01.09.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:55 pm by Seth
Dog Day. D-Day. The most exciting day a blind person will ever experience. Or at the very least, it belongs in the Top Five.
For some of us, sleep was elusive the night before Dog Day. For once, I didn’t seem to have that problem. I wanted to be at my very best, one-hundred-percent present, for this momentous occasion. After awakening, though, every minute was torture. We had a normal morning of Juno work before meeting our dogs in the afternoon. When we assembled in the lounge that morning, our trickster-trainers played one whopper of a joke on us, funny in hindsight but utterly demoralizing at the time.
“Well, you guys,” the supervising instructor said when we’d all gathered, “I have some bad news. A bout of diarrhea is going around the section of the kennels where your dogs are housed. We’re going to check your dogs, and if any of them show symptoms we’re going to have to postpone D-Day until tomorrow.”
I tried to push my own frustration aside, to resign myself to doing what’s best for the dogs and wait patiently until they had recovered. But then, someone started to laugh and the jig was up.
I honestly can’t remember what we did the rest of the morning. Anticipation ran high. After lunch, they sat us down in the lounge again. They announced the name, gender, and breed of each of our dogs. Apparently I’d already gained the reputation for being an emotional type, and I think students and trainers alike were afraid I would burst into sobs of joy.
“Seth, you’ll be receiving a male black lab named De Soto, D E <space> S O T O” (they spell out the names for us).
Surprisingly, no tears came, although the surge of joy did well up in my chest. While I had told GDB several times that I’d trust their decision, whatever it might be, I really did want a black lab. I probably would have felt the same euphoria even if they’d told me I’d be receiving a malamute. Even by this point, I had grown to trust the integrity and thoroughness of the GDB team.
Once all the class’s dogs had been announced, we were sent back to our rooms. I have no idea how long I waited. I’m sure it was only a half an hour, tops, but it felt like an eternity. At last, there came a knock at my door. Heather asked me to carry my leash, and escorted me to the Music Room and asked me to sit down on the couch. A few moments later, the door opened, and someone–I can’t remember who–led in a jet-black labrador. De Soto approached me slowly, sniffed at me tentatively, and licked my hand.
Heather then gave me De Soto’s vital statistics: born 10 July 2007, now 66 pounds and 22 inches at the withers, sired by Norbert, and birthed by Belle.
When I was ready, Heather unclipped her leash from De Soto’s collar, and I snapped mine into place. Our partnership had begun.
The hours, maybe even the days, that followed felt like going on an awkward first date and bringing home a newborn baby all rolled into one. For my part, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this sniffy, hungry, inquisitive black ball of fur. I also really wanted to make a good impression, and unfortunately my good looks and charm weren’t going to work on this pup. For his part, he’d grown accustomed to living in the GDB kennels during his time in training. Another test with some blind guy, he probably thought, and then I can go home to my buddies. He had even less idea than I did how much his life was about to change.
Looking into the future with the great clairvoyance of the human mind, I cannot foresee a time in my life to come when I will be without the aid and companionship of a Guide Dog. But the story is just getting started.
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01.08.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:24 pm by Seth
Wow, how awesome this whole experience has been! And I do mean awesome in its original sense. Modern culture has diluted the word to such an extent that it barely hovers above the commonplace slang of cool or neat. I’m as guilty as anyone of contributing to this trend. But in this case I want to stress the first syllable, the awe; the Guide Dogs process really is awe-inspiring.
I suppose I was mildly nervous on the days leading up to my departure. Really, though, I had so little idea of what to expect that I felt relatively calm. I mean, if I were going skydiving or downhill skiing, I’d have at least a vague idea of what problems and perils to expect, and my mind would be racing at speeds approaching escape velocity to plan for every contingency. All I knew about my upcoming journey was that I would meet a life companion who would be my eyes, my guide. I had no idea what that meant in anything but the most general terms.
My flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco was delayed, but when I reached the baggage claim, one of the friendly GDB instructors was waiting for me. We scooped up one of the other students and headed for one of the company cars. San Francisco airport, incidentally, has cute little paw-prints on the sidewalks outside the terminals that lead the way to special dog-friendly relieving spots, which are stocked with waste-bags for proper disposal of doggy-presents.
On the drive from San Francisco to San Rafael, I started to get to know Heather, who, unbeknownst to me and maybe to her, would be working with me closely throughout my time here. Aside from the great conversations with Heather and my fellow student Nikki, the big highlight of the drive was the crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Our entry to the GDB campus was greeted by scattered barking from the kennel area, which houses hundreds of dogs in various stages of puppydom (I’m sure there’s a more proper word, but it escapes me at the moment). Lounge, room, and dorm orientations occupied the rest of Monday, followed by a lovely prime-rib-and-potato dinner.
On Tuesday training began in earnest. The instructors introduced themselves, and then handed out our leashes, which in a few days would be attached to the collar of our flesh-and-blood four-legged furry friends. Bear in mind that at this point none of us had any inkling of what kind of dog we would receive. For now, though, we had to settle for attaching the leashes to rolled-up fleece rugs known as Juno, the generic name used in all simulated guide dog work.
Our leashes work a little differently from your standard doggy leash. They’re about six feet long I’d guess, made of leather, have a clasp at each end and a metal ring near each clasp. One clasp hooks to the dog’s collar, and the other clasp hooks to one of the rings. Hooking the clasp to the metal ring nearest the collar makes a short leash, which is used during guidework and when heeling the dog. A long leash–made by hooking the clasp to the ring closest to it–really only comes into play when relieving the dog or letting him play, to give him a little more room to explore while still maintaining control.
