Events

Well, the presentation yesterday went very well, we had about 20 people there and a lot of interest in the dogs. Adele and Eryn came with me and we brought Devo, Sensa and Chiko. The dogs were so well behaved, they sat quietly on their mat and made a wonderful impression. Even young Sensa was an angel, she coped for about 2 hours and then got restless, so Adele took her outside and ran her around madly for a while and wore her out.

I gave a brief overview of what PFD do, explained the training of the dogs and then discussed the public access issues and perception of dogs in public places. John Milne, President of the Orange Branch of Diabetes Aust' NSW, explained the objections of the hockey club at having the dogs inside, but once he explained our rights, they agreed. I explained that this was our major problem with having the dogs come everywhere with us, but we were slowly educating people and having them accept us happily. Everyone was also very impressed with the news of Lorraine going overseas and I also did a bit of a bid for funding for the course I'm doing next year, and they responded by buying quite a few pens.

I presented John with the certificate of appreciation, which was very well received, and the local newspaper took lots of photos and a mini interview. I will send the article to you when it comes out.

Overall, the day went well and I will be asked to do a few more presentations to other local branches next year. John pledged ongoing support for PFD and offered to help in the way of creating a local branch, should we wish to, and they would be happy to be involved. With this in mind, I will hand out membership forms next year and see if we can get a few new members and a bit of sponsorship. We may even have a few clients looking for dogs. Time will tell.