Dotty has been working on her retrieve. It’s an important job for service dogs who assist people who use wheelchairs or have poor balance. The dog can pick up items the person has dropped or that are difficult to reach. Ideally, the dog brings the item to the person’s hand or maybe to a tray attached to the wheelchair.

Dotty has had limited enthusiasm for this task, though she’s slowly getting more attentive. She drops things a lot, and often loses interest before getting the item to my hand.

Recently, I started asking her to carry things up or down the stairs. The idea was to get her to hold the items for a longer time. It has been working well, though getting her to carry an item into the office and hand it to me is still dicey. I wasn’t sure how much she understood of what I wanted her to do.

Until recently.

I was on a zoom call with my boss, and I was writing something down. I moved the pad or the mouse or something and the pen flew off the table and landed on the floor behind my chair.

As I looked for it, I noticed Dotty eyeing the pen, then looking at me. I whispered encouragement, and she … performed a miracle.

Dotty came over, picked up the pen, and placed it into my hand.

!!!

A major breakthrough.

I gave her several treats and whispered praise. The meeting continued.

Though I have asked her to pick up things I have dropped many times, I was far from thinking she had understood and bought into the goal — moving the “pick up dropped item” behavior to an almost automatic behavior. In fact, I was wondering whether she would ever get there.

Doing it once does not mean that she will ever do it again, of course. But I think she’s beginning to understand that I want her to pick things up and that I am weirdly excited and happy when she does. And that she gets paid pretty well in delicious cookies.

It’s great progress.