Semper K9’s Norman: Training Week 2
This week has been busy. We had our first visit to our new veterinarian, Caring Hands Animal Hospital in Bristow. We saw Dr.Caroline Boyd and she was absolutely wonderful! Norman did such a great job socializing at the vet and following his commands. We are very thankful to have found an animal hospital that is the perfect fit for Semper K9!
Norman got some socialization time with Sam one of our neighborhood dogs. Chris has Sam in his basic obedience training program. All of our service dog candidates go through basic obedience so this is a great opportunity for Norman to learn from Sam while he trains. Sam’s owner is a Captain USN (ret.) who lives a few houses down.
This weeks training exercises included “Get Dressed” which you will see in the first video below. Norman’s custom SDiT (service dog in training) vest is on it’s way to us. He is also learning “wait” and “touch.”
We have used the few breaks we have had in winter weather to take our training outside. Our outside training session have been good introductions to public access testing for Norman.

Even with all the training that takes place daily Norman still has to be a puppy! He is loving this last bit of snow (hopefully) that we are getting in Northern Virginia from Winter Storm Thor.