Meet Hana, my Black Lab

Meet Hana, my beautiful, smart, Diabetic Alert Black Labrador. 

So today at noon I met Hana, whom I already knew as Banana from yesterday.  The trainers said the dogs we worked with were not the dogs but that wasn't entirely true.  They were watching to make sure the matches they chose worked and they found all of them to be perfect.  They also used the dog's "nickname" rather than their real name.  So my Hana was Banana.  And her name stuck.  She is now Hana Banana.

What's is funny is that my dad, who is with me on this adventure, had a dream the first night that I would be given a black lab.  He told me that when he woke up on Tuesday morning and I said, "No, it's most likely a yellow lab because they are so much more common.  They are the dominate gene in the litter.  Black and especially chocolate labs are much more rare".  Now that Hana has been given to me, dad reminded me of his dream and we were both amazed. This is not the first time that my dad had a "prophetic" dream.  He's dreamt of what gender my sister's babies would be days before she delivered them, and even dreamt of important people in his life days before they passed away.  It's unbelievable.  Anyways, it's pretty neat.  But he's not reading into it too much.
After Hana was brought into my room she spent quite some time sniffing around and basically ignoring me.  Up until now she was being kept in the kennel and this is the first time she is in a home-style room since she came from the foster house where she spent her first year.

She was interested in my shoes, picked up one of my house shoe and carried it around until I commanded, "Hana, leave it."

And silly me, I had propped open my room's door (as I was told to do) with my Dutch Blitz set and within a few minutes of her coming in and jumping around and meeting me she lunged at the set on the ground and the cards flew everywhere.  Hailey (one of the sweet diabetics here) and I had JUST spent at least 5-10 minutes going through all the cards and making sure I had all the cards.  Hana made sure the set was re-shuffled.

Watch out kids!  Hana's coming home.  Better hide your toys.  LOL.  The trainers said she tends to gravitate to things that are human things - and a card game has my scent all over it.  Tomorrow we learn about how to get them to "ignore" or not be distracted by toys and other things that they are not allowed to play with.  Phew.  I believe the command is "leave it" and when they do ignore it, we have to give them lots of praise and attention because it's a tough thing for a dog to master.

1st of many selfies

 We spent some time bonding in my room.  Hana continued to walk around and sniff, sniff, sniff, then back to me, sniff me and lick my hands (I don't love dogs licking me, but I figure let her bond in whatever way she wants to).  She was wagging her tail and finally after I sat on the floor next to her she settled and sat in front of me then laid on the floor.  What's interesting is that I was having a little bit of a low, but due to the all the excitement and all that, I don't think she knew to alert.  She whimpered a bit and I kept telling her, "I know Hana, your trainers aren't here anymore.  Don't worry you and I will bond." I thought she was whimpering because she missed her trainers.  Later, in class, I find out that Hana and one other dog, Charm, does this thing where they whimper before they alert - a habit that the trainers did not encouraged.  And they suggested we do not respond to it until they paw or nudge us.  Which will then reinforce that behavior rather than the whimper.  Makes sense.  She didn't end up alerting me. Which is totally fine, as the trainer said.  The dogs haven't had a change to be trained on a "live low" - a diabetic actually having a low in front of them.  They have been trained on "scent pods" which Erika was calling "stale lows".

Chill and obedient to the "down" command

Hanna seems to be a pretty chill dog, not even a full medium size - which I love.  She isn't huge. She is perfect.

When I had to leave to lunch I was told to put her in the kennel that is in my room.  She went in willingly and I took off her collar and her Halti.  She turned around and waited. I closed the door and was on my way.

After lunch I was told to return to my room and leave her in the kennel.  I resisted the urge to talk to her right when I walk in.  I laid down on the bed which is right beside the kennel.  I turned my head towards her and said, "Hi Hana."  Wrong.  She made a tiny whimper.  I was not low so why the whimper?  She expected me to let her out perhaps.  I turned the other way and hoped she wasn't upset.  She didn't whimper again and I snoozed for about 15-20 mins.  Hana snoozed too.

Soon Gloria arrived and she showed me how to put her collar and Halti on so we can head out.  Hana was excited the kennel door opened but just like Quizno (whose real name is Quatchy) yesterday, Hana did not bolt out as one would expect a dog to do.  She waited.  I worked the collar and the Halti on, attached the short leash and we walked out.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with our dogs.  So very sweet.  Her and I did fabulous.  I am beyond excited.  Unfortunately the dogs were not allowed overnight with us yet.  No sleepovers yet. Friday night is the first sleepover.

Me and a few of the girls went shopping in the evening.  Throughout the day today I found that I didn't want to carry my giant purse nor did I want my laptop backpack.  But I need to have my test kit, candies, my eos lip gloss, my phone for snapping pics of Hana and also "treats" for Hana.

We headed out to Winners.  The trainers also asked us to use a journal to document how the DADs alert us.  What they do.  If they don't or do alert and how.  So I needed a cute new journal for that task alone.  Winners is the place for a cute, small purse and a fabulous journal.  Unfortunately, towards the end of the outing as we were heading towards checkouts, I started feeling wonky and I knew my sugar was getting low.  I downed some "swedish spaghetti" as I called it during my low - it was the swedish berries.  LOL.  I wasn't even feeling well enough to drive and I asked Hailey's mom to drive back.  We made it back to the Lions Foundations and the group minus me, decided to continue on the shopping adventure... I had to decline as I felt awful.  Now a few hours later I'm fine.  It's so frustrating when diabetes sticks it's nose in places it is not welcome, like my shopping trip.

Soon enough Hana will be with me and she'll alert me way before I feel that awful and I won't have to write off the rest of my evening. Soon, very soon.