From Four-Eyes to Four-Legs

Texting and Driving: It Applies to YOU!

2010-11-09T15:36:00.000-06:00

Texting while driving is considered a dangerous thing by most people. Most experienced drivers can handle the wheel with one hand for the majority of roads, but it’s the eyes thing. You need to keep your eyes on the road.

“So, what about me? I’m blind, so I don’t drive. I can totally text while using a cane or a dog guide, no problem! “There are a number of reasons why people might think this.
1. I don’t need my eyes to text, I just listen to the letters spoken aloud.
2. I don’t need both hands to use my cane/dog. I just use my left/right, the other one’s free
3. It’s not like looking where I’m going will do me any good.

All of this does not add up to “I can text while working my dog/using my cane.” It adds up to “I can mindlessly push buttons while using my cane/working my dog.” Why do I say this? Because it’s not about freedom of appendages and eyes. It’s about attention.

You’re walking through the downtown area. The streets are all in this nice little grid pattern, very Roman and very convenient. All the traffic lights are timed so you can listen to parallel surges for your walk-sign cues. You know your route pretty well. It’s seven blocks north and four west. You’re texting your best friend about how many bottles of soda and boxes of pizza you’ll need for the party. You finish texting and stop at a corner. “…ok…how many blocks have I gone in this direction?” You’ve lost count. Why? Because you were paying more attention to your texting than to your route. OR, you bump into someone and drop your phone—and have no idea where it is. It might have fallen into the road, into a planter, under a parked car…but you can’t find it. You shouldn’t have had it out in the first place, of course. You should’ve been paying attention to your dog’s gentle tug to the left, or to your cane’s altered sound from brick sidewalk to soft mat telling you you were approaching a doorway. OR, your dog just snapped up a bit of hot dog lying against a trashcan. Only…it wasn’t a hot dog. It was the butt of a cigarette, and that could make your dog very sick. But you didn’t notice what it was or stop to pull your dog’s mouth open to find out because “I’m almost done, just a couple more letters.”

How did I discover this? None of these ways, but close. I walked across a street while texting a friend—I even had a good excuse! I was telling a friend about something cool I’d read in my bible that morning! Surely that’s ok, right? It’s important! Not as important as looking up and realizing your dog just gave you a neat little traffic check before you walked out in front of the UPS truck bringing in care packages to your fellow poor starving college students! I should never have cued Prada to take me out into the crosswalk without stopping. Yeah, we did another California-stop. Still working on those. I should’ve had enough awareness of my surroundings to hear the mechanical behemoth bearing down on us. Yay for Prada! She did her job, and I hereby vow to never text while working her again. Thanks, beautiful 

Media Moments

2010-09-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Recently Prada and I have received a considerable amount of media attention. You may recall the NPR program that I participated in a few months ago? Well, the Director of Public Relations at UAH heard the program and asked if UAH News could do a story on me. Here’s the link.

The picture in that article is apparently very popular. I had so many comments on it that I finally put it up as a facebook profile picture and added it to my Google profile.

I guess its good press to have a ‘successful legally blind student with a dog guide who traveled across the country to go to school here’ at your university. (I’m beginning to hate the phrase ‘successful blind person’….). And UAH could certainly use some good press right now, what with the shooting a few months ago and some very unpopular policy changes.

An Ohio radio station programming for blind people also heard the NPR interview and asked me to join them via phone on one of their programs, so I did. I’ll get a recording of that up as soon as they get a copy to me.

Just this last Thursday the PR Director at UAH called me to let me know that local TV channel 19 also wanted to do a piece on me. He had forwarded my story with UAH News to them (I suppose in hopes of spreading around good will towards UAH) and they decided to jump on the bandwagon. However…I found out they wanted to do an interview 20 minutes before they wanted to record it! I had to miss my favorite class of the semester with one of my two favorite professors and didn’t have any time to prepare, dress up, or anything. Fortunately I knew they hadn’t had time to come up with any interesting questions, it’d just be the same “how’d you get here, what are you studying, what do you want to do with your life, what’s your secret of success?” type stuff that I get asked all the time so I didn’t have to think about any of my answers.

Not four hours after that I got another call from the PR office saying the Huntsville Times also wanted to cover my story. I’m interviewing with them tomorrow and will let you know how that went. So…in the future expect links to one radio show recording and one TV show recording.

Resumes, Job Fairs, and Interviews When You Can't Make Eye Contact

2010-09-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday I attended the annual UAHuntsville Career Fair. Many of the local companies come and set up recruiting tables in the basketball courts at the University Fitness Center (in future abbreviated to UFC). Students come in business attire (I saw them turn away a guy for showing up in a t-shirt and jeans and tennis shoes) with copies of their resumes to talk to local businesses, hand out resumes, and find out about internships, part-time or cooperative positions, and summer and post-graduate employment opportunities. This has grown into such a large event that companies now can register ahead of time and tell the University which types of positions they are looking to fill (engineering, human resources, financial, nursing) and the University staff compiles lists of businesses’ needs by college (one sheet full of companies looking for liberal arts majors, one sheet looking for engineers, et cetera), and hand those out to the students when they enter the fair. This way students can know exactly which businesses are most likely to be interested in their majors. I talked to recruiters from the US Space and Rocket Center, the FBI, and several government contracting companies. I am most optimistic about the USSRC recruiter’s response to my interest in the Camp Presenter position. This person does education presentations to space camp teams, and since I’ve sat through many of those lectures through SCI-VIS I have a bit of an edge on most applicants. I will probably apply for that position sometime during Christmas Break.

So, I’m employed, I have a nicely fleshed out resume, and, thanks to my Dad, decent interview skills. Is it harder for a legally blind person to get to this stage? Not too much more so than for a sighted person. There are a couple of extra steps to do but not a whole lot. How about for a blind person with a dog? Same, only add a lint roller! Well, there’re one or two other things to keep track of, but all in due time. I’m not going to write about how to prepare a resume or how to interview properly. There are so many tips and sources for advice and contradictions in advice on that that it’s not worth mentioning here and I don’t have the space to write everything down, or the time. Instead I’ll just point out a few things a legally blind person might want to keep in mind when preparing to apply for a job or go to a career fair.

Resumes
Really, there are only two things to keep in mind. First, have a sighted friend look over it to make sure it’s visually pleasing. Let’s face it, folks. We blind people don’t have the best handle on visual aesthetics. Yeah, you can make your own resume. Yeah, you don’t need anyone’s help to do anything (or so we like to think), but when your job’s on the line, and possibly the financial future of your dependents (wife, kids, dog guide, pet goldfish…), is it worth jumping up on your independence high horse and foregoing a little good-intentioned help? I always have a friend or my Dad look over what I’ve got before submitting it to anyone.
The other action I suggest is REMEBERING TO SHRINK THE FONT SIZE BEFORE YOU PRINT OR EMAIL OR UPLOAD YOUR RESUME! We high partials tend to write things in large fonts, and then shrink them down before submission. I, for one, have forgotten at least once to shrink the font down again on a paper or other attachment. DO NOT forget to do this on your resume, high partials! It looks really tacky.

Career Fairs
These can be challenging because eye contact is vitally important. Every single public speaking instructor I have ever had has told me that I do very well with eye contact, but this is difficult if you can’t see eyes at all. If you are totally blind, TAKE YOUR CANE. Don’t just wing it using sighted guide. The cane communicates to a recruiter that you cannot see them so they won’t count lack of eye contact against you. When you introduce yourself put your hand forward a bit above waist-level. They’ll see the cane; they’ll know you can’t find their hand, so they’ll find you to do the handshake. DON’T FORGET THE CANE. Do the same hand gesture when you’re ready to leave. Be clear, polite, respectful, confident, maybe a trifle ambitious, and only put copies of your resume in your portfolio so you odn’t hand anyone the wrong piece of paper! (Did that in class a few times, not resumes but homework…yay for gracious professors who granted me extensions so I could get the right paper to them).
At the UAH career fair they had made up papers for each college with a list of companies there specifically interested in hiring from that college (engineering, nursing, liberal arts, business, science). If you’re a high partial, bring a magnification aid. If you’re blind, bring a friend. My boyfriend also attended the career fair so we teamed up. He had arrived well before me so he had done most of his looking around by the time I showed up. We met at the entrance and he read the paper for me so we could map out a plan of attack, which companies to visit first. Then he helped me figure out which table was which. That was probably the hardest part for me; distinguishing tables. Most of them have big logos on them but some do not. A simple solution to this (if you don’t have a friend there) is to step up and ask. “Excuse me, but I can’t see your logo -strategically timed gesture with the cane/jingling of dog guide harness-.” That usually does it. It’s also a good way to get a recruiter’s attention if you’re not the only one at the table poking around.

Job Interviews
Much like the above, only add one more step. Two to three days before your interview go to the interview site. Make sure you know your way to the building, and to the room where you will interview, or at least to the front desk or lobby where you were instructed to wait. If you happen to run into your interviewer while you’re scoping things out, explain you’re just making sure you know where to go. This doesn’t tell them you’re directionally challenged. This says “here’s someone who cares enough about this interview to make sure he/she’s got all his/her bases covered. This person knows how to prepare ahead of time.” This is a good thing.

With a dog
LINT ROLLER
They like it when you wear black. So do German Shepherds and yellow labs and golden retrievers. Roll yourself off, have a friend roll you off, and then take a lint strip with you. Get to the interview at least 15 minutes early, if not 20. Roll yourself again. You won’t ever get all the dog hair off. But, hopefully, the interviewer will see the dog and understand. If not…there isn’t much you can do about it so do what you can and then move on.
Make sure your dog has lots of exercise before going to the interview. Take an extra walk, play fetch, wrestle. This diminishes the risk of ‘puppy business’ at the interview (jumping around, distractions…) We all have off-days. So do the dogs. If the dog is tired it’s more likely to work better for you and then pass out during the interview. When I interviewed for my position at the College of Science Advising Office I left Prada back at the dorm because I had a morning interview. Prada is a morning person. I knew there was no way I could wear her out by 9:30am and I didn’t want to risk her jeopardizing my job opportunity with some puppy misbehaviors. Normally I am quite confident about her behavior but I know there are off-days and I don’t want to be surprised by anything. If you have to make this decision, do alert your employer you have a dog usually. It’s not required but it’s a nice thing to do, and it helps. At the end of the interview the interviewer will most likely ask you if you have any questions for him/her. “Yes, actually. I usually travel with a dog guide who would be joining me at the office if I came to work for you. Do you think this will be a problem, say, maybe coworkers with allergies or something?” Now, they cannot refuse to hire you based on the dog guide’s existence but it politely gives them a heads-up. If they have concerns you can address them before you go to work for them! It’s a wonderful education opportunity, let’s you feel them out a bit more, and is a courteous way to give the potential employer a heads’ up. Employers don’t usually like surprises on their first day with a new employee. Many do not want that surprise to be an 80 lb dog. DO everyone a favor and communicate.

My last piece of advice is to smile. Interviewing can be fun. Yes, I just said that. Most people hate interviews. I actually enjoy them now. I get to practice reading people, learning how to phrase things in a way that person will best appreciate what I say, practice control of facial expressions, and I get to offer a service to someone. It’s great!

