Isaac and I have been working on fetching juice for seven days now.
At this point, I can stand slightly inside my living room and give Isaac the command "juice" and point in the direction of the fridge and he runs to the fridge and opens it. I don't have to give the command to open the fridge first, although I still give him that command at other times, because I want him to remember it, too. Sometimes he immediately goes for the juice box after opening the fridge, other times he starts to come back to me and I have to remind him by giving the command "juice" again.
I tried standing further inside the living room, out of direct sight of the fridge, but then Isaac seemed confused about what I was asking for. He headed for the kitchen but instead of opening the fridge, started to turn on the kitchen light. Like I've said previously, I don't know why he has trouble with a task the further away I am from where he needs to go to complete the task, but he had similar issues with turning on the lights and retrieving my meds. I dealt with that by gradually moving further and further away and now he can get my meds no matter what room I am in when I give the command.
I think I said, when I started teaching Isaac the task of fetching juice, that I thought it would take about two weeks to get it down well. I think we are on track to accomplish that.
I think it so great that you are able to take you service dog's expenses off your spend. I am trying to the same but having trouble doing so as the county were I live is saying it not a valid medical expence.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're having trouble with that. You might try pointing out that the IRS considers service dog expenses as valid medical expenses, not that Medicaid is required to follow their example, but that might help. Or point out that in other areas, Medicaid counts those expenses. You can also request a hearing if you have to go that far, in which you would have the chance to prove your service dog is a valid medical expense (like by showing documentation from your doctor that you need a service dog and stuff).
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