Today we got into the meaty stuff. Behavior disruption! This is the whole point of having a service dog for Riley. To help her with the meltdowns. Eventually, hopefully, Jingle will be able to redirect Riley before the escalation occurs. Today, a 4 Paws staff member indicated she would be role playing a child crying, (which sent Riley running from the room covering her ears before the scene even unfolded). The dogs are taught to nuzzle, to put their head in the child’s lap, or to go “over” which means putting their whole body across the child’s lap for deep pressure. The dogs are very attached to the people who trained them and it is sweet to see them interact with each other. 

Jingle needs to get used to Riley. She’s accustomed to responding to the trainers imitating meltdowns, but not Riley specifically. So for now, when Riley starts crying, we reward Jingle. She must associate Riley crying with getting something good. We are saving her very favorite treats for meltdowns. Lucky for us, homework tonight was meltdown city. Riley was so tired. She cried and screamed. She hit herself.  She ran from the room.  

Jingle scored with a lot of treats.

Jingle, Riley and I wound up on the bed together. Jingle did “lap” on command, and Riley pet Jingle until she felt better.  Jingle was so relaxed (and tired from her hard day of training) that she fell asleep and Riley inspected every inch of her face. Riley softly stroked Jingle’s whiskers, she ran her fingers over her eye brows and around her nose. 

“I like her black mustache,” she said.  

“I like the pink spot on her nose,” I said.

Jingle let out a content sigh. 

We skipped the rest of tonight’s homework. Bonding was more important.