Today Brad and I met up with Sabrina and Russ for lunch and then to talk with some Girl Scouts!
We went to McAlister’s for lunch, and they didn’t have any parking spaces with the wide access aisles available, so Brad and I spent like 5 minutes trying to double park in a way that our ramp would be able to deploy even if there was someone parked next to us. While we were doing that, Sabrina and Russ showed up!
I didn’t use my wheelchair inside McAlister’s because it’s already hard enough to fit two wheelchairs at a table, much less three!
Felix was a little too excited to see Indy and reared up on his back legs and did his begging motion with his front legs a couple of times (where he paws his front legs together in the air a few times in a row—very cute, but not appropriate!). Once we got inside, he was more in control of himself.
We ordered and found a table, and I put Felix in a down on his mat next to the table. He didn’t do as well at McAlister’s as he has recently at other restaurants. He really wanted to get up and sniff around. So I had to be on him, reminding him to lie down and telling him he was a good boy. He also started doing some quiet whining at first while we were there! Luckily the place was almost empty and there was no one seated near us, so it wasn’t too bad.
Thankfully after about 5 minutes, Felix calmed down a lot. He mostly hung out on his mat, only occasionally trying to get up and sniff. I think Indy was a good influence on him because she just zonked right out under the table! I got a picture of Indy’s head next to my foot and Felix on his mat right nearby.
When we were done eating, Brad got a video of Indy and Felix, as well!
Then we headed over to meet up with the two troops of Girl Scouts. We decided to use the Socratic method to give the presentation, which means we asked them questions so they could reason out answers to things like “what types of things can service dogs do?” and “what should you NOT do around a service dog?”. It was really fun talking with them, and they were a great group of girls! Sabrina and Brad did great jobs at this, despite it being the first time either of them have done a presentation like this (Brad used to teach university students, not young kids). I used to teach 7th grade, so I am pretty experienced at stuff like this.
We spent about an hour talking with them, and then I got out a flyer that the girls could color and cootie catchers they could color and fold. Cootie catchers are those things you used to fold up in grade school that you move your thumbs and fingers back and forth to make the thing open up in different ways and reveal different sets of messages. Here are the links to those three things so you can use them! Flyer, Cootie Catcher 1, Cootie Catcher 2.
We got a few pictures of us there, but none with faces of any of the girls because we wanted to respect their privacy. So the pictures are just of me with Felix and one with me, Brad, Sabrina, and Russ.
Overall we had a really fun time there, and a very fun day! The girls had lots of great questions and answers to our questions, and really seemed to already have a great deal of empathy. I am sure they will complete their badge without any problems!