My little shopper

Today Joe and I spent the afternoon and evening shopping and running errands with different people in my family. I must say Joe has always been a great shopper, but over the last few weeks he has become an awesome shopper. He is so patient and focused while we are out and I have to say, I do believe he has been my best shopper. 

Early this afternoon we went to the mall where he weaved in and out of crowds. Joe has to learn how to walk next to the wall in the mall instead of me next to the wall which is opposite of the walking path of a mall. You kind of feel like a fish swimming upstream. Joe did something today that he hasn’t before, he knows what 'find the elevator, curb, door and car' means, but he has never 'found the stairs' all by himself. I told him to find the stairs and he happily trotted over to them and looked up at me like “here they are!” He also was extremely interested in all the escalators; I think he will LOVE learning about these moving stairs. I told him he had to wait just a little bit longer to learn how to ride them. He also got to go to REI and walk next to the rail of the second story. He enjoyed looking down at everyone below.

“Hello down there”

Next we went to the school my mom teaches at for a little while. They were redoing one of the rooms and all the really loud power tools didn’t bother him!

“This looks like fun!”

After an hour at home, we went to do some clothes shopping. I for one am not a huge clothes shopper, but Joe makes it fun even though he just walks right beside you. Sometimes you even forget that he is walking with you because he is so good. We then went to get some dinner where Joe passed out from all the shopping.

such a good boy

Today showed me just how ready Joe is to go learn how to be a guide dog. He has become the best guide dog puppy that he can be and he makes me so proud everywhere we go. Joe has a learned all that I can teach him and will love learning all the advanced commands that come with this new chapter in his life.