Goops, Gels, and Powders with Low Vision Part 2

2010-09-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Part 2: How the heck do I get this stuff on if I can’t see what I’m doing?
Very carefully.
Don’t laugh, it’s true. There are two basic values you need to know for your application of goops and powders and gels: how much, and where?
These two are very subjective values, unfortunately, and vary from person to person. I personally prefer the “less is more” rule. It’s easy to add a little if you don’t have enough, but hard to take extra off. This applies to hair products, face and skin, and make-up. ESPECIALLY MAKEUP!
Hair products are fairly straight forward. If you have short hair, don’t use a lot. If you have long hair, use a little more. Hair is a rather tactile thing, most people do shampoo and conditioner and other products by feel anyway so we’re not at much of a disadvantage. Hairspray, to get whispies and the like, can be a bit trickier, but still easily manageable. Just run your hand about a quarter-inch above your hair, and if you find stuff sticking out in weird places, pat it down and spray. If you’re unsure, ask a friend or family member for a hair-check.
Face and skin, I swear by the “less is more’ rule. Even if it’s not toned it can still cause problems like excessive oiliness or dryness if you get too much of something on. For total coverage without vision, make sure your fingers have rubbed, touched, brushed, blended, whatever, over every bit of face, a little below the jaw line, and up into the hairline. Those are the catch-spots; jaw line and hairline. You miss those, you’ve got weird lines on your face. Make sure you rub up a tadbit into the hairline, and down onto your neck so you don’t have a weird shadow-effect along your jaw. And, of course, easy on the eyelids. Those bruise and discolor really easily, and that’ll throw your whole look off.
Sunscreen…slather it on, rub until it feels normal, or be lazy like me and use a spray-on, instant soak-in, waterproof sunscreen. You’re generally safe with that. For face, spray a bit into your hands and then rub your hands onto your face, carefully avoiding your eyes.
Make-up. Oh, it’s a tricky thing. I personally hate wearing it. Well, no. I hate putting it on. It’s time out of my day to do something that is in my mind very trivial. I could care less if you see a couple of blemishes on my face, or if I look exhausted because of dark circles, but I have come to realize, through the multiple patient explanations of my mother, that for job interviews, concerts (I sing and play piano), presentations, formal events, and other such shindigs makeup is a necessary evil. It’s part of maintaining a professional appearance. And the stage thing, it’s to make you look less like a paper doll with no facial features under the bright lights and in the ubiquitous black concert attire directors and conductors are so fond of.
When you’re choosing colors for makeup I highly recommend you find someone who has nearly identical taste in appearance as you do. It makes all the difference if you’re a more conservative, natural-appearing person and you ask a more “glamour” look person what colors to wear. I got very lucky. My roommate has just about as close to identical taste in makeup to mine. She and I are both on the conservative, more natural look side of things, with a very infrequent, tiny flair for the dramatic. Another couple of friends invited me to a Mary Kay party and I tried a few colors there, then went home and asked my roommate what she thought.
Application of colored items like foundation, blush, eye shadow, liner, mascara, and lipstick is a very difficult thing when you can’t see what you’re doing. I personally skip eyeliner and mascara altogether. They’re not necessary, I prefer less, and if I absolutely have to have them I’ll just ask a friend for help. We ladies love helping each other with makeup and hair stuff  Mary Kay offers a 3-in-1 goop that I prefer because it cuts down on the number of products I have to have around (I’m a minimalist, can you tell?). It’s got moisturizer, facial sunscreen, and foundation all mixed into one goop, and I generally find goops easier to apply than powders, so it works out rather nicely. Once again, use the “full contact” rule to make sure you cover every bit, run up into the hairline a tiny bit, and get that jaw line smoothed into the upper neck. Trouble areas can include nose and chin, so take the extra minute to make sure those are covered fully. With the powders, it’s really a matter of practice and muscle memory. Have a friend move your hands along in the right motions the first one or two times you use the powders, then practice for a couple weeks, asking your friend to check your work before you leave the house. Once you’re getting a consistent first-time “ok” (consistent being 4-5 days in a row) you’re probably good to go. If you’re like me and won’t wear the stuff more than a dozen times a year, you’ll have to pick it up a few times extra just to stay in practice. Here again, I swear by the ‘less is more”. If you’re not careful it’s very easy to look like you just odn’t know what you’re doing with powders, cried all your mascara out, or gave yourself a china doll look (bright pink cheeks).
Lipstick is just tricky in general. If you close your lips, then press outward and carefully cover the exposed area in lipstick, that’s generally safe. Then you rub your lips together, making sure the waxy stuff gets all the wait o the corners, smack them together a couple of times, and go for a lip- check (that does not mean kiss your boyfriend, that means ask your girl friend if you made a mess or not!).

So those are the basics of gels, powders, and goops. There are a lot more “finer points” to discuss but those will come only if requested. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a minimalist who prefers a natural look so I don’t use the stuff very often, only when I have to, and only to stay in practice. And besides, Prada doesn’t like it when I wear extra stuff. She tries to lick off lotions, sunscreen, and even makeup if I lean in too close!

Goops, Gels, and Powders with Low Vision Part 1

2010-09-07T23:17:00.000-05:00

Did you know that the Velocity line of skin cleansers and moisturizers from Mary Kay uses two different bottle sizes for their standard issue cleanser and moisturizer products? The cleanser is a taller bottle than the moisturizer. Why do you care? Well, if you can see just fine you probably don’t. Why do I care? Because that allows me to tell the difference between the two. The labels on cosmetics and other hygiene bottles are tiny but so long as bottle sizes and colors vary we high partials will be somewhat safe. There’s quite a bit to be said on this topic, surprisingly, so I’m going to break it up into two separate posts. First part will discuss how to tell various products apart, and suggest low-vision labeling techniques for those pesky few bottles and tubes that you just can’t distinguish from each other, and the second will cover low-vision application of goops and powders and gels and sprays of various types and uses.
So here’s Part 1: How do I know which is which?
There are several distinguishing factors between bottles, and if they don’t already exist, you can add your own. The attributes of differentiation are size, contrast, and texture. For example, you have two clear-ish or opaque bottles. One is shampoo, the other is conditioner. But you can’t read the labeling. Here’s a hint: shampoo is usually clear or translucent, conditioner is usually white or creamy (not that we blind folks can tell the difference between white and creamy…). If you have lotions, or hair gels that are in similar clear-ish bottles you can ask a friend which is which, then remember the color of the liquid inside. Or, if the contrast isn’t sharp enough, add a piece of tape or a dot of brightly colored nail polish to one of the bottles.
Bottle size often helps, too. It takes a bit of memorizing, and a first-run asking trip, but if you have two or three bottles you store in close proximity to each other, remember which is taller or fatter than the other. If they’re the same size, use the tape or nail polish to mark one or two of them.
The nail polish trick also works for clear caps, like the ones they put on those little nearly-totally-clear bottles of glasses cleaning sprays or hairsprays. Put a dot of color in the top of the cap, let it dry, and you won’t have such a hard time finding it on the counter when you’re ready to close up the bottle again.
Texture is a good cue as well. Some bottles are metal, some are plastic, and there are even different types of plastic (smooth, glossy, et cetera). These are all good cues for telling products apart.
How well does this work for shopping? Well, first off, you have to know what you want ahead of time. Browsing and experimenting isn’t too practical if you can’t see what you’re doing unless you brought a magnifier to help you read labels, or a very patient and/or knowledgeable friend along. Secondly, hope the company doesn’t change how your bottle looks or feels very often.
I am a fairly low-maintenance person when it comes to appearance. For hair products I use a simple shampoo and conditioner, no specific brands, just whatever’s on sale. So when I hunt for hair products I find the “hair goop” aisle, then watch prices instead of labels. It doesn’t matter to me what I use, so long as it’s not going to break my wallet. But I’m lucky like that. Yay for wash-n-wear hair.
For facial goops, moisturizers and cleansers, I use Mary Kay Velocity. Kind of expensive, usually, but since I have a family member who’s a distributor I get a discount, and so far they haven’t changed their very convenience size-difference in the bottles so I’m fairly happy with that.
Sunscreen can be a fun one. If you need a specific SPF, you’re in luck ‘cause they usually print it as a rather large number with a high-contrast circle background. And for some reason they like to have very bright bottles of widely varying colors. No two brands will use the same color scheme. Again, I just use whatever’s a 30 and on sale, so I’m not picky. But if you need something oil-free or another specialty product I suggest taking a friend along the first time to help you get a good bead on what your bottle looks like, then remember it for when you run out. Those oil-free and other types of labels tend to be a bit smaller.

NPR Interview

2010-07-06T19:21:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have noticed seemingly random references made in various comments regarding an interview with NPR that I participated in. No you get to be in on it, too!

Last September National Public Radio did a series on disabled women in the sTEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. They featured students and women in their careers, including myself. I was selected as one of their feature stories because of my involvement with the SCI-VIS program, another special feature story they were running featured the camp. Why the blog chatter now? Because NPR has finally released the interview for podcast and aired it within the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately I wasn’t given the precise date for when it aired so I couldn’t warn y’all ahead of time. But I do have the podcast and transcript location data for you!

Interview
www.womeninscience.org “Access to Advancement” Part 2, click on my name (Anneliese DeVyldere), or just follow this link http://www.womeninscience.org/part.php?partID=6
Another version of the interview aired on http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/663/0/1659192/51..The.Women's.Perspective/51.Show..1092
Here you can get a list of stations that carried the above program http://www.wamc.org/prog-51-carriagelist.html
The profile is also airing, this week on "The Best of our Knowledge",
http://www.wamc.org/prog-tbook.html. It's show #1033
Other stations across the country that pick up "The Best of our Knowledge" are:
http://www.wamc.org/prog-tbook-carriagelist.html

The feature story on SCI-VIS itself airs at the end of this month on "The Best of our Knowledge", and will be on www.womeninscience.org, also by clicking through "Access to Advancement", though "Part 1".

Fireworks and Moodswings

2010-07-06T14:08:00.002-05:00

Prada does not like fireworks.
Yes, I have had her over two 4th of July holidays now, and yes, I am just learning this fact. The first 4th I had her we stayed home and abstained from brightly colored explosives. This year, however, I tried taking her out to a show. I assumed that since she had slept through loud flashbangy movies before in both regular theatres and IMAX dome theatres that she would be quite alright with flashbangies up in the sky. I was wrong. Prada does not like flashbangies in the sky. My friends and I drove down to Bridgestreet Mall, an outdoor mall around a couple of manmade lakes, and set ourselves up at a reasonable distance from the launch point where we could see and hear the explosions without damaging our necks by craning them backwards but close enough with a good view. Prada jumped into my lap, then my boyfriend’s lap, and then tried to dive behind us and become one with the dirt. So my boyfriend and I abandoned the rest of our party and took Prada back through the mall to another of the manmade lakes and discovered we could still see the fireworks from there. The thing with dogs and fireworks is that the noises and lights are so dissociated from each other the dog just hears this horrendous loud bang and boom concert but can’t figure out where it’s coming from so reacts with a fight/flight response. Fear of the unknown. Prada was very, very clingy for the rest of that evening and the next day. Poor baby.

So apparently dogs have mood swings. Yeah, weird, but it’s true. I called it a “willful phase”, my roommate called it “being moody”, and all the resources I searched through referred to it as “a phase”. Basically, the dog gets moody, a bit lackluster, temperamental, and willful (sounds like a teenager!) for about a week, week and a half. Usually wears off, or the dog can be snapped out of it by an unusually sharp correction followed by intense praise. I noticed Prada wasn’t as excited about working, not as playful as usual, and kind of shunned a couple of her favorite people most of last week. She was a bit slack in her work and in general a bit ornery. After a particularly sharp correction, though, she perked up a considerable amount, and when that correction and an appropriate reperformance of the act (I think we were coming to a downcurb) she literally jumped into my lap she was so thrilled she’d done it right. When we stopped in a building to wait for an appointment I had I took a knee and started petting and praising her and all of a sudden she was in my lap again and then ensued an intense PDA session with lots of kissing and cuddling 

A Short Break

2010-06-20T19:04:00.000-05:00

We depart from our regularly scheduled program for this message from our sponsors blah blah blah

Ok, here's the thing. This was supposed to go up 2 weeks ago, halfway between Mother's Day and Father's Day, but I hadn't quite finished it yet. But now, completed, here it is!

I received the greatest compliment of my life when, during a Campus Ambassadors Bible study at Chemeketa Community College, the study leader told me I sounded like a Bob/Brenda hybrid. He said something along the lines of “you think like your dad and love like your mom” and that just made my day. The study leader knew my parents well: he’d mentored them during their own college years, and here he was, twenty years later, with Bob and Brenda DeVyldere’s daughter in another study of his.

You all know what question I want you to ask. “why is this the greatest compliment you’ve ever received?” And here’s the canned but very true answer: because my parents are awesome! No, seriously, guys, the two people I aspire to be like most in my life are my parents. And again you ask, because you know I want you to, “why do you want to be like your parents?” And I am more than happy to tell you all about it! So sit quietly, nod politely, and keep that frozen, disinterested smile while I tell you all about the two most influential people in my life.

