think she has forgotten that labs are meant to love water!

Ushi happens to be a
Bit of a sniffer
When the seasons change. I didn't know why she was doing that but have since figured she must be since she becomes overly sniffy when the seasons do change. She also started to dig again.

I had another
Aftercare visit
Where i learned how to use busses. (I hope to properly use them independently next year).

I also attended a
Fundraising workshop
To learn more about fundraising.

May

May was quite a busy month, with attending
Our first agricultural show
Which turned out to be quite bad weather wise.

I got a bit of a scare when i met a german sheperd guide dog at a
Volunteering event
When the dog barked at Ushi. Ushi was a bit taken aback too, but we have volunteered at other events together such as
This one
And the two dogs were fine.

I started doing some
Guide dog talks
With my rehab worker first of all to get me used to it. I also did
This one,
This one
To kids, and
My first solo talk
to more primary school kids after the
Speakers training course
I did. (Those aren't all for May but i thought i'd put them all together).

I emailed my instructor about ushi and her lack of fondness for
The rain
Thankfully she is nowhere near as bad as she used to be but she still goes exceptionally slow and i still have to push her a little to get her to spend sometimes if it is raining heavily.

When i emailed my instructor i sent a copy to my friend for her to check if it was okay. She changed her display name that comes up when you email and changed it to my instructor. Her email came first as my inbox is set to alphabetise my emails. She had said that ushi would need to go in for up to 4 weeks retraining as she couldn't be doing what she does in the rain and that she would be in touch. Not realising that it was my friend, i wrote back in a fluster and asked where she was going to be borded, would i have her at nights, would the border know what to do etc. I felt like crying! When i discovered it wasn't my instructor i could have killed my friend. I still haven't got her back for that one lol.

June

In June, I took part in the
Pre pilot
For the Talking busses campaigne that guide dogs were doing. The actual Pilot was in August i think. I was also worried about Ushi's weight in that entry but thankfully her weight has gone down a bit to 34.5 kilos. I'll be weighing her in January at her frontline/worming so let's hope it has stayed down.

I attended
A fun day and a stakeholder Event
Held by Guide dogs where we learned some of the changes that would be taking place throughout the whole organisation.

I discovered that Ushi is
Scared of bluebottles
So much so that she had what i now was a panick attack. I felt extremely stupid phoning the vet saying that Ushi started to pant after she saw a bluebottle! It took a few days before she really calmed down as she had a couple of Mini ones. She still pants now when she sees a fly etc but i just ignore her and she soon forgets about it. It is nowhere as bad as that first time though!

I'll hopefully post the last two parts before Sunday!

2011: A Year In Review Part 1

2011-12-28T19:25:00.013Z

I've a feeling this is going to be a long post, so i've decided to start this early just to get everything written down. I can't believe it's a year already. It doesn't seem that long since i wrote my
Last review
Sorry for the amount of links, but here goes:

January

Back in January, I started my
Quilting course
I had talked about doing. I thought it would never get up and running to be honest. Every time we seemed to arrange it something would come up. I felt like the woman was never going to do it since i felt like i had let her down so much. But the day before that entry i had texted her to see what the craic was and low and behold, we were both available.

At first the woman wasn't sure how to teach me, so we experimented. She first got a strip of Masking tape so i could sew along it. By the second week of us meeting i had gotten bored of it so we now just stitch. At the start i used a
Round hoop
To hold my fabric in place but i've gotten bored of that too.

I have made a cover to put on a cushion, a couple of things to hang, and i'm currently making a dog bed cover out of old jeans. (The bed i have can't really be washed so this is a new cover for it. The covers can be washed). I don't have a clue what to make after lol.

I am so glad this woman has been willing to help me throughout this year. Thank you Jane for your intheuziasm. It has been good craic!

I had to get rid of my
Nokea E51
Which i had had since 2008. I was having problems with
Some of the keys sticking
So had to get a new one. Unfortunately
Vodafone
Don't have any new phones which support the Talks software, so i have an E65 phone which Vodafone put the talks on and reduced my tarriff because i couldn't get an upgrade to a new phone.

I'm not too keen on the Iphone, because i like my buttons too much. I'm sure i'll have to eventually go on to using it. I hope that is a while away though!

I had my
Four month aftercare
Where i learnt that the reason Ushi stopped so much was that she gets bored quickly. I wanted to show the instructors that she was starting to stop in town but of course she didn't stop!

I came across an
Idiot dog owner
Who let his dog wander about without a collar or lead. That proved to be a huge distraction for me and Ushi. Unfortunately something much worse happened in February but i'll come to that when i get to February.

Unfortunately as mentioned above in my after care post, Ushi started her
Stopping routine
again, Only this time she decided to do it in town. Of course everyone decided to come up to me which made it even harder to get her going again. Thankfully now that i am doing the quilting in a coffee shop in town, it is much easier to get her going, and she doesn't stop now that we have a purpose for going into town. She does sometimes like to go down the middle of the street outside the shopping centre instead of up the left side which is the way home, but i soon get her going up that again.

I also mentioned in that entry that she didn't like doing a down position when we were doing an obedience session in the house. When we were out though she did it perfectly but not on her long lead. I still have to be creative and usually have to sit down for her to do it. Of course she gets mega praise when she doe it! I used to do the obedience on the lead but sometimes i don't do it for a few weeks. (I still do the "Sit/wait" part on a free run though as this encourages the dog to come back. Talking of free runs, i don't need to use her Halty as much. I still carry it with me though. She still pulls but i can manage her.

I attended one of our
Fundraising meetings
As it was still a planning meeting and not an actual event. I still couldn't fundraise at this point. Ushi was quite unsettled at that meeting, but i have since learned that if i am at someone elses house, it is okay to let her off her lead. I still ask first. I try not to get too worried if ushi is a little unsettled as i know that she will settle and it's not a big deal. If i didn't have any expectations she usually behaved perfectly. I always take her harness off when fundraising as two hours can be quite long when in a harness.

Our granny wanted rid of her pet dog, but no where would take her since she is 12 years old. So we decided to take her. On new years eve we introduced the two, and she came to live with us. Ash and ushi still pritty much ignore each other. Ash is too old to care really. She doesn't even play with her toys, so Ushi ocasionally borrows them lol.

Apart from some extremely bad breath which the vet says is normal, Ash is in pritty good health. She mostly sleeps but she does like her walks and free runs. Ushi will look out for her, and if she is outside and ushi is in, she'll stand at the door until Ash comes back in. When we took her for a free run she just plodded along but Ushi would have looked to see where she was.

I didn't realise January was so busy! I'll write each month in headings if it is worth it. Some probably won't be in headings if there are only a couple entries.

February

February wasn't that busy, but unfortunately wasn't the best month. Let's start with some
New toys
She got for her birthday. She got an Armadillo which squeaks and a kong tails. She still loves these today and the armadillo has to be her favourite. She thankfully doesn't try to get the squeaker out, but i still wouldn't leave her with anything that squeaked. Any time her toys are worn they get sewn unles they are beyond repair. She still doesn't bring them back to me though.

I talked about getting Ushi used to
The shower
As she would stiffen up even before we got her into the bathroom. I never did do it, and i just got my happy voice on and persevered with her and eventually kind of manhandled her into the shower when she did need her bath. She only has been bathed once since i got her so i don't have to worry too much. I just used baby shampoo on her. I panicked in case when i groomed her afterwards idid something wrong but thankfully nothing happened and it did get rid of all that loose hair.

We visited the
Clown doctors
Who help children who are in hospital by providing some entertainment for them. They seemed to be a great organisation!

Unfortunately Ushi was
Attacked
By another dog when we were heading to our quilting course. That really shook both of us up, and i didn't know what to do. The
Police
Were out the next day and were great. In fact the amount of support I got was just amazing. Thankfully she had no internal injuries. I didn't work her for two days because i was so nervous. I didn't think my confidence would ever return to what it was. Thankfully,
My sister
Accompanied me until
An instructor
From guide dogs came out and assessed me and Ushi. Thankfully we were working well and still are. I would say that you wouldn't know ushi had been attacked now unless i told you which is fabulous.

I do still get a little nervous now, but thankfully we haven't ran into any off leash dogs. I'm so glad that most dogs now are on leads. I only run ushi with dogs i know which i admit isn't many and still have someone with me. I know it's probably not right that i don't let Ushi interact with other dogs on a run but i just wouldn't want to risk it. I'm just glad that i can work her on my own.

The amount of dogs i've heard of being attacked since is quite shocking, and new research was done saying that
More than 7 dogs are being attacked each month
In the UK. I am so lucky that Ushi is working unlike some dogs i've heard of. I think if it was to happen again we might not be so lucky. I certainly wasn't ready to retire Ushi at 5 months of our partnership because of a dog attack. Thankfully though a
New law
Was passed in October meaning that dog wardens can do more and dog on dog attacks are illegal and come with hefty fines. So that is some comfort if it happens again.

In case you are wondering, this is an issue very close to my heart. I could write more but i'll go onto the next month.

March

March was a much happier month, but the
Police
Didn't prosicute the owner of the dog who attacked Ushi because there weren't many witnesses who came forward. I actually found out that a few months later, that a local postman saw the attack and got the dog off Ushi. When he phoned his supervisor she said that because he wasn't attacked he couldn't report it. I think that is ridiculous to be honest. But he would have been the only witness if he had came forward.

On to other things...

I assisted in a pilot scheme for the
Sighted guiding service
Which is also called the "My guide" service. It is run by Guide dogs and it helps newly blind and partially sighted people get out and about again. They are with their guide for 3 months before they decide whither they want to apply for a dog, learn the long cane or get a friend to continue the sighted guiding. It was enjoyable.

One of the women who did it and who is also a volunteer driver completed her turn with her first client and is now waiting to be matched again to someone else.

I celebrated
Six months
With Ushi. I thought at some points i would have to give her back, but i figured out how to deal with all her little issues.
I've decided to split this post up. I didn't realise there would be so many links!

Presents

2011-12-25T00:36:00.005Z

I didn't really know what i wanted this year, so i've only got a few things.

A couple of months ago i asked dad if he would look for a good winter coat for me. I do have a rain coat but sometimes it just doesn't warm me up. He ordered me one from
Littlewoods
But it was a little on the large side. I asked for a 14 to 16 as i'm rather big on the chest but i discovered that it was just too big. So we went shopping for me to feel some coats. I didn't want one with fur or one that was ridiculously bright or just looked horrible. I picked a style that i wanted so dad went and ordered it online.

The coat is a smaller size (12 to 14) and is kind of puffy but not too bad. It comes with a detachable hood and doesn't drown me but i still have room. I never wear the hood anyway and prefer to wear hats as i found that i can hear more without a hood. The hood rustles that much that it is hard to hear traffic and that. I don't have a hearing problem, it's just cars sound so much different in the rain, for example, so if you can, i find it better to just have a hat.

The coat is great and i feel really warm in it.

I also got
Armani Diamonds
Perfume (I think this is the right one as there are two types), money and chocs from my mum. I also got a box of celebrations as well.

I'm not sure i mentioned it when we went for our
Fundraising meal,
But my friend P got me a nice necklace and bracelet. The necklace was a right pain though to get out of the box as it was wrapped around something but you had to pull on the necklace to get it up to get whatever it was attached to out. I got it eventually though.

So i guess all that is left to me to say now is have a happy safe christmas and enjoy whatever you do. I'll probably write more before the new year though so i'll not wish you a happy new year just yet :).

Sorry To Be A Scruge

2011-12-24T19:17:00.002Z

I was debating this post and i'll probably get lots of comments telling me that I am a scruge but i don't really care. I guess i am a bit of a scruge this year.

I'm finding that i'm just not in the whole christmas thing this year. I think it's just all the crowds, people thinking the world will end and everywhere you go there is the same christmas music playing. There has even been mentions from some people on Facebook since the start of November!

Our family have never been one of those families who invite or visit every man and his cat, and i am glad of that. There isn't wrong with visiting/having people over for christmas before people start getting annoyed.

Nothing particularly bad has happened to not get me in the mood, but i deffinetly think the older you get the less exciting it gets.

Yes i will enjoy getting presents and such but to be honest i'm not looking for that much this year. I have thought of a few things and have got most of them already. I'll write what i get later though.

I really hate to say it but it just feels like another day this year. I honestly don't know what the hype is.

Before i go on any more and start repeating myself, i'll leave you and wish you all a happy christmas. I hope you enjoy whatever you do. I will try to enjoy it and i'll have my two younger brothers to hopefully help me get into the christmas spirit. I'm also glad o say that i've looked at the weather and apparently it is to be quite warm tomorrow.

Sorry to spoil anyones mood. I'm listening to
Team FM
Where there will be an interview shortly with
Nicky
About winning
Glor Tire
So head on over right now and
Listen

Sorry for being a scruge!

This Time Last Year...Food

2011-12-23T21:55:00.004Z

You'll be pleased to know that number one this is going to be a short one as i want to write another post and two this is the last in the series i've doing about reflecting on this last year with Ushi. I hope you enjoyed it. It was quite hard to write as i felt like i had to rather than wanting to. Plus i thought you all were getting bored.

This time last year we were in the middle of getting our kitchen redone by the housing executive. Ushi had been fine for most of it, but there was one point where she became very hesitant to eat. We had many
Frustrating days
Where she took an age to eat. She had her food with water in it since i got her but one day she just decided to not bother. I had many days of frustration until one day i felt things needed to change so had a little chat to her. She probably didn't understand but within a couple of days she was eating okay again.

She now eats her food dry with water beside her. She used to be very lazy and there were times where i would have to shake the food in front of her before she would get off her bed to eat it. She is sometimes like that still or sometimes she will sit at my bed and whine for it. While this is a good sign, she will sometimes do it almost an hour before i need to feed her! I just send her back to bed.

I noticed something strange when she eats her dinner. Very ocasionally after she has eaten and spent she will be sick. The first time this happened i thought she had eaten something. It has happened a couple more times though. I haven't done anything strange and have it practically drummed into everyone here that Ushi must not be played with for at least an hour after her food. I even check the time when she starts eating and work out an hour from then. (We are told not to work them for at least an hour after feeding, and not to feed until two hours after a free run). Ushi herself usually lies and chews her bone.

I think i may have worked out what was causing it. I usually leave her for at least an hour each day. When i come back it is around half 5. I usually fed her about 10 minutes after, but have decided to leave it maybe 20 minutes. While Ushi doesn't really bound, she will still be a little excited to see me back again. She is such a chilled dog though that after she has slid herself along the wall opposite our room, she will lie on her back then come in and sit beside me until the food is prepared. Since i have started to wait longer before feeding she hasn't been sick in about three weeks. So maybe it was just that i needed to wait a little before feeding. I carry a bag with me though in my pocket in case after she comes in i need to use it but thankfully i haven't. So god knows what the craic was.

I do know that one thing i have learnt though over the past year is that Ushi doesn't like working for her food. I baught her a
Kong wobbler
A few months ago and although she did get excited when i put food in it, she just wouldn't use it. Instead she would whine at it and paw it for a few times before lying or sitting whining at it until you opened it. So I gave it to my friend who thankfully is making some use of it.

It is even a push to get her to use a regular kong but she will eventually. I have a weird dog i think.

I will probably write more later, but i'm going to leave this now. I hope you don't find it boring.

I really must get some more to write.

It All Paid Off!

2011-12-21T23:58:00.004Z

I've just read on Twitter that
Nicky Kealy
Has just won the Glor Tire compitition I posted about
A couple of weeks ago
I have been voting multiple times a day in the past couple of days. I'm not sure if posting my blog post helped, but I feel a little privilidged that I could have helped him win. That probably sounds very cocky but i don't mean it to be.

I did have my suspicions to be honest. Nicky had been very quiet all day and normally he does tweet eventually. Although it could have been live i suppose.

I would like to thank everyone who did vote over the last couple of weeks. He deserves to win. I'm not sure what he wins, but congratulations anyway!

It is great so close to christmas. Congratulations again and i just had to post the results as soon as i got them! (I was unable to watch the show but still voted!).

I hope Nicky celebrates tonight! Well done for all the hard work you put into it!

First Solo Talk

2011-12-16T22:19:00.008Z

Yesterday i did another talk to a primary school in Portrush. It was my first solo talk and the first since
The speakers training day
I had at the start of December.

Unfortunately after the talk things did not go well so i think we'll write the negative first and end on a positive.

Fat

After the school talk my volunteer driver decided to drop in a christmas card to her 95 year old aunt. She asked if i would like to come in too so me and Ushi joined her. The house seemed quite small but apparently it is just the way the house is layed out. I introduced myself to the woman and we sat down. The aunt then said "your dog is quite fat". I said that she wasn't and that she was on a specialised diet with no human food. She then said "It's not good to have a dog that is so fat". Again i explained, then it was "That collar is too tight". (Luckily the volunteer driver stepped in and explained that the half check collar moves with ushi and that when i correct and release it doesn't hurt her and it just lets her know to pay attention). The lady then said that ushi was fat again. I was starting to get pritty pissed off so said that you get different sized labradors. Thankfully that got her off the subject but then it was all about how Ushi was a strong dog and she didn't know how i could hold her etc. I was very glad to get out of that house to be honest.

I didn't want to say too much since she was the volunteer drivers aunt, but I had to say something. I explained that i was rather annoyed at the woman and i thought her comments were quite hurtful. She agreed but said that that was just the way she was. The woman had a dog but she kept it in an outside pen. Fair enough it was a big pen, but the only interaction the dog got was for feeding. The woman wouldn't let the dog in because it was so boysterous. (The driver even said that she didn't know why the woman had the dog).

I was still quite mad when i got home. I know the woman was old, but i've had two or three elderly women who have said that ushi is fat within the last two or three months. I take great care with my dogs weight. Ushi is quite a big dog, but i feed her Royal Canin Maxisensible and she doesn't get any human food. She does sometimes get a milk bone, but nothing else. She is walked twice a day and if i can't walk her twice a day i cut her food by a handful. I know i've blogged about her weight before, but i am not going to have some randomer saying she is fat when she clearly isn't. She is 34.5 kilos. While she should be sitting about 30, my instructors are happy at guide dogs and the vets aren't worried either and say she is in great condition. I felt like saying that at least my dog got some human attention! So unless you are a vet or someone from guide dogs, I don't want to know what you think of my dog. I take great care with ushi and would never let her get fat. In fact i'm sure i've posted some pictures of her up here. I don't even know why it is annoying me so much but she had never saw ushi before.

Even writing about it still makes me mad. I'm going to change the subject to happier things before i start repeating myself. It was just so nasty!

The actual talk

I wasn't sure if i was going to be going as the roads were quite icey and we had a bit of snow. So i texted the driver to say that if the roads were bad would there be much point in going. She agreed but tested the roads to see what they were like and thankfully it was only the road out of our estate which was bad. So me and Ushi were collected at about half 9.

When we got to Portrush the sun was shining and there was no snow at all to be seen. I hadn't braught the big speaker pack that we got on the training day because i need to get it brailled first. So i was just going off the top of my head on what i already knew.

When we entered the school we had just hit the time when the kids were coming in from their break. So there was a whole crowd of kids on the stairs going "look at the dog!" and other such comments. The woman who was showing us up to the class got all the kids off the stairs and into their respective classes so we could go up the stairs.

As i was getting ushi settled a few kids went to get another primary 4 class which was the class we were talking to. The kids thought it was cute when ushi was drinking her water.

I first of all introduced myself, then said to them about ushi's harness and what it did. I then got them to tell me the breeds of guide dog to see if they knew them. They got them all apart from the labradoodle. I then said why each dog was used, for example the labradoodle doesn't shed so they are good if someone has aspma or other dog allergies.

I then said about how ushi guides me.

I got them to see how much it costs for a guide dog. I explained that ushi got all her food and vet costs paid for.

I told them about not feeding a guide dog as they would then be interested in food on the street which could be dangerous.

I told them all about how it is good to ask permission before petting a dog and usually if they asked the owner would drop the handle and they could pet away until their hearts content.

I said that at this time of year there would be alot of temptations around for a dog such as chocolate. I explained that that could make a dog very sick if they got chocolate.

I asked them how much they thought i would have to pay for getting Ushi. They thought it was cool that you could spend 50 P and get a dog!

I sort of ran out of steam then so got all the kids to ask questions.

Before the questions the teacher asked who paid for the dog and the kids thought the vets did!

I got really random ones like "how can you brush her teeth if you can't see"? (I said that i could hear her licking her lips lol). "How did you become blind"? "How did you get up the stairs"? (The classroom was upstairs). "What happens if you want to go downstairs when ushi is sleeping"? "Would Ushi bite if someone else brushed her teeth"? "Could she have babies"? (That one kind of stomped me so i just said that there was nothing there so she couldn't). "Does she ver whimper?" "How does she know when it is time for a walk?" (I said that ushi was quite lazy and would sleep all day so i need to decide when to walk her). "Does she bark at other dogs?" "do you use a dog whistle?" "What time does she go to bed?" And "How does she know when it is food time?".

It was then petting time before they all went off to another class as the teacher who had invited us wanted us to have a cup of tea before going home. I left badges and bookmarks for them all.

I got given a box of chocolates as a thank you which i appreciated. I think the teacher was quite keen to give us a donation as she kept asking how much it was for us to do the talk. (We don't even expect a donation).

I think the talk could have gone better if i wasn't so nervous. But i'm glad i had the questions to fall back on. I suppose that would be one good thing for having the big case with you-if you were stuck you could just look at it. I don't think i would use the case with kids and just have it for adults. Unless the kids were older or something.

So the day was good apart from the "fat" comment! It was nice to get a present too which i wasn't expecting!

The only thing was i felt like i was just going over the same thing. As in i think each talk would be me going over the same thing. Maybe not though.

I think my next talk is in February sometime.

I love how honest the kids are!

Musher's Secret "For Dogs Who Just Won't Wear Boots"

2011-12-10T00:27:00.005Z

I'm a bit annoyed with facebook at the moment, so rather than waste my time getting even more frustrated, I thought i'd write about something else.

The title of this post is all about a fantastic paw wax called "Musher's Secret". Their slogan is "For dogs who just won't wear boots".

Now that we're getting into Winter, alot of salt and grit will be put down on footpaths and roads to melt some of the ice. This can cause serious problems for our dogs. Unfortunately even guide dogs do get cracked paws as the salt irritates them. I've never had this problem with Ushi but figured that it might be worth looking into getting her something.

I read on another blog about Musher's. Musher's secret is a paw wax that you moisturise into the paw pads and is supposed to stop the cracking and irritation caused by salt.