After learning the heeling grip and the hitchhiker grip, we began to heel our fake Juno-dog stand-ins. In the afternoon we took a small shuttle to downtown San Rafael, where GDB has a small lounge which serves as the starting point for most of our expeditions in the city. The instructors then took us out individually to familiarize us a bit with the city, which is laid out in a grid and easy to navigate. I suspect they also wanted to witness our orientation and mobility skills firsthand, even though the field agents who conducted our home interviews had already sent back detailed reports.
Interspersed between these practical sessions were all kinds of lectures about guidework and dog-handling in general.
On Wednesday we received our harnesses and started to experience the ins and outs of guidework, again with instructor-controlled Juno standing in for our actual dogs. When the dog is heeling, he’s not expected to guide the handler. In those instances a blind hander has to rely on his own knowledge of his surroundings, a cane, or sighted guide. It isn’t until the handler picks up the harness handle and starts issuing commands that guidework commences.
Guidework actually requires some prety fancy footwork and coordination. Body positioning is key, especially while making turns. Keeping the hand gestures, positioning, and commands straight is no easy task. Fortunately, the instructors here all have the patience of saints, and they also know the reinforcing power of repetition, so they did their best to make sure we learned everything thoroughly.
Thursday, 9 January for those of you keeping track, was Dog Day, D-Day, and that’s really when everything began.
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12.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:37 am by Seth
A week from today, I embark on a life-changing adventure.
In an ideal world, I would have started this blog six months ago. I would have chronicled the application process, the evaluations, and my hesitation about committing to a new way of living. But alas, the road to Nowhere is paved with good intentions. But I’ve journaled most of my major life experiences in some form or other, and a quest of this magnitude certainly needs to be chronicled. Even if nobody else reads the story, I’m sure it will be useful to look back on a few years down the road.
So, the story so far. I had been considering a guide dog for a couple years now. For many blind and partially sighted people, the greatest promise of a guide dog lies in increased mobility. For me, this isn’t the primary motivation, although I think I’ll be surprised and impressed by the mobility assistance the dog will bring me that I’m at this point not even aware I needed. Instead, the deciding factor for me was emotional. This isn’t really the time or place for me to launch into a deep psychological self-examination, although I will try to relate things I’m learning throughout my training to my past experiences. Suffice it to say that I deal with issues of trust, attachment, leadership, and relationship. I’m not expecting a guide dog to be my panacea, some sort of miracle cure. Much as I’d like to, I’ve come to disbelieve in quick fixes. But my little experience with the guide dog process, even now, has shown me that the experience will provide me with a great opportunity to work on all these facets of my life.
After deciding I was ready for a dog, the next step was to choose an organization where I’d train and through whom I’d get my dog. There are actually several guide dog companies throughout the country, and while they’re all similar they also have important key differences. I won’t go into the ins and outs of my research here, though I’d be happy to share my thoughts at some point. Through word-of-mouth and my own investigation, I decided to apply to Guide Dogs for the Blind, based in San Rafael just outside of San Francisco. Judging from my interactions with them thus far, I feel confident I made the right choice.
Then there was the application process, which should have been simple, but like so many other things in my life I made it needlessly complicated. Mostly I just dragged my feet on assembling the requisite medical records. But once my heart and mind was made up, everything fell into place. That’s just how the world works.
Part of the application process involved an extensive home evaluation and mobility assessment. A trainer from GDB’s Portland, Oregon campus asked me a battery of questions about my routine, my energy level, and long-term life goals. We then hit the road for a mobility evaluation and simulated “Juno” walk, which simply means that the trainer holds the dog-end of a harness while I hold the handle and leash to get a feel for what working with a guide dog feels like. All commands on this simulated walk are addressed to Juno; for instance, “Juno, right,” “Juno, forward.”
It was on this walk that I caught a glimpse of the life lessons a guide dog can teach me. Part of the challenge for a partially-sighted person like me in working with a guide dog is that I will inevitably use what little sight I have to second-guess my dog’s judgement. In an effort to curtail this tendency, the trainer had me do some occlusion training, which is just a fancy way of saying she made me walk with my eyes closed. To me, this is akin to those cliché scenes in movies in which people do a “trust fall” from some height into the waiting arms of his or her companions. Trusting Juno with my eyes closed was at first very difficult, but even in the brief time it took us to walk home I found myself relaxing and becoming more comfortable with letting the “dog” be my eyes. In follow-up discussions with GDB instructors I’ve asked for some blindfold work during my training.
Records sent and evaluation complete, I simply had to wait, which I’m not necessarily very good at. Around late October, GDB admissions called to inform me that I had been accepted and was guaranteed a place in the class beginning January 5th. Since then, supporting materials like plane tickets and lecture CDs have been trickling in. Now the time has come to start packing!
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The hours, maybe even the days, that followed felt like going on an awkward first date and bringing home a newborn baby all rolled into one. For my part, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this sniffy, hungry, inquisitive black ball of fur. I also really wanted to make a good impression, and unfortunately my good looks and charm weren’t going to work on this pup. For his part, he’d grown accustomed to living in the GDB kennels during his time in training. Another test with some blind guy, he probably thought, and then I can go home to my buddies. He had even less idea than I did how much his life was about to change.