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Saturday 19 April 2014

Our family has expanded.....again

We have a new 4 legged addition to our family!  Our new puppy is a 8 week old silver lab named Aileron.



When telling people his name we have received a variety of blank stares to comments like "oh that's quite a mouthful".  My husband named him the dog that's all I can say.......lol.  Actually many of the members of our family are pilots or airplane enthusiasts and since an aileron is part of a plane the name is fitting.  We are also extremely cautious naming pets after having a dog for many years and then adopting an 8 year old with the same name.  We aren't planning on adopting again but just in case I hope we don't meet a child named Aileron.

The goal for this puppy is to be a family service dog for whoever needs help at the time.  We do have 2 other dogs but at 9 and 13 years they are getting tired.  Since arriving Aileron has been traveling with us to therapy appointments and therapeutic horse back riding.  He has been drawing a lot of attention and is loving all the attention he is getting.  I am enjoying the fact that my children that don't like speaking to people are eager to tell people about their new pet and are being pushed to interact.


One of the goals we have for him when he is older is to attend agility classes with a few of our children.  The thought is that this will help the children become more confident in giving commands/directions, exercise both participants and be a non therapeutic fun activity.  A couple struggle with confidence so we are hoping the practice of giving commands or saying something like they mean it will transfer to day to day life.  Social interaction is also a challenge so with the main focus being on the animal we hope that this may expand their interaction with humans in a non threatening way.  Another benefit is this is an exercise that can be done from a wheelchair (depending on location) that looks like fun.

shared at http://richfaithrising.blogspot.ca/

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