I had often considered investing in a pair of dog boots but i know for a fact that Ushi wouldn't be too keen on wearing them. In america guide dog organisations provide these boots for free and the dogs are sort of used to them. We haven't had too many bad winters so we don't have them provided to us. I decided the next alternative would be this wax. It comes in
250 grams,
200 grams,
or
60 grams

I ordered the 200 grams which is about £12. I decided there the other week to try it out. We hadn't got any ice or snow at this point, but i just wanted to see how Ushi would react getting it on. Ushi isn't really a fan of getting her paws touched and will pull them under her so i can't find them or just keep moving them out of my reach. I decided to wait until she was on her bed although it doesn't really matter when you do it. She sort of lets me touch her paws then. (The weird thing is she will often offer me her front paws to hold or if i have stopped giving her attention and she wants more lol). She was lying on her front paws so i started on the back ones. These are the paws she is most stubborn about. She wasn't all that keen but i just held her paw and talked to her as i rubbed in the wax. I never know how much i have on my fingers, so i find that if you rub three fingers around in it (It is hard so no mess) you get more. I rub it into her main pad first still chatting away to her which by this time she has just decided to lie there and let me do it. I then put some in between her pads and finally do each of her top pads. I do this for all her paws. You'll need to do each paw separately.

There is no need to wash your hands afterwards as afterwards it makes your hands nice and soft. The product doesn't smell bad and has a rather nice orangey type smell. (For some reason JAWS isn't prouncing that right). If a dog happens to lick it off, it shouldn't cause too much harm. It is made of natural wax, so the most that would happen would probably be maybe softer poos, but i'm sure the dog would need to eat alot of that even for that to happen. Each dog is different though.

I have recommended it to quite alot of people already. I'm sure amazon is wondering why people are needing so much paw wax!

The only negatives are that you have to put it on two or three times a week, it can be licked off, and it is hard to know how much you have on your fingers.

Positives: it smells nice, would probably last a long time depending on how much you used it, it makes your fingers feel nice, it hopefully stops cracks (I haven't used it that long to know), if the dog licks it it won't harm them too much, it gets a dog used to getting their paws handled if you have a dog who doesn't like this, it doesn't hurt the dog at all, it's not messy, and it is not too expensive.

I deffinetly think it is a good product. You still have to be careful though as it won't stop your dog slipping.

Oh and for us humans there are things called
Yaktrax
which i wrote about last year.

I hope you find Musher's Secret as good as what i have found it!

Nicky Needs Your Votes

2011-12-07T12:27:00.004Z

A friend of mine,
Nicky Kealy

Has been singing in a compitition over the last couple of weeks. It's called Glor tire and it is on TG4 which unfortunately is an iresh channel so we can't get it up here in the north. I can however let you hear
An early song
That he did called "Limric you're a lady".

The compitition has no reached the ellimination rounds. Unfortunately voting for each week closes at 12 o'clock in the afternoon every Wednesday so i'm a bit late in posting this, but if Nicky is in next weeks show, please text Glor7 to 81108 in the UK, or 53307 in the republic of Ireland. You can vote as many times as you like.

So even if you can't watch the show itself i'm sure Nicky would appreciate every vote he gets. So it's Glor7 to 81108 in the UK and Glor7 to 53307 in the republic.

Thanks!

Speakers Training For Guide Dogs

2011-12-02T23:13:00.007Z

This is a long one, so sorry. There was just that much information.

There are alot of new changes coming into effect for the guide dogs organisation. Today those of us who wanted to be speakers had to go on a one day training day to learn how to structure our talks we do. Techneclly we shouldn't really be doing talks i don't think until we have had this training. I'm not really sure why we need it to be honest.

I wasn't really looking forward to the training today as i thought it would be a very formal thing. I hate formal things! I had chatted to someone who is a speaker and she said it was just stuff we already knew, and it wasn't formal at all. It was just things like how it costs £50,000 for the lifetime of a guide dog and such.

I decided to go anyway but to be honest i wasn't expecting much.

My friend wasn't bringing her dog but she was going to meet me outside my house. My rehab worker arrived however just as she got there. I went into the kitchen and Ushi ran from me to the front door because she could hear my rehab worker outside. She did this a couple of times until i opened the door.

We then picked up the branch organiser too and headed up to Belfast.

We were in the Equality commission building which i think is near Botannic gardens.

There were quite a few dogs there. There was Yoyo who is a 9 month old pup i think, Ushi of course, Another puppywalker who had a dog called Nigel (she didn't have him with her), Guide dogs Ivie, A german sheperd called Berry, Katy, and i can't remember the other ones. I didn't know there was more than one german sheperd here in Northern Ireland, but apparently there is at least 4 or 5. I was sitting beside little Yoyo who had quite a curly back and he was tiney. Oh and there was also a pup called Henry there who i found out doesn't like rain either so i'm not the only one who has a princess dog.

We all introduced ourselves at the start and talked a little about our dogs. The fundraising coordinator who was running the day then talked a little about how when you are talking it's not a formal thing. If you are nervous she said to shorten your talk. I worried in case they wouldn't like if you were looking at what you had been given but she said that that is no problem and that you can just glance and then go on. She said that people would rather that you did make the odd mistake and if you weren't hung up on it they wouldn't care. We were then handed this big massive case which is our fundraising packs we can take with us on a talk. We can talor it so we don't have to use everything that we get.

First of all there is this huge accordian type folder which is designed for us to leave at home as it makes the case really awkward to carry. This folder has a green receipt book which we use if the place we talk at wants to donate to us. We then take that receipt to our branch organiser or our district team and they will attach a white receipt to it to show that the money has been received propperly. I don't really understand how that works.

Next in the folder, we have posters if somewhere is fundraising or doing an event for us. There are two big posters and smaller A4 sized ones which can be used if they didn't have alot of room for example.

Next was bags for donating your old ink cartridges and envelopes for donating your old mobile phone which is then recycled i think and guide dogs gets the money. I'm not sure how that works either.

There were little business cards but unfortunately because the pack was made in england it was all england numbers. Apparently you can score out that number and write your number or something.

We then had loads of donation envelopes, "Get together" leaflets which is a fundraising initiative to encourage people to get together such as coffee mornings or dances.

There are leaflets which you can give to a teacher who you are thinking of doing a talk for.

There are evaluation forms, which go off to Forfar in Scotland. They aren't giving feedback on you particularly, just the talk in general.

There are "jar labels" which you can give to peple if they want to collect money in a jam jar or something.

There are "gifts in wills" leaflets which we all agreed would be a difficult subject and to avoid people being asked to leave a gift you could leave the leaflets just sitting so that people could pick them up if they did want to donate. (2 out of three dogs are funded this way).

We had leaflets talking about
Sponsoring a puppy
Where you basically receive regular "Pupdates" and photos and such. The fundraising coordinator told us that some people don't believe they are real pups who are being sponsored, but they are because apparently one of the pups being sponsored died so all the people who had sponsored it had to be written to to explain the sad news.

We had bigger leaflets for
Naming a puppy
Which i think is more for businesses. It is £2500 to name a pup and £5000 to meet the pup. For example
Stenaline
Who are a ferry company named a pup Alphy i think last year.

There were also leaflets for applying for a guide dog and a booklet for what it would intale if you did apply. (I think it was pointless having these in print but i suppose if you knew someone who was blind or something).

Finally i think there are little money box kennels and they say something like "can you fill your kennel?". I thought they were pritty cool! I gave my three year old brother one and he was all happy because he got a "wushi" (Ushi house). (Any golden lab is Ushi. He even saw Andrex toilet rolls one day and said that we needed to get Ushi some!).

I'm so glad we don't have to take the accordian folder with us and can just pick and choose what we take depending on what kind of talk we were doing.

By this time it was time for a busy break for the dogs and some lunch for us. We couldn't find any grass so we decided to see if she would go on this little square of gravel since other dogs had just gone before her. She went no problem! I was quite shocked at that because she never usually goes on concrete unless it is by open water like a river. I still haven't figured out why she still needs to go then lol. Luckily i don't pass many rivers lol.

Lunch was a selection of sandwiches and fruit. Unfortunately the sandwiches weren't really the best and i spent most of the time picking all the salady stuff out lol. (I hate Salad!). The fruit was nice though lol.

After lunch we started to look through the actual case part. This is full of leaflets on what we should be talking about. We don't have to use everything but we can use some things. it is things like about guide dogs, how many blind and partially sighted people have a a guide dog, guide dogs other services, Buddy dogs, campaigning, and a breakdown of what a certain amount of money will buy such as £13 for the harness or £25 for a selection of toys. There is also information on volunteering, asking for money (If we don't want to ask for money we could always say about volunteering apparently). It wouldn't be direct asking just about how it costs £50,000 throughout one guide dogs life, how it costs £46,000,000 to run the whole guide dogs organisation each year, and how we get no government funding. I asked why we don't and apparently if we did the government could say who should get a guide dog and who shouldn't and they would have the final say. I didn't think the government would be allowed to do that! So that is why apparently guide dogs don't have it because they don't want it.

There is also an envelop of badges that say "I'm a guide dog hero" which you can give to kids. We also have some bookmarks. We are only meant to give out the badges to a few kids. The fundraising coordinator suggested that we could give a badge to someone who asked a question or something. That would certainly encourage questions if they knew they would get a free badge! I don't really think that's fair though, so i'll probably have bookmarks, badges and those kennel money boxes if i was ever doing a talk to kids.

Again if we run out of anything we can order it and it is free.

All the information in the big case is for kids and adults. The kids version isn't as complicated.

There is a section when you are doing a talk for you to tell your story too.

You can also get some questions too.

There are a couple of sheets of simulation specs, which are supposed to simulate to people what it is like having different eye conditions. They are just plastic so it would be better if you asked your optition for some frames or something to put them in. I think these are good for awareness, but i'm sure it would be very scary wearing them so i don't know if i'll ever use them.

We also got polly pockets to keep things in.

Finally we have some DVDS we can use for our talks. I think they are like the amazing journeys people take with their dogs and stuff. I don't actually know since when i put them in they wouldn't work on my computer. If we need DVDS for kids we can request them but we would have to give them back.

The case comes out into what looks like a lecturn which you can use to read from or that. It takes up less room when you are doing that, and if people are looking at your sheets it takes the focus off you.

I am going to put a braille sheet in with each of the information sheets to keep me write too. So that's going to be a bit of hard work, but i prefer reading the stuff. I can then just glance at it rather than reading off a sheet. There is nothing worse than reading off a sheet the whole time.

I found out that if you can't get to a place you can have a volunteer driver taking you. They prefer you to take public transport, but if you can't they will provide a driver.

I have my first talk on the 15th December at Portrush primary school. If we don't want to do a talk at any time we can just say no and that is that which is good.

It was a good day and i'm glad i went. I'm glad it doesn't have to be all formal either! For my first talk i might just bring some badges or something rather than the big case. I haven't really decided yet.

Sorry again for the length of the post. It was a long day!

Anual Fundraising Meal

2011-11-30T21:35:00.004Z

Last night, all of the fundraising branch for Ballymena/Antrim were invited to go out for a christmas meal. At our last meeting we had decided to go to
JDS
It is part of our local bowling alley but thankfully there is a it upstairs which we had booked. I wasn't sure this restaurant was a good idea though since it might have been crowded but thankfully it wasn't.

I was picked up at about 7 ish. I didn't bring ushi with me as i thought it might be too warm and busy for her so she got to chill. She was very confused as to why she wasn't coming too!

When we got there we discovered that our branch organiser had a seating plan. I don't really like this sort of arrangement but i suppose it stops people getting annoyed because they didn't want to sit beside a certain person so i can sort of see the point of it. At each of our seats was a little card with a little badge of a german sheperd dog inside it to say thanks for all our hard work. I thought that was nice. The branch organiser had also got me and my friend a box of lip balms, and a dog chew for each of our dogs. (I thought the chew was some kind of razor!). I thought this was really nice too. I don't mean this to come out in a bad way but alot of people get me make up for a present. I hate make up! (Bad experience one day with it). I know people are just trying to get gifts that i would like. At least the lip balms i can use! (I hope nobody is planning to get me make up this christmas lol). I should write a post one day on why i hate make up.

My friend gave me a sweatshirt that says "paws off", those fingerliss gloves you get which have the mitten bit that you can pull down over your fingertips, and a bar of galaxy with a
Personalised wrapper
Which said "Braille free, but the dude doing the audio isn't bad" or something and "Fish fingers" lol. (That's kind of a wee joke between us). I thought the galaxy was a packet of colouring pencils lol. I asked my friend why she had got me colouring pencils and she just laughed and told me it was Galaxy lol.

I got her a £20 Waterstones voucher.

I had the Pasta Carbonarragh (not sure how to spell that lol). I was kind of dreading it because i usually end up covered in spaghetti sauce if i get it so i'm sure it doesn't look too good lol). Thankfully it was just pasta so i didn't end up too messy. There was a big chunk of halloumie cheese (that cheese that kind of squeaks when you chew it) just sitting on the top of the bowl. I hate cheese! The chicken and bacon were very jenorous. Normally it is only little bits of it but this was big chunks! They were that big i had to stab the pasta and all like i was eating it with a fork and as if it was potatoes or something. It was still nice apart from the cheese.

My friend baught me a west coast cooler so that was good. We just chatted and had a bit of craic before our desserts came.

For dessert, i had what was supposed to be ice cream and fruit but it was ice cream with like a syrup type thing then more ice cream. It was nice but why do restaurants always insist on putting some desserts in those crappy presentation glasses? They are so awkward to eat out of! Thankfully we asked for a boul which made it much easier.

We got home at about 10 o'clock. It was a great night and i would like to thank the branch organiser and my friend for the presents!

When i got home i was greeted by a mad little lady who rushed down to see me. I gave her her chew and she whined at it. (This isn't really anything new). She then sniffed it, chased it, cuddled it, lay on it and whined some more. Normally she will whine for a short time before eating the carrot/ice cube/dental stick/playing with her kong which has food in it. She took the chew to bed with her though!

This morning it still wasn't eaten, so i worked her and decided to give it to her when we got back. Unfortunately she was a little sick later on so that was a bit strange. She felt that sorry for herself that she wouldn't eat her dinner and slept until about 8 o'clock. Normally she will sleep after working but this kind of worried me a little. I hadn't noticed her drinking so put a little water in my hand and opened her mouth. That soon woke her up and she had a mad little roll around the hall. This was a sure sign that she was back to her normal self. She even let me brush her teeth and has been drinking since. So i don't know what the craic was. It probably was a slug or something. At least she was only sick the once.

As for the chew, i gave it to Ash. She is actually making some use of it.

I don't think Ushi realises she is a dog! Maybe she was a cat in her past life.

Thinking Of Moving?

2011-11-27T21:40:00.003Z

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but i never got around to it. I finally got all my links together today and decided to write a few words on blogger and thoughts on wordpressif you're thinking of moving blogs. I've heard though that it has got slightly better but i haven't used it yet.

Recently over the past couple of months Blogger announced a new and shiney
Interface
There was alot of talk about this on Twitter. Even sighted people didn't like it. I decided to create an account on
Wordpress
In case I needed to change because of this new interface being inaccessible.

So once you create your account or log in, you will be in what is called your "Dashboard". This is exactly the same as what your ddashboard does in blogger. Wordpress may seem quite cluttered at first, but if you go into your dashboard and press Enter on the
Themes Section
There are a number of different themes you can choose from, but the one i found easiest to use is the
Clean Home
Theme. It seems to minimise the clutter.

Unfortunately when you create a post you need to disable something called the "visual edditor". Otherwise you can't write links or anything. To do this, you need to go into the
Users section
Of your dashboard. You then need to go into
Personal Settings
Which is underneath "Users" when you click on it. In your personal settings, you need to tick the "Disable visual edditor" and save your changes.

So when you Create a new post
You can write the usual code for links and such. It takes a while to get used to the way a post is layed out though.

So if you're still thinking of moving blogs, i hope this post has helped explain wordpress a little. I won't move unless i need to though!

Oops

2011-11-26T22:41:00.002Z

I was thinking the other day that i hadn't yet posted the results of the
Fifth assistance dog blog carnival
I haven't even read them yet as i never seem to have the time/life has got in the way/me slacking. Anyway this carnival was hosted by
Cindie
Over at
Gentle wit
This is a great blog and i'm making my way through it. As you know if i am interested in a blog i like to read the whole thing through. The theme was "achievements".

You can read my submission and the rest of them
Over here
Sorry for the lateness and i'll eventually get around to reading the other posts. Enjoy!

Carniny Christmas Fair

2011-11-26T00:15:00.002Z

Tonight, me, the branch organiser, the treasurer and another branch member went to
Carniny Primary School
In Ballymena. It was a big christmas fair thing. There were lots of stalls and i think there were some other charities but i'm not sure what they were or if all the other stalls were just for people to buy things off and it maybe go to the school or something.

I thought we would all be in a hall, and was wondering how crowded that was going to be but thankfully we were in classrooms which was good. When we came in we had two or three boys directing us to where we needed to go lol.

I was sitting just behind the door so people would see us i suppose. One of the teachers was dressed up as an elf and ushi found this quite fascinating. She wanted to take his hat!

There was quite a crowd of people who came in to buy things or just to look at the dog. From little kids to parents to teachers to other stall holders. Ushi was fascinated by everything and just sat there looking up and down the corridor. At one point she lay right in the doorway of the classroom! I presume that was so that people would notice her lol.

We eventually moved in a bit as people were having to step over her and other people couldn't get in to look at the other stalls. She still tried to get nearer the door.

At one point she had about three or four kids around her all calling her name and asking for her paw. She gave it to them which i was surprised about. She normally gets bored of it!

One kid couldn't understand how ushi could be so big for being two. (My little 8 year old brother had this problem too lol). I explained that you get big and small dogs just like you get some tall people and some small people. He was just like oh right.

I was amazed at how generous the kids were being. They litterally came and put any change into the donation box without being asked to. There was even one kid who sponsored a puppy and then another who baught something and litterally put all her change into the box. This was little kids too. I was so shocked. I'm sure alot of adults wouldn't be so generous.

I could tell by the end (we were there for three hours with a constant stream of people) that Ushi was getting tired because it was a bit of an effort to get her out of her down position to say Hi to everyone. She still managed it though.

Ushi even managed to see Santa (my rehab worker has a son who goes to the school so he was dressed up as Santa). Ushi went mad to see him and was wagging furiously! When i let her say hi she didn't want to though!

She hasn't moved from her bed since we got home lol. Talking of beds, i've decided to make Ushi a new cover for her bed. The one she has the cover can come off but the main bed can't be washed. I'm using a pair of old jeans so hope she finds it comfortable!

It was a good night and one kid even came up to me at the end and handed me a little cone of sweets and a chocolate lolly!

That is all the fundraising events for the year. We are heading out for a meal on Tuesday though so that should be good. I'm not bringing Ushi though as the time of year it is probably wouldn't be the best for her as it would be incredibly busy. So she can chill while i stuff myself!

I've also got a couple of posts to do next week that i haven't got around to writing yet lol.

Have a good weekend!

This Time Last Year...Toys

2011-11-20T21:00:00.003Z

I'm thinking of wrapping up this series. I only really have one more post, and to be honest i'm sure they are getting boring. Today i thought i'd talk about her toys.

This time last year, I worried i was being
Too gentle

With Ushi. Ushi didn't seem to be that interested in me tugging her tug toy. She now will tug a little longer and seems to enjoy when i do it now. I still do it as gently as before though. Sometimes my brothers will want to tug with her but i am very careful in case she lets go or pulls too hard.

I was thinking what to get Ushi for christmas this year. I don't have to get her anything, but i won't resist the chance to spoil her. I just don't have a clue though what to get her. She has already got:
A
Kong Tales

Which is a kong with nylon strips coming out of it. There is a squeaker encased in the nylon and a loop which you can hold onto. You can tug, shake and throw it, but Ushi prefers me to throw it.

Next, is a toy called
Hide a squirrel
This is a cuddly tree trunk with three wholes inside it. The dog then has to get three squeaky squirrels out. It took ages for Ushi to figure out what to do with it, but now she loves it. I would like to get her something similar as the toys where you hide food don't interest her at all. It's a stretch to get her to get food out of her normal kong, never mind something like a

Kong Wobbler
Which i had got her but she would paw it for a few minutes before getting bored and just deciding to either lie with it between her paws, or whine insessently until someone decided to get the thing open for her. She didn't like working for her food at all. I had to give it away where it has found a loving home with my friends dog Della who uses it no bother.

Finally, her latest toy is a
Max black goughnut
Which she loves. I didn't think it would be so big though and on second thoughts could have been a bit too big but Ushi still has great fun with it. I thinnk it is more of an outside toy though since it has quite a bounce.

So any suggestions as to what to get ushi would be helpful. I sometimes think she isn't really a lab since she doesn't like working for food. She will eat food if it is offered to her though. Maybe i just have a weird dog.

A Petition And A Statement

2011-11-10T18:10:00.004Z

A couple of days ago, I posted about
The Twitter Campaigne
That was started by a young guide dog owners mother after her daughter was discriminated against by her school. Twitter campainge is still ongoing.

Since then, the girls mother has set up a
Petition
To stop this happening again to any other guide dog owner. It has got over 500 signatures already and it was only set up on Tuesday! Sorry for you all seeing this on twitter already, but i think everyone who can should sign this.

The mother has contacted various radio stations etc, and ironically as soon as she contacted the media, the principle of the school,
Released this statement
Which to start with had the guide dog owners name in it, but that has since been removed. It does sound convincing if you hadn't followed the story, but it just seems weird that it keeps changing. It also just seems rather weird that as soon as the mother goes to the media, this statement is released.

I think in this day and age this should not be happening to be honest. Especially as there will probably be more and more younger guide dog owners around since guide dogs dropped the lower age limmit from 16 to nothing back about a year or two ago.

In comparison, here is an article about
Another young guide dog owner
Who has had a much more positive experience at school.

I really hope that something can be done, and that the girl can continue her studdies pritty soon. She is doing lots of exams so it is a pritty important year for her!

Please feel free to sign the petition. It shouldn't still be happening!

This Time Last Year...Getting Lost

2011-11-09T20:11:00.003Z

Today seems to be dragging in a little. I do have another post to write but i'll do it later.

This time last year,
I got lost
I had decided to work Ushi before my instructor had come to teach me a new route. I think it had been raining the day before so Ushi wanted to go exploring. We ended up a path that i didn't even know existed! I phoned my mum and said that there was a tree behind me and grass on my left lol.

I'm pleased to say that i have only gotten lost about 4 times since i got Ushi. Once was in the snow where ushi just couldn't find a kerb, and another time was because they were sandblasting a house so it was really confusing. I have found though that there is never anyone around whenever you do get lost. It's always that there are loads of people when you don't need anyone. I always carry my phone with me just in case.

I do sometimes get a bit disorientated, but i can usually get back on track. The slightest thing can distract us from a leaf that catches Ushi's attention, to us just not being on the ball.

We also learnt a route into town. I now use this route for my quilting course which i do every monday morning.

I think every partnership needs to get lost at least once. Yes it can be scarey, but if it happens, you'll know why it happened the next time and it teaches you how to problem solve. I just wish more people were available when you needed them! Usually the common response is "i'm not from here" or "English isn't my first language". I remember one time coming out of our local Co opp, and i got a bit confused. A polish man came up to me and his daughter who could speak english directed me while she translated back to her dad what she was telling me!

