This past weekend, I took Chester home for the weekend.  When I first got home, I did a quick reintroduction between Chester and my dog, Theo, before letting them play for awhile in the backyard together.  I met my mom at the grocery store at Chester when she got off work, and we had a nice public access.  Chester got a little distracted toward the end and wasn't very focused on me, but he did great for the first part.  When we got back, we watched a movie, and he mostly just napped, occasionally swinging by each of us for pets.

Saturday morning, we (the humans) made pancakes and bacon then my mom, brother, and I left (with Chester) to run some errands and go shopping.  We started out at Great Clips for my mom to get a haircut.  I worked with Chester on "get it" for a little while using random items I had on me while we waited.  We then went to Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, and Spirit Halloween which was a blast!  Chester did a great job in all of them, not even getting concerned in the slightest about the moving monsters in the Halloween store.

After we finished shopping, we went back to the house to grab a quick dinner before heading off to church.  Chester, once again, did a great job.  He did whine just a couple really tiny times, but for it being his first time coming to church with me, I was really impressed with how he handled it.  There was music (we sat right next to the piano) and the priest talks with a microphone, so his voice is very loud.  There is also a lot of up and down with people sitting and standing, but he was doing great anyway.

After church, my dad and I went to a hockey game with Chester, and he absolutely ROCKED it!  There were so many new sights and sounds, but he handled them like an absolute champ!  He wasn't a huge fan of when the players would check each other into the glass at first, but by the end he was even sleeping through that!  I had him stay on my coat while I went down the bleachers, and he held a perfect stay even with all the distractions.  I am so proud of this guy; he did so well this weekend.  Until next time, stay pawsome!

This Monday, a bunch of the interns and dogs in the program took a field trip to the Mall of America.  It was a really fun experience since I tend to go on most of my public access with just Chester and sometimes another human friend.  Seeing how well each of the dogs did on the trip was awesome!  We took two cars, so there were three dogs in each car; they got pretty cozy!  

It has been a couple weeks since my last blog post; I apologize!  Between classes, homework, applying for a new job, and all the other things I've been doing, I haven't had a lot of time for the "fun stuff."  

Over the past couple weeks, Chester and I have really found our stride.  He has been doing AMAZING with getting into vehicles.  Since that was one of his biggest struggles at the beginning of the semester, I am so proud of him!  He still occasionally has off days where he reverts back to not wanting to get into the car, but we are having many more good days than not.  The other challenge we were working on was the occasional whining in classes which has also greatly improved.  Chester hardly whined at all in class this past week.