We’ll start with Mom. Brenda Marie Kisor DeVyldere has a heart the size of Alaska and as warm as Hawaii. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person she hasn’t liked, or learned to like. She has a compassion for the elderly and very young that would match a saint’s and an easy, friendly personality. Mom taught me for the majority of my elementary and secondary education, only delegating a few subjects to other sources like home school groups and the aforementioned community college. She never tried to drag me away from the math and sciences I wanted to pursue, even though those weren’t her strong points. She always told me right up front what would be required for me to reach my dreams—not to discourage me but to make sure I knew what I got myself into, and so I could prepare. I used to get so frustrated with her yearly attempt at scheduling our home school. Every September we sat down and blocked out hourly and daily schedules for ourselves, and set up the best intentions to stick to them. But by the end of the first week we’d rearranged things to a more liquid state to account for whim and house cleaning flurries. Eventually I just gave up and told Mom that it wasn’t worth doing because we never stuck to the schedules. Now? At the start of each college semester I draw up a schedule. Yep, Mom, you were right. I see what you were doing. A schedule isn’t intended to keep you on task. It’s supposed to show you how much time you’re occupied each day, when you have slots for homework, and how much free time you (don’t) have.
I used to get frustrated by how picky Mom would be about house cleaning. She wasn’t a neat-freak by any stretch of the imagination, but she did want things neat, clean, and made so frequently. I thought this was her way of controlling yet a little bit more of my life. But no…Mom’s actually pretty chill about me and my time. When friends come over she’ll tell us what’s in the refrigerator, what she’s got planned for dinner, and hands us the carte blanche to the day. She’s never, to my memory, set a curfew for me, except when we were expecting company, and rarely asked where I was going. When she did ask she was merely curious, not “checking up” on me. She knew me better than I thought. Mom could tell she and Dad had raised me to be too practical to go out drinking or goofing off. About the most trouble I would get into was sitting in my best friend’s car eating a McD’s apple pie sometime around 10:30 at night. Yeah, we really knew how to party 
Mom taught me to ask questions. Not to question, but to ask. There’s a difference. The kind of questions Mom taught me to ask involved obligation and expectation: what was I required to do to attain X? What should I wear? How long would Y last? Who would be there? When did it start or end? These practical sorts of things you don’t learn in school I got used to asking because I listened to my mom ask them, or went through that wonderful experience of standing before my parents and asking for permission to do something but not being able to answer those questions. Mom taught me that to know things was crucial to courtesy, convenience, practicality, reliability…the list goes on and on. Knowledge is not just power. Knowledge is a survival tool. You need it, and Mom exemplified that. Understanding? That’s power. You can know everything in the world but it won’t do you squat unless you understand what you know. I inherited my mother’s empathic nature and put that to good use, as she did. You tell me something complicated and I’ll understand it because I understand you. Mom knows people inside and out. She’s not psychic, she just understands human nature and how to piece together someone’s character.
That skill she got from her relationship with Christ and studying His Word, and then she passed it on to me. Mom is one of my spiritual mentors. She’s not afraid to tell me when I’m walking in the wrong direction, but don’t think she’s judgmental. No, she’ll tell me lovingly that I’m on the wrong track, why it’s wrong, then tell me how to fix it, then help me fix it. She never backs down from her convictions, has a good reason(s) for every single one of them, and taught me to do/have the same.

Part 2: Dad
Bob J. DeVyldere is the most incredible man in my life. He is my father, and therefore by default my teacher, mentor, spiritual leader, example…the list goes on. He is an outdoorsman, when time permits, a CIO for the Secretary of the State of Oregon’s office, a husband, father of two, my friend and confidante. Dad’s got a sense of humor like no other, this wonderful mix of cynicism, mirth, and intellect. He’s efficient, strong-minded, rational, and compassionate. Not the greatest conversationalist in the world but I cherish the conversations we’ve had over all others. From him you can learn how to relandscape a yard, build a house, set up a wireless network with a satellite dish that hates rain in Oregon and make it work, and how to best represent Christ in the workplace. He knows things about peoples’ behaviors you can’t ever learn from a psych textbook. He’s the man I go to for counsel about my walk with Christ, my printer, or my relationships with friends. He has a sort of empathy bred from recognition of behavioral patterns filtered through a Biblical worldview that lends him a great perceptiveness that I have devoted considerable amount of time to learning and implementing in my own life. It was this talent he used to open my eyes, inspire me, show me what I could do. He showed me what I really wanted to do, what I wanted to be, what I loved doing. He conducted my early education in astronomy, and then showed me as I grew that technical communication was really my passion, my talent.

I want to love like my mother, and to think like my father because they have made our Heavenly Father their models. My greatest goal is to imitate Christ: my short term goal is to imitate my parents because they are an imperfect model of the Perfect God.

Paper

2010-06-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

I do not like paper. In this context I declare “paper” to mean sheets of printer paper with important information on it in tiny fonts lying scattered over a flat surface or neatly buried and unmanageable in a filing cabinet/box. Not because it looks messy (although that bothers me a little) but more because I can’t see at a glance what is what, I can’t just sift through quickly and find what I’m looking for, and as a student involved in multiple groups on campus, part-time employee, and dog guide user I have tons of paper! It’s everywhere! Everywhere I go I get more of it! Brochures, invoices, schedules, flyers, reports, papers, business cards, hand-outs, syllabi, letters, resumes, applications, receipts, statements, vet records, transcripts, academic records, notices, pamphlets, booklets, manuals, lists, medical records, projects, reminders, personal medical records, evaluations, forms, sheet music, lyric sheets… You see, I do not exaggerate. I deal with hundreds of sheets of paper every week. Sometimes hundreds in a single day. This is particularly frustrating to a visually impaired person who can’t scan through things quickly.
In a perfect world I would never have to deal with paper. Everything I need would be electronic via excel, pdf, or word document files. I could find all the forms and applications and schedules I needed online. I would have electronic files for all the records I ever needed. I could fill things out, submit them, generate documents, letters, et cetera, all electronically and never have to touch another sheet of paper again. All flyers and notices would be emailed to me.
But the world is not perfect. I do have an extensive electronic file organization system, and many forms and applications are indeed accessible via the internet, but people still hand out paper. They still require things turned in hard-copy, printed, photo-copied, mailed in…so how do I cope with my difficulty? How do I manage all the paper I can’t work with easily?
Notebooks. I keep a couple of large 3-ring notebooks with section dividers, page protectors, and file tabs to organize paper in. As often as I can I scan things in or ask for emailed copies, but when I can’t get those I put them in my notebooks. I have one entire notebook devoted to Prada-related paper, and one for school-related, which takes care of the two main categories of my life these days. Now that I have a working scanner I’m going to be taking electronic copies of a lot of the paper I’ve accumulated, but I’ll keep the paper originals for signatures and stuff like that. This way I have general and more specific locations where I know certain groups of data can be found. “Vet” tab in the Prada notebook has all of Prada’s vet records, receipts, and invoices. “Syllabi” in the school notebook is…uh…gee…figure that one out. I don’t even need to be able to read the tabs, just remember how many I have to turn past, or for those entirely sightless, Braille works just fine for marking things, or differently textured pieces of tape or paper stuck on the files.
One of the other gadgets my friend Sam mentioned in his technology entry was a barcode reader. You buy these little barcodes, stick them to the tags on your clothing, or on your folders, or canned foods, or whatever you can’t read the label of, then when you want to know what something is, what paper, what color, what food, et cetera, you run the scanner over it and it interprets the information as whatever you programmed the thing to read that barcode as. I don’t have one, and probably wouldn’t need one, but this is another technique blind folks use for organizing paper.

More Gadgetry

2010-06-05T10:11:00.000-05:00

First off, a thanks to my friend Sam, who runs the From Canes to Canines blog, analogous to this one. He recently started a new job at a store selling technical merchandise for the visually impaired and blind community, and in respose to a query of mine wrote an entry detailing the type of gadgetry he got to work with. I've linked his entry to this one, if any of you are interested.
Same mentioned a gadget in his blog post that I also use and I thought I'd take a little bit more time to describe it and its functions for the more technically-minded readers who would like to see just what assistive technology can offer today. The particular gismo I refer to is the Victor Stream, something I've been using now for almost three years. It's essentially a glorified mp3 player for the blind and visually impaired, but it does quite a bit more than play mp3's. Below I've listed the different functions it performs.

mp3 player
DAISY format books (a highly compressed audio format)
books in Audible.com's format
text files (yes, like Word and txt. files)
recorded voice notes
snooze function (no alarm, though)

Sam explained that all the data for this bugger fits onto an SD card so your memory capacity is only limited by the number of SD cards you buy and can find at the moment. Right now I have three: two for various types of music hat I use when studying or working out, and one full of audiobooks (including one a friend and I are recording together). It's a bit bigger than a deck of cards, has a speaker/microphone, and a headset jack. You can vary the bass, trebel, and speed of the voices, and there is no screen. All functions and options can be reached by a ten-key pad on the front, and a few other specialized keys. It's got a nifty little case with a belt clip so it's very portable. It connects to your pc via a USB cable, providing an easy-to-use and familiar method for file transfer.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the blind man's mp3-player. It generally sells for about $400 off the Human-Ware main website, so it's not cheap, but well worth it because most of the content you will use it for is free.

Heat and Long-haired Dogs

2010-06-04T15:03:00.001-05:00

A question I am frequently asked about my choice to remain in Alabama over the summer is “how does Prada do with the heat?” It’s a valid question. Alabama’s hot and muggy. We had temps in the upper 90’s last week and they’re staying in lower 90’s and upper 80’s these days. That’s hard on a human without a heavy coat and natural ventilation system.
Prada does surprisingly well with the temperatures in the area. True, she does get a bit more energetic if things cool down, but really she handles the heat well. Most dogs have two layers, or two coats, of fur: an outer “guard hair” coat and inner fleecy type coat. The inner coat is designed to hold heat in during the winter and hold heat out during the summer, and the outer coat protects this coat and provides a level of waterproofing. Dogs also have their panting system. This is not because of thirst most of the time. Usually dogs pant because that is their cooling system. They odn’t lose heat as well as we do, and don’t perspire like we do, so they run the air in and out of themselves rather quickly to cool it down These are the natural heat-guards God installed in them. I have my own responsibilities. One of them is to provide cool, clean water at all times. Prada has a water dish at home, at work, and a collapsible one that rides around in my purse or backpack (or whatever bag I have for the day). I always have a full water bottle on hand to supply her with. I also use the water to bathe her paws, behind her ears, and belly with on particularly hot days. Those places are were a lot of blood vessels are close to the surface and if you apply water there it cools the blood, which is then circulated throughout the body and cools the dog down. Prada isn’t overly fond of this because she doesn’t like getting wet, but in general she won’t’ argue ‘cause she feels better afterwards. In the new dorm room I have a tiled bathroom floor (the very cheap stone tile type stuff) and Prada has taken to practicing her imitation of a rug on that cool surface after a long walk. Our longest walks these days are the 1.3, 1.5 mile walks to and from work (the variation is in which route we choose to take). Were it not for very kind friends I would be making the trek twice a day but of late we only walk that once a day, getting either a ride to or from work, and choosing to walk the other way. All in all, Prada does rather well with the heat, and I keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t overheat.

Puppy Pals

2010-05-31T01:21:00.002-05:00

I spent another night at my friend Allison’s last night, and Prada had the chance to become reacquainted with her friend Roxy, Allison’s golden retriever. Roxy’s a year or so older than Prada but not quite as…calm. She’s rather rambunctious and quite eager for Prada to play with her. Prada found it necessary, for some reason, to return frequently to my side to ask for permission to play, and really never wanted to be out of sight of me. I took her out to the fenced-in backyard for some runaround time and Prada had the time of her life exploring. She found the covered pool—and mistook the covering for something rather solid  Front legs went into the water and Prada looked quite offended. She didn’t fall in, just jumped backwards a bit and shook herself out, continuing her exploration as if nothing had happened. It occurs to me that Prada doesn’t know how to play with other dogs, or has forgotten. She dominates Gunner, tentatively chases Roxy a bit, but doesn’t engage in normal doggy play with either of them. I’m thinking that I will have to find more doggy friends for Prada. Overall, her obedience seems to have improved over the past couple of weeks and I’m not entirely certain why, but it really made itself apparent last night when I called Prada to come inside from playing out in Roxy’s yard and she came right away, tailed flagged, ears perky.