Last night i got a call from a very distressed branch organiser. She was supposed to go to a fold with another guide dog owner, but the guide dog owner forgot, so I said i would do it. It was a good visit, and we were selling christmas cards and stuff. The branch organiser had said that she would take some of the stock that the Derry branch were unable to sell. All that stock is sold, but thankfully we only have one more event before the end of the year. We won't start up again until January. January is when we get our next budget for the year too. So i think the branch organiser is hoping that one of the other branches have some more stock.

I nearly decapitated poor Ushi on the way out of the fold though. I was getting into the car and we had the car open. There was a car just beside us and i didn't notice that ushi was standing behind the open car door. She then tried to put her head under the door and get in that way! I then had to step back so she could get out again.

I decided to work Ushi as soon as i got home because i hadn't worked her before going to the fold. Ushi was rather confused and walked very slowly on our short walk. She's been sleeping ever since really apart from eating and spending. I've never known such a lazy dog!

That's Me For A Year

2011-11-07T22:22:00.005Z

Today I had an aftercare visit from Guide dogs. This is to make sure me and Ushi are still working well and to make sure we don't have any issues or anything. My last aftercare was
Back in April
(When we qualify we are visited in a couple of weeks after qualification, then it is at 6 weeks, then 3 months, 6 months, then each year after that unless we have a problem.

For some reason i was a little nervous of this upcoming visit. I was kind of expecting a lecture about Ushi's weiht or something.

I decided to work Ushi first before we had our aftercare visit. Unfortunately I crossed a little early at one of my crossings, and we ended up totally lost. I asked a kind woman what the problem was and thankfully she pointed me in the right direction. I'm just glad she didn't decide to do it when we had aftercare.

On the way home i heard these kids shouting for someone (I think it was their dog as Ushi quickened up her step and i heard a woman saying "She'll come back") so that kind of panicked me a bit, but no dog came which was good. One little kid even asked me if i was okay! So I don't know what had happened.

We had a bit of a chill time before my instructor came. She decided that she would ring me beforehand, and then she would walk behind me but far enough so that Ushi couldn't see her. Normally she would travel in her car but she wasn't sure where I was going, so followed on foot.

We had only some ocasional issues on our walk, but they were things like being a bit hesitant at some of her kerbs, but i just gently hold the lead in my right hand and encourage her forward. We had a sniff too, and at one point she decided to slow way down, but apart from that, she was grand! I was surprised since she tends to be a bit of a madam when she knows it's aftercare.

My instructor says we're working well which is good. She says that Ushi has quite a high tail and that she looks happy. She said that she noticed that Ushi tended to anticipate where we were going when we were crossing a road, and would ever so slightly veer in that direction. While nothing major, she says that I can just step up on her a bit more so that she can't do it and that it is me who makes the decisions, not her. She asked how her social behavior and that was and i said it was all grand.

She then wanted to see Ushi's health book which is the book that we take to the vets that has a record of her health and enables guide dogs to pay for our vet bills. I was a little nervous about this. I said that i had changed her food from 150 grams in the morning to just 100. She still gets 150 in the evening. She said not to go lower than 100 as Ushi would start to scavenge around the house for food. She says that if i can't get the extra weight off, they might have to think about switching her food. We both agree that that would be a last resort, as i like how she is spending and how she is clean on walks at the minute. (She is on Royal Cannin Maxi sensible). It sounds awful posh for dog food!

That was basically all that was talked about. Apart from that Ushi's "optimum weight" has been upped from 29 Kilos to 30 Kilos. (The optimum weight is the weight that guide dogs feels their dogs should be at depending on the size of the dog). I think they are a bit strict on the dogs weights, but that's for another time.

The next time i will get a visit from an instructor is in a years' time unless i need anything. I'm a bit sad at this, but it is good that we are having no issues and don't need as regular input. I like to know i'm doing things right though. If i have any problems, i can just lift the phone and there will be someone there if i have any issues.

I was quite pleased with how today went. I had nothing to be nervous about!

Oh and
My Last post
I've got some updated news and a petition. I'll post that tomorrow maybe. I don't want to bombard you with posts lol!

Can We Get This Trending?

2011-11-05T23:37:00.002Z

I am part of a group for guide dog owners on facebook. This is for everyone all over the UK.

Back in July, a lady posted that her daughter had been matched with a guide dog called Unis. This young lady is deaf and blind. She was going to do her A levels in September. The school she was going is a school for the deaf.

Things seemed to go well for a while, but unfortunately the young lady and her guide dog have been forced to leave the school. I think this is disgusting. The ladys' mother wrote most of
This Article
It's a bad job that a site set up by a past pupil is now featuring this story as it main feature!

The ladys mother is looking for a new school for her daughter and has started a twitter campaigne. If you are going to share the link i have posted, please use the hash tags #Support4Molly and #Mollywatt.

This shouldn't happen. Let's make sure it doesn't and get this trending. I'm sure this family would appreciate it!

Thanks!

This Time Last Year...Photo

2011-11-04T20:05:00.005Z

This time last year,
Was mine and Ushi's
First photo opportunity. It was with our local papers. My rehab worker wanted to show a newly qualified team with a more experienced team (and there is only one other guide dog owner in Ballymena since my friend hadn't been matched yet).

I was a bit nervous about having Ushi's photo taken since we can't officially fundraise until we are at least 6 months qualified. This is so that you can get used to each other as a team. I got so many compliments that day though about her coat and such. I always just smile and say thanks.

I never actually got the photo as it was a scanned picture.

I also spent my first time in a coffee shop with ushi and she was grand.

I had came to the fundraising meetings after that but my first fundraising even wasn't until March I think. I can't remember what it was though. I've just had a quick look, and my first fundraiser was in April, and it was a
Jollyes Collection
I was a bit nervous then, but now i've done plenty of events. The only event i won't do is street collections as i feel that they can be a bit too much, and i would rather be sitting rather than standing. Plus i feel that if you are doing a street collection, people don't get the same opportunity to ask you questions i feel and it is constantly busy. Maybe someday i will collect though.

Today was a great working day. We had a little spring in our steps!

I've got aftercare on Monday so i'll let you know how that goes. I'm not having any issues so i'm just going to do a regular route. (I'm not going learn any new routes though because i don't think there would be much point to start a new route for us not to be able to do it because of the weather. So i'm just going to leave it until the spring and just stick to our regular boring routes. I'll let you know how Monday goes.

Never Compare

2011-11-01T21:59:00.006Z

I know i shouldn't really compare volunteering experiences, but i got a very welcoming email that kind of sparked this discussion.

I thought i'd write a little about my volunteering experiences with
The Cedar foundation
And
Guide dogs
I'll probably get into some kind of trouble but i'll not give any names, and i will try not to be too negative.

The Cedar Foundation

I think it was in my last couple of years of school, I was with a group of people with other disabilities. We used to use the Cedar foundations building as a meeting point and one day we went there to try and design a website for young people, as well as it being accessible for disabled people. Looking back, i think it was the
Volunteer Now website
We were looking at which encourages people to volunteer.

A couple of weeks later I got a call from the volunteer coordinator at the Cedar foundation asking if i would like to volunteer. (I'll call her M). The IT officer who is in charge of the computer part of Cedar had seen me working so well evaluating the website that he wanted me to help teach him and possibly some clients JAWS and the computer. I said that would be fine, and did a couple of days here and there. I even received an
Award Of Excellence
Back in 2008 for completing 200 hours of volunteering. I also did
A couple of days
of my work experience there. I started writing up resources on how to use a computer and that has continued when I didn't have anyone to teach. I might put those up sometime, but they probably need updating. I must remind you that i haven't got any qualifications, but was just going on what i knew.

I think it must have been the following September i decided to volunteer for what started as half a day each week teaching people and writing up resources. I'm afraid that over the two years i volunteered for Cedar my time increased to two and a half days teaching 4 people. Just before i went off to get Ushi, J (The IT officer) wanted me to teach three or four people in the one day. I thought then that something needed to change.

Maybe part of that was my fault, but i felt i was taken advantage of. I also found out that J is no longer teaching what my now friend wants to learn. Before i left, i had her doing email and stuff. Now she has barely done email and they are all doing the same things it seems. She has been shown a complicated way to get into her emails, which isn't what i orriginally taught her. I told her when seeing her recently to do what she is comfortable with.

The volunteer coordinator even had the nerve to come out a few months to the house to see if i wanted to come back volunteering. I said i didn't, and she said that Cedar could pay for me to do a course in teaching or something. I just said that i couldn't and needed to move on, and she left quite sharply after that. Cedar even wanted me to teach something called "Clait" which i am not qualified to do!

I often braught up the subject of paid work, but i was always met with "That won't be on the agenda". Cedar was able to pay for taxis for all their clients so i don't know why this wasn't "on the agenda". Maybe i was being selfish for thinking it should have been.

I did get a christmas card and was taken out to lunch each year at christmas time, plus i got to go to social events, but i just felt that when they said my work was appreciated, that it was a standard card sent out to all volunteers.

I did get one last email asking me if i would complete a volunteer evaluation form, but i felt i couldn't be honest, so didn't complete the form.

Not all of that experience was bad though and i did gain alot of experience which will be useful if i do want to teach in the future. I didn't realise i'd written so much. I haven't put in names though to protect the inocent. I am expecting trouble though. I didn't know i could rant so much! I wasn't sure whether to write this post.

Anyway...

Guide dogs

First of all, i'm not saying that it is a better experience volunteering with guide dogs just because i am a guide dog owner, but i deffinetly feel it has been a much more positive one.

Because of the changes that are taking place at guide dogs at the moment, all volunteers are required to be registered and carry ID. This is if we are doing talks, for instance, or even just for fundraising.

Over here and all across the UK, in fact, a guide dog owner doesn't have to fundraise, but if they choose to, they must wait until after the first 6 months of qualification. This is to make sure that you and the dog are comfortable with each other, and that is with any dog no matter if it is your first or 5th.

I decided that after my 6 months, i would fundraise. I just did it before and had no idea that i needed to be registered. What we fundraise is totally up to us and there is no pressure if we want to do something or we don't. (I still don't do street collections, but will collect in a supermarket or a shopping centre.). But everyone is cool with that and no one cares or asks questions.

I happened to mention in passing one day about volunteering, and a couple of days later i got an email from the regional volunteer manager who covers Northern Ireland, part of England and part of Scotland. It was my registration form and safeguarding form. I was then asked to give two referees, so i sent them off. Within 2 days i had another email asking about a photo for my ID card and that my referees had been confirmed. I then got an agreement i had to sign, and last week i braught it to get signed by someone in the team. Now i'm just waiting for my ID card.

I got an email today telling me that i was invited to use
The volunteer extranet
Which has forums and news for volunteers at any time. While i might not use this that often, it might be a useful resource to have.

We can also claim expenses if say for instance, we are away for a lon day (for instance food).

I think this is a much better approach, and i now that i can in fact say no, and nobody will mind. I know that i really can do as much or as little as i want with Guide dogs.

I really am not just saying this to please people or because i am a guide dog owner.

I know i should never compare, but sometimes, it's just a natural thing. Volunteering should be as much or as little as you want to give and you should never feel pressurised into doing anything you are not comfortable with.

Sorry this is such a rambly post.

This Time Last Year...An Unwelcome Gift

2011-10-31T19:19:00.003Z

I would first like to wish everyone a happy Halloween. I hope that all animals aren't too terrified by the fireworks.

This time last year, Ushi decided to
Drop her load
In one of our shopping centres. I wanted to just crawl away into a whole and never come out again! I think the only reason she did it was that she had held it in all day.

Thankfully she has only done it twice. Once was in the shopping centre, and another time was when i took her to my grannies house for her to meet her pet dog since we were considering taking her. The only other time she will indicate needing to go is if we are walking past open water like the sea or a very open river. So I always tell whoever is guiding me that we might need a stop. She usually comes to a dead stop so i know that she is probably needing to go. I've still got no idea why she does it though when we are near open water. It's not a problem though as i know that she may need to so usually find grass near the sea or that to let her go.

I always give her an opportunity before a walk. Sometimes she won't go in the morning, so i will bring a bag just in case, but i haven't needed to use it yet. Mostly she is good and doesn't try to hold onto it. If we are away somewhere i usually take her after about 4 hours.

I'm so glad that she is in a reliable shedule now!

My next post is Ushi's first photo opportunity!

Oh and about an hour ago, Ushi ran down the stairs to say hi to the trick or treaters!

Blogger's Done It Again

2011-10-29T22:54:00.002+01:00

Thanks to
Ro
For updating me on the situation.

For the past month or so,
Blogger
Has been making some changes to its new editor. The current edditor is great because we can use it, but apparently even sighted people don't like it. I think in the middle of November they will start to switch and the "opt out" link will only be available for a short time afterwards.

I've decided to create a
Word press blog
Just to have a little experiment in case i have to move my blog. To be honest it's very hard and frustrating at the minute. Maybe that's because i'm tired. I even found blogger hard at the start.

Do any of you use word press and any tips for someone going from the nice cool blogger to word press? I'm not gonna move my entries yet though.

Please help a very frustrated blogger! I'm just annoyed. Even normal links code doesn't work Grrrrr!

Thanks.

Guide Dogs 80th Birthday Reception

2011-10-26T20:32:00.005+01:00

Today was an 80th birthday celebration for Guide dogs at Stormont. I wasn't sure whither to go but decided i may as well because if nothing else, it would be a chance to meet up with a few guide dog owners.

So at about 8 o'clock my rehab worker came to pick me up. We had to collect another guide dog owner too.

One of the fundraising branch volunteers was coming too, so we met her in Belfast since she was getting her car serviced there.

We then headed up to the district team office for about an hour while my rehab worker got some work done that he needed to get done. We sat and drank tea and just gabbed for a while. I got one of the staff to sign a form i needed to get signed for me volunteering as a fundraiser. (All volunteers must now be registered with guide dogs and have ID). I also saw one of my instructors and chatted to me for a while. The big boss then arrived. The chief executive of the organisation had come over for the event. He was a lovely guy and seemed really down to earth. Sometimes i find that people like that can be up their bums a bit and think they are better than everyone but he was lovely. He asked how i was getting on and was i happy with my aftercare and such. Of course i said yes as i don't think there is anything wrong with the service we receive as guide dog owners.

I then spent Ushi before we headed up to Stormont.

Even before we got into the actual Stormont building, we had to go through some security. They wanted us to park in a certain place, and the guide dog owners had to go in one way and other people had to go in the other. We then had to be signed in and were given passes which allowed us to enter the building. We then had to go through metal detectors before we were directed to what was called the "Long gallery". We all sat for a while until we were called outside for a photo opportunity with the first minister for Northern Ireland. While we waited for that we mingled with other guide dog owners, while an obsticle course was being set up for people to do a blind folded walk with a guide dog or cane. Hardly anyone went for the cane one this time though. I saw some lovely puppies called Troy, Erril, Mia (A labradoodle who i was dying to see), Magic, George, Guide dog grant, Guide dog Muffin, Guide dog Neemo, and two dogs in advanced training called Truffle and Lyn. Some of them i met later in the day though. I'm sure there were more dogs but i can't remember them all.

We were then called down to the front of the gallery for a photo with the first minister of Northern Ireland. Unfortunately me, another guide dog owner, my friend, and one of the branch members got left behind. They said they were taking people down in groups, but after a while we just went down. The photos took about half an hour and we didn't even know if they had been done or not. Oh by the way the little blue coats that the puppies wear are just cool.

We headed back inside for some tea and sandwiches. I worked Ushi up to where the long gallery was with directions, but then took someone's arm as it was just really really busy. The dogs just lay down as they were exhausted by this point. I had chicken sandwiches and a glass of water as we didn't have a table so i figured that a little china cup of tea wouldn't really be a good thing to have. While we were eating, one of the MPS Jim Wells introduced what would be happening throughout the rest of the afternoon. He says that the assembly will back everything guide dogs do, and he has a daughter with RP so knows about visual impairment. At least he wasn't just talking for the sake of it. He also sits on the "All party working group for the visually impaired" but i'm not sure what that is. I know it's part of the assembly. Next our policy officer from guide dogs stepped up to talk about the talking busses and stuff. The chief executive then stood up and mentioned a number of issues such as dog attacks, talking busses, attitudes to blindness and shared surface schemes. He then went on to talk about the next 80 years and he hopes to grow the guide dogs service, and roll out the sighted guide service i've mentioned before across the UK.

The District Client representative/national client representative for Northern ireland stepped up. These are basically guide dog owners who represent clients from their district team and would maybe complain on a guide dog owners behalf about something the guide dog owner wasn't happy with such as aftercare or any other issue. She told us about how she has recently had to retire her previous dog Zimba as he had a heart condition. She is just about to qualify with her new dog Allic hopefully later this week. She explained the changes going on in guide dogs, and i can't remember what else she talked about. I think that was all the speeches.

We just carried on mingling while some people did the obsticle course. A woman who had just been accepted onto the waiting list came over with her mother. For one reason or another she had been matched with a dog but it didn't work out. (Apparently she was meant to be matched with my Ushi but it didn't work out!). Isn't that a coincidence? Wow! Would i still have been waiting if she had been matched? God. I thought it was really mad. Her mother was a bit concerned that her daughter couldn't use busses but i said that i didn't use them yet but they would teach her if she needed to learn. She was a nice girl and i really hope it does work out this time.

Ushi saw my instructor and we had a good gab. She commented on how well Ushi looks, and asked me if i was having any problems. I'm not thankfully and she said that i seem to be handling her really well.. I also mentioned about ushi not liking when she can't see a persons' face and she said alot of dogs are like that.

I also met an instructor who is now working in our team but she had trained Ushi for 5 weeks of her training in scotland before coming over here where she will qualify. I said that she was probably a minx but she said her character hadn't really begun to show yet when she had her as they were mainly doing obedience and stuff.

I came over because somebody wanted Ushi's picture taken and we came across two dogs that are in their advanced training:Lyn and Truffle. They all tried to have a play lol. Lyn kept sniffing my right pocket as that is where my treats are kept lol but i hadn't got any with me today.

After all that we had a tour of the stormont building. We went into the "great hall" and the debating chamber. It was a bit boring as i wasn't that interested.

The dogs couldn't wait to get home by this point.

I was very pleased with Ushi and all the dogs in fact. There were a few exceptions, but most of the dogs were well behaved. Maybe they knew it was something improtant! When ushi realised that some of the guide dogs weren't coming over to her she just lay down and went to sleep. That is much improvement. Normally ushi will get quite excited with other dogs.

It was a good day and i'm glad i decided to go. The only boring bit was the tour!

This Time Last Year...A Solution!

2011-10-26T00:26:00.000+01:00

I'm finally catching up on all those blog posts i was writing over the past couple of days.

We had a visit from the
District team manager
Last year. I was so nervous since he was the manager and thought i had done someting to make her stop.

Ushi jumped up on the manager when he came to the house which i was mortified about! Thankfully he was okay with it and she hasn't really done it since.

He discovered her little whines she used to do but doesn't do any more while working.

We didn't go straight up to the kerb outside our house and sometimes we don't do that since she will stop if we do go up to the kerb and turn right sometimes.

Thankfully the stopping did stop and when she does it now i know how to deal with it and just tell her to get on with it. I sometimes sound like i want to kill her!

In the next post in this series, Ushi decides to leave a little something behind when we go shopping. I was mortified that day!

Opposite Ends

2011-10-25T22:13:00.004+01:00

Today was quite a busy day.

We first of all headed off to another fold to sell christmas cards. I was a bit nervous since at the last fold a little old lady came up to me and was like "She is awful fat, dear" while talking to Ushi. She never even said hello to me. I just said that Ushi was kept on a strict diet and was exercised regularly.

Before i was about to go, i had ushi's harness and lead in my hand. My three year old brother was standing beside me. (He had a bit of a limp when he came home from hospital but now you wouldn't know he had broke his leg). He asked me what i was holding. I said it was Ushi's harness. He said he wanted to wear it so i gave it to him. He then put it around his neck, buckled the girth strap and was like "it is like a seatbelt.". Then he told me to take the handle and guided me up the stairs. It was really funny because he was so gentle going up. I think it confused little Ushi as she came running up as if to say "That's mine!". He also wanted to have the lead on but i said i had to go.

Well the fold was really nice and it was all bungalos and flats with a main common room. All the activities were optional for the residents that were held in the main common room. Apparently it is run by the housing executive and you need a certain number of points to get in. I know it's probably wrong, but they seem like really good places to live. You are basically independent but if you need anything then you have a buzzer you can press. I asked out of interest what age you would have to be and they said that there was no age limmit. I just thought they would be a good idea, but i think i'll be a home bird for a bit longer lol.

All the residents were lovely and one lady even came over and sniffed Ushi and commented on how nice she smelt and how she smelt like perfume and not like a dog lol. She got a couple of her friends to do it too lol. I don't use perfume, I just hate a doggy smell. Right enough though i do spray my perfume over in the corner where her bed is so unless some of it got on her fur. I spray it on me though lol. I took it as a compliment lol.

My rehab worker was taking me to a school in Ballymoney to do a talk so he came and collected me from the fold. We had to pick up
The person who bords guide dogs sometimes
As she was the one i would be doing the talk with and she is a qualified speaker for guide dogs. It was a class of about 6 or 7 year olds i think. Maybe they were a bit older but not that much.

As we were walking in i heard alot of the kids talking about Ushi lol. It was things like "Look at the dog" and "come here boy".

We were first taken into the staff room for a biscuit and a cup of tea as it was the kids lunch time. The class were all sitting quietly when we came into the classroom.

The guide dog border first of all talked about the main breeds of dogs used for guide dogs. She then showed them some pictures, then said about German sheperds and why sometimes they can be frightening. She said that sometimes they are trained like that for example they might sound a bit nasty for a police dog, for example. I then said that some owners weren't very nice people and that they maybe made a dog frightening.

We then talked about what a puppy walker did, where the puppies were born, then about the puppies learning how to guide. We explained that it was like the kids going to primary school first (the puppy walker), then they would go to "big school" where they would learn how to guide and such.

We then explained that if Ushi walked me into something, I would tell her to "Watch" and that Ushi wouldn't really like that because i would be being cross with her. I explained that when she was walking me around all the obsticles if i was telling her what a good girl she was she would do it again since she was happy that she was a good dog.

We then got the kids to tell us what kinds of obsticles they would see every day.

We said about how it is always best to ask a guide dog owner when they are working if they can pet their dog. I then lifted my harness and explained that once the harness handle was lifted the dog was working, but if someone wanted to pet Ushi i would just drop my handle. I said that the dog only guides when the handle is up.

We then got into the costs of guide dogs. We asked the kids how much they thought it would cost throughout the lifetime of a guide dog. estimates ranged from £300 to nothing to...£5,000,000 lol. Those would be very expensive vet bills!

We then asked the kids how much they thought a guide dog owner pays for their dog. They were quite shocked when i said it was 50 P! I explained about the health book and that her vet bills were payed for and all.

