Back in December, when I was 15 months old, Mom decided it would be fun for the family to go to Disney Land.  Then she had to decide whether to take me or not.  (Can you believe she even had to THINK about that??)

As she researched it, she found out that the staff there is well known (in the service dog world) for being champions of service dogs.  As she read more about it, she realized that this would be excellent training grounds for me.  I mean, where else are you going to find more unusual noises, sights, smells and people all in one glorious place?  And all these things I have to basically ignore - or at least take in stride...

She knew the opportunity for some intensive training would be good for me so she wasn’t worried about that, but she was concerned about my stamina and my little paws.  She always takes me out every day to chase the ball for a couple of miles over some fairly rough terrain, so she hoped that would be enough preparation.  Just to make sure the pads on my paws didn’t get sore though, she brought along my doggie mittens.  She inspected my pads daily and watched my gait for signs of limping, but thankfully, my paws did just fine.  I’ve worn those mittens before and I HATE them!  I tolerate them because I’m a good doggie, but dang! they feel so incredibly weird!  And the worst part is I walk funny in them.  I don’t want other dogs laughing at me you know.

Besides my paws, she was concerned about my stamina because I would be on the move - trotting beside the electric cart/chair for eight plus hours every day.  I’m active, but not normally on the go like that.  Well, let me tell you, I’m one strong dog!  It didn’t bother me at all.  In fact she was quite surprised to find out that when we got back to the motel in the evenings, I still wanted to go out and chase the ball!  I really do have a hard time resisting a ball.....

Disney Land was great fun for all of us.  Isn’t that a great picture of me with two of my princesses?  As you can see, we got to meet Ariel and have our picture taken with her.  Then we got to eat at this great restaurant (well they got to eat) and have a whole bunch more princesses come out to meet us.  Mariah and Lianna were in princess heaven! 

We also got to go on rides.  Yup!  Even me!  Of course not all the rides were okay for me, but a whole bunch were.  I was okay with them except for Pirates of the Caribbean.  If any of you service dogs out there are reading this and you get to go to Disney, DON’T do Pirates!  Aaaacccckkk!  It was dark, which was okay, but we were going along nicely in our little boat minding our own business and enjoying the gentle rocking of the boat, when out of the blue, our boat made this huge drop.  Boy did that scare me!  I didn’t bark or whine, but I sure did shake.  Mom soothed me and held me, but it was still scary.  Some of the other rides were deemed not good for dogs, (I can only shiver and imagine how baaaad those rides were) so they did a “dog swap” - someone stayed with me while Mom and others went on the ride, and then she waited with me while they then went on the ride.  That worked out just fine, except I don’t like not being able to be by Mom’s side so I very anxiously watched for her and wasn’t happy until I could see her again.  I have to be vigilant - what if there was another evil ride like Pirates for heaven’s sake????

Probably the most fun part for me was how popular I was with everyone.  Mom likes to say I was in more demand that Mickey and Minnie.  I doubt that not even five minutes would go by before someone was coming up and asking to pet me and asking all about me.  Being a very sociable dog, I loved the attention and all the petting I was getting!

I can tell all the other service dogs that go there are well behaved, because I never once smelled any “pee-mail” on trees or bushes, so I wasn’t tempted to go where I shouldn’t.  Disney has a couple of doggie bathrooms set aside for us working types.  I’m glad I was old enough to hold it and wait until we found one of those areas.  I sure would have hated to embarrass Mom - though I hear the Disney cast members are very understanding about accidents.

Well, that was such a fun trip, I think I’ll go paw through some photos and reminisce.... Thank you Disney people for being so accommodating - it was a great trip!