U-Day

2010-05-26T16:36:00.002-05:00

Someone asked me the other day if I had noticed a change in Prada’s personality or behavior since I got her. We’ve been together one year, as of today, so this is our anniversary tribute entry. Has Prada changed at all over our year-long relationship? I would say yes, but not too visibly to the casual observer. She has, in some ways, settled quite a bit. She’s not quite as skittish and nervous when we move to a new location, and her eating habits are more stable. She’s become much clingier, if that’s even possible. If I leave a room she sits at the door and waits for me, or sits wherever I left her, or tries to follow me, even if she’s not supposed to. Prada has developed the closest thing to a sense of humor as a dog could possibly get, pulling pranks like sneaking up and poking people, hiding and surprising us, and sticking her squeaky toy on my chair when I get up.

What have I learned about Prada’s personality? She is an extrovert. It was at first hard for me, an introvert, to understand how I could pour so much love and time and energy into her and have her still go nuts every time she saw someone she recognized but I have come to realize, through making so many extroverted human friends, that Prada is like that: she has enough love for everyone, but her allegiance is foremost mine. She is still willful at times, so we’re still working on obedience a bit, but in general I can rely on her to obey any command. I have also learned that she is a morning person and I am a night person. But since I can understand this concept and she can’t it’s important for me to adjust my habits to suit her. It’s hard, I’ll admit. Most of my friends are night-owls, so if I want to stay up with them I have to be prepared for a tired morning. My self-discipline could use a bit of a kick to make sure I get up at a slightly more reasonable hour to make more time for Prada, but overall I think I’m managing fairly well.

We just moved into a new residence hall last week. One of my 3 human roommates wanted to move to the brand new residence hall but the other two and I wanted to switch to the res hall right next door to Franz, so the three of us staying on this side of campus (now in North, or NCRH), took up a handicapped suite. This one is a 3-person suite, much like our old one but on one side of the common room there is one large, wheelchair accessible bedroom and private bath and on the other side there are two normal bedrooms and a bathroom for them to share. There’s a bit more space overall, the bathrooms (both of them) are larger, and Prada likes the new arrangement because it’s easier for her to keep an eye on all parties without having to roam down menials to see everyone. Shepherd instinct. This means a new hallway to run up and down and chase balls in, new neighbors, new walking routines, and Prada loves it.

Desk Jobs and Dog Guides

2010-05-10T20:03:00.002-05:00

The majority of persons with dog guides are the employed legally blind community. They have the greatest need for travel (to and from work, job-related traveling, work-related errands such as luncheons and disposing of paychecks…) Most of these jobs are desk-oriented. You know the average 8-5 guy with a desktop/laptop, phone, and filing cabinet. Well, for a VIP or total (totally blind person) the filing cabinet might just be a very full Windows Explorer tree, but the idea’s still there. You need the dog to get there, to navigate to and from the bathroom, breakroom, other offices, conference room, coffee shop down the street, the company’s favorite restaurant for luncheons, and any work related travel. But on the days where you don’t have meetings and you’re eating out of a sack at your desk for lunch your dog gets to sit in your cube for as long as you do. Is this ok for the dog? Yes, the dog will live so l ong as you have enough walking in your day. Take your 15 minute breaks with the dog, take a trip around the block a couple of times. The walk to and from work, even if it includes a busride, will help, and if you and Juno don’t get a lot of walking done during the day take a walk around your neighborhood at night. So what do you do with Juno when you’re in the cube? I had to figure that out now that I have a desk job. Fortunately for me it’s about 1.3 miles each way to the job so Prada gets lots of exercise. I sit at a receptionist’s desk and have enough space behind me to put a mat and water dish down for Prada. Add to that a nylabone and some love-making when I have nothing to do and it’s an ideal setup. I pull her off harness soon as we’re in the office and she usually goes for a big drink from the water bowl Ikeep there for her. My boss comes in and pays her respects to Prada and then we’re off working. Prada pretty much sleeps or destroys the nylabone the whole day and I make photo copies, file things, mail things, answer phonecalls, take messages, and make appointments. So that’s desk jobs and dog guides.

Tools for the Job

2010-05-05T14:54:00.002-05:00

I recently started working for the office of the Dean of Science. Officially my duties include scheduling appointments for the advisors, copying, filing, and mailing forms, and running the front desk of the College of Science. It’s mostly a lot of paperwork and requires interpreting the advisors’ handwriting, which is akin to interpreting that of doctors. How does this work for a VIP? Gadgetry. Yes, gadgetry. I have a host of different types of magnification aids and techniques that I use in various situations. The one I use the most at work is called a magnabrite. It’s a little dome-shaped blob of acrylic clear material that sort of looks like a paper-weight. You set it on top of the sheet of paper and it magnifies things like a giant glasses lens. It’s small, a little heavier than your average “detective-style” magnifier, and comes in many sizes. I have one that’s about an inche in diameter, and another that’s about two, two and a half inches. I use the larger one at work, and the other one rides around in my purse or sits on my desk for reading text messages. Magnabrites can be purchased thorugh almost any assistive technology catalog, and, strangely enough, at the Evergreen Aviation an dSpace Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, so I assume they are also available at other sciency-type museums. Your best bet for distributors, though, would be Humanware and Freedom Scientific.

My other favorite magnifier is called a Ruby. It’s part of a line of magnifiers put out by Freedom Scientific. I started with its predecessor, the Opal, but when that one died my Commission Counsellor purchased the upgrade model, Ruby, and sent it to me. The concept of the line of products is a small camera, light, mirrors, magnifying lenses, and a small screen that produces a digital image of whatever you set the device on top of. The image is larger, and often times the size and contrast of the image can be increased or decreased to user’s preference. The Ruby also has a “capture” feature that I can use to take freeze an image on the screen and then carry it with me to look at something else, as opposed to carrying the magnifier and whatever I’m looking at around. I use the Ruby mostly for schoolwork and reading. It’s an expensive little gadget but it really works well. It’s about three inches wide, five or six long, and stands about two inches thick, so very portable. It also comes with a protective case to carry it around in purses or bags, and a charger. The charger tends to have a host of little cover thingies so you can plug it into just about anything just about anywhere.

Rights or Privileges?

2010-04-27T15:16:00.002-05:00

Over lunch a friend and I chatted about summer plans. She asked if I’d like to go to Disney World for a week with her family over the summer since I was staying in Huntsville. I told her I’d love to, and that she really wanted me to because Disney policy moves disabled persons to the front of the line, but that I couldn’t take another week off work, since I’m taking two weeks off to go home for a couple of days and then to Hawaii with my own family. We fell to discussing the question of “should disabled persons be moved to the front of the line at amusement parks and other attractions?” It’s a valid question, one that’s being hotly debated by members of disability rights/advocacy organizations. Is it a right or a privilege? Should the government legislate it or leave it up to the individual companies? Here’re my thoughts on the matter.

Society doesn’t owe me anything because I’m disabled. It’s not their fault, and it’s not even a curse. I personally wouldn’t be any other way than I am. But that aside, it’s not their fault so why should they feel obligated to “make up for” my disability? Don’t stop reading here and think that’s my entire opinion. There’s more. I don’t believe companies have to treat us a little more special this way. It’s not their responsibility, and it certainly isn’t the government’s job to give us this privilege. It is just that, a privilege, not a right. Now, if a company wants to do it of its own volition for the sake of customer service or charity, they’re perfectly welcome to do so—I won’t argue! That’s their choice. It makes good business sense, in my opinion. Makes them look good and compassionate and customer-oriented to their abled customers, and makes their disabled customers very happy. There are some disabilities that make standing in line or walking a little farther through a parkinglot very difficult, or they can’t do it at all due to heat or distance or physical fatigue. So a company who doesn’t think of this and provide a service to make these types of situations more accessible will lose business over it. This also applies to wheelchair parking spaces, in my opinion. If a company wants to be customer-oriented and provide good service, they’ll go the extra mile. Otherwise they’ll lose the business and be thought of as heartless money-grubbers.

Now, the front of the line deal isn’t legislated but the disabled parking spaces issue is. What is the difference between the two? Is there a difference at all? What do you think the government’s role should be in these situations?

Dog Guides in Dojos

2010-04-26T11:18:00.001-05:00

This last Saturday my roommate and I both passed our belt test and achieved the green belt in shotokan, karate, a variant on traditional Okinawan martial arts and American freestyle kickboxing. While at the dojo a couple of parents asked me how my guide dog did in class. Did she get distressed when I got thrown, practiced defenses, yelled at the end of a combo, et cetera? Did she get aggressive, cause problems? This is indeed something to think about if you’re a legally blind martial artist who is considering getting a guide dog or a legally blind dog guide user who is considering taking up martial arts. Are the two compatible? Yes, they are.

I had studied martial arts in one form or another for the two years just prior to getting Prada, so I fall into the “legally blind martial artist getting a dog guide” category. I knew I wanted to continue studying the arts, but I also wanted a dog. Specifically, I preferred the notoriously combat-oriented, unpredictable, and protective German shepherd. So how does one find out if his or her furry companion do well in martial art classes? Here’s my recommended approach. Go to the first class period and just sit and watch with the dog. Keep the dog calm, but don’t soothe. If he/she gets agitated, correct. Act like everything’s perfectly normal. Then, for class day two, bring a tie-down and hook the dog up to something heavy off to the side where the dog can see the class working, and go through the lesson like normal. If the dog gets up, barks, growls, turn around and administer a sharp “pfui” and then go back to normal. When you return, or if you have water breaks, come by and give the dog lots of praise for behaving so well. After that, continue class as normal.

Now, if you’ve had your dog a while and have a general idea of how he/she will react, you could probably skip sitting out with the dog on the first lesson. I took that approach and it worked out just fine. Interestingly, Prada doesn’t get agitated at all during karate. She gets playful. When I come back to get ready to go she gets all hyper and perky and starts batting at me with her paws and play-growling and bowing. She does get upset in my acting class if I act out a distressed character. She interrupted my blocking exam last week twice by dragging her “puppy-sitter,’ a classmate I’d asked to hold her leash (there wasn’t anything heavy enough to tie her down to), across the room to get to me when my character got upset. This I didn’t mind at all and neither did my scene partner. We got comic relief out of it and a couple of seconds to recollect our lines. Yay Prada  During the belt test I had a slightly stronger and more dog-smart person hold onto Prada’s leash and she behaved herself beautifully.

This, of course, implies that blind and visually impaired persons can participate in martial arts. I happen to have met somewhere around twenty to thirty VI martial artists, one or two of which were instructors. There’s an urban legend going around about the Way of the Shadows, which is supposedly an ancient Japanese martial art used by blind ninjas, but in general we blind folks do just fine in almost any martial art class. Judo and jujitsu and related arts tend to be more popular with the VI community than traditional karate because these styles focus more on holds and prolonged contact than the others. If a blind person has physical contact with a person they can determine through angle and muscular tension where the rest of the person’s body is. Once we lose that contact we’re groping in the dark, quite literally. If I take hold of someone, I want to remain in contact with him or her as long as I can so that I have that knowledge of where the rest of him or her is, and where he or she will be in the very near future. This makes practices like judo and jujitsu that focus on holds and grappling ideal for us. Karate is much more strike-and-block oriented, which affords limited contact. It is possible, but not easy, for VI’s to work this style.

First Major Access Issue

2010-04-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

NOTE: this was written Sunday so all "yesterdays" refer to Saturday.

