A Week of Training

Amanda, Mimi and I flew into Witchita, Kansas on June 21. It was Amanda's first flight. She loved every 90 minutes of it. We then rented a car and drove north for 2 1/2 hours to Concordia, KS, population approx 5,000.

On Monday morning, Time was handed to Amanda. She is a beautiful, short-haired Border Collie. She was born on Daylight Savings Time, Mar 11, 2007. She has 3 siblings: Quartz, Rolex and Swatch. Time, Rolex and Swatch were put into the rigorous training program for CARES.KS.com (if you would like to link to their website.). They were trained first at a prison facility. We visited one of the facilities while we were there and met 5 men who were in this dog program. It really was an emotional time. One of the men said that out of 900 in that facility only 5 were willing to dedicate their time to this program. They said that it gave them a sense of responsibility and a way to give of themselves. I only talked with 2 of them to thank them for the time they had invested. One was in for life and the other would be there for 20 years. They were able to give the dogs constant training. They worked on all of the commands until they were ready to be socialized. From the prison, Time went to a boys academy. This academy specializes in positive peer counseling to help troubled and defiant teens. They have partnered with CARES to help these boys learn responsibility. We met the young man that trained Time for 3 months. His name is Zach. Zach was able to take Time into public places so that she would obey commands with many distractions.

Amanda and Time hit it off right away. They are both tall and lanky, so they looked so cute together during training. Amanda assumed responsibility right away. She learned how to have Time heel, turn about, sit,down, stay, wait, come, go to, and many more. We went into restaurants, Walmart ( the only store in town), the park, and the mall in a nearby city for the final test. The dogs were asked to sit, down, and stay while their master walked out of sight. They were then put to the test while strollers went by, food was dropped and they were petted by strangers. Time made us very proud and passed the testing with flying colors.