Monday 13th October 2008 - the big day

On Monday morning the kids and my dad went off to work and school and again I was here at home with my mum clearing the house ready for Guide dogs who are coming at 11am. First thing I did was clean up the utility vacuumed the floor and cleaned out the kitten pen then I vacuumed mum and dad’s bedroom because one of the foster cats had made a mess with litter on the floor. Then I went out to get some Milk from the local shops came back was welcomed by our two lovely dogs Toby and Pip and then Mum said I should take them for a walk so that they don’t get so hyped up when meeting Pearce. By this time mum had cleaned the bathroom vacuumed the rest of the house and then we sat down to pray together that this matching visit would go well. Then there was a knock at the door and it was the Guide Dog mobility instructor who I spoke to on Friday and we shook hands and went into the front room, she told us all about Pearce, his character, his working style, what breed, colour and size dog he is and then we went outside to do a trial walk with him to see how we both got on with the instructor by my side and mum a few metres behind because she wanted to see how it all worked. She taught me the different commands to use with Pearce such as Forward with hand signal (arm swing forward), Find right or left with a tap on your leg, straight to kerb, steady if you want them to slow down, hup up if you want them to carry on or walk faster and they can learn many, many more commands. Then the decision was taken that he would be a perfect match for me just the right size, right speed and right character. So we then took him into our garden through the back gate and let him sniff around but instead he went straight to the bird feeder and ate every single piece of bread that had fallen to the floor and then he started looking around, sniffing, marking the garden and he even went twice into the front pond. After he had taken to the garden we decided to bring Toby our 11 year old border collie outside to meet him and they checked each other out but Toby made sure he was top dog, while inside Pip our 3 year old Bearded Collie cross was whining and scrabbling at the door wanting to come out so my mum let him outside and tails were wagging and again they checked each other out Pearce wanted to play but Pip wasn’t so sure as Pearce was much bigger than Pip so they just sort of played in the garden following each other around and then we left Toby and Pip outside and took Pearce inside so he could meet the cats and again he was absolutely no problem whatsoever and so when that was over we let our two dogs back in and went into the front room so that she could read the consent form and me sign it and then they left at 1pm and we went straight out to little fishes at our local church to help out and everyone there wanted to find out so we had to tell them the news.