Yesterday a friend and I indulged ourselves in a little “retail therapy” after a particularly hard week. We went to Bridge street Mall here in Huntsville in search of dangly earrings for my friend—we both have magpie complexes and are naturally drawn to shiny things . That day’s search found us inside an Icing (it’s basically Claire’s for middle and high schoolers. The two stores are even affiliated with each other). We’d been there for quite a while, poking in amongst the shinies. My friend, Katrina, was in another part of the store while Prada and I occupied ourselves in a corner of earrings, trying to find something special for Katrina that wasn’t ridiculously gothic-wannabe or just huge. Prada lay quietly at my feet, never moved a muscle, didn’t poke anyone, just put her head down and went to sleep. When I decided to see how Katrina’s search progressed I told her to hop up, took up the harness handle, and commanded her forward. After two or three steps a woman put herself in my path, facing me, so Prada stopped. The woman proved to be a store employee who politely informed me that animals were generally not permitted in the store. I nodded and pleasantly explained that Prada was a service animal. Routine conversation. I get this a lot at various stores. Technically folks aren’t supposed to ask but I don’t mind at all, especially if they’re polite about it, like this lady. And as soon as I say ‘service animal’ there’s a standard little “oh, ok, let me know if you need help finding anything” with a head nod and store-front smile that follows. Sometimes this is varied a little if the employee’s a dog lover. Then we talk breeds, training, name, how long have I had her, can they pet, et cetera. So I expected that when I told this young lady Prada was a service animal that would be the end of that. Oh no, I was quite wrong this time. “Yes, well, to be respectful of the customers, I’m going to have to ask you to leave your dog out front” Several things wrong with this picture. 1) Lack of education. 2) If I’m not a customer, what am I? A duck? 3) Never separate a service animal from their bonded person. Not even the Transportation Security Administration’s allowed to do that! I was so surprised I forgot my prepped answer for this. I’ve always planned for this scenario, though it’s never come up, to reply “well, ok, then. I’ll leave my dog up front, and how about you leave your eyeballs right next to her? Then we’re both blind!” with a friendly and amused smile to make sure it doesn’t come off confrontational. No reason to make anybody feel defensive, right? But I’d never had to use it before, and I’ll admit to being so shocked that she actually was going to contend with me that I forgot my cute little retort. So instead… “well, according to the federal law the Americans with Disabilities Act signed by the president in the 1980’s service animals are allowed anywhere the general public are allowed, which includes this store. Can I talk to your manager?” To my utter amazement she replied that no, I shouldn’t talk to her manager, but I should just leave the dog up front to respect the other customers. Here I’ll make two side notes. 1) These other customers to whom she had been referring had all entered by the door Prada and I had been near and oohed and awwwwed over her as they came in. Without exception. I even got to let a little girl and Prada get acquainted while educating her and her mother about Seeing Eye dogs. 2) Katrina wants to be a disability rights lawyer. She has a strong and empathetic heart, and a fierce sense of justice. When we had our first access issue at Wal-Mart Katrina wanted me to go straight to the department of justice, she was so offended for me. So when she heard me say “federal law” she perked up quite a bit and came over to listen.

Me: how about you go get your manager?
Employee: no, I’m sorry you’re so offended by this.
Me: I’m not particularly offended, just surprised that you’re willing to argue over a federal law.

Katrina put away the $20-$30 worth of stuff she had planned to buy and marched us out of the store. She was mad, and I don’t blame her! I tend to be slightly on the apathetic and forgiving end of the scale when it comes to issues like that. I think part of it is I’ve lived with a disability so long that I’ve come to the conclusion that you can either get angry and bitter about it for your whole life and get grey hair way too early or you can just shrug it off. Katrina’s a little newer to this than I am, and she is a wonderful defender. She’s fiercely loyal and a true friend, never embarrassed by the disturbance Prada could potentially cause in situations like this or anything. Prada has chosen Katrina as one of the post-retirement adoption people. She adores Katrina, and the affection is mutual. So when I explained the entire situation to Katrina as we walked away from the store Katrina’s blood got up. She’s a holy terror when she’s angry, and this was Katrina on the warpath! We headed straight back to that store and Katrina demanded to speak to the manager. Turns out that the employee giving me grief was the manager. She refused to give us her name or her superior’s number and called Katrina a witch with a “B,” so I’m calling corporate tomorrow to insist on education classes on ADA compliance being held in their stores nationwide. I’m not the easiest person to offend in the world, and I know the next blind person with a dog that goes in there very well could just go straight to his/her lawyer instead of going the diplomatic route. I figure it’s better for the store to educate their employees to prevent this from happening than just hammering them. Plus, I don’t have time for a huge legal fiasco. I’m going to have Katrina present when I make the call so she can listen in, see how it’s done. If this is what she wants to do for a living I’m all about giving her any chance to become the best advocacy lawyer out there. She has the drive and the heart for it, and this will be a great opportunity for both of us to practice self-control, firm insistence on compliance with the law, and exercising the legal rights of the disabled to defend ourselves against such blatant disrespect and violation of the law. Some of my friends are insisting that I demand the woman be fired. There’s a fine line I have to walk here. It’s a line between appropriately displeased, making sure that future persons with service animals aren’t treated this way and that people know the law, and between an overkill crusade built on self-righteous indignation. I still have a Christian testimony to uphold. That’s not something I can ever put down, and I want to make sure that Icing knows I’m being perfectly reasonable and within my rights, not some hell-raising obnoxious political activist mad at the world for its audacity to dare treat me as anything but a princess. Also good to learn how to keep a cool, logical head during confrontations like this. It never helps to get angry, aggressive, defensive, or spiteful. Makes you a pain to deal with, and the company’s going to dislike dealing with whatever stereotype you represent even more so. So, Katrina and I will get this straightened out on Monday, make sure that the Icing employees know the law and will comply with it, and maybe seek a personal apology for the way that manager behaved. Next time she has a problem with a customer, regardless of their minority ranking, she could get herself in a lot more trouble for the way she spoke to Katrina. People don’t tend to think reasonably when they feel they’re being personally attacked like that.

NOTE #2: I went in to a Claire's at a diferent mall in town with another friend and the employees and manager of Claire's gave me the name of the manager who had given me trouble (the Claire's people know EXACTLY who I was talking about even before I described her. does this tell us anything?) and the district manager's number, and apparently they reported the incident themselves. When I called the DM she was very apologetic, grateful that I handled it so diplomatically instead of going straight for a lawyer, and promised to see that training ensued. She also said they'd be sending me some coupons or gift cards or something of that nature as recompense for trouble causeed, and said they'd have the whole situation straightened out immediately. Lesson learned? Graciousness makes you much more pleasant to deal with, and gets a better settlement more quickly. It's better to have them apologetically send recompense and apologies than to send it out of fear. I also made sure to report the excellent service and attitudees of the Claire's folks who gave me the name and number I needed and went to bat for me, calling ahead. Kudos for Claire's ♥

Mommy's Helper

2010-03-04T20:58:00.000-06:00

Even though she never gets to play with us during class, Prada has taken t o associating my karate classroom with playtime. She gets really feisty and energetic when we go in there. Her primary task, when I start prepping for class (take phone and wallet out of pockets, remove shoes/socks (no good during karate), putting hair up) is to get hold of the sleeve of my sweatshirt with her teeth. She lathces on, then shakes her head violently like she's killing the sleeve. So today, when she captured the cuff of the sleeve I just unzipped the sweatshirt. She continued pulling and shaking it, and yanked my sweatshirt right off for me! Good girl, Prada!

The Cafeteria Complex

2010-03-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

I have intended to write for some time now but life just sort of continued exploding in a reaction-chain with no visible limiting reactant to end the chemical conversion—gack, chemistry! If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Yup, Yoda must’ve taken chemistry before he said that. Anyway…the point is, we’ve been busy, but I have a few minutes to sit down and write a bit.

In response to the tragedy of a couple of weeks ago a group of therapy dogs spent a considerable amount of time on campus the week we got back to school. They and their handlers posted themselves in the lobbies of the main buildings and visited the res halls in the evenings. So how did Prada take to that? Y’know that little kid in the mall that’s sitting there pointing and saying “look, Mommy, a dog!” Well, Prada lives with people so often that I think she identifies more with us than with other dogs sometimes. No idea how founded this thought is, but her reaction to the dogs on campus seems to support it. She was that little kid pointing out all the dogs to me. “Look Mommy, a dog!” She didn’t pull towards them, but she definitely indicated their presence. Prada and the therapy dogs respected each others’ distance, and Prada didn’t get territorial when they came in Franz. They knew their job and she knew hers. Good to see she hasn’t f forgotten any of the dog distraction training. I’ve also been getting a considerable number of comments from people I see regularly about how she’s calmed down a lot in harness. She doesn’t get quite as ecstatic when she sees her favorite people while in harness, isn’t as sniffy on duty as she used to be. Yay Prada for growing up!

Recently a friend of mine, who operates a similar blog to mine called From Canes to Canines, posted an entry about how college cafeterias were a bit difficult for blind people, and especially dog users, to work around. I thought I’d write something similar for y’all and elaborate a bit on his complaint. Basically, the idea of the college cafeteria is to provide quick, satisfying substances with as little service and preparation required as possible. Saves the university money, but it’s a bit inconvenient for us. At my college, and apparently at my friend’s, too, they don’t offer trays to set plates and cups and the like on. Instead we get to use somewhat nicer, often cleaner heavy-duty ceramic plates. But they’re not terribly big, so if you want a main dish and then some sort of side like a salad, soup, or a snacky-type item (chips, cookie, fruit) you have to have multiple plates, plus your cup. This is a two-handed operation, on a good day, and even the students who don’t have one hand constantly occupied by a dog or a cane often go back for a second trip to make sure they can get all their food without becoming spill-hazards. I usually end up making a minimum of two trips, often three, to collect the various components of my meal. Now, at UAH I can request a tray from the food services staff and they’ll provide one for me, then I just balance one end of it on my hip and hold the other end with my free hand, but this is a major spill hazard, not to mention rather unbalanced when there’s a cup-full of liquid on it, so for the time being I’m taking the safe but slow route—multiple trips. Guess I get to work off the calories I’m about to eat. Here’s the real problem for me, though, I’m a high partial (in blind-speak that means I have some vision but not a lot), but I still have difficulty identifying food. So unless I’m with someone whom I can ask about what’s on the various racks and counters, or unless there happens to be a non-occupied kitchen staff there (kudos to them for the times they’ve bailed me out!!!) I have no way of knowing what the food is. Now, I may be a little on the picky side but when it comes down to it I’ll eat pretty much anything, but what about the folks with allergies that have to use a bit more discretion during their meal-gathering? So far the only solution I’ve come up with for this little problem is to never eat alone, make sure there’s someone there you can ask at all times. Usually works fine, who likes eating alone anyway? But there are those occasions where we don’t have those luxuries, so this is an independence-limiting issue. It’s similar to the restaurant problem. Most noticeably in fast-food restaurants, they have those oh-so-distant menu boards with all the food listed, but if you can’t see those you’re out of luck unless you’ve memorized them or feel like hanging out a while and listening to everyone else around you order to get an idea of what’s on the menu. Now, few people ever eat out alone, so if you can’t see but you’re eating out odds are you’ll have someone you can ask to read a menu for you, but there are those one or two occasions when you are alone, and that can be a bit of a trial. Unfortunately most of the cashiers in those places don’t have time to sit there and read a menu board to you, and it’s not really in their job description, so if anyone’s got any ideas we’re all very interested in them. That’s one of the reasons I write this blog—get others’ ideas on issues the blind community faces. The more minds in on it, the better.

cute puppy story

2010-02-19T17:12:00.000-06:00

ok, I really hadn't intended this blog to be one of those "oh look, my pet is so cute!" compendiums, but this story is just too adorable, not to mention illustrates how well-trained and intelligent Prada is...

I took prada out to park, then we played a few minutes of fetch with the kong out in the hallway
now, the kong is not designed to bounce normally
it's designed to bounce everywhichway, amke the puppy think
well this one bounced around the corner and down the stairs
I heard it go down but decided to wait and see what Prada did
she hovered around the top of the stairs for a minute, then came prancing back to me all cock-eared and confused so I put her on leash and we walked down the stairs to get the toy

Now, I'd never scolded her for going down the stairs without me, mostly because she'd never gone without me in the first place. She automatically made the distinction, then, that this was a place she could go with me, and not alone. She knows she can run the hallways with me, but if I don't come out with her (say i'm stanidng in the doorway talking to someone on my way out) then she gets confused and wants back in. If the door to the MPR is open while we're playing down there she may wander into the lobby by the elevators but she always is looking back for me, wanting to know if she's allowed to go out or not. I always call her back in, so eventually I expect she'll get the idea that if we're in the MPR she can only stay inside there, on the carpet, and not on the tile of the lobby.

