My visit to Brigadoon yesterday

Yesterday's visit went very well. I wasn't able to play with Gypsy because she was "in season", so Denise brought out Bond, and we hung out together for a bit. I was more interested in the dog this time--I went up and pet him, took a look at his paws, and tried to ride him like a horse. Mom and Denise stopped me at that point....apparently he's not a horse. Bond kept giving me a toy to throw for him, but all I did was hold it in front of him and play tug-of-war. I got to feed him treats, and I was much more "into" that than I have been in the past. It's still tough for me to navigate the environment and handling a dog. She has a tv stand with a glass cabinet, so I'm always trying to go to that to take a look at how handsome I am. I'm a little distracted by it, so Mom has to keep redirecting me back to interacting with the dogs. Anyway, we are going back on June 11th for another visit to keep meeting the dogs and seeing if Gypsy or Bond will be a good fit. My grandma (Nana) from Texas will be here for a visit, so she'll get to go with us to see what it's all about. That should be fun. Here are a few pictures of my visit yesterday for you to see. Enjoy!

Feeding Bond treats

More treats for Bond

I'm getting ready to pet (pinch) him

Bond checking out my shoes--this is a point where I thought about stepping on him before Denise and Mom stopped me!

Giving Bond a little love

"How you doin'?"

Have a great week!
Love,
Aaron

We hit another goal!

So after 10 weeks the total is.....(drum roll).....$3,035!!! We are getting there! Thanks again to everyone who is helping out with this! Come back on Sunday because we go to Brigadoon on Saturday, so I'll have an update for you by then! Oh--on a side note, this week I emptied mom's powdered sugar AND flour canisters (the garage looked like snow!). Fun for me, not for them! But I'm still alive so we'll see what's next!

$10 away!

Not from the goal of $5,000, but from $3,000! Another $50 was donated this week bringing the grand total to $2,990!!! SOOOO close! Yay!!! Have a great week!
Love,
Aaron

Service Kangaroo????

I thought I'd post pictures of a recent trip to the local kangaroo farm. (You all have a kangaroo farm close by right?) Mom took us here over spring break (the day before my flour/epsom salt fun), and I can't wait to go back. I amazed my mom with how interested I was in the animals. We got to tour the place, feed some wallabies and kangaroos, and even hold a baby joey. My favorite part of the trip was definitely feeding the wallabies--I couldn't get enough of it. I thought a service kangaroo would be a good idea, but mom doesn't think it'll have a good enough tracking nose. I guess I'm going to have to stick with dogs. :) Enjoy the pictures!
Love,
Aaron

Giving bread pieces to the wallaby.

Yum yum yum. I got to pet him too!

My sister leaned over to talk to me so I naturally assumed she wanted a piece of bread as well! That gave everyone a good laugh!

Isn't the baby so cute???

I'm starting to get a little bored at this point--we were all done feeding wallabies, and had moved on to feeding llamas--not my thing. So mom and I decided to race....

GOOOOO!!!!!

The end of a fun day at the kangaroo farm!

A little boy's birthday gift

In my last post I wrote about a boy who was asking for donations for my dog instead of birthday presents. I thought I'd give you an update. He raised $125 from his birthday bringing our total to $2,940! I can't tell you how much this has meant to me and my family. We are so blessed! Thank you for random acts of kindness. We are headed up to Brigadoon on May 24th, so I'll keep you posted on weekly progress and of course our upcoming visit!
Love,
Aaron

A neat story

The other day Mom was looking at sitemeter and found a blog that had a link to my website on it. The most recent post on this woman's blog is about how her son turned four, and what they were going to do for his birthday party. She asked that in exchange for presents that the kids bring a small donation for my service dog. Did I mention she's never met me? Mom was quite moved--it's amazing to see how people who don't even know me are doing extraordinarily special things to help me get this dog. Thank you.
Love,
Aaron

WEEK 6

We're over half-way!!!! This week $900 was donated bringing the grand total to $2,815!!! Maybe we can hit $3,000 by the end of the week! Thank you for such a great week!
Love,
Aaron

Our visit to Brigadoon today

Today we were at Brigadoon for about an hour and a half, and then I was finished! I spent time with only three dogs this week, so I was able to spend more time with each one. Denise brought out Bond first this time, then Gypsy, and finally Tate.

You can see in the pictures that Bond was excited to see me :), and was very focused on the blanket behind me. I held his leash and "walked" him around the office area for a little bit. We hung out together, although I was more interested in watching my reflection in the glass.

Once again, it seemed that Gypsy seemed to be the most interested in me. She kept following me around!!! She and I played with a tennis ball for a while--she would bring it to me and put it in my hand, and my mom would stand behind me and make me throw the ball to her. Gypsy also put her leash in her mouth and handed it to me.

Finally Denise brought Tate out. I was pretty wiped out by this time and didn't really want anything to do with anyone. I hung out with Tate for a while, but I was not very cooperative!

So, where does that leave us? Well, like I mentioned in my last post about visiting Brigadoon, Denise is looking to see if there is an "ah ha" moment between me and a dog. Denise video taped me interacting with Gypsy for a bit today. She's looking to see which dog is the most interested in me. So, we're going to keep going up and visiting to see if a bond form between me and one of the dogs. This is a little more complicated than it seems. You see, it takes me a while to get used to a new environment--especially one that I'm not around very often. So this is still kind of tough because I'm not used to the Brigadoon facilities. When we get there all I want to do is check out the environment because it's something "new". It's hard for me because not only do I have to navigate a new environment, but I also have to navigate being around dogs (which is something I'm not used to--we don't have any pets at home). As it stands now, Mom is going to take me back up there within the next couple of weeks, and pretty soon Denise will do a home visit with one of the dogs so that I'm in an environment that I'm used to. So that's where we're at. :) See below for some pictures of our visit today. Have a good weekend!
Love,
Aaron

p.s. My mom got a new camera battery today, so she can take pictures of my next tornado of destruction! :)

Here is Bond getting the blanket that's behind me.

This is me giving Gypsy a little love squeeze.

Gypsy is coming over to see what I'm doing.

I'm giving Gypsy some treats.

Tate is checking me out.

Tate is really checking me out! :)

*****$2,000 MARK*****

We hit the $2,000 mark today! We're almost half-way there! Thank you everyone!!!
Love,
Aaron

Back to Brigadoon

Mom and I are going back up to Brigadoon on Saturday, so hopefully we can post some more pictures and have another update. Mom REALLY has to get her camera working because tonight....I.....PAINTED MY TOENAILS, FINGERNAILS AND THE BATHROOM FLOOR (of a friend's house) with pretty red nail polish. That will teach Mom to turn on American Idol when I want to watch Veggie Tales!