Training at Midwest Food Bank

One of the things that makes up my life is helping with the Arcola Food Pantry.  We distribute food (canned, dry, perishables, etc) to families and individuals in our county.  I'm very proud to say my mom has been the administrator there since we opened our doors in '99.  As part of my volunteer work there, I go with my mom once a month to a food bank about 2 hours away from us to pick up a van-full of free food for us to add to our inventory.  Which, of course, is a HUGE help since we can barely keep our shelves stocked as it is. 

So, part of Ranger's training must include not only being around people, but being in a warehouse with lots of noise, boxes, bells, buzzers, forklifts, and all sorts of other sights/smells/sounds. --- So that was yesterday's training ground.   As we're just getting back into being out in public, yesterday was very stressful on both of us.  That being the case, once we got through the warehouse portion, I took him into the back room for us to do work around a *small* amount of people and large pallates full of boxes.  It helped insulate some from the noises, but he could still hear them.  Slow re-acclimation is our motto.  We're taking things slowly and working our way through re-integrating into social situations.  So the back room was the perfect place to do some obedience training and walking past/around objects and strangers.

Here are some of our pictures...

Ranger and I standing together
in the back room while working around
the palates and boxes

Whoops - Ranger does a great job
steadying me during a vertigo attack!

Ranger and I walking back
to our chairs.  *whew* long day!

So that was our day!  Long but very productive.  Showed us a lot of what we need to work on and what we're still doing well!  Had lots of great things to add to our training log - and the bonus? - tired him out too!

Jessica and Ranger

Lunar K9s Service Dog Team