It was then question time. Each pupil had written down a question each and it was on a white board where they read it out. They asked things like "how does the dog get trained?" which we had already answered so got them to remember. "How does the dog cross the road?" to which i explained that i told ushi when to go forward when the traffic was clear. I said that Ushi will just walk straight across the road and then i would tell her what direction i wanted to go in. "How does the guide dog know where to go?" to which i explained that i told Ushi where to go and that i told her what direction i wanted to go in". "What happens when the dog dies?" sort of took me back! I said that i would be very sad and that i would hope it didn't happen for a few years yet, but if i needed another dog i would probably apply again. "What happens when the guide dog owner dies?" (A good question, i thought.). I said that if i was hit by a bus that Ushi could probably work for sombody else, or else she would just become a pet. "How does the dog know where its' food is?" (I was glad we were on a happier topic! I explained how i measure her food using an old baked bean tin, that i get her to sit, and that i toot three times on a whistle.

After all the questions, it was petting time. I just said "does anyone want to pet the dog?". At one point i had about three kids around me. I had said that she would give them her paw, but of course she wouldn't do it! One little kid was like "oh if you put your face down she'll lick it!".

I think the petting was the best part for them to be honest. They seemed to take it all in, and we gave them booklets on fireworks and pets.

At one point we were talking about why you might need a dog. We said about glasses and i had visions of every kid going home and announcing "I need a guide dog since i can't see too well" lol so i added that sometimes glasses don't actually work to help some people. Either that or they would ask for 50 P to buy a guide dog!

I think ushi could have stayed all day there. She was so gentle with the kids.

I look forward to the next talk!

This Time Last Year...More Stops

2011-10-24T21:10:00.000+01:00

This time last year
The stops seemed to be getting worse
In fact i was even considering giving up because we weren't getting anywhere.

I had tried being really positive but it didn't really work. I discovered that when we went shopping though in a new place she didn't stop at all.

I was still spending ushi on her lead in the garden but now she goes on her own since i don't have to chase her or anything any more and she will come straight up again.

My rehab worker had told me that i must persevere with Ushi and to ring the team if i had any problems. I didn't want to ring them all the time though.

I think it was this time last year when my dad and sister commented on how i walked much faster with Ushi than i did when i was being guided. My sister even suggested that i was walking quicker so i would be matched quicker. That had really annoyed me at the time. Number one i couldn't really keep that up throughout the whole process, and number two the instructors would have noticed straight on class. They are cool now though.

Her stopping was that bad last year that i wanted to give her back, and i really felt horrible for saying that.

Ushi still stops now, but in my next entry i'll explain how it stopped. I know she does it now because she is bored.

I'm sorry for so many posts.

Back From The Weekend

2011-10-23T20:48:00.011+01:00

I've been internetless since Monday. It was apparently something to do with our hub. I'm playing catch up now though.

I'm just back from a weekend at the
Share Centre
I'm a bit tired so it might take a while before i write the full thing. I'll split it up into headings though as it is very very very long.

Arrival

I went on Thursday to check my emails as i needed to learn when i was being picked up. I didn't get any emails from her but thankfully she phoned me on Friday to let me know that i was being picked up at about half 6 that night. When the woman from Angel Eyes Northern Ireland phoned me i thought that the weekend had been cancelled. Thankfully it hadn't so that was good.

I fed Ushi at about 5 o'clock so that her food had plenty of time to digest before we went in the car. She was wondering where we were going as i was still packing. She just stood around looking at me.

I decided to put Ushi in the boot of the car since it was a big boot and the woman from Angel Eyes wasn't sure how to turn off her airbag. (If a dog is in the front of a car the front airbag must be turned off as if we had an accident the air bag would break the dogs neck). Ushi was quite comfy in the boot though.

About an hour into the drive, we stopped to let Ushi have a pee, and for us to have some hot chocolate the woman had braught. I was glad we stopped as i find that if i am travelling for a long time in a car i feel a bit sick. Thankfully because we stopped i didn't feel ill which was good.

We arrived at the chalet at about half 9. We first located some grass to spend Ushi but she didn't want to do anything. Everyone else were already in the chalet, so we headed on in to meet everyone.

I asked the organiser who's room i would be sharing if I could let her off the lead to be introduced to everyone and she was grand with that. Ushi was wagging hard and ran around just exploring the place.

There were about 10 or 11 kids there altogether. Most of them were partially sighted, but there was one other blind child. She had some other issues though and maybe a bit of over protection happening but i will explain more about that a bit later. All the girls seemed extremely happy to have a dog there. They were between 9 and 18 i think.

Shortly after arriving the organiser announced that we would be having a chinese. I thought this would be a good time to have a talk to the girls all about guide dogs and feeding etc. I didn't want to lecture them though. It was quite hard to get their attention though as they were all quite hyper. Once they had all quietened down I said that Ushi wasn't allowed any human food and explained why she couldn't have any. I then explained that there would be some things that i needed to do on my own with Ushi such as take her to the toilet etc. I explained that when the harness was on that ushi was working and she could not be petted. I then said that around the chalet she would be off lead so could be petted. I finally mentioned that for about an hour after she had eaten she would be kept in my room as if she got excited she could become quite sick. They all seemed to understand and were quite keen to ask some questions about her such as her age and how long i had her.

There was much chattering after that, so me and the woman who braught me down decided to look for a more permanent spending place where i didn't need to get someone to help me. We found grass just behind the chalet which was good. I was orriginally going to use the concrete run that is there but then thought that there would be no point since Ushi wouldn't go in it.

We didn't really do that much more. There was one point though where the girl i mentioned earlier who i thought had been over protected said something that really shocked me. I'll call her C from now on. So anyway she was asking lots of questions to everybody basically. When it was time to go to bed she said "How do you dress yourself when you're blind?". This utterly shocked me because she was 12 years old. I just said that i did it the same way anyone else did it. She said to one of the staff when it was bed time that she couldn't dress herself because her mum always did it for her. The staff member wasn't having any of it so told her that she could dress herself and just handed her her Pyjammas when she was going to bed. (She did eventually decide to dress herself).

I'm going to side track for a minute. I know C was blind and had some other issues (She rocked a bit). I think this is called an Aquired learning disability or
Blindisms
She seemed to have quite an attitude problem and was very rude throughout the weekend to alot of the staff. They were continually telling her not to be rude/shout/appologise about what she said etc. The dressing problem was also a problem too throughout the weekend. She kept saying that she couldn't dress herself and pretended that she couldn't put her socks etc on. (She was made to dress herself each time).

I know i might be being a bit harsh, but i don't think there is any excuse for that. Yes she is blind with other issues but is she not getting to an age where she needs to be able to dress herself. I thought it was quite sad really that she claimed she couldn't when she could.

There were also some other issues that really made me think she was over protected. I found it really upset me and made me reflect and I really am lucky in my situation. My parents didn't want me to be any different from anyone else really. Yes they had to make adaptions, but they used common sense. Plus they had the rest of my family to look after so they couldn't really molly coddle me.

I'm probably going to offend someone in these last couple of paragraphs, but it is just my oppinion. It just made me realise how lucky i am.

Anyway I suppose i'd better get on to day two.

Day 2: a busy day

We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed yesterday morning. Ushi had a bit of an unsettled night though. She started to whine at about half 1. This normally isn't like her so i took her out to see if she needed a pee. She did in fact, so it was a good job i did take her. I think that because she had been travelling for so long and all the excitement of meeting so many new people through her routine out of whack a bit. She did get up a couple more times but that was because it was really really warm in the room. So i don't really blame her for that.

To be honest last night she was a bit of a terror. It wasn't anything really major but just the fact that she wouldn't come when i called her when she was being fussed over by all the kids. To be fair though one of the kids was rather obsessed with her since she had two dogs at home. She kept telling Ushi when to sit and stuff and i had to tell her to stop it yesterday when we were shopping as she was telling ushi what a good girl she was whilst i was working her. I just said that it was me who needed to give her commands and know one else. I think she got the message after that. Anyway i was kind of dreading the rest of the weekend if ushi wasn't going to listen to me, but thankfully she was much better both yesterday and today and did what i told her which was good.

This morning was the first
Poo pick up
So i was a bit nervous of it. She had woke me up at about 10 to 7 because she was still too warm so i decided to feed her then. I went out all prepared with my bags and rubber gloves only to discover that she had just peed. I lost one of my bags so decided just to use one with my gloves from then on. So i put Ushi back in my room while i got ready for the day. The organiser of the trip said that ushi was whining a bit, so i went out again to see if she had to do anything, and lo and behold, a little package was left. Ushi decided to wonder round in a circle once she had gone. So I had to shorten her lead, get her to sit, tell her to wait, put my lead between my legs, then begin the search. After some groping in a bag i found it and got it all. It was smaller than i thought and not as bad as i thought either. My sister had always described it as "massive" so i was expecting a monster sized one lol. Unfortunately i couldn't find a bin but just left the bag at the end of the grass so that someone could find it. (The bin was in quite an awkward place so the staff said they would sort putting it away.

After that was taken care of and my hands washed, it was back to the room for ushi and i went and had breakfast.

Normally we would go over to another building for breakfast but we decided just to eat it in the chalet and have lunch and dinner in the other building anyway. It gave us more time to chill and meant we didn't have to rush things.

At 10 o'clock, we headed over to what was called the "Arts arrena" to do T shirt printing. I decided to work ushi over there. She did rush a bit but she does that when we go on a new route. I just tied her to the table leg so that i was free to paint or whatever.

First of all the others drew on paper what they were doing first but i said that i would just use the T shirt. The woman teaching us said that we could put masking tape in the shape of what we wanted to have on our T shirts and we could go in between that. So i got the woman to do the shape of a fish. We could then paint, use crayons or felt tips. I decided to use crayons as they would be less messy.

While we were doing that, the organiser of the trip recorded us each talking about our T shirts for the next edition of
Sound Vision Ulster
Which is an audio magazine run by the RNIB.

It was then back to the chalet for a while as lunch wasn't until 1 o'clock.

Unfortunately it had started raining when we were heading to lunch. Again i worked Ushi. Unfortunately when we entered the dining hall some poor woman got soaked when Ushi shook all over her. The kids were fascinated at how ushi just lay under the table.

One of the volunteers told me what there was and then went and got it for me since i didn't think working ushi and carrying plates would be a good idea. I had lasagne.

After lunch, we headed to Eniskillin for some shopping. We got a minibus. I was surprised at the amount of room there was for Ushi. We sat at the front of the bus. On the way down she just sat and looked out the window.

Because of the way Ushi was sitting she couldn't really turn round to get out of the bus. She backed up a bit but then wouldn't go any further. So I kind of had to do a little twirl so that i could get off first, then tell Ushi to "come". She was fine afterwards. Maybe dogs don't like going backwards or something.

I know i probably shouldn't have worked her since i didn't know where i was going, but i thought it would be a good idea. One of the volunteers went with me and directed me all the way. The girl who was obsessed with dogs was like at one point "good girl ushi" when she was working. I wasn't having any of that so politely told her that all the commands needed to come from me when she was working. She didn't do it again which was good.

Me and the volunteer were a bit disappointed that there weren't that many shops that we were interested in so we sat in a coffee shop until we would go to Asda for nibbles. She asked why Ushi couldn't go on escalators as i'd said that she couldn't earlier. I explained that her paws could get caught in the teeth of it and they could cut her. W had a good gab. She was amazed at how ushi could take me around an obsticle. She was quite shocked that people walked in front of her though when she was guiding. I just said that you got used to it.

Before we got into Asda there was a really windy ramp thing that you had to go up to get in. I think Ushi found this a bit confusing. She did brush me a couple of times against people but it was a bit tight.

She worked really well apart from the crisp isle as she kept looking at the crisps and was very slow to walk down it. A little encouragement got her going again though. I don't think she liked the sound of the crinkling of the packets.

Ushi worked extremely well on the whole trip. Considering i was just going on direction and i didn't have a clue where i was going she was great! She really enjoys the busier conditions as there is less for her to get distracted by and she has to focus more.

She went straight to sleep on the bus lol. I think it all tired her out.

I fed and spent her when we got back as it was half 5. Our dinner was at 6 o'clock. I didn't take ushi and just closed the door to our room so she could chill. The kids were bitterly disappointed that she didn't come to dinner.

Dinner was roast beef and potatoes and gravy. The beef was a bit tuff but still nice.

The Share Centre are trialling out the
React Systim
but it still has some teething problems. They aren't giving people the little fobs until they are sorted. They let me try it on the way to dinner though. I had only heard the one used for the Talking busses i did back in august, but not for a route. (I can't be bothered looking up that entry). It was quite useful.

I mentioned that on the way back to the chalet there was braille on the wall just before you went in. I only read the bottom and it said "chalets". I couldn't understand why they had "chalets" written on the wall but it was a tactile map. I suppose that would make sense.

When we got back to the chalet, we chilled until it was time for the X factor. (The kids wanted to watch it unfortunately). I went and spent Ushi as she still hadn't done her evening poo. The grass was soaking so i don't think she wanted to go so i braught her in again.

It was then time for some pampering. There was an electric foot spa, nail polishing, hair stuff and face masks. I just had my feet and face done. Everybody loved the foot spa. When i was getting my feet done ushi came over and stood there looking at me wondering what i was doing.

We were going to watch a movie, but by the time the pampering was over with it was nearly 10 o'clock so we didn't bother.

Ushi still hadn't spent when i took her out for her last one of the night. She seemed very alert though. I phoned the angel eyes woman and she got the organiser to come out with me. I was going to see if she would go in the run but then i thought i would see if she would go if i let her off the lead. (The organiser was with me and she said she would keep an eye on her. So of course Ushi decided to have a good run around and decided that the would roll in the middiest part of the grass. She had a very smelly hard green neck. So once we got her into the chalet again, we use wet kitchen roll to get it all off. I don't think she was pleased to have to keep going back into the kitchen for us to get it off.

The kids then went to bed at about 12 o'clock and Ushi took herself off to bed too. We all stayed up chatting for a while. Ushi started to dream and the staff thought it was hilarious. Luckily i had warned them that she would do it lol.

Last day

Ushi had a much better night last night. She was up and down a bit but no whining. The room had a little camp bed thing. I actually thought it was a chair lol. Anyway it was just at my ankle level. It just had a quilt on it. We found a little Ushi lying curled in a ball in the morning! My bag and all were ther but she managed to squeeze on. She normally wouldn't even attempt getting up on the furniture, so it was a bit strange. I think that either she missed her bed (I just braught a mat for her to lie on as the bed is really massive) and decided that this was the next best thing, or she just accidentally stepped up on it and thought "This is nice". I couldn't correct her though since i didn't know she had got up there and hadn't caught her getting on. As soon as i got up and told her to get off she bounced off and never got back on.

Thankfully we had no spending problems this morning.

At about 10 o'clock we were off for a swim. I was going to walk Ushi before the swim but she was wrecked from yesterday. So while we swam a couple of volunteers stayed to clean the chalet and Ushi slept. The kids were deeply disappointed that ushi couldn't come but i explained that other people had to use the pool too.

It was lunch time after our swim. We had a roast dinner and Pavlova. I braught Ushi to lunch and the kids couldn't believe how she just lay under the table all the time.

It was back to the chalet to pack and wait for the bus after that. Some of the girls wanted to do a singing compition before we went so they were allowed to do that. Ushi went in to our room and wouldn't come until one little girl had finished!

Before we were about to leave the organiser gave us all a bag full of little samples of make up and shower jell and stuff. It was then time for the bus and we went home in the angel eyes woman's car.

It was a good weekend and i was so pleased with Ushi. She wasn't as bad as i thought and the kids loved her.

I'm sorry for the long post. I've got a couple of other posts to write too. I hope this one isn't too long!

This Time Last Year...Has The Stopping Stopped?

2011-10-18T20:40:00.000+01:00

I thought that this time last year
The problems i was experiencing
Were sorted since i had aftercare. It did sort it out for a while.

The instructor who came to see me said i just needed to be really positive, and that should hopefully stop the stopping. She said that i would be firm if i needed to be, but to try and be a bit more positive. (When she had stopped i had just corrected her).

Unfortunately the stops continued for a while after. I think my next entry is when the district team manager had to come out and see why Ushi was stopping.

Today we had two very good walks. We only had one sniff and she indicated that there was an obsticle at one point (it was a stick), but i thought that Ushi was just being Ushi. I don't think she liked the wind though as she kept slowing way down. We mostly had normal speeds though which was good. Sometimes she'll slow way down and kind of crawl along.

In other news my wee brother got his cast off today. He was orriginally meant to stay in for two or three days but the physio theropist says that because he has been so active they are letting him out tonight. He will have to basically learn to walk again propperly though. He is still very nervous to stand but they said that will just take time for him to get his confidence back.

I'm writing this in a notepad document since we don't have internet. I'll probably post this tomorrow.

I'm gonna go now and find something else to do.

Oh by the way this is my 400th post!

Reunion

2011-10-15T20:17:00.002+01:00

I got sent this on facebook the other day. I can't actually go but thought that if you are around and went to Jordanstown, you might be interested.

JORDANSTOWN SCHOOL
85 Jordanstown Road, Newtownabbey BT37 0QE
Tele: 028 9086 3541(VOICE/T.D.D.)
Fax: 028 9086 4356
School Mobile : 07902720459

email: info@jordanstownschools.co.uk
www.jordanstownschools.co.uk

Principal and Secretary to the Board of Governors
Mrs A P Magee, M.Ed., Dip.Sp.Ed.(VI), PQH(NI)

12 October 2011

COME AND SEE THE NEW JORDANSTOWN SCHOOL

We would like to invite past pupils and former members of staff to come and see our stunning new school building on Sunday 23 October 2011 from 2.00pm – 4.30pm. This brand new purpose built centre of excellence for pupils who are deaf or visually impaired is on the same site as the old school building.

On the day you will to able to find out about what is happening in the school and what we plan to do in the future as well as renew old acquaintances. Light refreshments will be provided.

It would be helpful if you could indicate whether or not you are able to attend. Please complete the attached form below and forward it to the Bursar at the address above. An email/telephone/fax/text response can also be used. Other family members are also welcome to attend and should you be in contact with any other former members of staff please share this invitation with them.

We look forward to seeing you on the 23rd.

Yours sincerely

A P. Magee

MRS A P MAGEE
PRINCIPAL

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COME AND SEE THE NEW JORDANSTOWN SCHOOL

SUNDAY 23 OCTOBER 2011
2.00pm – 4.30pm

I can/cannot* attend the ‘Come to See’ Afternoon.

I will require a BSL interpreter / sighted* guide to be available on the day.

Signed: ______________________________ Dated: ____________________

Print Name: __________________________ No of people attending _______

* delete as appropriate

I am a little curious about the new school, but i don't think i'll ever go back or visit again. (It's a long long story and i'm not sure a blog would be the best place). But do pass this along if you know someone who might be interested in attending!

This Time Last Year...The Stops

2011-10-14T19:27:00.002+01:00

I am glad to say that Ushi is totally back to her old self and wasn't sick since Wednesday morning. So god knows what she got into!

This time last year,
The stops
Started. Again i thought i had done something terribly wrong.

Thankfully back then the stopping wasn't as major as it did get. It was still really strange though. I actually thought the reason she stopped the first time was that she couldn't see in the dark!

I also had a couple of annoying kids. They are still annoying today but thankfully i manage to do my walks when they are not around. They don't try to feed her now but are still very ignorant and if i do come across them they continue to walk in front of Ushi. They are the type that will never learn.

I can't remember when the next post will be, but October last year was quite a bad month. Thankfully now i've sorted out those kinks.

Oh and when i'm away
Next weekend
I might use
Audio Boo
To record what i'm doing each day. I haven't decided yet.

This Time Last Year...The Problems Start

2011-10-12T19:09:00.003+01:00

I must start by saying that i had a sick girl last night. She had just come in from her last spend of the night when about 10 minutes later she was sick. This is the second time since i've had her that she has been sick. I thought she was grand after that but this morning she was sick again. I didn't think breakfast would be a good idea though so didn't feed her. I know that was probably bad of me but i thought it might help her stomach if she had nothing in it.

Thankfully she hasn't been sick the rest of the day, and I fed her her dinner and it has so far stayed down. She's not quite her self, but she did want to play earlier so that's a good sign.

I think she might have eaten something when she was outside last night. (Mum thinks it was a slug). There wasn't any grass in it at all so god knows what it was.

Anyway onto the main post. They say that it can take a good 6 months to a year for a new guide dog owner to work out all the "Kinks" in their relationship. Unfortunately the instructors can't warn you about the
Problems
That might occur or when they will happen. (If they did tell you everything I think some guide dog owners might decide there and then to throw in the towel!). I'm guessing that the instructors don't know because they only work with the dog for a short time.

I thought i had done something terrible. Over here guide dogs are taught to sit at down kerbs and steps. I'm not really sure why this is. Ushi just would not sit at all. I figured that because i had been the only one working her that i had done something to make her not sit at them.

Thankfully my instructor reassured me and said that we could let ushi stand at her kerbs as long as she waited. So Now I get her to stand at her kerbs but do have to tell her to "wait" sometimes because she anticipates what direction we are going.

I also had a complete weirdo who claimed that i was hurting ushi when i was correcting her. (Over here we use a "half check" collar which when you correct you basically chuck back on the lead and release it immediately. This is sort of like a little squeeze around her neck to let her know that what she is doing isn't right. It never hurts the dog. It would only hurt the dog if you kept it pulled back). Anyway this dude thought I was hurting Ushi which i would never do. Of course that got me panicking in case he called Guide dogs. He never did though.

Little did i know that not sitting at her kerbs would only be the start of her little problems. In a couple of days i'll talk about a problem that i thought was much worse.

In other news...

On Monday Ushi just didn't seem to be on the ball. We were coming back from my quilting course and she walked all over the shopping centre where we do it and walked me into a couple of things. We always go out a certain way so don't know what was up with her. Yesterday she was much better but I didn't work her today.

If she is well tomorrow i'll take her with me to sell christmas cards at a fold for elderly people. I'll probably not work her but just take her along. Normally i will work her beforehand but think we'll just chill. If she is sick again i won't take her.

I don't think it was anything serious since she was only sick those two times. Let's hope for a better night! She is much more lively so think whatever it was is out of her system. Thank god!

Picking Up The Presents

2011-10-10T21:41:00.004+01:00

I figured i'd write this question in a blog as not all my readers would want to read about this, and also it's too long to post on Twitter. If you're a bit grossed out easily or are about to have food, it might be best to skip this topic.

From the 21st to the 23rd of this month, I am off to
The Share Centre
For a pampering weekend. It is mainly for kids, but one of the women from
Angel Eyes Northern ireland
Is taking her daughter down and asked me if i would want to go. I said yes and emailed the organisers and that to make sure it was okay. They said yes so all i need to do now is just pack.

