It's been a while

Hey all! I know it's been a while since I posted. I have a few things to talk about, one of them is most exciting and I'm very happy about it so I'll talk about that first.

1. Well, to begin, I am currently working at the Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago as a dog trainer. I am also starting up my own private dog training and walking business so that's coming along nicely. Right now I just aim to teach general manners, puppy socialization, working out problems with new dogs, some behavioral problems (destruction of the house and such), and will work with people that want to get their dogs ready for the finer things in life like becoming a therapy dog and what not. I also do individual dog walking and leave report cards and am more than willing to send live pictures of my clients' pup(s). As well as this I do combos of walking and training lessons. Here's the exciting part, in order to make my business grow:

In August I will be attending an intense seminar which will teach me how to pick out and train a dog to detect diabetes and alert their handler to when their blood sugar is too high or low. It's going to be so exciting but hard work as well to learn everything I can and make the most out of my attendance. After this seminar I will be ready to start training Diabetic Alert Dogs (D. A. D.) for persons with that kind of disability. So if you happen to know anyone in the Chicago area (including suburbs) that is looking for a D. A. D. trainer go ahead and let them know about me. I can be contacted at katarinacoates@gmail.com and will be most willing to dive right in at very reasonable prices (I do have to eat after all). In the mean time I should get my private dog training and walking business all set up and ready to go by the end of the seminar, I'm just waiting on getting my liability insurance with my sister's help. By then I should have a website up and running, I'm debating if I should just stick to facebook for it but am concerned facebook won't look as professional as a real site.

Along with this, I also am attending a seminar which Ian Dunbar is speaking at in September. Before then, also in August I am seeing both Patricia McConnell speak and Steve White speak at another lengthy seminar =). Gosh, being a *good* dog trainer is so time consuming!

2. Chaplin has been doing great in the learning field of things. We have two tasks down pat and on my own time I am teaching him to 'find' Joseph (my boyfriend) when I need him to. He can do it one of two ways, where he free floats if I for whatever reason can't go with or I can hold onto his harness handle and he'll guide me over there. He's starting to mature very nicely and every day his confidence as a working dog is growing. Soon we'll be working on medication retrievals (secured in a medicine bag to insure his safety) and also searching rooms in the house to alert if someone is in there (hyper vigilance). He's such a good boy =)

I will be sure to start posting more about him and how things are progressing. I've just been busy with life. I went to New Mexico to see a friend the 19th to the 24th. I took care of some appointments, vet things, and then I turned right around and headed to Indiana with Joseph for his family reunion from the 31st to the 1st of July. So I've been busy, busy, busy. Unfortunately I didn't feel like Chaplin was ready for either of the trips so there has been some lag in his training.

Until next time!