We went to the Hot Air Balloon Rodeo in Steamboat Springs this weekend and took our little 5 1/2 month old puppies, Roxie and Oscar. We have registered them as Emotional Support Animals, or ESA’s, in order to train them to become therapy dogs, starting first with the completion of the AKC program, Canine Good Citizens.
We take them everywhere with us, through hotel lobbies, sitting on patios as we eat our dinner, to parks with our grandkids and they come along on every trip from Phoenix to Denver and up to Steamboat Springs. They are absolutely wonderful with people and allow little kids to love on them, sometimes a little too “lovingly.”
Oscar, the larger of the two has terrible separation anxiety if his little sis or his big mom are out of his immediate sight, even by a few feet. We are working on this as it won’t be acceptable if he fusses non-stop in a hospital or hospice center if Roxie is getting some attention that he isn’t!
Roxie, the little female that weighs less than seven pounds, walks on her leash like a woman on a mission, pulling me along as if to say, “Hello world, I’m ready to love you!” It’s not an out-of-control kind of pull, just more of an excited-to-greet-everyone kind of pull.
We are certainly blessed to have found these little therapy dogs in the making.
Dog Tales 