It should be a good weekend and i've decided to take Ushi. I can't wait to see just how she'll get on since this will be the first time taking her away anywhere. I'm just going to really play it by ear and have asked that some of the time when we are in our chalet if i can let ushi off her lead. I would hate to have her on her lead for the whole weekend.

Along with bringing Ushi comes the rather unpleasant taks of picking up presents left by her. There is a dog run there and i am determined to use it! (Ushi doesn't do concrete for her spends unless she is desperate). I'm hoping that because other dogs use it she might. There is always grass if she absolutely won't go though since the run is there, I may as well use it. I have heard of people tying plastic bags to their feet and picking up with their hand inside the bag. I'm just a teensy bit germaphobic and just the though of picking it up is just horrible. (Here at home mum picks it up since she picks up Ashes and ushi does it all over the garden so i'd never know where it was. We have a grass garden but ushi likes to go behind bushes and stuff).

I am not prepared to leave her businessees there though as that would just be irrisponsible and the fact that there is kids there too means i kind of have to pick it up. I won't be using biodegradable bags (The ones i have are very flimsy) but i will be using plastic bags and i might buy a packet of rubber gloves and a hand sanitiser. I'm sure i'll be alright after the first pick up, but the thought just grosses me out.

Any tips for a slightly more pleasant experience along with a bit of a squeamish handler?

Other than that, it should be a good weekend but that is the only part i'm not looking forward to. Thanks for any hints!

This Time Last Year...The Big Update

2011-10-08T19:07:00.003+01:00

Here we are again with another recap. Last years post was
Quite an update
Which started with a visit from my instructors as i still wasn't all that confident using zebra crossings. Now i use that route quite alot as it takes me into town!

I found it so hard in those early days to actually go out on my own with Ushi, and used to imagine that my instructors were still there in their cars behind me. It seemed to work though as now i can go out without a care in the world!

I also had someone try to direct Ushi that week. I was walking around his car and he decided to tell Ushi where to go. I think he huffed with me though once i told him that i could work out the way round the obsticle! Thankfully i have only had that one experience and people don't try to do it as much now.

I was spending ushi on the lead at the time last year, but thankfully she will come in now after she has gone and she doesn't dig as much now.

The problems were pritty minor compared to the problems i will describe in the next couple of posts. I really wasn't prepared!

I was reflecting the other day about Ushi on one of my days out this week with my rehab worker. She can be quite a hard dog to handle, and if the instructors had known what a handful she could have been i don't think they would have given me her as a first dog. I think i am well able to handle her now though and we have come along way in just a year.

When we were out on our walk today, we heard a firework and poor Ushi jumped a bit. Last year she was grand though with them so i'm not too worried.

In other news, I ordered a wax for Ushi's paws called "Mushers secret". It is meant to protect the dogs paws from the salt and all during Winter. I can't wait to try it out!

Remember to check out that exhibition i mentioned in my last entry if you're in that area! If you're not, you can still listen to the audio.

I'll write more soon about me and Ushi.

"The Screaming Silence Of The Wind" By Maurice Orr

2011-10-04T18:55:00.005+01:00

I was at my quilting course yesterday when the lady who teaches it said that there was an exhibition for the visually impaired happening at
The Braid Arts Centre
In ballymena. It is landscapes from Iceland and Northern Ireland. It is a guy called
Maurice Orr
From Ballymoney.

I had never heard of this exhibition before, so we decided to check it out today.

At about half 10, the woman came to cellect me and Ushi. I wasn't sure about bringing Ushi as i thought they might be funny about her being there, but they didn't care at all.

There was an audio CD and a braille copy of what all the pieces were. Here is an introduction to the exhibition.
Introduction
Next is a
Summary Of Still Images
That were apparently on the wall as a power point presentation. Here are
The descriptions
For these images. Next was a recriation of
Maurices Studio
The fish leathers were hangin up so you could feel what they were like. They were made from Wool fish which have smooth skin, and Codd which is scaley. I was surprised at how tough they were. I didn't know you could get leather off a fish, or even feel fish skin.

Next were some paintings
That he had experimented with
Some of it didn't feel like much, but the likes of the see you could feel which felt very choppy. Some of the fish leathers were soft and smooth and some were rough and hard.

Next was a
Big cave near the Giants' Causeway
In Northern Ireland. This was quite cool as it was like a hole in the page. The whole in the middle of the page was to represent the cave with the walls all around it.

Next was
A painting
From Iceland. I liked the way the mountains felt in this picture.

Next was a
Volcano
With a really hard name to pronounce lol. I couldn't really feel much in this painting.

Next was
A painting of the Giants' Causeway
In Northern Ireland. This was quite a tactile painting.

Finally it's a
Painting of a head land
In Northern Ireland. It has a really wild sea and is again very tactile.

It was a good exhibition, and most of the things i could feel some detail in. The exhibition runs from the 9th of September to the 29th of October. My only worry is that alot of people won't know about it. There wasn't anyone else when we were there.

Ushi found it a bit boring and just lay down lol. She wasn't a fan of having to keep getting up though.

Please spread the word if you live locally. It's not often we get to feel paintings!

Guide Dogs 80th Birthday

2011-10-01T20:58:00.006+01:00

Today was the start of Guide dog week, and it was the
80th birthday party
In Belfast. I was going up with my rehab worker. My friend asked if she could be picked up from my house since we were both going together. That was fine.

My friend came to the house at about 8.30 as we weren't leaving til 9 o'clock. We thought we would let the dogs have a bit of a play before we would go.

I had told my two year old brother that he would see another doggy soon. I said that she was a guide dog and that it was called Della. My two year old brother was like "I want to see Della" and "Will Della be there in a second?" and "I want to see the black doggy". I said Della was a guide dog and he was like "Della is a guide dog but she isn't Wushi (Ushi)".

When my friend came, I left Ushi in the hall and went out to meet her. My little brother was then behind the front door so we waited until he had moved. Ushi was off her lead and they could see each other through the door and were having a good whine at each other. When we did let them see each other, I grabbed onto Ushi's collar to let my friend in, and now have a huge cramp in my arm. She can be quite strong when she wants to be. My friend was a bit nervous about letting Della off her lead in case she bumped into my two year old brothers cast. I said it would be fine and asked mum and she was okay with them being let off too.

Well they had a ball. I was expecting them to run all through the house, but they just rolled around the floor and chewed on each others ears, pawed each other, snorted and generally had a great time. At one point Ushi went off to lie in the kitchen. I went to see where she was and she then got up and went to play with Della again. It was great to let them do this as it was a dog I knew, and it was nice to see her having so much fun.

When my rehab worker came he watched them play together for a bit before we put them in the car. The car was just outside so we didn't put them on leads, but instead just opened the boot. Ushi just would not get in the boot because she associates going in his car with sitting in the front at my feet. We bribed her up though with a dog treat and she was soon up. We figured that we would put them both in the boot as they were getting on so well and one of them would be going in the back anyway.

We got to the City Hall at about half 9. We chatted to some of the staff for a while, before sitting down for a while as the actual event didn't start until 11 o'clock.

More guide dog owners started to arrive so of course that meant that the dogs would get rather excited. Every time a new dog came along, the dogs wanted to say hello. I heard someone complaining about the dogs getting excited. I don't think she was a guide dog owner but she was within earshot. I just said something like "They aren't robots so it's only natural that they would get excited" or something to that affect.

One of the puppywalkers then came up to us with her pup Troy. Another puppywalkerwas going to bring up her pup Trixy but i think she was being rather naughty.

At about half 10, we got some photograps taken, before going into a markee as this was where all the other guide dog owners were. At this point it started to bucket down so it was a good job that we were all in the markee.

Lots of people started to turn up for the blind folded obsticle course. It was made up of cars, chairs, lamp posts and just the general street furniture that would be found on a street. It was 80 feet long and people were given a long cane and accompanied up the course. The lord mayor for Belfast then came so we had to get photographs taken with him. Here is a
Vidio of him
Doing the course. I think there were some people walking with some guide dogs blind folded too so you might see that.

I think alot of the guide dog owners left shortly after that, but not before the birthday cake was cut. We got all the dogs sitting up while the cake was braught in. Apparently it was a two teer cake with little iced guide dogs with their harnesses on and baloons on the second layer. It sounded great.

There were still people doing the obsticle course, but we just chatted to the public and met more doggies.

I baught the Northern Ireland guide dogs calendar for 2012, and baught a book for my two year old brother called
Pheenix Finds Treasure
Which is about a dog who finds a ladys purse or something on a beach. It's not guide dogs related but i think the author is donating the proceeds to guide dogs.

It was an alright day but I think more would have happened if it hadn't been so wet and miserable. I just think there could have been a little more happening, but we couldn't really control the weather.

What mattered was that there were hopefully a few people made more aware of how cluttered the streets can be for blind and partially sighted people.

I even saw one of my old primary school teachers too.

There are lots of other events happening across the UK all across this coming week. I hope everyone has a good time and that all doggies have fun!

Volunteer Day In Derry

2011-09-30T21:02:00.005+01:00

I'm quite tired so can't be bothered putting the "This time last year" post in a separate post. This should be the last one for a bit.

This time last year
Was the first day
After qualification. I was extremely nervous as this was the start of my journey. I worried so much back then if i would be able to go out on my own, and now look at me!

My mum even worried and wanted someone to meet me at a spiciffic part of our walk. Thankfully that didn't happen though.

On to today

Today me and another guide dog owner were invited to an event hosted by
Volunteer now
Which is an organisation all across northern ireland that promotes volunteering. My rehab worker was going down so thought it would be good for us to come along as well. The derry branch of guide dogs were holding a volunteer information stall and a street collection too.

So at about 8 o'clock, we were picked up. We then headed off to collect that other local guide dog owner before heading off to Limavady to pick up the branch organiser for the Limavady branch.

We then headed off to the Playhouse in Derry where there was a free cup of tea, and a chance to check out Volunteer now's
One good reason action day
Which is an event to encourage the over 50s to volunteer. It was taking place in 8 or 9 towns and cities across the country. The aim of the day was to get useful skills for being partnered with an organisation of your choice.

Unfortunately the volunteers who would have been coming to see us weren't able to make it so two women from Volunteer now agreed to come to our event. My rehab worker was going to show them how to do basic sighted guiding.

So after lots of pictures at the Playhouse, we headed off to a hotel which i can't remember the name of lol. I think it might have been the London derry arms or something like that.

Of course as we were heading over, it started to pour down. So my rehab worker went and got his car and we all headed over to the hotel.

The street collection was just across the street from the hotel, so before we went in, we went over to say hi. One of the guide dog owners up in Derry has a german sheperd called Inis. At another event we were at, Inis gave a bit of a bark towards Ushi and a bit of a growl. It really scared me so i was a little nervous of meeting him again. His owner is extremely nice. Well we had no growls at all from Inis, and in fact Ushi spent most of the time sniffing his bum! They even lay down beside each other later that day too. So I don't know what was up that first day but i felt much better about him since they were so friendly. I even said to the guide dog owner later on.

We had the exhibition vehicle that was sent over from England too. Ushi kept trying to go up the steps of it lol.

After saying hi to everyone, we went over to the hotel where we would do the sighted guiding thing and where the people we would be teaching were.

We first of all started with basically why we were here, followed by a short talk about our experiences as guide dog owners, some very basic ways of how to guide someone to a seat and the in correct and correct way of going in and out of a door. We also showed the correct grip for someone holding your arm. We then did a quiz on some of the common myths about guide dogs and were they true or false. We then watched a DVD about guiding a blind and partially sighted person across the road and that.

After that, we were going to get the volunteers to practice guiding us. So we left the dogs with the woman from Limavady (she bords guide dogs so i knew nothing would happen). We let them off their leads as it was a small room that we had been in the woman wasn't going anywhere. They had a ball just snorting and running around.

We just walked over to where we would be helping with the street collection later. My volunteer didn't really say much apart from informing me about kerbs and such so it was a bit awkward. The other volunteer has signed up as a volunteer driver!
We ate lunch and chilled in the exhibition vehicle for a while after. As well as the collection, there was a volunteer information event in the vehicle so i decided to do that while the others did the street collection. I'm still not comfy doing that at the moment. Plus i thought that it would be better having a guide dog owner at the vehicle so that people would have more time to pet and such.

We left at about three o'clock. We got 6 new potential volunteers as well as a man wanting to apply for a guide dog!

Ushi was surprisingly well behaved. We didn't have nearly as much excitement as usual, and she was just a great girl. We had one little issue where she had a protest against the halty and just stopped but i took it off and she was grand. We also had a bit of trouble with her getting wet paws and slowing way down. But apart from that I couldn't have asked for more. I'm thinking of maybe cutting back on the halty just to see if she would still pull. I'll still have it with me but i'm thinking the stops are most likely her being stubborn or she could be telling me in her own way that she doesn't need it as much. When i take it off again she is like a little lamb.

Tomorrow is the guide dogs 80th birthday party! I'll probably have an extremely tired dog lol. I'll write how it goes tomorrow.

This Time Last Year...Qualification!

2011-09-29T18:53:00.002+01:00

I've been qualified
For Exactly one year!
I can't really believe it to be honest.

I remember being asked if i had "somewhere to hang my harness" when i went to give it back to the instructors as we aren't allowed to keep our harnesses until we qualify. I didn't know what they were talking about though until they told me that i had qualified. I didn't believe it all and panicked later that day because i put my harness on Ushi as I wanted to show my little brother what the harness did. I thought it would cause lots of problems because i didn't work her but when i texted my instructor she just said that the only difference was that i had a "harness in my house" and that nothing was different than before.

I also remember how scared i was doing my little block route as there were these little yappy dogs and i thought they were coming towards me. I wouldn't do that walk for ages because i was so worried, but my instructor always told me that "confidence breathed confidence" in that if you were confident the dog would be too.

I don't mind those dogs now but the dog in the next house really gets ushi's interest so i have to really shout at her to get her going.

Today consisted with a walk first, then I gave her her kong which she had a good wine at, but did eventually get the bits of food out. We then went with my rehab worker for a talk about guide dogs. It was another talk to a group of elderly people who had recently lost their sight. Ushi got a little winey but i'm guessing it was because there were people in a small room and she wanted attention. At the end of the talk, I asked if anyone wanted to pet Ushi and that was when she got all her attention. I ended up tying her lead to my chair throughout so that she could stretch out.

We then went off to a little coffee shop and Ushi went to grab something off the floor and i corrected her. One of the staff was like "oh...can she not have anything? I was going to make her a sausage!". I just said that that would encourage her to look on the streets for food.

We went home shortly after that.

I've got a busy day tomorrow and saturday too. I promise that Saturday should be the last of the recaps for a while. I'll probably do the Derry post separately from the recap for tomorrow. But i think Ushi enjoyed her day!

This Time Last Year...Throwing Grass

2011-09-28T19:33:00.004+01:00

It was another lovely day today! A bit too warm though.

Last year, I was beginning to wonder
If I would ever qualify
On our first walk, I had an idiot who didn't understand that Ushi was meant to stop at her kerbs, and that I would tell her to cross the road. I still get people who do this, or ones who try and direct the dog, or people who think the dog is like a robot and won't play with any dogs, won't get distracted, and who knows the way to anywhere. This is not the case!

In the afternoon, I went into the "guiding road" yet again, and my rehab worker had been watching me too! I really did wonder if i would ever qualify because of this. Little did i know I would qualify the next day!

Also in the afternoon Ushi decided to go mad with the grass in our garden and started to throw it around and stuff. She seems to start digging again when mum puts fresh soil down, but we managed to get her to stop by putting a plank of wood over the whole where she had dug. She hasn't done it now for a couple of months. Thankfully she digs down rather than out.

Today i was a bit of a bad handler though. I thought at one point on our walk that she was just sniffing, but she was guiding me around an obsticle. Oops.

I have a bit planned for her qualification. I bought her a
Max goughnut
Which i think was a big too big for her, but she still has a ball with it. (I confess to giving her it a bit early). For anyone who doesn't know, a Goughnut is a big ring which you can throw and stuff. I'll walk her in the morning, followed by going with my rehab worker to a talk for guide dogs, then a frozen kong in the afternoon followed by lots of praise and just awesomeness.

I'll let you know what we do tomorrow!

This Time Last Year...The Mysterious Kerb

2011-09-27T21:10:00.002+01:00

This time last year, I discovered
A misterious kerb
On one of our routes. One of our routes has a bit that sort of curves round like a C shape. There is another kerb though there but we never go up onto it apart from that one day!

I also went across the guiding road again which wasn't good. I'm so glad that i rarely do that now.

Last year we also went through what is called the "guide dog owner report" which is basically something that you have to fill in every month for your first 6 months after qualification. It is basically to keep track of the dog and make sure that you have no problems.

Today it was really nice weather when i was out. I thought I could ask Ushi to find "Diamonds" (our corner shop) just to see what would happen, but she just walked on. When i told her to find the shop though she got it grand.

I also worked out a way of getting out of our local co opp! When you come out of the co opp, you go down some steps but then it's kind of hard to find your kerb going out as it is layed out like a car park. My dad suggested going right as soon as i came down the steps instead of doing a forward. That was much easier and i found my kerb, then went left until i found the zebra crossing to take me back home! So that was good.

I hope tomorrow will be a nice day. Much better than the snow we're supposed to get later this month. Can we say noooo?

The Fifth Assistance Dog Blog Carnival:Achieving Independence

2011-09-24T17:40:00.004+01:00

I thought i'd write my post for the
5th Assistance dog blog carnival
The theme is "achievements". I thought i'd write about how i have achieved independence with Ushi. I hope this fits into the theme.

I was about 5 when i was introduced to the cane. It wasn't propper cane work. My socialworker had given me a little symbol cane which she had attached bells to. I called it Annabell after a favourite classroom assistant in Nursery school. Annabell was mainly used for around the house to improve my orientation i think. Even then i hated using the cane. Unfortunately it is not recommended that kids use the cane so young now, even if it wasn't actually a proper cane.

I propperly was introduced to the long cane when i was about 12. My rehab worker used to work for our local social services before he became a full time rehab worker for guide dogs. I was a bit of a slacker when it came to using the cane though, and would only use it when i had mobility and when i was going around college. I just found it really awkward and used to dread it as it seemed to take so long going anywhere.

I had often thought about a guide dog, but never really thought long and hard until my rehab worker suggested it back in 2008. I thought he was mad and must have spent a good few hours asking him all the questions i could think of. I applied a couple of days later.

There were a number of assessments i had to go through before i was even put on the waiting list. These were things like medical forms, what my lifestyle would be like, walking with an instructor and a harness to assess my speed and how i could control a dog, and sometimes they get you to walk with a dog just to see how you would be with a dog. They don't do that all the time though.

The waiting list is normally from 6 to 12 months, but it can be longer or shorter. I waited 15 months in total before i got Ushi.

Now that I have got Ushi, I go out at least twice a day. I am now doing a quilting course every monday morning at a local coffee shop. I know it doesn't sound like much, but i don't think that would have been possible without a guide dog. Sure i could have done it with a cane, but i wouldn't have enjoyed it. The rest of my week is just walks mainly, and I ocasionally go into town to meet up with people. I know just "walking" isn't much, but i can relax and just go for a strole. I'm not really into shopping so i don't really go to town that much. I sometimes wonder if i should be working her more, but i've lost my motivation to studdy or find work. I hope next year i find it again!

I can now walk at a normal speed, and I find that more people will say hello whereas with the cane nobody hardly spoke.

I hope you have enjoyed my submission for the 5th assistance dog blog carnival. The deadline is the 23rd October! (Sorry for my other readers reading some of this before).

This Time Last Year...Leaving The Harness

2011-09-24T00:15:00.003+01:00

I figured i'd write this post now before I go to bed.

This time last year,
The harness
Was left at my front door. This was to give me a bit of confidence both in myself and in her, and also so she couldn't see the instructors. They rang before each walk to let me know that the harness was there, and then disappeared out of sight. Sometimes they even followed me in their car just to make sure that Ushi couldn't see them. (If i needed them i could just drop the handle and phone them). They still do this for our aftercare unless i am learning a new route with their help or something.

Ushi also took ages to find our house, and my mum purposefully baught wind chimes to help me orientate myself, but of course little Ushi has found "home" ever since, so mum never got to use the chimes. I still tell Ushi to "find home" though.

I'm off to bed now. I can't believe that in 6 days i'll have been qualified a year!

This Time Last Year...In The "Guiding road"

2011-09-23T21:08:00.003+01:00

This time last year
Was another good day
Apart from when i happened to drift into the "Guiding road" at one point. (The "guiding road" is the traffic that flows along beside you. It is only on the left or right. If you drift into the road, you then end up going basically diagonally across the road which is just not safe.

I did that for a few days, and thought i'd never qualify because of it.

Ushi got really distracted at one point too when she saw the instructors on the walk.

Today thankfully we didn't have any cars that scared her so thankfully it was just a one off which was good.

I promise i've only got a few days left of my recaps then they won't be as regular.

In tomorrows entry, they leave the harness at my door!

This Time Last Year...Chasies

2011-09-22T09:41:00.004+01:00

I remember how much of a
Madam
Ushi was last year. She decided that when she was spending she would run around the garden like a mad thing and wouldn't come when called. She'll sometimes just sit in the garden or else she'll eat grass. There was one day she was really quiet and i was calling and calling her. I just happened to reach out in front of me and she was sitting right there. Most of the time she will come in though once she has taken care of business.

We had quite a busy morning just going over my routes, and I had a little trouble learning to relax when I was holding onto her harness. We also did part of the route with the cane because I thought the pavement was narrower than it was at one point. (I haven't used the cane since lol).

My instructor had made a map of the layout of the church route for me using dog treats but they didn't really work. A couple of days later she made a map out of cardboard though which worked much better.

In the afternoon my instrucotr showed me how if i am tense on the harness it's really hard for her to move. (We used the harness on its own for this). I still wonder just how much she does actually feel though through her harness. My instructor was always saying to me to have "Rag doll arms" when holding the harness. This is because it is much easier for her to move then.

This morning when we were working we were going well until Ushi decided to have a random stop. There was a bus parked besside us but we were on the footpath so there was plenty of room for us. We then were walking along and a car made quite a loud bang as it drove over a manwhole cover, and Ushi lunged forward as if she was distracted. I corrected her but i'm not sure that was the best thing to do. There didn't seem to be anything there to distract her, so i don't know if it was just the car or what. I'm a bit worried if it was the car as that normally wouldn't bother her. Maybe she just wasn't on the ball. When we got home she was very hyper when i took her harness off. She is her usual chilled self now though. I don't know what was up.

I hope later she will be good. Maybe the car just startled her or something. Thanks for any thoughts.

I'll write more tomorrow. Let's hope that nothing else makes her jump.

This Time Last Year...No Mistakes

2011-09-21T21:09:00.003+01:00

Last year we were able to
Iron out the mistakes
I had made the previous day. We just concintrated on the new route as well as the "Church route".

All those mistakes i made in the early days now seem so simple but at the time i thought they were really horrible.

There won't be much to write about during the next couple of days as we just kept working out the kinks. I'll keep writing each day though just to finish it.

