Hospital Visit and New Canine Friend

Saturday night after we all recuperated from the Market and the Pool, we decided to go down to visit our friend who is in the hospital with heart complications.  Kingsley was going to be handled by my good friend and fellow trainer, Alicia.  This was a great chance for me to see how much his great public behavior depended on my mom handling him.  He - yet again - did awesome!  Got dressed and walking into my van nicely, and rode in the van quietly as he has for about a week now!  We stopped at our local Starbucks first for lattes and he was a champion.  He ignored the public (even the rude man that ignored me telling him not to pet Kingsley) and had no issues with the loud latte machines!  After ordering I chatted for a few minutes with the barista, who is a good friend of mine.  Alicia walked over to wait for our drinks, and he froze for a moment not wanting to leave me.  Alicia crouched down and called him excitedly and he quickly recovered and trotted away with him!  Here is a photo Alicia snapped while waiting for me:

After I came over, we sat down with our lattes and enjoyed a few minutes of peace and quiet.  It wasn't 10 minutes before Kingsley showed how much he too, was enjoying the peace and quiet!  He actually fell into such a deep sleep, he began running and yipping in a dream!  The Starbucks wasn't overly quiet either.  The staff was having a good time, laughing and goofing off, and there were two other groups of friends inside!  Good boy, Kings!

Where he really shined though, was our visit with our friend in the hospital.  He did great walking through the parking lot, and only hesitated a mere 1-2 seconds to go through the sliding glass doors!  We navigated the hospital, and though we picked him up when he hesitated to get into the elevator, he was fine with it moving and walked out of it calmly!  There were a lot of people around the hospital, as well as big cleaning carts and lots of sounds.   He wasn't bothered one bit!  When we asked him to say hi in the room to our friend, he put his paws on her bed and looked up at her!  We lifted him and he quickly found a spot in her arms to lay down and fall asleep.  She said it was the happiest she's been in days.   We left for a few moments to get something from my van for my friend, and Kingsley quickly remembered why he was there!  Upon entering her room, he went directly to her bed, and put his paws again up on her until someone lifted him to the bed.  He was eager to snuggle, and we joked that he thought he was supposed to stay and care for her!  <3

PAD Kingsley, 12 weeks, with friend Élise in the hospital

So, the other great part of the weekend was watching Kingsley make great friends with my friend Alicia's golden retriever, Terp.  Terp stays with us anytime they are visiting from Maryland, and I was hopeful they would bond as well as they did!  I am eager to watch their "friendship" grow!

American Pest - Bed Bug Detection dog Terp, and Kingsley

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