GDUI: presentation day!


This morning we woke up early and met up with Andrea for breakfast. We had SO much fun talking that we sat there at the breakfast table for two hours! It was great! We talked about all things service dog, and some other stuff, too.

After breakfast, we filmed a video, which hopefully will be uploaded later tonight if not tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

We went back to the room, and I was so exhausted I fell asleep right away! But we had to leave soon again to go eat lunch. We sat with a new friend named Maria and some of her friends for lunch, but we had to leave early to pick up the electric toothbrush at the exhibition hall that Brad wanted. We got there just in time, and then rushed over to the GDUI events.

First there was a session where all the schools in attendance updated everyone on the latest with them. It was really cool to hear what all the different schools were focusing on, how they were doing team trainings, and all the other details about puppy raising, what breeds were being used, and so on.

Next we had our session! I started out, and while I wasn’t anxious, I got sooooooo hot. I was sweating buckets with my solidarity scarf on! But I didn’t want to take it off. I didn’t do a great job with my part of the presentation, but Brad NAILED his! Everyone was laughing at his jokes and commenting as he was bringing up issues for service dog users.

We had a great Q&A session after we talked, where we faced both supportive and more difficult (but still very respectful!) questions. I think most people in the room seemed to be agreeing that poorly behaved dogs, not matter where they are from, should be removed from public! And that service dog users should work together for advocacy. We ran out of time before all the questions were answered, and lots of people came up afterwards to talk. It was great! I am SO glad that we were invited, and that we were able to talk and spread the word about all types of service dogs.

After our session, there was a session about crossing roads. This was really really interesting! The schools all talked about the training they do with their dogs about crossing roads, which was great to hear. I got to ask the first question, and I asked if any of the schools had any positive reward based techniques for training intelligent disobedience. Unfortunately none did. I felt badly that I had asked such a complicated question first, but luckily there were plenty of other questions to take everyone’s mind off of my flop of a question! (Brad says I’m just doing my catastrophizing and my question was straightforward and not a flop from my side, but the trainers’, since he was expecting a better answer.)

We then went to dinner with our friend from January’s Top Dog guide dog conference, Daniella. We ate at the burger place in the hotel, which was better by a lot than the first time we ate there. Now I wouldn’t mind eating there again. Which is great, because there are not a lot of restaurants around the hotel!

Hestia was very happy after dinner to go back to the room and eat her dinner. And Brad and I were happy to get back and relax. After a lot of relaxing, Brad got photos from the day edited, and is now working on the video. Below are pictures from today, enjoy!

Veronica is wearing a yellow ruffled dress with a kelly green solidarity scarf and talking into a microphone.  Hestia is in her arms, she is a small black and white dog with a smushed nose and googley eyes.
Veronica is wearing a yellow ruffled dress with a kelly green solidarity scarf and talking into a microphone. Hestia is in her arms, she is a small black and white dog with a smushed nose and googley eyes.
A view of Veronica from the back, looking out into the audience.
A view of Veronica from the back, looking out into the audience.
Brad wears a black shirt, black blazer, kelly green solitarity scarf, and black fedora.  He has his computer in his lap and speaks into a microphone.
Brad wears a black shirt, black blazer, kelly green solitarity scarf, and black fedora. He has his computer in his lap and speaks into a microphone.
A view of the room, full of people sitting around tables with loads of dogs underneath chairs and tables.
A view of the room, full of people sitting around tables with loads of dogs underneath chairs and tables.
Two German Shepherd Dogs on the floor next to each other.  One appears to sniff the tail of the other (which is right in the first one's face!) and the sniffed dog looks at the camera as if saying "I know what that other dog is doing!".  Hilarious!
Two German Shepherd Dogs on the floor next to each other. One appears to sniff the tail of the other (which is right in the first one’s face!) and the sniffed dog looks at the camera as if saying “I know what that other dog is doing!”. Hilarious!
Another view of the room, with people sitting at tables and dogs relaxing under tables and in the aisles.
Another view of the room, with people sitting at tables and dogs relaxing under tables and in the aisles.

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