1st full day home

I know I haven't officially gotten caught up with last week's posts, but I don't want to fall behind on the current stuff. I'm still working on it, I promise.

Today we went to volunteer on a housing fix up project in the morning. Because we she wasn't in officially service dog capacity, we didn't use her vest. I'm trying to be very good about keeping the vest only for work times. Her personality is much more serious when the vest is on and I want her to know there are lots of times she's just being a normal dog. We worked there for the morning and she was very good. She just found a convenient spot of mud and laid in it. A plane flew in low overhead and a chain saw started up and it didn't even wake her up. She's such a great dog.

We made a quick trip to the library, where she wore the vest of course. This was the first time we were out in public where we weren't repeatedly stopped by people wanting to talk about, or pet, Fern. Some people stared, but most just minded their own business and we actually got out on time.

We made a quick stop by the community garden where I have a plot. I let Mika walk Fern around the large grass area while I quickly planted my last two pepper plants. While I was playing in the mud I heard Mika scream Fern's name. I looked up and saw that Fern had jerked the leash from Mika's hand and was running towards a little ditch full of water. After she ran through the ditch, she circled back towards the garden and the drainage ditch on the other side. Mika was yelling for Fern as she ran but Fern couldn't hear her. I yelled "Fern, freeze!", although I didn't think it would work because we hadn't practiced that with her. Fern stopped so fast she skidded in the dirt. I told her "come here" and damn if she didn't turn around and cheerfully trot back to Mika. I was nearly panicked and Mika was nearly in tears, but Fern thought she had been a good dog for coming back. That's the first time I have every seen Fern do anything even remotely ill-behaved, and it was shocking. It must be the lab in her. We need to get her out to the dog park early tomorrow morning and let her run like a maniac. I wish I could find a fenced in area with a shallow pond to let her splash around in. We'll start with a dog-free dog park and work up from there.