I believe dogs rise to the opportunities offered them, they deserve a chance to succeed at things we don’t necessarily believe they can do. Fate has not worked out as a herding dog, she is simply too sweet and loving. She lacks the will to stalk and push. She adores people,  but I have always believed she is too excitable to do therapy, and she still has a tendency to jump up on people when she first sees them.

This has been a difficult habit to break her off, although she calms down after a minute or two. Her instincts to greet are sometimes overwhelming. But her love of people moved me to take her to the Mansion today – under very close supervision – to see if therapy work might turn out to be right for her.

I was dubious. She does not have the calm or stillness or focus of Red, she is a good-time girl, distractable and excitable. She has the same quality as Red does of being trustworthy – she is not aggressive in any way. I can’t imagine her in hospice work.

In the Mansion, the residents are mobile, but some are frail, and I have a zero tolerance policy for mistakes in dog therapy work, the last thing the people we work with is to be pushed or knocked over. So I brought a short leash and kept her on it, and stayed several feet from her. If this works, I will continue working and training with Fate. Perhaps she can be accredited one day as Red was.

She was excited to come to the Mansion, the residents loved her. She started to jump on on the staff, but I was quick with the leash and sharp voice commands. She was anxious at first, unsure what the work was. It takes time to train a therapy dog to recognize that the people are the work, that must be reinforced over time.

Fate went into a melt when she saw people, wriggling towards them on the ground, tail wagging. She ran into Barbara in the activity room and walked up to her and put her head in her lap. She kept it there awhile, until she discovered the two parakeets in their cage. I have a photo of that coming up.

We visited four or five people, including Barbara,  Connie and Madeline and Peggy and Aileen and John K. and Sylvie. Fate’s attention span was short, but she was beginning to focus on the people at the end of our visit. They were thrilled to see her and picked up on her sweetness and enthusiasm, and they loved her blue Pirate Eye.

We will need a lot of work if this is to work. I kept her close to me on a short leash and took no chances. Given the strangeness and the number of people and the fact that this was completely new work for her, she did very well. I”m going to keep it going and see what happens. A good therapy dog is intuitive,  they connect appropriately with the people who need them, and they sense frailty and pain.

I enjoyed taking Fate she did well, especially for the first time.

Red knows if a patient is hurting, he approaches very slowly and never jumps up. I want to see if Fate has these gifts, many border collies do. I have not seen Fate as a therapy dog, but I am beginning to think I ought to pursue it, put my training shoes on. I take no chances with therapy dogs, no risks.

I may have failed to teach her how to herd sheep, but I might be able to train her to be an accredited therapy dog.

I think it’s 50-50 at best. Several of the Mansion residents asked if she could come back. Several asked when Red was coming back.