Unfortunately last night I was looking for something on Youtube, and came across part of a documentary that the
BBC
Did on dog fighting. I only watched one part of it and it hadn't actually shown much, but i found it really disturbing. Mainly because it was all about kids being attacked as well as other dogs. I'm glad i didn't watch any more as it wasn't pleasant at all. I think the documentary was in 2009 or something. It still had me thinking about it today.

I'll write tomorrows entry tomorrow. I need to think about what i'm writing for this Assistance carnival, but don't have a clue yet. I might do something similar to my qualification entry i'll be writing but I haven't decided yet. You can find out more about the carnival
Here
And the deadline is the 23rd October.

This Time Last Year...Mistakes Will Happen

2011-09-20T19:46:00.003+01:00

Last year, I had
A couple of bad walks
Well in my oppinion I thought they were bad. I remember my instructor saying that you don't have "bad walks", but instead you have bad parts of walks. If you get to your destination and back safely then that is good.

The reason why i thought the walks were bad last year was because I kept making little mistakes. They were nothing major, just little things like going to the kerb too early or that. I was quite hard on myself though then. I still am to an extent, but not as bad as I was.

I was also asked what routes I would like to learn. I have to say this was hard for me because I never went anywhere on my own. We eventually settled on learning a route to a corner shop. I also wanted to learn a route to a coffee shop but we decided we would just focus on the three routes i was learning.

Today we had an excellent walk particularly on the way back. We were in town, and we had some sniffing and a cat distraction on the way there, but on the way back she worked almost almost perfectly with only a small correction. I love when she works well! And thankfully I didn't get any weirdos like
Yesterday

I must go now and play with the girl. More tomorrow.

Who Actually Does This?

2011-09-19T18:47:00.002+01:00

It's amazing just how random the people you meet on your walks with your guide dog. Something happened today that made me just have to write.

I was just happily strolling along, after coming back from my
Quilting project
I am still doing in one of our local coffee shops. Ushi had been quite sniffy, so i don't know what was up. I managed to get her going and was working well until some randomer came up to me. He asked how i was and said about how well Ushi was working. I said thanks, and he asked me my name. I said and he was like "I'm Harry". He then offered me his hand. I took it and shook it thinking nothing of it until he took my hand and was like "Here is my face". I promptly said i didn't like it and he was all appologetic. We had a quick conversation before he left me to get on with working Ushi. (I had stopped for the conversation, and luckily ushi moved because we were chatting too long).

I'm sorry if any of you do this, but I don't know any blind person who feels faces. Just the thought of it groses me out. I mean ewww! God knows what you could be feeling! It's disgusting. I only know of one other blind person who felt my face back in school, but she had other disabilities. But seriously do any blind people do that nowadays? Yuck! It sends shivers up my spine!

After that little er, incident, we carried on our way. A lady crossed me over one of my roads. She just said it was safe to cross. When I got up on the other side she said about how nice it was to see the sun. She then said that Ushi was lovely, and asked if she could pet her. I stopped and dropped my harness and she had a good pet. Ushi had a good sniff of her legs as she informed me that she had two chocolate labs at home. She then said that she had a sausage in her bag, but I told her that Ushi wasn't allowed it. She said that was fine and said how good Ushi looked and how she had lovely skin and a nice coat. She then asked me why Ushi took so long at the Zebra crossing and i said that i was the one who was in control and that i told her when to cross. We chatted some more, and then went on our way. Before she left me she said "You've got lovely white teeth. They are so straight". I said thanks and that nobody had ever complimented me on my teeth before lol.

Nothing else strange happened.

But why do people have to be so random! We don't feel faces!

Another Carnival Announcement

2011-09-18T21:39:00.002+01:00

We're on the 5th assistance dog blog carnival already. Wow! I didn't participate in the last one, but thought i'd give this one a go. The theme is "Achievements" and you can find out more information
Here
And the host is Sindie from
Gentle Wit

The deadline is the 23rd of October, so plenty of time!

Big Plans For Belfast

2011-09-18T18:32:00.004+01:00

Sorry for all the guide dog posts lately, but I thought you'd like to know about this.

Every year during the first week of October Guide dogs hold a week of different events, known as "Guide dog week". This year it is running from the 1st to the 9th of October. There is evena
Blog
For the ocasion.

I think it was on the 6th of October when the first 4 guide dogs qualified 80 years ago. (I think it has only been 30 years for Northern Ireland since there was a centre here, but we are celebrating anyway!). So the theme for the week is
"Go for 80"
This could be walking 80 dogs, or something intirely different. As long as £80 is raised it doesn't matter what you do. One of my friends is doing a "guess the name" of a toy guide dog she has. (A pound a guess).

On the first of October, our district team are holding a
Very special chalenge
Where they have designed an 80 foot obsticle course for people to try walking blind folded with a white cane. They will then be asked for a donation, so they can give as much or as little as they want. This is to raise a bit of awareness of the amount of obsticles that are around us. There will also be stalls and stuff. I think alot of guide dog owners and puppywalkers are going too! Ushi's border is even coming! I wish her puppywalker was too but she lives over in Scotland so don't really think it would be possible for her to get over. I'm sure there will be lots of photos though from our facebook page!

Sorry for all the links in this post. Maybe some of you will come along! I'd say it will raise quite a bit of money. I just hoe the weather is good! And that Ushi behaves herself. I'm not gonna expect too much though since there will be so much going on.

I'll post after it happens!

This Time Last Year...A Great End

2011-09-17T19:30:00.003+01:00

This time last year was
A bit more exciting
Than the day before, especially as we took Ushi for a free run afterwards!

The instructors had said to me that they wanted me to work things out a bit more and they didn't want me to rely on them as much. I totally panicked hearing that lol.

Today I was doing a collection for Guide dogs for our local Sainsburies. Thankfully it was an inside one and i had a chair to sit on. I wouldn't like to do one on the street just yet though.

Ushi has been sleeping practically ever since.

I must go and groom now. I don't think there are many days of the "Home training" left now.

This Time Last Year...A Boring Day

2011-09-16T21:53:00.002+01:00

Last year was a
Bit of a boring day
As we only did one walk because I had a bit of a cold and my instructor didn't want me working that much. I really was grand but she didn't want me not to be able to work the next day.

So we did what i call the "church" route. It takes me down past two churches but it more of a leg stretcher than anything. Part of it is used to go into town and most of my other routes. I still find it hard going past the dog who lives on that route, (it is behind a gate but has a nasty bark), but i'm hoping that i'll get used to it eventually.

So it was a bit boring last year as we only did one walk.

I'll hopefully have a better entry tomorrow. (I can't remember what we did that day).

An Update

2011-09-15T18:15:00.002+01:00

In my last post i promised you an update on my little brother. I kept meaning to write, but somehow I never managed it.

So on my birthday, My two year old brother broke his Feemer on a slide in a local park. He went to our local hospital where they splinted his leg before he was taken by ambulance up to our childrens hospital as they are the only ones who have a fracture clinic.

It turned out the next day that his leg had to be re splinted as the first hospital didn't do it right. They had to tie his leg to the bed to stop him moving or anything. He kept having little spasms in his leg because he couldn't move it so there were a few restless nights.

He got his cast on last Thursday and was able to come home the next day. His cast is basically a full lower body cast. There is a bar keeping his legs apart. His legs are bent up like a frogs lol.

He is very miserable this week. At night still seems to cause him alot of bother because he keeps getting itches in his cast so can't scratch them. Mum has given him Perraton to stop those. He has already tried to stand in his cast though so it's gonna be a long 6 weeks! He was up today getting his cast checked out. He'll go up next week and then that'll be him until he gets his cast off. He'll then have to get physio for a couple of days once it comes off.

He is in good form apart from when he gets itches or wants to change position as he can't do it on his own.

So that's the latest news. I hope the 6 weeks aren't too boring for him! Thank you everyone for asking about him.

This Time Last Year...Nothing Strange

2011-09-15T09:24:00.003+01:00

This time last year was just
Going over
What we had done the previous two days, as well as learning our "block route" the other direction. It was a very quiet day.

We had also discussed the fact that i wanted a land mark for when we got to the door of the house, just in case Ushi decided not to find it. Mum even baught wind chimes the next day and ushi decided to find the door and had no problems whatsoever! She will very very ocasionally not find it, but 99 % of the time she knows exactly where it is. I still say to her "find home" when we are on our street though.

Ushi is fast asleep now since we've just been out for our first walk of the day.

I might write another blog post later as I haven't updated you all on how my little brother is doing. I keep meaning to but somehow can't find the time.

This Time Last Year...It's Just Not Gonna Work

2011-09-14T21:49:00.002+01:00

Last year we discovered that
It just wouldn't work
With Sally and Ushi.

That morning was just another normal morning, until my mum came into the room to get something. Unfortunately Sally was upstairs, and as soon as we opened the door she rushed in and gave poor Ushi a little puncture wound on her neck. I felt so horrible that day as i couldn't even feel the wound even though i'd checked her thoroughly afterwards.

We did get Ushi registered with our vet though so it wasn't all bad.

It was decided that unfortunately Sally had to go. It just wouldn't be fair on Ushi if we kept her and i don't think they would have ever have got on. Plus it would have been very hard to separate them. I really don't think Ushi would be working now if we kept her. I know that might sound really bad but if she couldn't relax in the house, her work might have suffered.

So the day after qualification Sally went off to a new home. (She would have went sooner but nowhere would take her since she was so boysterous). I don't know where she is now, but part of me hopes that she did in fact find a home, and wasn't put to sleep. I don't like to think about it too much though.

I felt like a total bitch that day though because my little 8 year old brother was quite attached to Sally. In a recent conversation he braught Sally up again, and it went something like this: 8 year old brother:"I miss Sally.". (8 Y O B for short). Me:"I know you do.". 8 y o b:"I think Sally and Ushi wanted to be friends but Ushi didn't know how to play". Me:"Yeah she was just too much for Ushi". 8 y o b:"Yeah maybe Sally hadn't been shown how to play with another dog".

That was something like it anyway. Thankfully we now have a little springer spaniel called Ash and the two dogs get on well. (They mostly ignore each other), but i would rather have that than them growling at each other or anything.

We had some issues with our walk that day because the events of the morning had shaken Ushi up a bit, but thankfully they weren't that major.

It's actually easier writing these home posts now that i'm motivated to write them. At the start i found it quite hard writing every day.

I'm sorry this is so late, but today has just slipped away. I must go and get dinner now.

This Time Last Year...First Home Routes

2011-09-13T19:22:00.002+01:00

My last post was the last day of "class" but here we have a couple of weeks at home afterwards to familiorise the owner and the dog with some routes at home before we can qualify. So after the weekend off, we had our
First day of home training
We just learnt a very very very basic "block" route around the estate. We basically just went round in a square. I would only do that route if the weather is really bad, or if i'm in a rush. I remember how fixated Ushi was when she saw the lion statues in one of the gardens on that route. Now she just doesn't care. I don't use it much though as it doesn't really give us much stimulation, but i can add it onto a longer route. I would never have done that in the early days.

We also tried introducing Sally and Ushi again in a local park. My poor Ushi wasn't having any of it though.

I didn't work Ushi at all today as we are experiencing extremely bad winds. I hate working Ushi in the wind as it is so hard to hear traffic.

Tomorrow i'll write more of the home training adventure. I promise that soon i'll write something different!

Thanks all for reading.

This Time Last Year...Going Home

2011-09-10T21:51:00.004+01:00

I couldn't believe that last year, we
Arrived home
From class after two weeks of class. We had done a walk before we went home, but my instructor wanted me to do the walk i had trouble with the previous day but i wanted to end on a high so i did a walk with more distractions.

At home, we unfortunately we ran into a few problems with our then pet dog Sally. She had been the only dog for years, so didn't like a new dog coming into the house. Dispite us keeping the two apart, which was harder than it sounded, she just had to go in the end because on the second day of "Home training" which i will cover over the next couple of weeks, it was clear that they just wouldn't get on. I'll write more on that day otherwise i'll have nothing really to write about in the home training part.

I barely moved a muscle that first weekend, as i was afraid that if i left her then she could get stressed or something. Because of Sally we had to keep Ushi upstairs, so i decided to put her bed up stairs. I've never managed to bring it downstairs a year later lol. Ushi would probably be grand downstairs, but i keep her bed upstairs in case she needs me or whatever in the middle of the night, plus i can just reach over and give her a pet if i want.

Ushi still spends most of her time upstairs, but i do let her go down sometimes. I'm probably selfish, but i am mostly upstairs so she'll stay up usually. If she has been downstairs she'll get bored and come back up again after a while.

Ushi is grand with the guinny pigs now, whereas the first day she was very jumpy and couldn't quite figure out what these strange squeaky things were. I still don't let anyone take the guinny pigs out in front of her though, as if Ushi got exxcited, we could then have swallowed guinny pigs and that wouldn't be good.I am now confident enough to leave her at least once a day and when I come back i don't find anything unusual, and she has a big waggy tail. I think it is better to leave your dogs sometimes so they do get used to being left. It's hard to do though, and i was so worried the first time i left ushi but thankfully she was grand.

I think that in my situation, it was better that i was and am still living at home. I know this doesn't work in all situations, but i feel that for a first guide dog owner it is so important that you have the support of your family. I must thank mine for being so wonderful over the past year. To my mum who has been great and understanding in what i need her to do to make sure that everything went smoothly such as keeping food off the floor, making sure nothing is dropped, picking up her business (I still haven't done that yet as i wouldn't know if i would find it among the grass). Plus the thought of it is horrible. I need a scoop or something that way i wouldn't have to touch it. I'll have to learn how to do it soon though as i might be going away for a weekend with her at the end of October. Any tips for picking up? I know some people use a bag and turn it inside out.

I would like to thank my dad who will teach me new routes if i need them, goes free running with me, helps me give her her worming tablets, checks her over if she has a cut or anything, cleans her ears if they get a bit dirty as i would be scared of hurting her, describes toys that i might be interested in buying for her, finds grass for me if we take her out with us, and is just awesome.

My sister is awesome too, and will only be too happy to give ushi some attention, who knows that i do everything, who went out with me after Ushi was attacked just until i got my confidence back, and who is just awesome as well.

I really can't believe that a year ago we were just coming home, but now we are hopefully a strong partnership and have a great bond!

The next time i write will be the "home training" part of our training together. (We train for two weeks, then train for a couple of weeks at home before we qualify as a team). It is different in other organisations though.

I hope you'll stick with me for the next couple of weeks.

Guide Dogs Pub Quiz

2011-09-09T23:22:00.003+01:00

I'm just back from a pub quiz that our branch decided to organise for Guide dogs. It's late so this probably won't have any links because i can't be bothered posting them.

There were 14 teams altogether i think. We were all going to just be as the branch, but alot of extra people turned up so we all were in different teams. That didn't really make the treasurer happy, but these things change. A couple of us from the branch were in a team along with the chair person of
Angel Eyes Northern Ireland
And her family.

The teams were (Not in order):
"Wags and slags" (My team), "Faulty Headlights" (my friends team), "Scrambled egg heads" (My other friend was in that team), "Mucky pups" (Think the branch organiser was in that team), "Pampered pooches", "Rasckle Rogues", "101 Dalmations", "Paws for thought", what sounded like "Hayley", "Knocked by a shilling" I think, "Ryans pride", and i can't remember the rest.

There were 10 rounds altogether. Each table had what was called the "Joker" which doubled your points if you used it before the next round. The rounds were based on a number of topics such as Pot luck, Ships, summer sports, colours, 2 music rounds, TV, a "W W" theme (we thought it was the world war but it was just "W" answers, "Famous animals", "the 1970s", and I can't remember the other one. (Told you it was late and i'm tired!).

Some of the rounds weren't really that good though, but it was all good craic.

The "wags and slags" came in with a score of 70 and a half points, and the winning team were "Paws for thought" with 99 and a half i think. They won a bottle of whine each. The losing team got 4 wooden spoons lol.

We raised £373. That was for each team (£5 per person), donation buckets along the bar, and "Card bingo" which is basically where you buy a pack of cards and if you get all your cards you win. I can't remember what exactly what it was lol.

It was a great night, and even though some of the rounds were boring, it was still good craic. Well done to all involved!

The dogs were brilliant! I braught ushi's nylabone in case she got bored, and she had a chew on that for a while. She was a total star! I'm off to bed now. Ushi is already there lol.

This Time Last Year...A Bad Day

2011-09-09T00:50:00.001+01:00

You are told both on class and by other guide dog owners that you will have "good days and bad days". You just don't know when to expect the bad ones.

This time last year was a
Horrible day
Well it started off okay, but just seemed to hit me out of nowhere. In the morning, the instructors had told us that we would have
Another free run
Later in the day after our work. I wasn't really looking forward to that, but put it to the back of my mind, and told myself that it might not be so bad this time.

The morning went well and we learnt how to get the dog to sit or lie quietly in a coffee shop. The afternoon didn't go so well. I got all upset because i wasn't sure about an obsticle. It was a bus stop and it seemed massive (I could sense it before i got to it). I ended up crying because i thought it would stop me qualifying or something like that. The instructors hadn't even noticed anyway!

I always slow Ushi down now if we are going through a tight space, as once she works out where to go, she whizzes on. So I always slow her down so that if we do get a brush by something it won't be that major.

Thankfully the free run went brilliantly thanks to a Halty. I love my halty and never leave the house without it if we're going for a run. It means my poor arms don't get pulled out of their sockets!

Today we took ushi for a run. We hadn't been in a few weeks because it had been raining, so grabbed the chance of a nice day. Ushi decided that she wasn't going to spend at all, not even for her first spend of the day. This worried me a bit, so I just gave her plenty of opportunity but she wouldn't even go out the back door. I thought she was a bit constipated, so asked dad if we could take her for a run to see if that loosened things up a bit. I was hoping she would go on the run as i don't know what i would have done if she hadn't! Thankfully she did go and she did a few so i don't think she was constipated. She even found a puddle of water and decided to roll for a bit (She. hates. water!), so i was quite shocked when dad said she was doing it. I then put her on the lead as we were going home, and the missus decided to to roll around on her back on the grass. (She couldn't have done this off her lead!).

Everything is working well now, and she is spending normally again with no issues. If it was that she was in need of a run, she's got a funny way of showing it!

I'm off to write the final day of class training now as i was too tired to finish this post last night.

This Time Last Year...The "Jigsaw" Is Nearly Complete

2011-09-08T10:08:00.002+01:00

I'm feeling very reflective today. Was i really just going home in a couple of days? Was it really all so new still? I really can't believe how far we have both come as a team. From me not knowing how to bond with Ushi, to learning how to deal with obsticles, traffic, dog distractions, what to do if she gets distracted, how to use my voice more, how to feed, groom, spend, and all those other things. It still feels as if i just learnt them. It doesn't feel like a year at all!

Last year
We basically were just consolidating things. My instructor referred to training with a new dog as "like a jigsaw" in that everything fits together like a jigsaw. We were just making sure all the pieces fitted together. We did some more "traffic training" in the morning, and a busier walk in the afternoon.

I still can't believe where we are now in comparison!

Sorry this entry is so short. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

This Time Last Year..."Watch"

2011-09-07T19:37:00.002+01:00

We had a fantastic walk this morning. I was going to take Ushi up to my little brothers school as my sister is still taking him, but Ushi kept stopping on her lead. (I'm thinking she thought that she should be working it since we usually worked out of the house). So I just did another route so that my brother wouldn't be late for school. We did another route, but because Ushi couldn't see my sister she started whining and tried to go the way my sister was going. I got her back on track and she eventually stopped whining and looking around. She was grand for the rest of our walk. It was bin day so she had to work quite alot and did brilliantly. Normally we miss the bins but because i was up earlier they hadn't been emptied yet.

When we were heading home one of the recycling people who empty our bottles and stuff was like "can i stroke your dog?". I said yes if he would wait until i crossed the road as I was in the middle of the road lol.

Anyway...

Last year, we learnt the
"Watch"
Command. This is basically where if the dog brushes you against an obsticle, you tap the obsticle and say "Watch" firmly. If you can, you go back and reapproach the obsticle. Thankfully Ushi doesn't walk me into that much, but it is still a useful command because you could be hit by the edge of a bin, or by a bush.

We also learnt what "traffic training" is. There are two types of traffic: near and far. I think the near traffic is the most dangerous but can't remember. If a car drives out in front of you, the dog will stop until the car has gone. There is an exercise we can do to re enforce this. This is called a "near traffic response". Basically on a quiet street, when we are waiting for it to be safe to cross, and we hear a car coming from the right, we tell the dog to go "forward" whilst we are still on the kerb and the car is on the road in front of us. Obviously the dog shouldn't go forward, so you tell them that they are "good for waiting". I usually do this once a week at different points, and then say to ushi once she doesn't go forward "Good girl to wait". Once the car has gone you can just go forward as normal if the road is clear.

The "far traffic response" is cars from the left, but this should only be used if you are in the middle of the road and you get caught out, or when an instructor is doing it like on class. You don't do it otherwise as it could cause an accident.

It sounded pritty scarey when it was first explained, but now it's nothing at all. I do hope i haven't scared anyone because i explained it.

Tomorrow I can't remember what I posted lol.

I hope you are enjoying these recaps.

Attacks On Guide Dogs Rising, Finds New Report

2011-09-07T14:12:00.008+01:00

The other day while perusing the
Guide Dogs website
I came across
This article
Which says that dog attacks on guide dogs have more than doubled, with there only being three attacks every month across the UK, to there now being over 7 a month. That was over a 14 month period.

I think that more needs to be done about these attacks. They can affect guide dog owners just as much as they can affect the dog.

Guide dogs have written a standard letter encouraging microchipping for all dogs, but you can add your own
Comments and experiences
And write to your MP. I wrote to my MP, but i'm not sure if it will do much good.

These dog attacks need to stop right now. The media have been interested this week, with alot of guide dog owners here apparently doing interviews about dog attacks on radio, and a couple of news papers taking up the story too. The chief executive was on
Day break
Earlier this week, and the head of campaignes was on
BBC five live
Too. I've just found out on twitter that the chief executive has written
This blog
Because the issue has got such a response since Monday. I've even posted the orriginal link on
the Teams facebook page

While dog attacks are a horrible thing to go through, I think that the more owners who speak up about it the better. I would never wish anyone to experience one, but if you can, please write to your MP as the more people do it, the more things could change.

I'll be sure to post any more news. Please raise the issue. Dog attacks are a serious serious matter!

I'm sorry this is so long, but i would encourage anyone to spread the word about this horrible issue. As you can probably gather from this post, it is an issue very very close to my heart!

This Time Last Year...Too Simple

2011-09-06T22:07:00.003+01:00

I'm just back from another night out. Ushi was slightly more unsettled though tonight, but i think that was because she needed a pee as the taxi came early so i couldn't give her the opportunity before i left. She did eventually settle down though.

