A day of fieldtrips

What a day. Mikaela as been sick for a while now and I gave in and took her to the doctor. We spent about two hours there total between waiting and seeing the doctor. Fern did a great job overall, bar one little bark. Fern was asleep next to Mika's chair when the nurse knocked once on the door and came in. It startled all of us and Fern let out a quiet bark at the nurse. She was fine after that and even went back to sleep, but every time the nurse came in the room from then on she would tell Fern to 'chill' or 'just relax'. Given that Fern was lying under Mika's chair I didn't find her comments necessary, but I let them go for the most part.

We were sent up to the children's hospital to make sure that her heart was still doing well. The entire walk from the parking garage to the EKG rooms was filled with people smiling and even cooing at Fern. We've made it a policy that if we are on a schedule we don't acknowledge people with more than a smile. It's not that we don't appreciate the positive reactions, because we absolutely do. It's just that we've learned the hard way that once you give someone the opening to talk you will be there forever. They'll want to ask questions about Fern, then they'll want to tell you all about their dog and their favorite dog experiences, too. And then more people will stop to talk when they see that you are receptive to talk and it will take 15 minutes to move away.

When we got into the EKG waiting area a receptionist looked up and said "oh no". We went up to the desk and after a minute I told M to go grab a seat for us in the waiting room. As M walked away, the receptionist turned to me and said "Is that a seeing eye dog?" Given that my daughter very obviously was looking at the aquarium while she walked towards the chairs, it should have been amazingly obvious that she wasn't blind. I told her that she was a service dog, not a seeing eye dog and then went back to signing paperwork. The woman started to tell me that she couldn't be there but a co-worker grabbed her arm and shook her head at her. That quickly, the problem was solved.

At the end of the doctor appointments we went to Krogers, to pick up M's prescription and a couple of groceries. M, Fern and I were standing in an aisle looking for cereal when a woman came around the corner and shrieked. All 3 of us jumped and she was staring fixated on Fern. I reassured her that Fern is a service dog and perfectly behaved, but the woman was nearly panicking. Mikaela took Fern into a different aisle and I tried to reassure the woman before I left. We have definitely met people who are afraid of dogs, although most react positively when they see how absolutely calm Fern is. This was the first time I've seen an adult so absolutely panicked she froze. I feel bad for her.

There was a blip on the screen of our day and it was the cashier at Krogers. We're checking out and she asks "Are you training a service dog?" This is actually a common question, so I tell her that she's not in training, she's my daughter's service dog. She looks at me and says "Why? What's the matter with her?" I've prepared for this and I've had it happen once before but it still took me aback. I looked at her and said something along the lines of "Wow, I've never been asked that before! Don't you think that's rude?" The kid looked at me and blinked like she didn't know what to say, so I followed up with "Service dogs can be trained for many things including seizure response, mobility, PSTD and more." She kind of mumbled that there are local places that bring their dogs in for training and she thought we were one of them.

It was a very very very long day, but Fern was wonderful and definitely helped Mikaela, so there are definitely good things about it.

Here's a pic of how Fern deals with doctor appointments.