Tuesday night was the big night.
Glindy and I took center stage at the
U.C. Davis M.I.N.D.
Institute to present two hours on autism service dogs. The
evening went well, and I think the speech was well-received.
Our hosts from
Sacramento
Asperger Syndrome Information and Support were, I think, pretty
impressed with Glindy. It often surprises people how well she
behaves in restaurants and other public places, and how well she
travels in cars and other conveyances. Overall, she made a good
impression.
There were a couple of low points, though. Despite my efforts to
desensitize her ahead of our speech by giving her a chance to sniff
the strange dog, Glindy couldn't be dissuaded from barking and
whining at a puppy-raiser's SDIT who was in attendance. She settled
down with a bit of distance, as I knew she would, but it was still
a bit embarrassing to have one's service dog making such a fuss in
a public forum. As this has been an ongoing issue for us, I wasn't
really surprised, but I was still a bit disappointed that the
desensitization training I'd given her over the past year hadn't
really made more of an impact.
Also, Glindy was a little less sedate and a little more
attention-seeking than I might have liked during our two-hour
presentation. Part of this was no doubt because it was the first
time the two of us, as a team, had ever been in front of such a
large audience. While I've done my share of public speaking before,
this was something totally new for Glindy. Dogs consider direct eye
contact as a challenge, and here we were in front of 50-plus people
all looking directly at her. Considering that, I think she managed
with considerable aplomb.
In addition—and this was probably my fault—I didn't put
her into a down-stay or otherwise tell her what to do when we got
started. That was largely because I wasn't sure what to do myself;
I was still trying to decide whether to use the podium or wander
the stage right up until showtime. In the end, I stood directly in
front of the audience, which probably seemed a bit unnatural to
Glindy.
She was pretty good throughout the entire two hours, but several
times she miscued, thinking we were ready to walk off-stage before
our time was up. My guess is that there were sounds from the
audience that I didn't cue in on, but which she determined were
"we're done here" signals. Or perhaps the shuffling of pages from
my own speech acted as a false signal, since she's attuned to the
sound of shuffling paper as the cue to end our therapy sessions.
Aside from causing her a little confusion, though, this wasn't
really a big deal.
Glindy also pawed at me increasingly as the talk went on, and
several times during the last hour offered me her belly for
scratching. Glindy isn't a submissive dog by nature—she's a
status-seeking beta—so I'm pretty confident that this was
intended as a calming signal for
me rather than a
submissive gesture to the audience.
The tactile support actually helped tremendously. Even though I
felt confident and comfortable with being onstage, the stress of
the constant sensory input from the lights, the echoing sounds in
the room, and the constant interaction with the audience were
definitely putting a strain on me. I think Glindy sensed that, and
was doing her best to provide a relief valve for me. It worked, and
the periodic belly-scratches enabled me to finish the entire two
hours without needing to take a break.
I don't really know how other people perceived my interactions with
Glindy, but overall I felt that we'd done a good job as a team, and
that the speech itself presented a good model for how autism
service dogs can help in a real-world setting. While we could have
been a bit more polished, I think we did exceptionally well for our
first speech together.
I hope that Glindy and I will be able to take our message to more
such groups in the future. In the meantime, it looks like
desensitization to other dogs is back on the training agenda.