This time last year, I
Found the tiredness
Starting to hit. I think because it had been so intense that it was all catching up on me. We got totally soaked on our morning walk, as it chucked it down. Ushi still doesn't like the rain though, but I have to persevere with her and not let her stop too much. Easier said than done!

We also went over the "guide dog owner agreement" as it was still raining. This is what we sign when we qualify.

On the second walk of the day when it brightened up, we did crossings and slightly busier conditions, and how to accept sighted assistance. I thought it wasn't complicated enough and requested more! Thankfully the instructors just laughed though.

So it wasn't as busy as some of the other days.

Tomorrow i'll write about traffic training!

This Time Last Year...The First Free Run

2011-09-05T22:38:00.005+01:00

Sorry i'm so late posting this. Today just seemed to disappear.

This time last we had our first "Free run"
For the dogs
A "Free run" is where you take the dogs to a park or wood or something whre they can be off lead and harness and just be dogs. They can meet other dogs, sniff until their heart's content, roll around and generally just be dogs. That first free run was a complete nightmare! Ushi took about 10 minutes to get into the park because she was pulling so much. I had to keep getting her to sit and wait loads. Thankfully now i have the
Halty
Which makes me excited to take Ushi on a free run as I know that she will be calm and won't pull so that we are both ready to just enjoy relaxing while she runs around.

I still do the same things i was taught a year ago lol with her. I still have someone with me though just in case.

That was all we did. We had the rest of the day off.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

This Time Last Year...Obsticles

2011-09-04T21:38:00.002+01:00

I was out last night for a friends 21st party, and I braught Ushi with me. She has basically slept most of the day! It's a hard life having to say hello to so many people and then lie under a table!

Anyway last year we learnt how to deal with
All the different obsticles
You have to face as a team. These include "off kerb" obsticles which are basically where you have to go into the road until you pass it before getting up on the pavement again. You stay as close to the kerb as you can until you are passed the obsticle which could be a car, or a sign, or even a bin. Next you could come across a "Trap obsticle" which could be two cars parked, and a bin in front of you for example. You would go back the way you came then treat it like an off kerb.

We also learnt how to deal with "moving" obsticles, which are basically something like a crowd of people, or maybe a car or anything else that could move so you can get around it.

Ushi had her first major distraction. There was a cat across the street from where we were working, and she just would not listen to me or take her eyes off that cat. My instructor had to give her a huge correction! We still have problems with cats today, and i have to get really firm with her. I would like to hope she would be okay with them off harness as my friend has cats!

We went bowling that night. On class we go out one of the nights, usually "off kerb" day as it can be a bit stressful for some clients. We couldn't bring our doggies though as we weren't qualified yet.

It was a good day apart from miss moo being all distracted by that cat! Thankfully we don't come across that many cats lol.

Tomorrow was our first free run. I'm really finding this weird posting each day! I hope you're not all bored!

This Time Last Year...It Just Made My Day

2011-09-03T00:04:00.004+01:00

This is gonna probably be a long one again today, but i'm rather tired, so might not finish it until tomorrow. So make sure and read this post as well as tomorrows!

Ushi
Just made my day
Last year when she did her first spend in the spending run for me without needing encouragement from my instructor! I didn't care what the rest of the day held-it was a good day! I know it's sad getting excited about poo, but she had been so stubborn about it though!

Ushi still ocasionally will still be stubborn about her spends, but thankfully she is clean on her walks. Today she just wouldn't go for some reason, and at one point I had to kind of push her out the door. I would never do it hard at all. She kept wanting to come in, but i had to get in as quick as possible to get her to go. I had to close the door and leave her out there for a while. Thankfully she did go, and has gone ever since. I felt really guilty, but she just wouldn't go (i'm guessing because the grass was wet). Do you think i was wrong to do this? Normally if she doesn't need to go, i'll just leave her and we'll do our walk (I'll bring bags of course), but today she had held it for quite a time.

On to cleaner and nicer subjects.

That day last year, we worked on "rounded kerbs" which are basically kerbs with a corner. The dog indents round the corner, then when it straightens out, you get the dog up to the kerb to change your straight line as you make the decisionsas to what direction you're going, and not the dog.

We also learnt what "T" junctions were. These are like when you cross a road and you have a kerb, and then another kerb nearly beside it. They are hard to explain.

We also had a visit from the district team manager who came just to see how things were going.

It was my first night without the instructors and i didn't need them at all!

Today i was at another fundraising event with
The Dogs trust
Which was similar to
The bark in the park
Thing i was at a few weeks ago. Thankfully we had no problems!

I must go write the post for today as i was too tired to finish this one last night. (I had been on a night out).

This Time Last Year..."You're Not Gonna Break Her"

2011-09-02T09:37:00.006+01:00

We were just having a wonderful walk this morning, when Ushi decided to have a good sniff at a lamp post. You can really tell that it's Autumn. I asked about her sniffing on Twitter and unfortunately alot of dogs apparently play up a bit when the seasons change. So i've just been using "No" and "Leave it" quite alot lol. I was thinking about using my halty, but i'll see how she goes.

Last year, the phrase "You're not gonna break her" was used quite alot over class. I'll explain later why that was used.

We had
quite a packed day
Last year. We started doing two walks a day. I wasn't standing up to my hand though on our first walk, so I got a bit of a brush with a bin. I'll explain later on what you do if you are brushed into something on a walk. The reason why I lagged behind was that i thought i was going to fall off the kerb lol. When i think about it now it was really stupid, but i was still learning at that stage.

We met the local
Dog care and welfare advisor
Who is basically the person you contact if your dog needs something like an X ray, for example, or something that isn't routinely done. This is to make sure that things aren't being done just for the sake of it. We get our vet bills payed for, and the invoices would go to the dog care and welfare advisor. We have what's called a "health book" which basically has a record of your dog, and you take it every time you go to the vet.

We also learnt how to groom our dogs. This helps the dog to look presentable, and it also is a good time to bond with your dog. This is where the phrase that i mentioned earlier comes in. I was so worried in case i leaned too hard with the brushes that we got, or in case i was too rough or anything. They had to tell me at one point that it was okay to lean a bit harder! We got given a Zoom groom, which basically loosens up all the dead hair, and it has little rubber spikes which massage the dogs skin. You can't hurt the dog with this. We also got a comb, which removes some of the dead hair that has come to the surface of the dogs coat. You hold this against the dogs skin, like you would if you were spreading butter. This is because the teeth of the comb can be quite uncomfortable if you use it straight up and down. We got a Dandy brush which basically gets rid of any stray hairs. Finally we use a leather shammy which gives a nice shine to the coat. For all these products you brush the way the hair grows.

I usually groom Ushi every two to three days. She is quite a short haired dog. I must admit that it's hard to get motivated sometimes to actually groom her. But I tell myself that the longer i leave it, the longer it'll take to do when i finally do get round to it, she tends to scratch more the longer I leave her, she doesn't look as nice, and leaves more hair behind her. The main reason is that it takes longer to do the longer i leave it though.

I did used to enjoy the grooming, and do enjoy it when I start, but somehow i've lost the motivation for it. My 8 year old brother used to help me, but even he's got bored.

When Ushi is being groomed, she'll really get comfortable. We weren't told to make the dogs stand or anything. On class we used a grooming table, but now i just groom her on the floor. We kept them on lead on class, but she has nothing on when grooming here at home.

While alot of guide dog owners are satisfied with the things we got for grooming on class, some also have what is called a
Furminator
Which is like a different type of comb. It gets rid of much hair. I use it once a week along with my other grooming things.

We also learnt how to put our harnesses on. Even that seemed complicated at the time, but now it is just second nature.

We also learnt what the "guiding road" was. This is the flow of traffic alongside the pavement you are travelling on. It is either on your left or right. It is used to orientate you. At each down kerb, if you change direction you are changing your straight line which the dog is following, so this means you follow a new "guiding road".

So it was quite a busy day! Sorry this post is so long. I'm not sure what we did on the 5th day but i've been re reading my entries so i'll no doubt find out.

*I had actually posted this earlier but it didn't post for some reason. Hopefully this is it now.

This Time Last Year...The First Propper Harness Walk

2011-09-01T10:03:00.003+01:00

I decided to accompany my sister who was taking my little 8 year old brother to school this morning. I didn't know the route so just got my sister to direct me. Ushi worked brilliantly considering she loves kids, and considering it was her first time going up to the school. There weren't that many kids so it was alright. She is lying sleeping now.

Anyway... Today would have been our first
Propper harness walks
With our dogs since the matching visit. I remember panicking that morning because i forgot to add water to Ushi's morning feed. Thankfully I discovered she didn't need the water in her food. In fact now I don't even put water in her food because around christmas time I put too much water in i think and she wouldn't eat it. She has her water beside her though.

In this entry I explain what an "Obedience session" is. I still do this about once or twice a week just to keep the respect up. I'll usually do it if she is being a bit of a madam with her work. I used to do it every day but now only do it once or twice a week since we are well established now.

I remember before we did our walk we just had our harnesses while the instructor held onto the other end. I thought we needed to remember foot positions and stuff but didn't realise we would learn all that on class! I found it so hard not to get ahead of myself lol.

On that first harness walk i kept lagging behind lol as i thought she wouldn't stop! My instructor kept telling me to stand up beside her lol.

We only did one walk that day though.

Before we went out on our walk, another dog had wondered over to where me and Ushi were standing. I automatically grabbed a lead thinking i had Ushi but i actually had the other dog! That was the only time we got our dogs mixed up lol.

Tomorrow we started grooming, as well as two walks a day. Hopefully tomorrow i'll be as motivated to write as today!

This Time Last Year...The Work Begins

2011-08-31T21:53:00.002+01:00

I'm actually finding this harder than I thought lol. I'm only on the second day! I'm just not used to writing every day.

Thank you all for wishing my brother well in yesterdays post. During the night he started to have little spasms in his leg, but the doctors say it is normal. Mum went up this morning to be with him. Unfortunately during the night, his leg must have slipped inside the splint because this morning they had to reset it but they couldn't give him pain relief as they needed to do it as soon as possible. So now his leg is actually tied to the bed. Apart from not being able to move he is apparently in good form, and is chatting away to everyone.

Anyway onto the main part of this post.

Today last year was
the day we got our dogs
And the work really began. We spent the morning building up our harnesses, practicing obedience on the lead, and then it was time for our dogs.

We basically spent the first day bonding with our dogs. I was so worried in case i did anything wrong, and I didn't want anything to affect our training together.

We had to learn what is called "House obedience" with our dogs which was basically teaching them to wait at doors and such, and that you always are the one who makes the call. This is to stop them rushing out a door, and shows that you are the boss. I still get Ushi to wait first of all at our stairgate if it is closed. I will say "Right up to the gate Ushi", then I will tap it if she is taking her time, then she will sit. I will then get her to Wait while I open it, then say "On down you go". She will usually wait at the landing until i come down, then plod into the kitchen, for example. I will again get her to go up to the back door, where she will then sit until i open it. I also get her to do it at our fron door and sometimes the bedroom door.

Ushi took ages to go into a down, which is basically where the dog will lie down. This is really useful for if you are in a restaurant, on a bus, eating, basically anything where you want the dog to lie down. Ushi still will take ages to do a down when i'm doing an obedience with her, unless she sees the purpose, like if we're sitting down or whatever. She will do it fabulously when we're out, but not when i want her to do it in the house on a long lead. I have had to get very creative with getting her to do it.

I hated the feel of Ushi's food when we first started feeding them. It felt all horrible and greasy. It kind of smelled horrible too. Now i don't really mind it though. I had to keep checking that I had the food measured correctly. I still have the tins i use for feeding her lol.

To feed the dogs, we measure out eh food, put it in their food bowl, get the dogs to sit, and blow a whistle three times which signals that it is food time. We also blow the whistle three times for the dog to come back on a free run as they know they will usually get something for coming back. I'll explain what a free run is later in the week.

Uhi was a total madam in the spending department that night. Spending is basically the dog going to the toilet. To get them to do their thing, you have to say "busy, busy". I was so scared in case that slipped out and the dog dropped it's load, but you do it a couple of times. It took me and my instructor a good 20 minutes at least to get her to go! (She didn't actually doa solid spend for me until the third day!). She will still be a little stubborn, but unless i really need her to go, i'll just let her hold on.

So that was our first day with the dogs. I really can't believe how quickly the last year has gone! I keep forgetting that it is a different day than last year, like it was a Tuesday last year, and it took me until the Friday to write that entry. I nearly forgot to post the link to last years post! We couldn't have that! You all wouldn't be able to look back then! Oops.

I hope that i'll be more motivated to get these posts written over the next couple of days! I'll let you know more news on my brother as soon as I get it. Keep him in your thoughts though!

Thank You

2011-08-30T23:42:00.002+01:00

I would first like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has wished me and my sister a happy birthday. We are 21 today.

I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary as presents. I deffinetly got a shock though at some of the things I got!

Because a couple of friends got me things, i'm just gonna use the first letter of their names for anonimity. On Saturday night, it was my friend j's birthday. She was heading out for a meal but dropped my present off first on the way. She got me and my sister a box of Thorntons chocolate, two decorative shampaigne glasses which say 21 on them I think with glittery flowers, and a bottle of Shampaigne! We haven't opened it yet, but my friend L is having a bit of a bash on Saturday night, so I might bring that with me! I thought it was a lovely lovely thought :).

I met up with my friend P today since i hadn't seen him for ages and ages because he has started a new job. We met up in
The same place where I met Jeniffer
Before our free run that day.

Anyway P and I had a good catch up, and he gave me a bottler of perfume called "Handsome Darling" by Kylie Minogue, and a box of Milk Tray chocolates.

Dad got me my new Dell laptop but i got that a couple of weeks ago. Mum is giving me money and getting something engraved or something.

On a side note, my little 2 year old brother was at the park when we were out in Belfast. (He didn't come but stayed with mum). There is one of those swirly slides in the park where he was. Mumm took him down the slide and he banged it off the side of it. Mum took him up to hospital and he has a broken Feemer. They have put his leg in a splint and are keeping him in for a week to make sure the bone is healing well enough. The good news is that he doesn't need surgery or anything. They will put a cast on once the bone has started to set. He is settled and comfy as long as his leg won't be touched.

So it wasn't sucha nice day for him.

Anyway, once we got back from Belfast, our next door neighbour called at the door. Apparently there was a bunch of flowers which had been left when we were out. I also got a card too. The organiser of our fundraising branch had asked for my date of birth as she was looking for it for her records. She had had a chat with the other members, and had got me a huge bunch of flowers, along with a a stuffed puppy toy. Ushi was quite taken with the toy and thought it was hers lol.

Thank you so so so so much for everything you have got me. It was so nie, and I wasn't expecting half as much! I loved all my presents.

You guys are all awesome! I'm off to bed now, but thank you so much for a wonderful birthday, even if it had some sadness with regards to my little brother. It was still a brilliant day though! Thank you!

This Time Last Year...Settling In

2011-08-30T20:42:00.004+01:00

I've got two posts for you today. I was going to post them both separately, but figured they would probably be better in one post. This will prob be a long one though.

First of all, we have
This Post
Where the nerves/worrying/excitement kicked in all at once. I was so worried in case i didn't remember anything. Plus i was worrying in case it wasn't the right thing for me. I found it hard to sleep that night as i'd written that post before i went to bed.

My next post
Was written later that day, after I had settled in. I remember how worried i still was, and how i was worried when i was told that i needed to not use my cane as we wouldn't be using it with our dogs. (I only used it for going to and from the restaurants during class as that was alright).

During dinner that night, my instructor who stayed the first night said that i could have Ushi for about half an hour after I ate. (The instructors usually stay the first couple of nights on class just to make sure we're all comfy). My instructor had braught ushi in, and then left the room. Little Ushi started to pace and whine before lying under one of the tables we had in our rooms. I didn't want to stand on Ushi, so crawled around the floor looking for her! She actually spent most of her down time under that table lol. I phoned mum and said i couldn't find Ushi because she was under the table and i didn't know where she was!

I thought it was nice that at dinner the waitor put a candle in my dessert as they had found it was my birthday!

Tomorrow we met the dogs again, and the real work begun! Looking back on these entries is so good. What would we do without blogs!

I'll write about my birthday soon. Sorry this is so long!

This Time Last Year...The Hotel

2011-08-26T17:59:00.003+01:00

This time last year, i'd have probably just got home from
Learning my way around
The
Lamon Hotel
Which was where my guide dog class was held. It is a really nice hotel, and I found it really easy to learn where everything was.

On the way back, we had popped into the guide dog office where I was asked to do a blog for
The facebook page
I really enjoyed doing that, as i felt it might help some applicants on the page. I also got to see little Ushi again which was cool.

I really can't believe how quickly time has flown. Last year i worried in case it didn't work out between us, but I think it has.

It was sad in a way since i thought i wouldn't see my rehab worker again. I know i probably shouldn't have, but i baught him a cake to say thanks for the 7 years i had him. I still do see him now and again for talks and things but the only difference is that he isn't working with me any more.

I hope over the next few weeks you'll follow me as I recapp last year, and share how i felt then to now. I hope i don't bore you! There will probably be two posts on Tuesday:one before and the first day of class. I hope you'll enjoy!

On the subject of guide dogs, don't forget to follow Kerie over at
GDOs unleashed
Where she is just going through her training with her second dog Yale. They seem to be getting on great.

Day With The Donkeys

2011-08-23T21:07:00.006+01:00

Last week, the woman who teaches me the
Quilting
Got given a leaflet by her daughter. Her daughter runs a summer scheme for disabled children and one of the parents had given her a leaflet about the
Elisabeth svendsen trust
Which is a charity set up in memory of a ladies name i'm not even going to pronounce. Her first name was Elisabeth. It provides donkeys for disabled children to ride, sort of like therapy for them. This branch of the trust were going to run a coffee morning and fun day today. I think this lady might also have been part of
The donkey sanctuary
In devon. They rescue donkeys.

Anyway... at about half 10 this morning, the woman from the quilting class, her daughter, and her daughters 15 month old child headed off to the place where this particular branch of the trust was. When we got there, there were apparently lots of donkeys out in the fields surounding the main building. We all headed into like a big shed type place. There were two pens set up with two donkeys in them. We went over and I asked if we could pet them. They said yes.

The first donkey was called "Susie". She was quite small, and had just been clipped. I think she was grey with a silver belly. She felt slightly bigger than Ushi, and her back seemed to slope down so it felt like she was sitting when she was standing. Her head seemed much too big for her body though, and she had big ears that were a bit like someone had shoved cardboard in them and covered them with fur. She was quite cute, and kept coming up for attention.

One of the women who helped organise it said that Susie was 7 years old. I asked if the donkeys wore shoes, and apparently they don't, because their hooves are much stronger than horses, and they were more square shaped. Apparently the charity has welfare officers who will rescue the donkeys if they are being neglected or have been abandoned. They are taken to a place in Strabane (in Northern Ireland but not sure where), where they are treated for any medical problems and weighed etc, before they are braught to Belfast. They would then be trained for kids to ride them. Apparently before a kid can even ride them, the donkeys have to get used to things being dropped and stuff, as apparently they trow things and play games and stuff. I think they have 7 or 8 trained up at the moment. They have belts and things to keep kids upright who maybe couldn't support themselves. They also have two members of staff at either side of them when riding.

There is a weight limmit for the donkeys though as they are so small. A kid can only be 8 stone, but kids heavier than that, or those who can't get out of their wheelchairs can ride in a cart which one of the donkeys can pull.

Susie the donkey was
One of the donkeys
Up for adoption. It was £16 a year. A little kid came up and said "Mum says we have to adopt this donkey!". I think he thought the donkey would be coming home with him.

The other donkey was much more hairy, and was called Benjie. He wasn't as interested in attention though.

At the centre they also have an areena for riding, a "sensory room" is also available for the kids to use.

There was also bouncey castles, face painters, craft stalls, a raffle, and a gift shop selling toy donkeys and things. We headed off to get a cup of tea.

At one point while I was about to drink my tea, i felt this might splash and there was tea all over the table. Apparently a little boy had thrown a toy car across the room. His mother came up and appologised. Apparently the kid really liked water. He had no concept of hot or cold though. Luckily the table got most of it, and it wasn't scorching hot. I'd say it could be quite dangerous with a child like that. It must have been something to do with his particular disability.

We left for home after that.

I hadn't taken Ushi with me as I thought there would be more donkeys and i thought alot of it would be outside. I didn't think the donkeys would be too happy with a dog. At the same time I probably could have taken her since there were only two donkeys, and they were in pens. I was a little disappointed. Maybe i was expecting too much, but I thought there would be rides and that. I suppose they had to start with something small, since they are only open since June this year.

It was a day out though, and none of us knew what to expect really. Maybe if i go to something similar I might take Ushi. Who knows.

Angel Eyes NI Sponsored Walk And Picnic

2011-08-20T19:46:00.006+01:00

I got an email the other day from my rehab worker asking if I would like to go to a sponsored walk and picnic today. (The woman who asked my rehab worker if i would like to go didn't have my email so asked him to ask me). We met her before at the
Clown Doctors thing
Back in February. I said I would go but after replying to the email I remembered something I needed to check on.

Whenever we qualify with our dogs, we sign a document called the "Guide dog owner agreement", and pay 50 pence to the association. This 50 pence is all we are required to pay, but we can pay for vet and feeding costs if we want. It means the dog is now ours. The agreement basically is a legal document that says that we mustn't use our dogs in dog shows, and that we will be responsible for the dog and such. There is one part that says that if we are fundraising for another charity we must have the dogs behind us or something. I emailed my instructor to see if i could still do the walk, and she said that if we were collecting for another charity we would have to have the dogs harness off, but if we are just going to support another charity then there is no problem and we can go on ahead. So that was great news.

So this morning i decided to work Ushi before we went on the walk. I usually find that if i don't work her at all, she is usually much more hyper. Plus I find that working her after a fundraiser is just not going to happen as she usually sleeps for most of the day afterwords. I've noticed that recently though she has become much more sniffy over the past couple of days. It's usually things she wouldn't normally sniff like cars and that. Maybe it's because it's coming into Autumn or maybe it's just Ushi.

So my rehab worker came to collect me at about a quarter to 11. The place where we were doing the walk was only about 5 minutes away. The walk was organised by the charity
Angel eyes northern ireland
Who are a charity that support parents of blind and partially sighted children in northern ireland. It is made up by parents. They organise away days as well as education days and such for parent and kids.

When we got to the place where we were meeting, we first let Ushi spend, then sat chatting for a while before we got started. There was a crossword and a map for the kids, but you could just do the walk on its own.

Ushi was a little excited because it was a new place, so she pulled a bit on the lead, but it was manageable. When we got a little around the walk, my rehab worker asked if i would like to work her with him directing me where to go. I said yes and explained that she wouldn't walk at her normal speed because it was a new place. He asked me if I felt working her would be a good idea, but I said that I may as well use her since i had her. Ushi worked wonderfully. Her tail was wagging the whole time, and she seemed to be having a great time. We even went over a bridge over a river and we had no spends, and she didn't even give the water a second glance. She did however sniff a spending bin just off that bridge though. Her confidence did start to become a bit shakey at some points though, mostly when there was no one she could follow. So my rehab worker went in front and she soon started to step out again. She did keep insisting that she needed to go on the grass at one point, so I took her harness off and she promptly flooded the grass. She was grand after that, and we headed back for the picnic.

