Today, Pauleen and I took a trip down to Melbourne. She had a couple meetings with dog people and thought it would be good for me to tag along. It was a lot of fun and now I have lots to think about. As with everything related to dogs, there are never any concrete answers to anything. Everything you think just leads to more questions.
I also learned a little bit about service dog access laws here in Australia. I've been told that assistance dogs are allowed in all public places - which I assume doesn't include places like zoos and other specific places just like the dogs in the US, but there aren't rules about puppies who are in training for future service dog work. Turns out Australians are generally so nice and welcoming that it's just not a problem. We were talking to someone from a service and therapy dog training organization in Melbourne today and he said he's never had issues with public access with his puppies.
We might be working with that group in the coming months to set up some type of program here in Bendigo, which would be a really fantastic opportunity and lots of fun. In the mean time, I'll need to learn about their training and puppy raising. Lots of fun and exciting things to come!
Next week is going to be a bit crazy. Pauleen is going back down to Melbourne on Monday for a 3rd (?) year Psychology field trip, so I will be teaching her tutorial here in Bendigo. Then Tuesday I'm down in Melbourne for Animal Ethics training which the university requires before I can work with animals. I'll be staying down there for my tutorials on Wednesday. At least now I have a car so I can drive instead of having to deal with public transit.
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