Welcome to Ryan and Sky's Blog!

Welcome to our blog. This blog was setup to follow our son's, Ryan, journey to receiving a service dog.



Ryan is 10 years old and has cerebral palsy which makes his leg muscles very tight and difficult to walk. He uses forearm crutches for short distances and an electric wheelchair for longer distances.



Tasks that are easy for a typical child such as opening a door or picking up an item off the floor can be very difficult for Ryan.



We applied for a service dog for Ryan in April 2008. He was partnered with a female black lab named Sky in August of 2011.



Please join us in our journey with Ryan and Sky!



















Sunday, August 21, 2011

We had a good weekend!









We had a productive weekend! Sky really made some great strides at home with some of her more difficult cues. She seems to be settling in to our routine (i.e. chaos).

One of the things we worked on is her bringing Ryan's crutches to him. She's starting to get pretty good at it. We are still minimizing distractions and setting her up for success by putting the crutches at a place that is easy for her to maneuver them. As she continues to get better, we will add in distractions and make it more real life.

Ryan and Sky also made great progress with walking with the leash (vs. the wheelchair).

She is a champ at retrieving objects. We tried to simulate all the things he could drop in school such as his pencil, marker caps, papers, etc. She is great with it! We had a slight technical difficulty. When she picked up Ryan's baritone lesson book she stepped on it and tore the pages while she was lifting it up! Oops! Apparently,you can make some type of strap on it to help her lift it up. I think we may need to do that!

We also worked on opening doors. We took a short field trip to the mall. I can't get over how well she does at the mall. That's a good thing, because Ryan is so distracted by all the "sights" that he doesn't always watch her closely. I really need to get him out more!

1 comment:

  1. So glad to hear about all the progress. Ryan, It's so cool to hear you play the baritone! Maybe Sky will sing with you someday. Can't wait to see you all on Wednesday!
    Sarah S.

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