River

I have the sweetest dog who's name is River.  currently, he is hanging out  in the back yard catching some long awaited rays of sunshine.  He just loves the sunshine on these mild days.  During the winter, he can be found lying, in the house beneath a patch of sun that shines through the window. 

 

he loves to play.  I mean, he really loves to play, but not by himself.  So, my husband and I will play with him.  When Todd and I are laughing and tussling about, River think it's time to join in the fun too, and he becomes the interceptor.  He's just so very funny that way.

 

River is my guidedog. Yes, that means I'm blind, but my personality and everything I believe in and stand for are bigger than my blindness.  That's what I want anyway.  So, in this place, disabled people are welcome.  In this place stereotypes are not at all welcome.  I want this to be one place where we can be free from those kind of things.

 

So, Yes, River guides me around.  He isn't a school trained dog.  I did all the training myself.  I like it that way.  What I want to do is somehow become licensed so I can help others train their dogs to be service animals.  That would be so cool! 

 

I'm very proud of River.  He is very good.  The only bad thing is that he likes people so much that he would rather guide me to people and I don't want to go to people.  This can be very disorienting, so I try to discipline him and get, "oh he's okay."  Uh, no, he's not.  If he were, I wouldn't be telling him to take me on the path I wanted in the first place.  I feel like saying that to people, but try to be nice.  That consists of me pulling him back from the person and making him rework the area a time or two.  When I travel, I just want to get to my destination.  Traveling is not the time to visit just any old body.  Maybe I don't want to say hello to everyone either.  so, that's the only thing I wish I could really change in River.

 

However, he's such a good boy for a lot of other things, I just have to forgive him and love him.  I just keep praying that  he will stop taking little side visit trips.  He's on duty in harness and gets lots of pets out of harness.  Trust me, he gets a lot of pets out of harness.

 

So, do you have an animal or animal story you want to share?  If so, go for it.