Canine Hope goes to Oceanside

On Sunday, a large group of Canine Hope for Diabetics families headed down to Oceanside. We all met at the train station and took a 2 hour train ride down. That was a great way to travel, as we are often busy at these events, and the train ride gave us time to chat and catch up with everyone, and made the time fly by! I believe the final count was 49 people and 14 dogs. The weather just happened to be amazing!



During the training session, the Canine Hope team set up tic tac toe (black against yellow) and Simon Says. These 2 games work on work on the dogs obedience. In tic tac toe, one team has to sit (for X's) and one team has to down (for O's), and can't move until the game ends.

Simon Says employs on leash work such as heeling, sit, down, stay, and turns. And of course, the handler has to pay attention. They even threw in some bubble and tennis ball distractions!

Raven eats a bubble :)

After those 2 games, we played Jeopardy. This tested the humans knowledge of things like Service Dog vet care, ADA laws, commands, and reading a dogs body language. This was good fun, a lot of laughs, and got REALLY competitive. After that it was off to lunch on the pier at Ruby's. Good thing we had reservations! Even with all of the people, we had great service and didn't wait long for anything.


After lunch it was time for more games. We finished off the day with an obstacle course. Thr trick was, in your leash hand, you also had to hold a Milkbone in a spoon. The object is to not drop the bone, so you need to use commands instead of leash movement to control your dog. Lot's of fun! I even attempted it with both dogs. Thanks Steve for snapping some pix!

Me working Major & Raven

Me working Major & Raven

Then it was time to get back on the train. After 2 days of working with the dogs, and a week of being sick, I was exhausted. Again, it was really nice to not have to drive, but be able to ride on the train. Enjoy the slideshow with pictures from our day!








Team Blackdogsrule