We worried about bringing Dougal just because we had never done anything like this with him and did not know what to expect.
The tour starts off very similar to the day trolley trips where the host talks about some of the history but we quickly found out that there are some stops where we disembarked to really get a look at the area they were talking about on the trolley.
The first stop was a short graveyard tour that fed into a wax museum. I thought it was simply a walk-through with a talk about history. Well, I was about half right. Everything was all cool till an actor comes charging out (loudly) and went into some specific ways the Spanish used to kill pirates. Well, this didn't sit well with me, and Dougal being the expert he is, went straight into alert mode. Perfect action for him, but you could tell that the actor and our hostess were a little stressed. Really do feel bad for them. But, we made it through the presentation and all was fine. I will mark it up to an educational situation for myself and all those that were there.
The second, and last stop, was at the jail. My wife and I were both more worried about this stop due to the first one. She kept hinting to me that it was ok if I did not want to go in, but my male sensibilities refused to listen but agreed that we would go in last, just in case. Yeap, "case" happened. A guy dressed in black and white rushed through the door behind us and slammed the metal door while yelling. I froze, Dougal, after jumping about a foot back, did what he was supposed to do. This time I am not sure if was an alert or if it was him coming to me because he was scared, but worked out the same. Once I was able to function again I noticed the young lady had already left to go outside, so it would not be too great a loss of dignity for me to leave. I whispered to my wife that I was going to take Dougal out, as it had scared him.
As we got outside and took a deep breath I saw the young lady and heard her crying. Dougal also noticed and was checking in with me. Almost asking if it was OK to go meet the young lady. I gave him the greet command and he went straight over and boop her and started kissing. I heard "oh god thank you" as she hugged Dougal. There are sometimes in your life when you feel as you are exactly where you were supposed to be. This was one of those moments. Personally, I am not a fan of allowing a service dog to alert to another person, but this was the perfect situation for this young lady. She was having a panic attack and the actions from Dougal was exactly what she needed. Come to find out she has a service dog, but had to leave it at home as they were celebrating a soon-to-be bride's night out with a friend.
The rest of the tour went well. The poor hostess came and asked us if everything was ok several times. We assured it was all fine, just unexpected and that we had a great time.
I will say if you have a service dog, and it's tasks are for anxiety and things like that, you may want to think hard before you take this tour.
