Preparing Benjamin to meet his Sobe!

I'm sure everyone has seen and heard by now that Benjamin has been matched with a beautiful Golden Retriever named Sobe (like the drink). We are so excited we can barely stand it! We will be leaving shortly to head back to Xenia, OH to the 4 Paws training facility to train for 2 weeks! 

Here's our Sobe girl: 

So what are we doing to get Benjamin ready? He doesn't understand all this... (at least I don't think so... the kid is stinkin' smart though!) We created a social story on an app on his iPad to help him start seeing her everyday and in a sense "talking" about her, even though he is non-verbal.  

Here's his social story: (it's a video and might not play on some devices)

The app we used is called TS Sequence... btw, very good for making any social story. When I don't use the app for awhile it takes me a few minutes to get back in the groove but pretty basic and easy for the most part!

The next step we want to put into place is a "sign" (as in sign language) for Sobe. The sign for dog is patting your leg, which is Benjamin's sign for "go" so that's out. We might even have to wait til we meet her and it will come to us. We'd like to have a sign that includes a noise (like a clap, except Benjamin claps for "more") so that Sobe can hear and see the sign and know that Benjamin wants her. If you have any great ideas, let us know!! 

In the meantime, we're just hanging out in the wild wild west... with trains and such! (pic below) (and going to every pet store in Oregon and another hundred million things) (btw, those who are waiting to get their service dog... they sent us several packets of reading material besides the first two times of things we need to read through and know BEFORE training... so trying to work that in too!)

 
This kid seriously cracks me up! I feel like he's learning something or picks up a new skill he's never done before every day! Before, he would have never taken interest in this toy below... I showed him once and he grabbed it, crawled over to the mirror to look at himself through it, and then played with it for a half hour watching his train! (video below) 

I'm going to try and blog while we're on the trip... I'll for sure facebook!! Thanks to everyone for all the support and love coming our way! xoxo Hang on Sobe!!! We're coming!!