Final Exam and ADI Public Access Test

Yesterday was amazing and a perfect example of why we need a CCI dog at UCSF. There is a little boy that is going through the training with his mom to get a dog. He has been through the ringer medically speaking and has not said a single word in almost 8 months. After spending a week with his dog, yesterday he said the word NO. One week of cuddling with a dog, walking the dog, and grooming a dog this child said his first word. Needless to say there was not a single dry eye in the house when this story was shared at our luncheon yesterday.

Today was one of our big days. We had our final and ADI public access test. Everyone was so worried. There were people in my class having panick attacks and pulling all nighters. After a very long and stressful 2 days it all came down to this. The final took about 2 hours, by the last page I felt like I had just hit a wall. I couldn’t remember answers and was way too easily distracted. Luckily we were able to stop taking the test and take a walk or get up to move around. In the end I missed ½ point YAY!!! Next came our public access test. This is what will define whether the dog is allowed to work in public ect. She did great. They took us to the mall and some of the things that we had to do were:

• show that we know how to load and unload the dog properly,
• that we can walk a dog through a parking lot without losing control,
• get on and off an elevator while keeping the dog safe (very important for us),
• the dog will not each food off the floor or food that is thrown at them (this is very hard for the dogs). The instructors walk by and drop doggy bones in front of them while they are standing, again while the are laying on the floor, and a third time you talk with the instructors while they push gold fish off the table in front of the dog. A few of them had trouble with this but not our NILANI
• they had to pick up a pen and keys off the floor and deliver them to us

We passed with flying colors. I am only given public access for 3 months. I have to come back in October and re-take the test, if we pass we than get a public access pass for a year. This is very important: Nilani and I must be allowed to continue to grow together as a team and in her commands otherwise the ADI test will be much harder in October. If we do not pass the test she can not work in the hospital.

Today we also learned that the dogs can play with only certain types of toys and certain types of bones. Nilani can only use sterile bones. She can not have bones filled with any sort of stuff like peanut butter. She can not have rawhides, pig ears, nylabones or rope toys. They recommend the KONG branded toys and the goughnuts toys (indestructible). She loved the jolly ball and tennis balls.

Well tomorrow is our FINAL big day of team training. We have graduation!!! I also get to meet what they call “the puppy raisers.” These are people that volunteer to raise the dog and start training the dog. They have the dogs from about 2 months of age until they are ready to come to CCI (normally about 1.5 years). That will be exciting but hard. Nilani’s puppy raisers are Walter and Cassie and they did an amazing job with Nilani. I know that it will be hard for them to give up Nilani but I hope they know that she will be well taken care of and loved.

Thanks for reading. We can not wait to come home and meet everyone at UCSF!!!