Dog Off Duty: Zido the Normal Dog

   When you've been partnered with a service dog for over a year and half, there are a few questions you seem to run into over and over again. For us, those questions are of course: "What is he?" "How old is he?" "Why do you have him?" "Where does he sleep?" and my favorite..."Boy or girl?"

   There's one question, though, that I seem to get day-in and day-out: "Does he EVER get to be a normal dog?" Now, sarcastically I want to answer that with, "Nope. Never. Work him all day, everyday. Gotta work him to the bone. He needs to earn his keep." Instead, I end up telling them that yes, of course he gets time to just be a dog and I remind them that he truly loves his job. But, like the rest of us, he loves his time off as well. For this post, I wanted to show you guys just how "normal" of a dog he becomes when the harness comes off.

   Before we begin, let's check out this video to see just how much he changes during the transformation from on-duty to off.

   I mean, who hasn't felt that way at the end of a long day? When he gets home and I take him off harness, Zido becomes like any other dog. The issue I run into, though, is that even though the harness may be off, his brilliant mind never turns off. I swear to you I will tell him not to do something and he looks deep into my eyes and CHOOSES to do it anyways...

   For example, I made a terrible mistake that the trainers from Canine Partners for Life warned us not to make: I let Zido sleep in my bed with me. I mean, I told myself, "Just for a little bit so we can bond!" Yeah, well a year and a half later I would really like to reclaim my king size bed. So a few weeks ago, my mom and I embarked on a craft journey and remodeled an old coffee table into a special, four-post bed for King Zido. During the making of the bed, Zee was in love. We were making it in my living room, so Zido would come and crawl into the table while we were still trying to figure out what to do.

He also wanted to "help" me paint so he took it upon himself to sit on me and supervise my every move.

All was well and good when the bed was finished and still sitting in the living room...

   But then I tried moving it into my room and he realized what that meant. He saw MY bed and he saw HIS bed and said, "Ohhhh...yeah, no I still want the big bed."

   My brilliant plan to force him to sleep in his bed was foiled when I fell asleep each night...I would go to bed alone and wake up with a furry lab cuddled up to me. I realized that of course he would know when I was truly asleep because my heart would tell him that! So now the bed will be upstairs for the other two dogs to enjoy while Zido and I continue to figure something else out.

   On his off time, Zido also loves being outside. He will run and run with his basset hound brother, Luigi, and his mutt sister, Annie. During the winter, we have found that Zido LOVES the snow! This past January, we had a record breaking snowstorm, which absolutely thrilled Zido.

    
   As spring has begun, I've also found that Zido is quite the little gardener. He has taken it upon himself to "assist" my parents in their background landscaping.

   He will also be of service by rearranging some of the plants that are in our backyard...we've found that his true gift isn't alerting to my condition, but rather he is a proud horticulturist.

   Above all else, though, Zido's absolute most favorite thing to do when he is off-duty is to snuggle up close to me and drift off to sleep.

   Whenever I am out in public, Zido is always on harness. He has a job to do and he takes his job very seriously. However, working dogs still have their time at home when they can just be a normal dog that runs around and probably get into a little bit of trouble. Each partner will have their own rules when it comes to when the dog is off harness, but my general rule is that if my shoes are off, his harness is off. That means, for us, when we are at home he is mostly off harness, but there are many days when I'm not feeling my best. On those days, I will put him in his smaller vest, which is a regular looking service dog vest that CPL provides. It tells the dog that they are still on duty and working, but it is much smaller than his full harness.

   What will continually amaze me is that even when Zido is completely off harness and not technically working, he is ALWAYS on the job. He has woken up from deep sleeps to alert me and has stopped in the middle of playing to tell me something is wrong. He has even woken me up in the middle of the night because I was having a nightmare and my heart rate was increasing. This dog is seriously amazing and he blows me away every day. I'm always proud to show him off in public and watch him work, but some of my favorite memories happen when he's just my goofy lab at home.

   We have something super special coming up next on Zee and Me! Miss Michelle (the woman who told me about CPL) will be writing a guest post about her own experience with training a therapy dog! She has been such a huge part of my life and I can't wait to share her wisdom with the rest of you!

Love and blessings,
Zee and Me