From Aurelie Douay, Instructor at Green Chimneys School

This week we welcomed a new service dog pup, Callie, to the ECAD program at Green Chimneys school. Callie is just two months old and comes to us from FL. Callie, the youngest of our pups in training, has learned a few commnads this week such as sit, down and shake! She also met her new "brothers and sisters" already in training and rode for the first time in the truck from CT to NY. Lots of new people and places for Callie and soooo many things to learn! She is already part of ECAD's family.

From Aurelie Douay, Instructor at Green Chimneys School

School started for our new students at Green Chimneys! Our new pups started school last week and met their trainers. The student trainers had a hard time choosing between these cute little fluff balls and the grown dogs. Anna said "I think I'm ready to train a bigger size dog" while walking on a heel with Hero. Louis decided to find the dog who resembled his last service dog in training. "Pumpkin looks like Compass Junior...he is so laid back!" Pups and trainers had a very busy week. They are learning patience. Flour, our 2 month old yellow lab would say "it's hard to wait in the crate...so sometimes I try calling to my boy!" Or jumping on the box..."Iam almost there" would say Sprinkle, one of our new Golden pups...trying to reach the top of the box with her two back legs.

Yes, it will take almost two years for our ECAD pups to make it as a service dog...but its already a good start!

From Yuka Dawson, Instructor at Mercy First

After the last graudation on Nov. 4th, MercyFirst welcomed 4 of Blueberry's fluff balls: Carmel, Brandy, Nut Meg, and Crisco.
They are the best sleepers ever! The first night away from their brothers and sisters, every single one of them slept 7 hours without having accidents.
All of them are very calm puppies!

Mercy First boys are having the best time. The advantage of having puppies is that the boys can experience "teaching" a simple task and experience an immediate success. Each student is paired with another trainer and the pair is assigned to a pup and an intermediate dog.

I am expecting my students to grow tremendously as trainers after working with an advanced dog for the first 2 months, then moving down to intermediate dogs and puppies.

It's a joy to watch my students' eyes light up with small successes they have with the puppies.

Photo: Bilal with Crisco