How to Take Your Dog Guide to Hawaii 101

2010-02-19T14:24:00.001-06:00

Yes, I’m planning on taking Prada to Hawaii with me this summer for our family vacation. We’ve never been before, but family vacations are regular occurrences for my family, so at first I thought this wouldn’t be much of a problem. You call ahead to warn the hotel out of courtesy. Technically we don’t have to, but if it’s just a ten minute phone call that might prevent a hassle later, why not? Tends to improve the service for us, makes us more comfortable, which is good business for them, so why not? We like to leave an extra cleaning tip, too, to make up for the layer of Prada that inevitably ends up on the carpet. Prada’s a good traveler. Car rides, planes, trains, she’s fine. We travel enough that I figured Hawaii wouldn’t be an issue. What’s the difference between travelling to Hawaii and travelling to say, California or Central Oregon, or Alabama? Well…Hawaii’s never had rabies or a bunch of the other typical pet diseases on the islands before. And they’d like to keep it that way. They can’t ban service animals from coming over, and it would be a huge mess if they tried to ban pets from coming, so instead the Hawaii Department of Agriculture put together a list of health certifications and procedures you have to go through. If you’re moving there permanently with a pet you have to go through quarantine, and if you miss one of the items on the health checklist, you get quarantined. For bringing a service animal they want proof of service training, proof of vaccinations, blood tests to check for certain antibody levels, and a health certificate within 2 weeks of travelling there. I’m not going to list all the requirements here because they change, and they tend to be a bit confusing in print. I would also recommend you not use their Dept. of Agriculture’s website for the list of requirements because it’s a bit of a mess to figure out which regulations apply to which category of animals. Instead, when you go in for your pet’s physical at the vet (one is required a certain period before travelling to Hawaii, and another one at the 2 week point) have the veterinarian call the Dept. of Agriculture and get the list and forms directly from them. The vet is the best person to make the call because he/she will understand all the vaccination lingo they use and can get all your records and forms set up. For service animals, you’ll want to get the original vaccination records from your training school with original signatures and the like all the way back to puppy vaccinations. It’s good to have copies of those, anyway.
Prada and I went to the vet today for our first physical before Hawaii, and the blood test for rabies antibodies. A friend recommended a vet in Huntsville her family’s been working with for about 20 years and who has demonstrated exceptional dedication and care for their pets, and she told me he sees other service animals in the area, including law enforcement animals so I felt comfortable going to him. In Oregon, we know a vet tech quite well, and go to her practice for our visits there, so now I’m set up with a vet for each state I live in. Prada is still quite the pathetic patient. Dogs have no concept of health care, or that a little bit of pain now means health later on, and there’s no way to explain that to her so the needle poking her for drawing blood is pain for no reason and she is quite miserable with this. She also has flat veins, which makes it harder to get at the blood.
Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture requires a veterinarian’s verification that the dog has been microchipped. This is something that TSE did for us, so our vet just had to use his little scanner to verify that it was in there. Something for people with very recent microchips to be aware of, though, is that the older scanners that some vets have don’t recognize the new chips’ frequencies so they may not register. Before you assume that the chip’s not in there because the scanner can’t find it, first find out how old the scanner is compared to your microchip, then call Home Again to find out if the two should be on recognizable frequencies or not. That was the case with Prada. The vet had an older microchip scanner but Prada was just chipped in June so the scanner wasn’t calibrated for the new frequency. Was a bit of a puzzler until we called Home Again and they explained it to us.
Overall Prada was very good in the office. Crawled under a bench in the waiting room and just stayed put the entire time we waited, mostly ignoring the other dogs in the waiting room. She was quite a chicken, all shivery and ornery in the office. I usually just take the harness off when we go on back ‘cause I don’t need her to guide me (we’re just sitting still back there) and the vet’s gotta work on her anyway. She tried to get in my lap quite frequently to avoid the microchip scanner, stethoscope, and needle. Apparently shepherds are notoriously cowardly in the vet’s office, though.

Prada Steps up to the Plate

2010-02-14T15:46:00.001-06:00

Thank you for your prayers for the students and faculty of my university. We really appreciate them, and could always use more. The students appear to be recovering well, but it will be a long road for all of us. A considerable portion of the Biology department is out of commission for one reason or another, most of them for the entire semester or permanently, so the University itself has taken a hard blow. We are receiving substitutes from a neighboring university in Birmingham but that’s not going to replace the research being done by those we have lost.

I have mentioned before, I think, how Prada has endeared herself to the homesick dog-loving students in my res hall by simply existing and letting them pet and play with her. She took that to a new level Friday night and Saturday morning. Grieving students found themselves with something warm and fuzzy to hug and love on. She took up the job of comforting both students and faculty like a therapy animal. I spent several hours downstairs in the lobby and MPR with her off-leash so she could work the crowds.

Friday night we visited our campus minister’s house and spent some time with the students there in prayer and recovery. Prada was invited to explore their fenced-in backyard, which she was quite curious about. She hasn’t had a fenced-in outdoor location to run around in since her puppy raisers had her, and maybe not even then. She didn’t go dashing around like a bolt of lightning as per her usual in large enclosed spaces, but seemed more interested in sniffing around. Had a bit of difficulty when I called her back, but she didn’t run away when I came to get her. I’ve been invited to let her play out there more often, and I think that will be a good training opportunity for her. We have a similar setup now, at my roommate’s house. She took me and Prada home for a few days since classes are cancelled for the week, and Prada and I now occupy the basement apartment. It’s quite spacious don here, with lots of room for the pup to run around in. Another good opportunity for her to practice coming when called (which she’s really good at in the res hall but for some reason doesn’t think the rule applies if she’s off-leash elsewhere). I am extremely grateful to my roommate and her family for putting us up here. They’ve taken me in on several occasions, last year’s Thanksgiving and Spring Break. Large family, lots of wonderful kids for Prada to play with (we keep hoping they’ll wear each other out), and a very familiar home atmosphere, as the parent/child relationship is very similar to what I’m used to at home. Very comforting and relaxing, and Prada seems to enjoy it here, too. Thanks, guys!

UAH Shooting Update

2010-02-12T23:37:00.001-06:00

I would like to take the time to review the facts presented to UAH students tonight by the UAH Spokesperson at a special prayer meeting hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ tonight.

Around 4pm police responded to a 911 call and found a middle-aged woman in possession of a firearm at the Shelby Center for Science and Technology on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus. She had shot to death three faculty members and severely wounded three others. One of the three wounded is still critical, as of the 9pm press conference, the other two are stable. No students were harmed during the shooting. The campus was under lockdown for one hour, but has since been cleared by campus police. All classes and campus events have been cancelled from February 15th through the 19th. Counseling is available starting at 8am in the University Center’s back hallway throughout the weekend and following week. I do not know if campus ministry meetings will continue as scheduled, and will post that information as I find out. Campus ministers and their staff will be on campus if you wish to speak with them. I am also available, as a member of one of the campus ministries’ core groups, to pray with you if you should need it. Look for me around campus if you need someone to talk to. I’m fairly recognizable—the blonde with the dog.

To those of you out of state or not involved directly with the campus, thank you for your prayers and support through this tragedy. I ask that you continue to bring the UAH community before the Throne of Grace, asking for our healing and comfort as we combat the loss of colleagues, family, friends, instructors, and advisors.

Campus Shooting at UAH

2010-02-12T17:36:00.000-06:00

Some of you have already received my email alert regarding this. Today a shooting took place on campus at the school I attend. we have 3 dead, 2 critically wounded, 1 severely wounded. We have been told that they are all faculty members somehow related to the biology department but no other identification has been given beyond that. Campus is now cleared off of lockdown and students are being encouraged to return home for the evening, as all further classes and campus events have been cancelled. I ask that you pray for the faculty, students, and families affected by this event. The culprit is now in custody but no motive has been cited yet.

There is a campus alert system using text messaging and email to warn students of emergencies like this but so far I have heard unanymous reports that it failed to send out the alert message. I am also supposed to receive this alert but got nothing. I only found out because a friend called another friend, who messaged me. This is a serious problem for all students, but especially those who have a sensory-related disability such as hearing loss, deafness, vision loss, or blindness. The only time this alert system has actually funcitoned is during tornado warnings--we received warnings no sooner than five minutes after the funnel clouds had departed our vicinity. Many of the students are banding together to demand an overhaul and improvement of the system. We need to know when things like this happen WHEN THEY ARE HAPPENING in order to be safe! If this problem concerns you, please call or email UAH Campus Police and let them know they need to fix this grave oversight. You can find their contact information at www.police.uah.edu

Thank you for your prayers and support

Attention Required

2010-01-25T18:41:00.001-06:00

You know that parent in the grocery store that is just completely focused on what they’re doing and ignoring the child? And then the child runs off and gets into trouble? Yeah…that was me this morning, sort of. I had had a really long weekend, what with my roommate being in the hospital (she’s fine now, though, Praise God!), and a bunch of other stuff going on, so even though I got up early and went running before class (which usually wakes me up) I was pretty zoned out during the first part of Spanish II this morning. Prada’s leash was around my ankle as she slept beside my desk—or so I thought. Somehow she slipped the leash off my foot and decided to take a walk out of the classroom. She got about 20 feet down the hall before I caught up with her, but I was so zoned out that I didn’t notice she had taken off until after a classmate pointed it out to me. Lesson here? NO MATTER HOW TIRED YOU ARE, HOW BUSY, YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR DOG! Just like that parent in the grocery store—the dependent comes first in the mind of the independent. Note to self: caffeine before Spanish, or a slightly larger dose of self-discipline.

Prada’s latest quirk? “How many people can I convince to run and get my ball for me?” I take her out into the hallway of the res hall to play fetch with her, and usually she has no issues with running all the way down after it. She thinks it’s a blast. But sometimes she’ll stop about a third of the way down and wait for me to run and get it for her. Today my friend and I decided to study philosophy questions for our exam while throwing the ball for Prada. She started refusing to run and get the ball but I wanted to stay and work on philosophy with Katrina so I decided to wait and see how long it would take her to make up her mind to get it for herself. Well she found another solution. A lot of the guys on our floor have succumbed to her charms and those coming to and from their rooms were more than willing to throw her ball back to her. The little flirt even got one guy to roll it directly into her mouth as she lay flat on the carpet! Goal scored, guys 

poke, peek

2010-01-23T09:22:00.000-06:00

Prada has inivented a new game for herself. It started developing over this summer but has become more noticeable of late. It's peek-n-poke, so far, though she improvises frequently. The game begins when I enter a restroom stall or clothing store fitting room with her. Prada then likes to peek out from under the door and poke peoples' ankles with her cold, wet nose as they walk past. Mission accomplished, she scoots back real fast so they don't see her! She usually gets a good squeak out of people. Her latest addition to the game occured when my roommate and I went to the fitness center on campus to go running. We went into the locker room to change before running. My roommate went into the stall next to us, but didn't realize that we were there. Prada soon enlightened her, thrusting her head and front paws underneath the partition and grinning up at her with big, playful brown eyes. "I found you!" -woosh- as she slid back into my stall. The next time my roommate specifically looked for a stall that wasn't next to us. Prada found her, anyway. As she walked down the aisle to find a stall -pop- "i found you again!" Prada's head and front paws appeared under the door in my roommate's path. I should probably be correcting for this behavior but I often don't notice what's going on until the act is completed and forgotten, so Prada can have her game until I figure out a way to catch her red-pawed.

We're making steady improvement on the whole California stop problem. It really does take a lot of concentration and will exertion on my part to enforce the rules. Prada is more than willing to obey the rules if they're enforced, after all.

We also encountered Prada's first tornado this week! Thursday night we had quite a thunderstorm going on, and as I entered the classroom for my acting class the sirens went off, alerting us that a funnel cloud was somewhere within a 20-mile radius of the area. Our residence hall was just across the street, though, so I decided to just walk home since class was cancelled. Good experience for Prada, and I could get some sork done instead of sitting in the basement of Morton Hall. We walked outside and to the edge of the street we cross and I just happened to glance up above the residence halls. There was our funnel cloud, headed away over the other side of campus! Prada either didn't notice or didn't care, and since my sensitive shepherd wasn't worried I decided to risk the dash across the street anyway, even though THE BLIND GIRL could see the tornado. We made it back to Franz without incident and spent the rest of the night engaged witha giant coloring book (which Prada insisted laying on top of most of the time). My shepherd may be a wimp at the vet bot tornados? Whatever, man, no big deal :)

First Week Down

2010-01-15T13:34:00.001-06:00

First week back at school, and I think I’ve figured out Prada’s favorite and least favorite classes already. Least favorite? Karate, because I get to go work out, move around, spar, play, and she doesn’t get to play with me. No, she has to sit leashed to a cabinet in the back to protect my sparring partner from shepherd hugs  Not that I think she’d hurt anybody in there, but we play rough and some folks don’t like playing as rough as me and my girl do. She cried at me the first five to ten minutes of class, then I told her to be quiet, and she promptly lay down on my roommate’s black wool jacket in protest. Kara says she doesn’t mind, though, so long as the jacket stays in good condition. Favorite class? Acting! Prada played a drug-sniffer dog in one of our improve exercises where I acted a grumpy TSA officer. Unfortunately Prada has difficulty getting into character. She asked the suspected terrorist to pet her after she finished sniffing.

