Week 1

                                                  

February 14, 2017

            Hello all! I’m sorry for being so late on this post, but I had to finalize some details with my internships before I posted anything. Hopefully next week I will be able to post on Sunday.

First and foremost, my internship. For my project, I am interning with two non-profit organizations: PowerPaws and the Foundation for Service Dog Support (FSDS). Since it was my first week at these internships, my main objective was to simply get an idea of how both organizations function and what was expected of me as an intern. Friday was my first day with PowerPaws and I can confidently say that it was probably one of the best days of my life. When I arrived at the facility, my on-site advisor introduced me to the stuff and all of their dogs that were training. And then the best surprise. I was introduced to an English Golden Retriever, Justice, who was with her 8 eight-week-old puppies. Justice and her puppies were at the facility as a part of PowerPaw’s puppy petting volunteer opportunity. After introductions were concluded, I accompanied my advisor to a morning training class where a lot of basic tasks were worked on. I was even given my own dog that I helped train throughout the lesson. After this class was over, I spent the rest of the day working with the puppy petting volunteers with the golden retriever puppies. And I am not going to lie, goldens being my all-time favorite breed, spending almost the entire day with the puppies was the highlight of my week.

            Saturday was my first day with the FSDS. I spent the entire day observing training classes with more beautiful golden retrievers and some gorgeous german shepherds. The morning class was for younger dogs that were earlier on in their training. During this class, I was able to observe the training for basic tasks. In the afternoon, I sat in on a training class with dogs further on in their training and was able to see how the core tasks that were taught to the younger puppies in the morning were applied to train more advanced skills. Although I was less active in this internship than with PowerPaws, seeing how these skills were developed across various dogs of various ages was just as meaningful to the intent of this project.

            This week, before I finish off my week with my internships, I plan on beginning a book by Diana Lawrence which follows the stories of service dogs. From this book and the articles I plan on reading sometime next week, I hope to gain more of a background on how these dogs truly impact their master’s life. Since my internship focuses on the “behind-the-scenes” of the service dog process, this book and the articles will hopefully fill in the gaps.