Good morning sunshine!

Linen and I and I are sitting at my classmate’s house just outside of Berkeley.  We’re five minutes away from the BART station so will be walking from here to BART and practicing our light rail transit.

We are going do some more escalator training today, and then Linden and I will be practicing the college campus routes which are more like pathways. Sometimes dogs don’t interpret them as a sidewalk and treat them as if they’re a road.

It’s 50° out where we are sitting in this beautiful yard – kind of Japanese-style garden… jus perfect.  

Linen looking at the camera — solid stance with his harness and curious eyes showing his willingness to help.

Linen is doing an amazing job.  Yesterday when we were doing our downtown route – we were learning to deal with cars cutting in front of us, cars backing in front of us, and cars crossing sidewalks and crosswalks.  He was stellar.  He’s such a good dog.

Laurie lap is at the bottom of the picture and Linen is standing in front of her looking out of the frame – watching classmates learn new skills. Anxiously awaiting his turn to show off.

Yesterday’s night route was really really fun.  It was a busy little downtown.  Lots of smells from the restaurants, music people outside, dining and talking, and gas fire places.  Again, he just rolled his way through it and marched me forward when I said forward and helped me avoid running into any obstacles that were in the way.  

Then later yesterday, we met with the veterinarian.   They gave me all of Linen’s history, including info about his delay last November (when we were originally supposed to be matched up).   I feel really grateful for how much testing and everything they worked through with him.  He has a great baseline.  He is now totally healthy.  He weighed in at 74.3 pounds — so we managed to wear off point-one in a week!   He’s 26 inches tall.  I was assured that he’s in great health and in great shape.  This means my job when we get home keeping him active.  I know what to keep an eye on so we can get stronger and stay healthy.  That’s all for now.   Have a great day.    cheers, Laurie