We’re slowly working on getting back into schedule with parking, food, and classes rearranging our days. Some days I have class right over her usual dinner time so I have to be creative about that one to make sure I get her out on time. We’re also working on rebuilding our work ethic routine. Stopping at crosswalks, really stopping instead of just the California stop we’d perfected, and the like. So far we seem to be doing pretty good. It’s a matter of self-discipline for me to remember that it’s ok to be a minute late for a class if it prevents us from getting run over or having dominance issues.

I’ve noticed that Prada gets really excited when we get into a car or head towards a car to go somewhere. I’m thinking it’s just because she likes new places and we’re very routine-oriented while on campus. To combat that, and for other reasons, I’ve started making church, college ministries, and midweek Bible studies higher priorities. It gets Prada out more and is mentally and spiritually and emotionally strengthening for me. That’s another 4 outings a week, three of which are off campus, so I’m hoping that’ll help settle her down a bit when it comes to cars. If it doesn’t, of course, I’ll need to explore new methods, probably call TSE for their advice.

Return of Prada

2010-01-12T15:50:00.001-06:00

Ok, I’ve got a lot to write about…

First off, Prada and I are back in Alabama for the spring semester at UAH. The flight went very well and uneventfully, and I’m sure we met every dog lover in Portland, Denver, and Huntsville airports.
Second: SNOW! There were little patches of snow all over UAH’s campus on Sunday when we were walking around getting some exercise and timing routes to and from classes and the fitness center. We found one in our path past the library and Prada stopped to snuffle around in it. I corrected her, we reworked the snowpatch, then when we’d gotten through it successfully I praised her, took the harness off, and let her go back and play in it. She is sooooo cute! We spent a good five minutes snuffling around, biting, and pawing at the snow (yeah, I played to. I got snow all over her  ).

Thirdly: I am part of the leadership group of one of the on-campus ministries called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). Sunday evening we went to the campus minister’s house and had our first-of-the-semester meeting. Brad, the minister, has a dog named Gunner, a happy, loveable black retriever of some kind (I’m thinking Gordon or English lab?). During the meeting Brad put Gunner in the laundry room so he and Prada wouldn’t interact ‘cause they’ve never met before and we kind of forgot about that little issue. Brad was so gracious to just put Gunner away for a bit and let Prada shed all over the carpet, though. After the meeting was over some of the other RUF kids showed up to hang out and consume copious amounts of junk food with us, as is the Sunday night ritual. During that time Gunner had to be taken (on leash) out to the back yard to park. Gunner, meet Prada. Prada, Gunner. They got to sniff each other and sort of get to know one another for about 30 seconds but we decided that since there were so many people that formal introductions would have to happen later. Brad and I are both confident that they’ll end up getting along very well, though, and I can’t wait to see them running around in their backyard together after some ball or other.

Classes have gone well so far. Prada’s still a little off her schedule and unused to this much focused activity throughout the day thanks to the erraticness of our break schedule but she’s settling in well, sleeps heavily at night, and is as perky and playful as ever during the day. So far still no access issues whatsoever and she’s been a great help in my speech class: gets peoples’ attention. I’m taking advanced karate this year after a semester break from that course so it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts to that. I told the instructor I might have to deal with her a couple of times during the first few classes but I’m going to try to just ignore her as much as I can during class so she gets the idea that everything’s ok. She’s usually pretty chill about some of the other, more physical activities I get in to so I don’t think she’ll have an issue with karate.

Eyes and Chickens and the Like

2010-01-06T20:03:00.001-06:00

Prada and I spent most of today at the Casey Eye Institute, part of the Oregon Health Sciences University. Due to the complexity of my eye condition I go here to a world-class specialist in genetic retinal degenerative conditions. Today’s fixit was a re-testing of some experimental work done this summer and a typical eye-drops and chart-reading exam. We found out from the genetic counselor on Dr. Weleber’s staff today that the blood samples sent to the lab in Iowa proved quite useful and they were able to sequence the gene that causes my condition. I now have a stable diagnosis (although I think we’ve heard that once or twice before…). I have CRB-1-related Severe Early Childhood Onset Retinal Dystrophy, where CRB-1 is the name of the gene that has the mutated sequence. Currently there are clinical trials going on where a genetic therapy is being tested on humans to increase their vision. It’s for a different gene than mine, but if the clinical go well (this is, of course, after years of successful animal testing) then they’ll apply that knowledge to other genes, such as mine. So the word is? In a couple of decades (also heard that a few times) they may have a way to improve my vision significantly.

So what does this mean for a dog guide user? I’m already on the edge of being able to work with a dog guide without untraining said dog guide. If an improvement comes along and I am able to afford it and believe that that is the course that God would have me take then I could no longer work with a dog guide. So, that being the case, I have made the tentative decision that, those three circumstances providing, I will not take the improvement until my current dog guide retires. There’s no reason to waste the training and time that went into the dog and deprive it of the job it loves. When the dog retires I automatically have a wonderfully trained and bonded pet who won’t have the same physical demands as an active dog guide. This is, of course, all extremely speculative and way in advance. But it’s something I’ll have to address at some point.

In other news, Prada and I exited a small produce store near where we live and walked into the path of a stray chicken! We may live in rural Oregon but loose chickens are NOT daily sights here. This one, according to the store owner, is a stray that just decided to live by the store so they named her Luanne. Prada was quite curious but not too aggressive towards the chicken and responded to my correction well. Luanne wasn’t interested in satisfying Prada’s curiosity, though, and amidst frantic squawking made a hasty retreat stage right.

Needles and Nail-clippers and Vets, oh hide!

2010-01-05T22:12:00.001-06:00

Vet visit today, Prada’s first with me. We got a heartworm blood test done (just to be safe), a vaccine, and nails trimmed, and Prada proved that she can fit under a bench that is 6 inches off the ground! And get under their in about 2.5 seconds flat. Vet offices are usually hard and stressful places for dog guides beyond the normal doggy stressors available. They aren’t allowed to go socialize with the other doggies in the waiting room or even sniff around or say hi to the overly friendly vet technicians that just adore them to pieces…poor Prada, but she did amazingly well. I am so proud of her!

Building

2009-12-29T11:25:00.000-06:00

Well here’s a huge shout-out and thank you to my mom and sister for being so willing to take me and Prada places to walk. Karen’s been amazing, driving us out to the mall area to work, and yay for mom’s love of walking in neighborhoods. That’s done a tremendous amount for rebuilding Prada’s and my habits with street corners, distractions, and such. I’ve been fighting the new guilt trip of “oh, I haven’t’ been correcting for this, so I shouldn’t’ start now.” The problem with this is it wouldn’t’ be “starting,’ it would be “restarting.” So I’m learning to get over it, and Prada doesn’t seem to be suffering at all, psychologically. In fact, she seems happier working when I’m paying more attention. Time to cut back on the daydreaming, I guess. Last night Mom and I walked through an older neighborhood in Salem where a lot of people hadn’t yet removed their Christmas lights. It never ceases to amaze me, how much I enjoy working with Prada at night. I’ve said this before, but I need to find more night activities to walk to. Thursday nights we’ll be at Bible Study, but that’s not much of a long walk. Maybe when it gets warmer she and I will just work around campus for the heck of it, although my roommates tend to frown on this. I can understand, I don’t’ like it when they’re out late at night alone, either, and we all generally try to avoid this. But somehow it seems slightly different. I mean, I’ve got a German shepherd with me. I guess we’ll see what happens; it won’t be warm enough for me to walk at night for at least another month or two. In the meantime we’ll just borrow the MPR for fetch and hide-and-seek.

Prada’s latest trick is burying her bone in furniture. My grandmother brought her an edible, chicken-flavored chewy bone and she went nuts over it. She carried it all through the house without eating it, and then started shoving it between couch cushions or under pillows. She even tried to bury it under the Christmas tree! Eventually I convinced her it was for chewing on. New it is no more.

Twas the Week Before Christmas

2009-12-25T23:40:00.000-06:00

ok I think I promised at one point to stop with the horrible cliches for titles. Either I should have but didn'ter, or I did and lied, 'cause there's another one for you. Now, to business:

Oh so much to catch up on…where to start? First off, Prada has killed yet another oven mit. Know where I can buy them titanium-reinforced?
Chocolate: have acquired the hot sauce, have yet to set it up, though. I want to get some Hershey’s syrup and a small chocolate bar to lace with the stuff.
City work: spent the last week in Depot Bay, Oregon, in a coastal resort. We walked all through Depot Bay and Lincoln City’s outdoor malls and spent some good practice time on the city streets and she’s showing improvement. She remembers what she’s supposed to do, it’s just a matter of me training myself to make her do it. So, accountability may end up being employed, and a lot of mental training for me. Feel free to post nagging comments about remembering to enforce the rules even when we’re in a hurry.
Cat Ignorance: Puppy walks into mom and dad’s bedroom where His majesty is reclining upon the bed. His Majesty growls. Puppy exits. We’re making progress! The cat is also getting a touch braver, a little more nonchalant about pacing his domain. The more he relaxes and doesn’t run the less interested Prada is in him, so it’s a mutual training. Now we just have to pray that they both don’t forget over the next semester.

New: Purses and dog guides are an interesting mix. First off, I rarely carry a purse most of the year. I usually just use a backpack so I can carry notebooks, laptop, water for me and Prada, in-class snacks on the days I don’t have time to eat, and the usual pursey items like drugs and Kleenex and pens and stuff. However over summer and Christmas break, or if I go off-campus with friends then I try to take a smaller, more sightly bag. Before Prada, I always carried it on my left shoulder but now with her on my left, this just wouldn’t do. However, having a bag on my right doesn’t work, either. I can’t lean over to give her belly-rubs on the go for praise, or even reach forward to pet her for praise, I can’t pick anything up off a table or counter ‘cause it slides off (I have narrow little shoulders), and I can hardly get anything out of it because my opposite hand is tied up with Prada. Solution? Shoulder bag. I found a cute little bag that hangs off the left shoulder, strap crosses the chest, and the bag hangs off my right hip. Easy to reach, doesn’t slide around or fall off, and I can actually work with it! Praise for puppy, grabbing stuff off counters and tables, opening doors…So, you dog guide users or regular dog walkers, here’s your solution! Shoulder bag.

Movie Review

2009-12-20T01:05:00.000-06:00

"Anneliese, have you seen Up yet?"
"no..."
"you'll love it, it has a dog in it!................"

That's how it usually goes. I've had that conversation almost every day since the darn movie came out in theatres, so needless to say, I'm a bit tired of it. The asker, then proceedsd to tell me all about the fact that the dogs talk, there's a joke about a squirrel, and the beginning will make me cry but the rest of the movie is hilarious.

Yes, I have finally seen the Disney-Pixar animated film Up. Did I like it? Eh…y’know, it was ok, but I wouldn’t go see it again. I’m a bit indifferent to its existence, really. I guess part of it was ‘cause everyone hyped it up so much to me that I was considerably disappointed. For some reason everyone who ever mentioned that movie to me seemed to think t hat because I have Prada I will adore the movie simply because there are talking dogs in it. I was told it portrays doggy psychology quite well, but I disagree. The pack mentality was quite of. Doug should have been completely ostracized and/or mauled by his companions instead of just being the gullible outcast and the butt of all the others’ jokes. They’re not nearly as socially inhibited as humans are. Overall the plot was cute, and slightly original, and the portrayal of the boyscout-analogous organization quite humorous, and the way that Russel’s parental situation was painted really drew out some key results to the effects that choices made by adults have on their children. It’s not all about the grown-ups, really! I loved the bird, Kevin. She was quite the supporting character, and the snipe-hunting scene was reminiscent of stories my dad and friends used to tell me about boyscouts, but for dog-lovers…the syntax, vocabulary, attitudes, and relationships of the dogs in the movie aren’t at all acruate. Watch it with the kids or your girlfriends. Girls, don’t make your poor boyfriends sit through it,
though.

“Anneliese, have you seen Up yet?”
“yes”
CONVERSATION ENDS! 

Catching Up

2009-12-18T18:32:00.001-06:00

Lots of business to cover due to an absence of updates. Prada and I have been busy!

