Benism's

Hello everyone!

Ben and I are settled into a routine. I keep both of my blogs up - Ben's Blog is called With Ben (click to go there) and my original blog -fightingmywayback. Ben also has a facebook page so I can add pictures easily - here is the link for that.  I decided before school that blogging was important to me and I was going to continue to make time for it. So I am - well at least so far. It's only two weeks into the semester.

School is a little boring which is good. I need boring. I'm taking only nine hours - Women in Society, Women in Cult Culture and Introduction to Political Science which is about perfect for both Ben and I. I thought I would share a few Benism's since most of my Ben news and personal news is up on the other blogs. I don't share Ben's quirky traits on my blog since Ben's trainer reads it and she is a little high-strung and would likely be concerned about Ben's not-so-perfect behavior (hey he can't be perfect all the time!).

Anyways, Ben has a tendency to say hello to people. He seems to know when he is very welcome somewhere and he will prance in with me and look at people. When he looks at them he gives a low "ru-ru" sound to say hello. This especially happens at church. I've just taken to shaking my head as it is very quiet and it seems to be his way of saying thank you for loving me.

He makes friends easily. When he is on his vest for the most part he behaves well (except we need to work on our leave-it command). The command 'go say hi' means that Ben can break for a moment and go up to someone and say hello. His butt always shakes when he does this and he comes right up to them to beg for pets. However, I made the mistake this week of sending him to greet someone who was scared of dogs. I was talking to a student from India and he asked if he could pet Ben so without thinking I sent Ben to him. He looked terrified. We had been talking about how he thought it was amazing that Ben could do all of those things and how in India that never would have happened. It didn't occur to me till too late that he had probably never been around dogs and Ben's enthusiastic greeting may have scared him a bit. Later I had him pet Ben when he was in a down and he gingerly did two quick pats. It was neat to talk to someone who had no knowledge of service dogs and was so excited to learn.

Ben has learned that every evening we got for a walk. He will sit on my lap and give me these puppy dog eyes until I get up to go. He will literally settle in and not move until I get his leash and agree to take him. So we have been going earlier and earlier for his evening walk. However, next week I'm taking charge and we are going later again. It's too hot to go right after dinner no matter how much Mr. Ben wants to go.

Ben has a tendency to give me looks. He appears long suffering if I put his vest on and then get my things together. He keeps looking at me like 'well, I'm ready why aren't you". He knows what "let's go to work means' and he jumps up and heads for the door every time. He loves to work.

One last Benism is that he sleeps on my back. Ben is so good with his weight distribution that I will be sound asleep on my stomach and he will jump on my back to sleep and I will never wake up. I love waking up in the morning to find him there. It's very comforting. So there are more Benism's but there are a few. And below are a few pictures from our first weeks together.