Life is good!

Well our new life with Lily the North Star service dog has been quite a blessing.

While still a pup at 8 monthes old, Lily has come with a lot of built in training. Some of it is natural to the temerment she was selected for from her litter, and some from her excellent trainer in Philedelphia to whom we owe much gratitude.

Now a great deal of it will rest on us and the local trainer to whom we will be assigned.

Currently Mom is her main handler, attending a weekly training class with her in the basic commands, which will be followed up with 2 more courses and then on to some agility training for which we want Joseph to become the main handler.

In about a year Lily will be able to take her final public access exams, but for now she can still go pretty much anywhere with us with her service dog in training vest. I think tommorrow will be her first time attending Mass with us.

Lily has a way of drawing a crowd which gives us a lot of joy. She is being groomed to serve children and so we take every opportunity to allow children to be around her and she loves it. She gets a little excited at first but settles quickly after a sit command and introduction is made. We are happy that she has never tried to jump, this tends to be the most unsafe behavior around little kids.

So what has it done for our kids? We are just begining to scratch the surface for what is becoming quite a beautiful thing. Joseph's ability to demonstrate compassion and to think of her needs before his own has been one of the most amazing things to witness. For those familiar for autism you know, compassion is one of the main things that needs to be worked on.

Secondly the confidence that we see in him as he walks her and gives her commands, its wonderful to witness.

Third, Lily really is a bridge for communication for Joseph. Although he is by nature a more freindly outgoing kid with autism, he still has difficulty choosing appropriate conversation starters, well...Lily has become that. He walks up to nearly everyone with her, "Hi, this is me Joseph, this is our service dog Lily, do you want to pet her?"

Another beautiful situation begining to unfold is for James who is also dealing with several autism issues. He has become one of our greater concerns as of late. James so needs affection and tenderness. He loves burrying his face into her fur and caressing her. He is starting to learn appropriate ways to handle her. Our biggest thing will be attending Mass with Lily to attempt to help James who has great difficulty in crowds due to the auditory and visual overload. Having her by his side, we hope will give him somethig comforting to focus on when Mommy can't always be a snuggle bunny.

The girls also love Lily. It goes withot saying that Lily obeys Therese more than any of the other kids. Therese has a way of making anyone do what she wants, and if you dont, you will pay, and poor Lily gets put in her place from Therese if she steps out of line in the least. Therese is strong and bold, at least at this age, and has no problem commanding her in a load clear voice, "sit, stay, no" someone has been watching too much dog whisperer!

Vincent takes Lily for 2 walks a day, one around 7:30 in the morning for about 45 minutes and one at night for another 45 minutes. Vincent has really enjoyed that quiet time to be walking with her. Occasionally Mommy gets to break away to walk Lily and she enjoys it just as much and finds it oddly therapeutic!