Surviving the ups & downs of winter.

With fall & winter it brings the many ups & downs of the barometric pressure, as well as my legs going spastic with the cold, & flares from Raynaud's as well. This winter has seemed especially bad, but despite the challenges of increased pain & POTS flares, we are hanging in there. I'm fighting to use my custom powerchair less & pushing to do training walks with Bridget when the weather allows. She is still doing well & working to perfect her tasks so that I can begin to wean out the training treats. She is doing fantastic in ignoring other dogs on our walks now, even walking right past aggressive dogs without any issues, however she's still distracted by them at times when in stores. She is getting much better about it though so I'm confident that it won't be long before she ignores other dogs entirely while working. I have started teaching her the "touch/target" command now in preparation of training her to open handicap doors for when I must use my wheelchair. She's catching on fast, even jumping up with paws on the wall so it should be pretty easy to teach her to jump up to push the handicap button. Funny thing happened while we were out a couple days ago. We were out getting groceries & while I was placing the bags into the cart I glanced over to the side & noticed an entire fire department team as well as police officer all looking back at us. I did a double take as my first thoughts were that someone had complained about me having a "dog" in Walmart. In that split second my mind was racing as I'm thinking, but she was very well behaved, we did nothing wrong & she's clearly marked! That's me, second guess myself, & go into panic mode, lol. Apparently one of the fire fighters saw the concern on my face as he quickly said with a smile big enough to see around his mask, "We were just talking about your dog." I smiled back & glanced down at her as she was doing a perfect down stay as she patiently waited on us to finish up. The fire fighter then stepped a little closer as he said "I bet she's a handful with shedding!" as he glanced back down at her long wavy hair. Feeling relieved now that I wasn't about to be in some conflict, I replied "YES! Even though I brush her daily it's like she's having a hair blow out!" He smiled even bigger & chuckled at my comment. I noticed the other emergency responders were smiling too (yes you can easily see smiles despite the mask, just look at the eyes). He & the rest of the team then went back to whatever they were doing. Both our cashier as well as the one behind us then began to ask questions regarding Bridget & regarding service dogs in general. I get annoyed when people do it from a nosey standpoint, but both were being polite & honestly wanting to learn more about service dogs & how dogs are able to help, as well as the reason that others aren't allowed to pet them. As long as I'm holding up okay & not in a rush, I have no problems speaking to those who honestly want to learn. I enjoy spreading awareness when able. Besides being completely exhausted from being on my feet, it was a good day.