Charles is still learning the rules of the road in public, and some days that looks less like a highlight reel and more like two living creatures failing politely in front of strangers.
He is a good boy. He has no aggression. He sits, he comes, he downs on cue, and he means it when he does. That is not the same thing as knowing how to tuck into a small, uncomfortable spot under a restaurant table and stay there like the job already owns him. Basic manners are one chapter. Real public access is another. We are deep in the second one now, and it is messy on purpose, because the only way through this work is to keep showing up where the room is loud and the floor is sticky and the dog has opinions.
We went to a restaurant I have eaten at before and been fine. This time they placed us too close to the kitchen, and I did not think twice about it. I should have. Charles would not lay down under the table. Getting him settled took real work, and when I finally got him down he got back up again, then started alerting over and over without my even coughing. There was no food on the table that explained it. No cough. No obvious reason, as far as I could see, for the alert.
So I got mad at him.
Keep that in perspective for a moment. We are both living things. We make mistakes. We have good days and bad days, and on bad days we are both capable of being spectacularly wrong while feeling certain we are right. One of us was making a mistake in that booth, and I was positive it was him.
Then Richard — my husband — said I did not look good.
By the time we realized I was, in fact, having a reaction, Charles had already given up and laid down. That is the part that sits in my chest. He had been trying to tell me something, and I had answered him with correction instead of curiosity. The dog who may have been doing the job got the lesson that doing the job was wrong.
The lesson nobody puts on a highlight reel
Here is the lesson, for everyone who trains dogs and everyone who loves them enough to be humbled by them: you cannot reward bad behavior or it will never stop. You also cannot reward good behavior if you do not know it is good. Those two sentences look simple until you are the one sitting in a restaurant, flushed and frustrated, correcting a partner who might have been the only one reading the room correctly.
In this case, the best I can do is hope that his stubbornness, his intelligence, and his desire to keep me safe outweigh the bad lesson he just learned from me. I corrected a dog who may have been doing the job. That is on me. I do not get to rewrite the moment. I only get to decide what we do next.
Was it a false positive?
Did he miraculously medical-alert on me? I will not know until it is repeatable. Is it likely? Yes. He is very smart and very bonded, and it is possible he is a natural alerter. Either way, we cannot let my fail hold him back. A handler's ego is a terrible reason to stall a dog's education.
We will get back out there. We will try again. And we will likely fail again, because that is what this work looks like when you leave the living room and enter the world.
One thing that bugs me is those videos of the crazy obedient dog that does everything instantly and never seems to think. It looks great on film. It is almost always a controlled environment, and that dog was never taught to think. It was taught to obey. A service dog is not one of those dogs. A service dog has to think, react, and adjust as needed to real life situations. That is a lot to ask of any dog. It is also what I need so very badly if I am going to have a truly successful, life-saving companion.
The best we can hope for is that we have more successes than failures, and that his insane stubbornness wins out over mine.
Thanks for listening to my tales. I hope they help you on your own journey.
Strength stands watch.
And so do I.
Wendi Coffman-Porter
Real handler, real stories, real dogs.
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