A caveat

Baraga Correctional Facility

January 9, 2014

FLD Bear was thirsty. When you spend as much time monitoring a puppy as I did with Bear the last 10 days, you learn to "read" his signals. Of course, it only made sense. Bear had just spent about five hours in his crate traveling across the UP in the Leader Dogs for the Blind van, was then welcomed by seemingly everyone at the facility and was now being handled by his new inmate puppy-raising team.

Heck, even I was thirsty by now!

But FLD Bear's new handler didn't understand why Bear was being squirmy. He had taken him out to "park" but still the pup wouldn't settle.

I said, "Do you have a bowl? I think he is thirsty."

In a shot, the inmate handed Bear's leash to his teammate and went off to get a water dish. He returned with a shiny stainless steel bowl and asked, "How much water should I put in it?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Fill it up."

Turns out that FLD Bear wasn't the only thirsty puppy.

FLD Bear gets his head under FLD Jedi and is first to the bowl of water.

The two pups make quick work of the water, and not too neatly!

"Can you guess what's going to happen next?" I asked.

"He'll need to park," the inmate raisers answered in chorus. "Yep," I said. "Bear is a real good peer."

Sometime later, and not too much later, FLD Bear started to pull toward the door. He whined. His handler asked Tammy if he should take the pup out to park.

Too late!

FLD Bear tried to tell his handler he needed to go out, but he just couldn't hold it any longer.

The handler grabbed him up and ran outside. "He peed again!" he said after coming back in from the cold. But FLD Bear wasn't done. A clean up crew had three more puddles to sop up before the afternoon training session was over. 

"Patti warned you," Deb said.

"He needs to go out again!"