Ushi was a star then too. She did find a stick at one point and did have a a bit of a sniff, but apart from that she just chilled. None of the kids wanted to feed her either which was great.

There were about 12 of us all together including the kids. It was a great day.

I was expecting Ushi to be a complete nightmare as she loves kids, but she was grand.

I will probably get involved with any more events that are being organised.

It was a great day and the weather was gorgious!.

Oh before I go, I would like to wish
Kery
Good luck with training for her second guide dog on Monday. She doesn't update her blog any more I don't think, but she will be posting alot on a website called
GDOS Unleashed
Over the next couple of weeks. I really hope it goes well for her and that it works out this time. I remember how much it helped getting support last year. So do give a listen to her recordings when she posts them. I'm sure she'd appreciate it!

Scotland:Not What We Thought

2011-08-18T21:10:00.004+01:00

I'm writing this today as I was totally shattered when I got home last night. I'll not bother backdating it.

It was a very early start yesterday morning. I got up at four o'clock. I was only going to feed Ushi half her food then give her the other half when we arrived, but I decided since i got up so early I would chance giving her the full meal.

We were all ready for a quarter to 6, where the taxi came to pick us up. Dad was already in the front, so I sat in the back with Ushi. She was a bit hesitant to get in, but that was because she is used to being in the front. We got her in though, and she was reasonably comfy. My sister had to shift her legs at one point as she wanted to lie down.

We got to the belfast docs at around a quarter to 7. I put Ushi's halty on getting out of the taxi since she is still quite pully getting out of cars. I kept it on until we got into the building, bu should have kept it on longer as she was very pully still. I then was fumbling that much to put it on that I ended up twisting it! Anyway the check in was surprisingly short. We just had to go up to the desk and that was basically it. I was expecting us to get searched and stuff.

When we were checking in, the staff said to us that there were alot of steps on the gangway. I thought they were just saying this because they were under the assumption that I couldn't use steps, but they said they were metal. Ushi doesn't like walking on metal at all. They said that they could arrange for a bus to come and collect us to take us to the boat. I said that that would probably be better after explaining that Ushi didn't like metal, and they said they would come get us when it was ready. So we all headed off to the departure lounge.

I thought that it was probably like a ramp thing they would have, but when they came to collect us, there was like a shuttle bus you get at airports waiting for us. It is for elerdly and disabled, as well as people with buggies and people with alot of luggage. I thought this was pritty cool. It took us right onto the car decks of the boat, where we were accompanied up to the main floor where everything was. When we were heading to the lift, the guy taking us kept telling us about little raised lumps that were used to keep the boat together i think. His colleague went to pet Ushi and the guy was like "You shouldn't pet him, he's working!". He then explained that once the lift stopped that we got into, that the restaurant was on oour left and the coffee shop was on our right. I thought that was nice.

We explored around a little first. There was nothing really in the shopping part of it, so we went outside onto the deck where the sun was shining. I kpet expecting ushi to spend here since if we're near water she needs to go for some reason, but she was a wee star and didn't go at all. We then went down to the restaurant to get something to eat about half way through the journey. The restaurant was packed. Some of the other custumers were really nasty, and braught up their plates and just seemed to be very ignorant from what I heard.

The rest of the journey was just spent sitting around really. I wish i had braught something to occupy me, but I didn't think at the time, and thought i'd be alright.

Eventually at about half 10, we arrived in Stranraer. Everyone else got off first, and we got the bus back off the boat. I really liked how helpful they were. I wasn't sure if they were just being helpful cause we were all together, but I doubt they would be that bad. I was very impressed!

The first thing we did when we got off the boat was to look for somewhere to spend Ushi since she hadn't spent since before we left home. (there was nowhere i could spend her at the docs).

Stranraer is sort of like a housing estate. I mean that it was very quiet and there was basically only one street. I think we were expecting much more. We did find a little park with a little beach where we spent most of our time. Ushi kept whining to get onto the beach because she saw other dogs. She doesn't normally do that when we're walking, but we were standing around alot since my sis wanted to take alot of pictures. We took her on to the beach and it wasn't long before she wanted to get back onto solid ground.

There was one woman who came up to us who had a little puppy running around. I don't know if she said this to her puppy or me, but i think it was to me. Ushi of course got excited seeing the pup and wanted to play. The woman then said "You should be better behaved than that" or something. I just said that although i had her harness on she wasn't working. (I was just holding her lead with her harness on her back). For some reason that comment really annoyed me. I know that Ushi shouldn't have tried to play with the dog, but you can't fully stop a dog wanting to say hello to another dog. You can try, but at the end of the day, Ushi is still a dog. She just happens to be one that guides. What do you all think?

There was one part of the park that had a little train that went round it, but it wasn't running yet. Another part of the park had a little man made lake with a pirate ship and a little you could go out to. You could also hire peddle boats. We were going to have a little fun on them, but decided not to. (Dad would have looked after Ushi).

We then went around the "town" part which was quite small. We then came back to the park.

At about three o'clock we went around the street again. (We had finished at about one o'clock so waited until then before going round again in case there was something we had missed). Unfortunately there wasn't.

We headed back to the park again where we chilled before I fed Ushi. I was going to leav her until we got back to Belfast, but didn't think we would have the time, and I didn't want to leave her until we got home as it would have been about 10 o'clock and I thought that would be much too late. I stretched out ushi's lead so she could eat in a bit of comfort. (I wasn't going to let her off her lead to eat as we were still in the park). She did grand though and chilled after I spent her which was just what i wanted her to do since I don't like her getting excited/having alot of exercise for an hour after food. (We were told to keep our dogs calm for at least an hour after food to stop them developing a twisted stomach).

At about a quarter to 5, we headed over to the docs again. We had to ask again for the bus but we didn't mind that. While we were waiting though Ushi was getting a bit bored since we were just standing around. She kept wondering around me but eventually lay down. We then waited in the departure lounge again, until the staff came and got us for the bus.

Again the bus took us right onto the boat. It was a different boat going back. On the way to Stranraer it was a boat called
The Stena Navigator
But on the way back it was a boat called the
Stena Caledonia
This ship seemed much posher and newer. The navigator was good, but this one didn't seem as crowded and had a much nicer atmosphere. We had our dinner on the ship too. I had fish and chips. When your order was ready to be collected, they buzzed a little box on your table. It was nice to sit and eat in a relaxed atmosphere.

Ushi went straight to sleep. I had a wonder around and gave ushi to my sister but she didn't even stirr when I came back.

When we were heading off the boat to get the bus, we were mobbed by about 10 little kids asking "Can i pet your dog?" I said they all could since they had asked. (Thank you parents!). Ushi must have thought all of her christmases had come at once because she was getting so much attention! Her tail never stopped wagging! We eventually said we had to go though.

We were orriginally going to get the train back home, but decided to just get a taxi. We got home about a quarter to 10.

I spent Ushi once we got in, and she promptly got on her bed and was soon asleep. About 10 minutes after we arrived she started to dream bark. She was deffinetly sleeping hard! She didn't move until this morning.

It was a good day even though we found Stranraer a bit boring. It was a day out though. I think that if we didn't have the ferry to catch then we could have maybe got the bus to other places, but unless you have a car or do get the bus, then it's pritty boring. That could just have been our experience though. If we hadn't gone we wouldn't have known what it was like.

I'm so glad Ushi was so well behaved! Hopefully some other day we'll get to explore more of Scotland.

The Ulster Blind Sports Network Needs Your Feedback

2011-08-18T20:35:00.002+01:00

I got sent this the other day and thought I would post about it.

The Ulster Blind Sports Network is a new scheme that has been set up to provide more sporting opportunities for blind and partially sighted people in Northern Ireland. I think it is made up of other sporting organisations such as Disability sports Northern Ireland, RNIB, Sports Northern Ireland and a couple of other organisations. They are looking for people to fill in an annonimous suvey to see how they can improve sport for people in Northern Ireland. I hope some good comes of it. It would be good. You don't have to be sporty to fill it in. It can do no harm.
Her's the survey
I'm sure they would appreciate your feedback!

Scotland Preparations

2011-08-15T23:54:00.002+01:00

Remember when we all
Went to Dublin
Back at the start of July? Well at the end of that entry i think i had mentioned about us going over to Scotland for a day. We would have gone then, but we figured that getting up at 5 o'clock two mornings in a ro wouldn't be a good idea.

Last week, dad braught up the suggestion again, and we decided to go this Wednesday.

So it's a 5 o'clock start unfortunately. I've decided to only feed Ushi half her food before we go. Dad has booked us a taxi for around a quarter to 6. (Trains don't run at that time of the morning). It will come and take us all up to the docs at Yorkgate where we will get the 7.30 ferry by
Stenaline
To Stranraer. This will get us in at approximately 10.30.

Once we get off the ferry it's spending for probably humans and dog, then I will probably feed Ushi the other half of her morning feed. (I want to give her half of it to stop little presents or anything being left on the boat lol). I've instructed dad that we are to feed her somewhere relatively quiet, and that I don't really want to move her for at least half an hour (an hour for a full meal). When I am feeding her i will be putting her on a long lead (our lead has two lengths). I'm hoping she'll eat! If she doesn't, i can put it back in the sandwich bags i'll be bringing, but it probably wouldn't be fair to only feed her half in the morning until later.

I am going to spend her at least every 2 to 3 hours (we'll be doing lots of walking). I've noticed lately that if we go past a river or something, she will need to spend. (Even if she has had an opportunity beforehand, there is always an evacuation). I have no idea why she does it, and usually I can get her to hold on, or at least get her in to the side. This is the only time she needs to do it. She'll usually do a tell tale stop, in which she will dig her heels in before she needs to go. I am thankfully with dad so can take her harness off knowing she will go. Anyway...

Our ferry is at half 5. This will get us back to Yorkgate at around half 8. I am planning to feed Ushi her full evening meal, as our train is at half 9 so that gives us a full hour to digest her food. The train won't get us home until at least 10.30, so it would be at least half 11 if i was to feed her when we got home which I feel would be much too late.

This is just a rough draft of what my plans are. What do you all think? Should i change anything? Is there something i should be doing that i haven't mentioned?

These plans are more for my benifit really. I want to be organised.

Thanks for any help. I'll write on Wednesday or Thursday depending on how tired i am. I'll post it on Wednesdays date though like i do when i am backdating entries.

Thanks again for any help!

The Official Talking Busses Pilot

2011-08-09T21:03:00.006+01:00

From the start of August until the end of October I think, Guide dogs along with
Translink
(Our local transport organisation) are running the official pilot of the
Talking Busses campaigne
I wrote about in June. That day was like a pre demmo of the pilot.

Every Monday and Tuesday until October, there are about four sessions where guide dog owners are invited to test out the systim and give feedback.

So today I agreed to come up for the half 9 session. I rang yesterday to make sure that it was still happening, and while I was on the phone, I had to fill in a questionaire about using the busses and that. I just said that i don't really use them but they had to ask the same questions for everybody.

So we caught the 10 to 9 train this morning. Ushi is still very nervous getting on and off the trains since
Our little Accident
Last time. It was new trains both going up to belfast and back, but to Ushi a train is a train. She put her tail down as soon as the train came in, and rushed to get on and off it. Getting off was the same. Her tail was down and she trembled a bit and couldn't wait to get off. Once she was actually on/off she was grand, but just the initial getting on and off that bothered her.

I didn't make too much of a deal of it though, and made sure she got plenty of praise once she was on and off. I think it'll take her a while before she is comfortable again. I didn't think she would remember, but she did.

Once we arrived at Belfast Central station where we were going to meet someone to take me round to the place where we would catch the bus, we had no further mishaps. Dad and my sister dropped me off with the policy officer of our team who is basically in charge of the whole project. They were going to do some shopping while I was doing the talking bus thing.

First of all, we had to find some grass before we got on the bus as i wanted to make sure she had been and all. We had to go to back through the station to find some out by the car park before going to where we would get the bus.

We chatted away as we walked. Apparently this pilot is only running on five of the busses that do the set route. (It is the Metro 5A service which serves the Castleregh road among other stops if any of you know where I am talking about). There are 10 busses on the 5A service but only 5 have the announcements on them. Guide dogs applied for funding or something, to try the pilot in other areas of Northern Ireland, but that money was lost in budget cuts from the government. If the pilot is successful, guide dogs could be given £1,000,000 over the next 5 years in which case the project would have to be phased in, or they could get £5,000,000 at a stretch, which would mean they could introduce it in more areas. Unfortunately the minister for transport might see the need for it though and could just do the belfast area. That would be a shame really if it was only for Belfast.

We headed round to the Queens Square bus stop which is near the city hall I think. Our bus wasn't due until 10.30, so we went into the bus shelter to try out the
React Systim
Which has been installed on three bus stops along the route which the bus takes. This is a pilot too. The speaker was to the right if you had your back to the bus shelter and this should be a consistent thing at each bus stop.

I was handed a little key ring, which would set the systim off. There are two little indentations which are buttons. You press the two buttons together to turn the keyring on. This means that you can start finding out more information about what is being displayed, which in our case was the bus stop information. It can also be used in the street too. When you press the right button on its own, it came up with a list of stops and the time that each bus would arrive. It worked with what was being displayed visually on the bus time table. The speaker was set at a very short distance which meant that you had to be in the bus shelter to activate the unit, but out in the street and that it can be extended so as you were past you would be alerted to the bus stop information.

The other button on the keyring would give you more information but we didn't know what since the system had just been installed at the start of the month.

Unfortunately you would have to keep pressing the button to find out when your bus would come, as it didn't announce anything more until you pressed the button meaning you had no idea what bus would come along or when. I think it would be better if maybe a few minutes before each bus came it would say something like "Metro 5A now approaching Queens Square". When the busses came we had no idea what one was what, so I think that as the door opened the bus could say "Metro 5A" so you knew what bus had just pulled up.

Before we got on our bus, there was a group of 2 guide dog owners, a cane user, and three sighted people (two from guide dogs, and someone from the RNIB. Before it had just been me and the policy officer.

The bus we were meant to get didn't actually have the announcements on it, although it should have had. So we waited until 11 o'clock, when the next one was due. We had to make sure it was a single decker bus though because the double deckers had a problem with them announcing the stops. There was one problem with the bus we were getting though. For some reason when the drivers had to change, the ticket machine interfeered with the announcements. The bus driver had to turn off his engine and then turn it back on again, and it would work then.

When we got on the bus I didn't realise that there would be other passengers too. They will be evaluating the project too as it should suit everyone and would be useful for tourists for example as well as those with sight problems.

We were on the bus for about an hour. We basically did the route in both directions. The only problem I found on the journey was that when the bus went over bumps, it was quite hard to hear the stops. I liked the way that once you got near your stop it was announced giving you plenty of time to ring the bell.

I will be giving my feedback tomorrow on the whole thing. I also have a suggestion for if the money runs out. Could Translink not install a P A system on the bus where the driver could announce each stop? Although getting the driver to do that could be hard.

It was a good day.

I have also discovered something else that Ushi doesn't like to walk over. Manwhole covers! She will give them a really wide birth. She also doesn't like walking across frosted glass surfaces. One of the shopping centres has this frosted glass bit, and Ushi just stopped at it. When I tried to encourage her on, she just turned the other way! Luckily there was another way round.

I hope as many people as possible take part in the pilot. It is a really useful thing to have! It would make more people use the busses! (Although the trains have more room.). So if you are in and around Belfast over the next couple of months, be sure to check out the busses! I won't put any details about how to contact guide dogs up here though.

I must head off to bed now-Ushi has been there since about 10 o'clock!

Last Weeks Pictures

2011-08-08T22:48:00.001+01:00

Sorry for these being late, but I am still getting used to typing on this laptop which seems to make JAWS very sluggish. Anyway here are the posts from
Last weeks Free running Adventure
I could only use three of the pictures since a couple were just of dogs tails. Thanks sis for describing them!

Dogs And More Dogs

2011-08-08T22:30:00.001+01:00

You'll probably get a couple of posts today. I can't upload the
pictures to my blog post about the free running adventure we had last
week. For some reason it won't upload when I use firefox.

I can't be bothered changing the date for this post.

On Saturday I was fundraising at something called "Bark in the Park".
This was run by the counscel and the
Dogs trust
I wasn't sure about going to this, but after being assured that all dogs
would be on leads (i've become a bit obsessed about that lol), I decided
to go. It was running from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock.

The treasurer came to collect me at about 12 o'clock. I spent Ushi just
before we went in to the park type place where the event was being
held. I ran in to more problems with the treasurer like
Last Time
Well not problems, just well meaning, but annoying suggestions. Her son
was coming with and was walking with us to our Markee. I had taken
Ushi's halty off since she had just peed. The treasurer was like "Do
you want my son to take Ushi for a walk? It might release some of her
energy". (She was pulling because of other dogs). I just said that it
would be better if we could just get inside. She seemed to accept that
which was good.

There were lots of other stalls and things there including The Dogs
Trust, Dog competitions, free vet checks, free microchips, a dog
photographer, a bouncey castle, burger vans, ice cream, and a D J. The
dogs trust were also handing out free poo bags for picking up after your
dog. There were also dog washing services, and a raffle held by us and
the dogs trust.

Once we were inside the markee, I put Ushi's harness on because she was
still excited. Usually i keep it on for a few minutes just until she
calms down. She was still very excited, so I just took the harness off
and said that i wasn't expecting her to be totally calm.

Each time I knew there might be dogs coming by past our markee, it was
a case of getting Ushi to sit, and "leave it". That seemed to work for
a time.

At one point, Ushi finally lay down, and the treasurer was like "Do you
and X (from last time) want to walk around the other stalls with Ushi
and a collection box before it rains?". I just said that Ushi was
settled and that I didn't want to get her up. It took a bit of
persuading though before they would accept that.

At one point, there was a dude with a
Newfoundland
Dog. He came over to our stall, and I asked him first of all if it was
friendly towards other dogs, and could I pet it. I know I probably
shouldn't have, but I had a good hold of Ushi. Of course the volunteer
from last time was like "I'll hold Ushi, give me Ushi.". I just said
that I had her and I was fine.

Wow that Newfoundland was massive! The dude wasn't working it, but he
had to groom it quite alot, and it needed plenty of exercise. I wasn't
too fussed on its coat, as it didn't really feel like a dog but felt
really greasy kind of. It came up to my hip! I'm sure it took alot of
work to look after it.

Ushi didn't really like the german sheperd who came up to us. It was
friendly but Ushi was sort of like "Oh god I don't like how big that dog
is".

After about an hour though, it decided to chuck it down. We had been
sitting outside our markee so that people could see us, but then we had
to move further back inside it. Ushi then found a spot under the table
where she could look out, but she wouldn't get wet. It got so bad that
all the competitions had to be inside a main building next door to where
the vet checks and microchipping were happening.

I had no more bother after that, and things just ticked along until it
was home time.

When it was raining, I was sitting under the markee, but the treasurer was like "Do you want to sit in the car?". I was completely dry and i wasn't going to spend the last half an hour in a car when I was grand where I was! It wasn't like I was sitting out in the rain or anything.

One of the newspapers who were there decided to take pictures of us just
as we were about to get in the car. So we had to stand in the rain for
a while lol.

It was a great day, and although Ushi was a bit mad at the start, it was
to be expected really. I do wish that certain volunteers wouldn't make
me feel like I can't handle my dog though! I was proud of how assertive
I was on Saturday though.

I'll hopefully get those pictures up soon though for the other post.

This Time Last Year...Rambles

2011-08-07T23:29:00.001+01:00

Here is the latest post in my "this time last year" series, in which i reflect the last year with Ushi. This post is for the 7th August.

In my post last year, I basically
Rambled
About my guide dog journey so far, from application, to being matched. (Don't worry there are links to those posts in that post). I also thank people for the support they have given me so far.

I spent today discovering that I could basically only do a very small route around my estate because they are putting in gas or something. I had to do it a couple of days before and yesterday was going crazy so got dad to come with me to see if I could do any other routes, and thankfully the footpaths aren't affected so i can carry on as normal.

The next thing i will write will be where I thank you all for the support I have gotten. I think anyway. I think i am gettting used to the sluggishness of this computer, although it is rather annoying!

This Time Last Year...She's A Match!

2011-08-04T23:51:00.003+01:00

Sorry i'm only posting this now, but i'm getting used to my new laptop. It's a bit sluggish at the moment with JAWS 11, but i'm hoping that when i uninstall mcafee which is an anti virus program it'll be okay. Anyway...

Today last year was my
Matching Visit
With Ushi. It's hard to believe that a year ago I was matched with her! I can remember the day exactly.

It chucked it down before the visit last year, and it was raining yesterday too. I remember how I thought there was so much to learn and remember on that visit, and now look at me! I can remember the exact words the instructors said to me. When they asked if I would like to go on class, i couldn't believe it.

It took a good few days before that sunk in!

My next day will be about me asking if I really was going on class.

Sorry for this post being so short.

I've got a couple of posts I want to write over the next couple days. I'll leave you now while I continue to get used to this new laptop!

This Time Last Year...Walking With That Wide Harness

2011-08-02T00:21:00.004+01:00

So here we are again with another recap post.
Last Time
I told you about meeting Ushi for the first time. This walk we did was with the wider harness I mentioned in my last entry.

I remember being so worried about that
Walk
I was worried in case I wouldn't bond with the dog, that I didn't have enough routes, what would happen if I gave the wrong command, would I remember everything, and all sorts of other wild ideas. I now know that I was just worrying, and on class the instructors talked me through everything.

It's not really essential that you do know loads of routes, as the instructors you have on class will come out to teach you routes as each route you learn will be so different with a dog.

I really can't believe how worried I was. I even worried in case the instructors coming out with the wider harness was a bad thing!

I still thought i would be waiting for quite a while before I got matched, and even asked when more dogs were coming over. (Was I desperate much?).

It really amazes me every time I think about this past year. It's been a learning kerve, but a worthwhile one as I hope you'll discover in these next few entries.

That day of that walk, the instructors were parked outside the house for quite a while. They were probably looking at Ushi being a match for me and working it out on paper if she was. (They take all your details throughout the application process). I didn't know that then, but it was a coincidence that a couple days later I was matched and on a matching visit!

That will be the next thing I talk about and what it was like for me. I still don't really believe that it has been a year already nearly.

I love having a blog though to look back and celebrate with others. Who knows, maybe these entries are helping someone who is maybe on the start of their guide dog journey, or maybe who are just going through some frustrations or whatever. I'll never really know.

I hope these posts aren't in too much detail, but as you have probably gathered, I like to write looong posts!

Thursday will be the matching visit.

Oh and on a side note, i'll try and get my sister to rename my
Pictures
From my last post. That too will be a separate post so stay tuned for that :).