Explaining Why I Have Two Working Dogs

I was just thinking about how to explain why I have two working dogs to people. Usually if you see a guide dog or service dog they are alone with their handler, not working alongside another guide or servie dog.

Things were simple when I just had Sophie. When we went out it was just me and her and if I wanted to go somewhere nothing held us back. If I traveled I packed her bowls, some food, her bone and a favorite toy or two and off we went. If we were going out for awhile I made sure I had her foldable bowl, water and some bags to clean up after her. I didn't have to plan ahead when doing things at all. She has as much right as anyone else to go into any public place and if anyone had an issue with it I knew I could call the Police and have them deal with it either by giving out a fine, or even jail time to the person or company that refused us acess.

Since getting Keisha things have changed a bit. Now I have to plan things out more. She is still a puppy in training and I won't be able to teach her guide work until her bone plkates have fused. She will be doing some pulling and I don't want her to injure herself because she isn't fully grown.
I know some people would have a problem with seeing someone work with two service dogs at the same time. It just don't seem "right" to some people because they aren't use to seeing it. If we decide to go on vacation we have to talk to the airline to make sure we can take both dogs intot he cabin of the airplane with us, talk to the hotel to make sure we can have both of them stay in our room without being charged (they can't charge extra for working animals), and deal with access into the places we go when we go out.

The biggest issue out of these is the flying one. I know the best thing to do is call ahead and explain to someone that I have two service dogs and I need to fly with both of them because I am blind and a quadriplegic. Sophie is my guide dog and she guides me, while Keisha is trained to do service dog tasks to help me. I work with both of them right now because Sophie was trained as my guide dog long before I became a quadriplegic and wasn't trained to do service dog tasks and I am training Keisha to take over Sophie's work so she can retire. But, I can't train Keisha to do guide work yet because she isn't fully grown and there is a lot of pulling involved and she can't pull safely until she is fully grown. She will eventually learn to guide me along with doing the service dog work and Sophie will retire.

Is that too confusing? Should I write a letter and send it to someone high up at whatever airline we choose. If I do that and get a response I could print it off and bring a copy with me when we travel.

I've heard so many stories of bad experience traveling with guide and service dogs on airplanes before. I've never had any major problems with Sophie but she has her guide dog id card from the school and things. You don't legally need this, but the airlines and other buisnesses still say you do even though it's not written in any law. They get so full of themselves sometimes.

Do you think the way I explained it is too confusing? Do you know a different way that would work? Maybe I should type out something and print some copies off becuase it would get pretty annoying having to explain the same thing before booking the flight, to the hotel before booking it, at the airport when we arrive, going through security, to the customs people, at the gate, to the flight attendants, to customs again, to the rental car people, at the hotel etc.

It's easy to say "she's my guide dog" ten different times, but having to explain things further can take up a lot of time! Even now people don't think Sophie is my guide dog because I'm a wheelchair user. They assume she is my "service dog" because you can't be blind and use a wheelchair! I had to go and hog up all the disabilities to confuse people lol! I have to admit I get some twisted enjoyment when the people around me don't realize I can't see though! I've been living here over a year and the people here still don't realize I can't see, or that I'm a quad. Apparently I don't look or act blind and people assume if you can move your arms at all then you can't be a quad. It is going to be fun at the starting line when I get my racing wheelchair wearing dark sunglasses (yeah, I'll go for the blind look), and "blind racer" written across the back of my chair though! That'll freak the other racers out a bit lol. I wonder if it wil be like when I use to play basketball and everyone would just get out of my way lol?!

A Good Looking Husky and She Knows It

As you may have noticed from the photo Keisha and Sophie are getting along a lot better lately. Keisha has calmed down quite a bit, and Sophie tolerates her more because of it.

I took Keisha downstairs with me earlier today to get the mail. When we got on the elevator she saw herself in the mirror and put her paws up on the railing to get a better look! When I told her to get down she decided to put her paws up on my legs so she could admire herself in the mirror that way! She's just like Sophie when it comes to mirrors. Whenever Sophie walks past a mirror, even if it's on the side of an escalator she slows down to watch herself! They both know how good looking they are.

This was the first time I left Sophie alone and took Keisha with me. I think she handled it pretty well. She was waiting in the hallway for us as soon as we came back in the door, and she was sitting instead of laying down and waiting like usual. I don't think she was too upset by it though. We were only gone for a few minutes and I didn't make a big deal out of it on purpose.

I was thinking about taking Keisha outside, but there was a lot of mail to carry so we came back upstairs. By the time we got back up here it was raining. I thought it would start raining before we left, but didn't think it would so quickly. Things cleared up after that, but the rain started again a little while ago and we just started having thunder. We have had record rainfall this summer, and I'm so sick of it!

I'm going to go finish watching Two and a Half Men and hopefully the weather will clear up again pretty soon. I really don't like storms because we do have funnel clouds around here, and I can't see them, even if it's in the middle of the day. They don't usually turn into tornadoes, but they still stress me out!

Upset Stomachs

I did something I'm regretting yesterday evening. I went to the store and had to get some dog food there for Sophie and Keisha to eat for a day until I did a grocery order. I knew the store wouldn't have a lot to choose from, but it's the best I could do at the time.

They had Dog Chow, Puppy Chow, Purina and Beniful. The tiny bags were like $8 and I really didn't want to pay that much for dog food that isn't actually that good. After all it was just for a meal.

I decided to get a couple of cans of Pedigree instead. I got beef and chicken and thought it would be fine. When I got back home I let Sophie pick the can she wanted open and she choose the beef. I gave her and Keisha half a can each and they seemed to really like it.

Keisha went outside right after she ate and had some diarrhea. It wasn't watery or anything, but wasn't really solid either. I didn't think it could have been the food because it barely had time to even enter her stomach! I decided to just keep an eye on her and see if she had any more. It's been hours now and she is still ok. She had a bath and is happily laying in her crate.

Hours after they ate Sophie got up from the floor and ran towards the door. She layed down with her nose up againt it and I quickly let her out. She ran outside and had quite a bit of diarrhea herself! She has gone out a couple of times since. I bought her bed out into the living room for her and gave her Duckey (her favorite toy). She isn't drinking any water, but had some ice cubes earlier. She doesn't drink a lot anyway, so that's not really worrying me. She has a full bowl of cold water next to her if she wants any.

She's laying on her bed next to the door with Duckey under her head now. She's not happy because she is on a leash so she can go in and out whenever she needs to. There are openings at either end of the fence that goes around the patio area here where she could get out into the neighbours areas.

I know now that it was the food that made their stomach's upset. Neither of them are use to canned food and I definetly won't be making that same mistake again! Sophie's stomach is pretty sensative, and I feel really bad about making the decision I made!

I really hope she is feeling a lot better soon! I'll make her some boiled rice and chicken when her stomach settles down. Hopefully she will be better today!