Rachel Friedman's blog

When you live day to day with young children, especially a child with special needs, just getting through the day can often be daunting.  Unless you are especially good at paying attention or you've instituted specific (usually with professional help) interventions, recognizing significant changes in your child is hard. When your contact is less regular and you are the professional help, and especially if you pay attention, the transformations can be downright magical.

So it has been with Sam and Bubbles. I have written often of this experience in this blog, but here, in honor of Earth Day 2012, is a snapshot to look at my experience with Sammy and Bubbles.

LABOR DAY 2011 BEFORE

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Today’s outing with Bubbles involved a new species of animal — for Sam and for Bubbles! We decided to try an evaluative session on horseback to see if Sam could benefit from equine therapy. Many researchers have noted that often, when autistic children are first introduced to hippotherapy, the new environment may prompt crying, screaming, tantrums, and avoidance behaviors such as flopping down and becoming limp. For our Sam, there's also risk of flight.

A little more than a year into my relationship with 'rescue dog' Tommy the Wizard, the shih tzu I reluctantly took in and then fell in love with and fully adopted, I find myself once again fostering a dog who arrived with issues, uncertainly and no formal training. Roxy is a nearly 5 year old puggle (a cross between a pug and a beagle) whose owners found me agreeing to take custody of her for the express purpose of finding her a new and wonderful forever home during a narrow window of opportunity. How did they do it? First success -- I answered the phone and listened to the story.

Time can be measured in many ways. the blink of an eye, seconds, moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, lifetimes, centuries, millennium and yada yada yada. The benefit of such measure is often comparative -- to reflect on how things are the same, how things are different. Then getting subjective -- how things are better, or how things are worse. Living and working hands on with dogs full time for over the past 12 years has engendered a greater awareness of the value of living in the moment -- it is a testament to the power of the animals I share my life with how many perfect moments there are in life, even amid stress, sorrow, sadness, loss and pain. Yet at the same time, a wise man once told me (okay, so it was my father!), if you can look back at a year ago and say that today things are better or at least no worse, then you are doing well. Forward ho. Or something like that. So it is as an anniversary arrives I step back to become reflective.

I have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of people and thousands of dogs over the past 13 years as a licensed independent social worker passing herself off as a professional dog trainer. Privately, in group classes or both, I work on helping teach people -- of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities -- the skills and knowledge to make their human/dog relationships better. Sometimes with very difficult dogs, who become less difficult when the key to communication unfolds. Sometimes with very difficult people, who become less difficult when their defenses are lowered and they are open to taking greater responsibilities. My focus is teaching positive and non force based methods to help dog owners become benevolent leaders. A benevolent leader does not lead by force or threat, but by becoming someone the dogs want to follow because doing so is a good thing.

November has been a busy month for testing one of my favorite things -- measuring change. The other day when talking to my daughter Sophie I asked her to hand me a 1/2 full glass of water. She asked why I didn't say half empty. I answered it was the nature/nurture effect of growing up under the relentless optimism of my father, her grandpa, that must have rubbed off on me.

If you can start out on the right paws with your young puppy developing loose leash manners in a positive and user friendly way, would you? Of course. Even if that meant having to shell out more bucks each time your pup outgrew a piece of equipment? Probably not. Having multiple kids allows for hand me downs.

Take a beautiful fall day, 7 social dogs, more than twice that in people, a birthday cake for dogs (thank you Gary!), a birthday cake for their peeps, stir in the magic of the mix, and an ample supply of poop pick up bags and voila, the perfect recipe to honor the birthday girl.

Checklist

Developing her feathering tresses, bulking up and settling in with the greatest of ease, Bubbles turns 1. It was great to celebrate (albeit a day early) with her and her family on the shores of Lake Erie.

To see the video: BUBBLES ON LAKE ERIE PRACTICING RECALL