Stage Debut: went very well, although the guest performers weren’t given time to exit the stage until after the superintendent of the school had come up and closed the concert. Prada had other plans, it seems, and attempted a brief, uneventful, and unsuccessful early escape off the stage. Unfortunately for her I had a foot down on the leash. Otherwise, it went well and I’m looking forward to bringing her on stage with me at UAH.
City Work Again: We’ve spent more time doing city work (city blocks, larger, more complex buildings, stores, malls, and the like) since returning to Salem. Now our overuse of the California stop is quite apparent and today, walking from the chiropractor’s office to the library, I had to begin the task of reconstructing those choreographed street crossings that we used at first. This will mean…more walks, more outings! Thanks to holiday business and reunions with friends this isn’t too difficult to put together, though.
The Cat: The ignorance training is going much better than expected, although not perfectly, of course. The cat’s behavior is not improving, but Prada will leave the cat alone more easily and has even ignored his existence altogether on a few occasions.
Chocolate: yes, she’s acquired a taste for it, it appears. My solution is a variant on my roommate’s trash-can strategy. I’m going to get some chocolate syrup, a small amount, of course, and some intense hot sauce and set it out on a plate on the edge of the counter. Immediate consequences of significant impact, especially if done several times, to end the interest and create a chocolate/hot sauce association in her little doggy brain.

Relocation

2009-12-10T13:07:00.001-06:00

Prada and I flew back to Oregon this last Tuesday after a long first semester together at UAH. It’s good to be home, and Prada’s thrilled with all the new people and places to explore. It’s hard to tell if she remembers my family or if she’s just excited that there are more people to love on her, but either way she’s quite happy. The cat, on the other hand, is quite upset by the invader’s presence. I’m trying to train Prada to ignore him, regardless of what antics he pulls off, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. We’ve exiled him to being outside unless Prada’s shut up in my room or not at home to avoid fireworks. A couple of times they’ve met on opposite sides of a floor-to-ceiling glass pane beside the door and I’ve used those opportunities to exercise the “leave it” command. Prada seems a trifle affronted that I would distract her from investigating the furry squeaky thing but is more or less obedient, so I’m hoping at some point she’ll become that dog the cat can walk over while she’s napping and not even lift an ear but I suspect it’ll take more than five weeks to get to that point. So far we’ve visited my old community college to crash a Bible study meeting that I helped start a few years ago, and gone shopping with a couple of friends. Prada behaved herself quite admirably during those escapades, although since her eating and parking schedule is slightly skewed from the flight I’ve had to be a bit more attentive to her during shopping trips to ensure I get her outside in time. So far no accidents, though, and she’s quickly picking up on the routine. I’m hopeful we’ll be back on schedule by tomorrow or the day after. Tonight she’ll get her first stage debut. In previous choral performances I’ve left her at home or in the audience because I was uncertain as to how she’d react to crowds, stage lighting, and the proximity of the mic’ed performance. I’ve had her on stage for dress rehearsals, though, and she hasn’t gotten into any trouble or really done anything but sleep and shed on choir dresses. Tonight I’m going to my old high school choir’s Christmas performance and they have a traditional Hallelujah Chorus sing-along as their finale. Mrs. Caruthers invites anyone in the audience who’s ever performed the Chorus to come join the choir on stage, so I’ll be headed up to sing with them and Prada’s coming to since I won’t have anyone to puppy-sit in the audience. I don’t think we’ll have any difficulties with that, though.

Crunchy grass has been quite a novel experience for her, though. We’re in the middle of a 20’s and below cold snap here, minus our usual rain. The grass out in the yard is crisp and frosty and crunchy under her paws when we go out to park and I take it from her reactions that this is not something common in New Jersey! She was a trifle put off by it at first but nature called strongly enough for her to get off the porch and do her business. Afterwards, though, she wanted to sniff around and check it out, and if it hadn’t been in the mid-teens temperature-wise I might have indulged this but I was cold! She is also learning how to deal with our wood floors inside the house. Makes playtime quite amusing for us and befuddling for her. Fortunately we have enough rugs for her to set up a reasonable pattern to avoid crashing into walls and furniture.

Since it’s so cold out I’m not much in to taking walks outside with her so it will be a bit of a trick making sure we both get our exercise without freezing to death. Yay for malls and community colleges and big department stores, I guess. While this might not be her most physically taxing month ever I’m planning plenty of events with friends to make sure her mind is kept quite busy so I’m not too worried about that, though.

Finals

2009-12-05T16:40:00.000-06:00

This is Prada’s press-secretary hijacking the blog on behalf of Her Royal Majesty. I’m here to do a special on dog guides and semester finals. THEY DO NOT MIX! In Prada’s voice:

I don’t understand it. She sits there and stresses over books and papers for no good reason, and she does it for hours and hours! What’s the point? No exercise, no games, no fun, no food sometimes… We don’t go on many walks, not even on our routine. And when we do go out? We go to the same place, DSS office. We got to a little office in the back and she sits there and writes on papers for hours and hours and hours. At least she started bringing my bone for me sometimes… Then we come back and we play fetch for an hour! And then it starts all over again…

Press-secretary again: finals are rough on both dog guides and people. Her Royal Majesty suggests that regular fetch breaks and walks are excellent stress-relief mechanisms for both parties involved and absolutely necessary for maintaining proper blood flow and resting the student’s eyes. It will improve moral and test performance by a stunning uncalculated percentage!

new Game, New Place

2009-11-25T19:55:00.000-06:00

This is just a quick update, nothing terribly weighty or dataful.

Last night I reserved the MPR for an hour to play and my roommates and I decided to teach her how to play hide-and-seek with a new toy my mom had sent her for her birthday. She took to the game easily enough and we found ourselves running out of challenging hiding places for her. We’re spending Thanksgiving at my roommate’s place and Prada has found two more adoring fans in my roommate’s younger brother and sister, about five and eight years old. They’re running each other ragged 

3 Years Old Yesterday!

2009-11-24T10:26:00.000-06:00

Last night we celebrated Prada’s 3rd birthday and release of my roommate’s book downstairs in the Multi Purpose Room (kind of a big event room in our residence hall). It wasn’t anything formal; really, more of an excuse to get friends and food together in one place and promote Kara’s book. We’re trying to get her an ISBN and she has to sell upwards of 400 copies to do this. While we were setting up downstairs I took Prada off-leash and let her run the entire MPR unrestrained. I spent about half an hour playing fetch and chase with her before it actually started and I have rarely seen her so enthusiastic about playtime. We finally had enough room to roughhouse and run around to our heart’s content. I’m considering reserving the MPR for a half-hour or so on weekends for playtime and exercise. Since I don’t get out much on weekends and spend most of my time doing homework she gets bored easily, so this should help break up the monotony, and be good for our relationship, as well. I ended up leaving her off leash for the entire party, making sure the doors to the MPR stayed closed, and everyone got to play with her (which she loved). Thanks to our friends we now have 3 new oven mitts, another bag of fillet-mignon doggy cookies, and a set of that plastic princess jewelry stuff you find at toy stores. You know, the stuff with the clip-on earrings and tiara? Yes, we got Prada into the tiara (though it didn’t last long, she pawed it off real quick) and the pictures are up on facebook on both of our profiles. Getting to run around in the MPR was the closest thing she’s had to a back-yard playtime since she’s moved in with me, possibly even since she left her puppy raisers. At home I don’t have a fenced-in backyard, and I certainly don’t have one at school.

Thanksgiving break approaches, then finals week and then we’re headed home again! Our schedule’s already filling up for our 5-week break so I don’t think Prada will lack for exercise when we get home. We also have several out-of-town trips planned so hopefully she will become more and more accustomed to eating in strange places. She really travels well, something I am grateful for, but her eating habits tend to suffer a bit. Two weeks from tomorrow, though, and we’ll be on an airplane flying back to Oregon! Look out, Mittens, doggy incoming! Pray that they can reach a mutual ignorance of each other’s presence.

Target Focus

2009-11-12T15:55:00.000-06:00

On Haloween night, sometime around midnight, my roommate released her self-published biography of Martin Luther, titled Martin Luther, Reformation Rebel. It's a short story aimed at a younger audience but a good read for all ages. For those who are familiar with Reformation Period history it's rather like a walk down memory lane, as she mentions many key leaders on both sides of the Reformation at the time. It's intelligently written and displays a clear understanding of Martin Luther's personal perceptions about his work. It's a narrative told from Luther's perspective, so it naturally bears a bit of bias on the side of the Reformers, but an excellent, interactive way to learn or revisit that period of history.

The part that stood out to me the most was (go figure) a short anecdote about Luther's dog. Martin Luther remarked upon his hound's complete focus on a piece of meat his master held out for him. The dog's entire attention was wrapped around that piece of meat, his head following its every movement. This is the kind of single-mindedness that I observe in Prada when I put the harness on her, or when I hold a tennis ball or oven mit out for her to play with. Today I took her to a choir festival up in Birmingham, but opted to leave her in the audience when I went on stage with the UAH choir. My directors husband held her leash while I headed out to the warm-up room and Prada gave me this look that clearly said "why is my world walking away from me?"

This is how I picture the ideal relationship between a Christian and Jesus Christ should look. That's what prompted Martin Luther to make the remark about his dog's focus. Paraphrasing, "why can't a believer be as focused on God as this dog is on a piece of meat?"

If you're interested in purchasing the book there are two different options. You can download an ebook or purchase the hardcopy from http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/martin-luther-reformation-rebel/5933950.

"Before the Reformation, the Christian church was almost entirely Roman Catholic--- outwardly united, but inwardly corrupt and troubled. Then one man decided to do something about it, and Christianity was never the same. This is his story. Read it. Decide for yourself what you are willing to risk to change the world."

Map Quest

2009-11-06T22:20:00.000-06:00

A faculty friend of mine invited me to come speak to his Intro to Special Education class this week about my history of academic accomodations and dog guides. At first he asked me if I could talk about dog guides in his class for fifteen minutes and i had to laugh. I could probably talk about that topic for about fifteen HOURS. But we eventually narrowed it down to my academic history of accomodations, my mobility before Prada, and how Prada has altered my lifestyle. Of course I ended up going a little over time, but he had made an allowance for that. The students were mainly interested in what my usable range of vision was, and Prada's training. One student, the guy that runs the front desk of my residence hall, approached me the day after the class on my way up to my room with another question. He remembered me saying that it was my job to tell Prada where to go, and her job to get me there safely. "So, how do you KNOW where to tell her to go?" he asked. Obviously i can't read street signs, so how would I know? Well, there are a few ways that visually impaired people navigate the world, and the techniques don't change too much from using a cane to walking with a dog.

You know how when you walk into a dark room and you can feel when it opens up a bit, or when you've left a dark hallway and entered a wider intersection of unlit hallways? The air feels different, it sounds different. "more open,' people like to say. Blind people are much more attuned to this. We use air current changes and how sounds change in differently-sized spaces to orient ourselves. It's kind of like a low-powered sonar. Outsiide, if we're walking next to a building line or along a wooded path we can feel and hear when the area opens up. We can feel the slight downward slope of a street corner, or the upward curve of a driveway. We use landmarks like these to keep ourselves on track. We also use very carefully constructed mental maps of our surrounding areas. It is necessary for us to memorize which streets intersect with each other and what kind of traffic control (light, sign, et cetera) graces the intersection with its presence.

When a sighted person gives directions it usually sounds like this; go left at the next light and then once you pass the WalMart on your right take a sharp right and then left at McDonald's. When a blind perosn gives directionis it will consist of numbers of blocks and cardinal or orientation directions. "Go four blocks down Main, then at Main turn right and go three blocks. Cross the parallel street at the end of the third block and continue straight away from the parallel until you reach the onramp to the bridge. Then turn left and go for a block and a half. On that second block take the second driveway up."

We talk a lot about routes when we give directions or talk about our daily routines. A route is a preplanned, often practiced set of directions that we use to get from point A to point B. We like to have these programmed plans of travel to maintain our orientation, and the more our normal routes intersect, the better picture of the area we have.

A Short Story

2009-11-02T15:42:00.000-06:00

There is a good reason dogs should be given toys with which they can occupy themselves. That is, when they get bored, just like humans, they go find things to entertain themselves with. Prada went without a nylabone for a few weeks, and she developed the habit of dragging articles of my clothing out into the common room of our dorm to get my attention. If I didn't have any clothes within puppy-reach she substituted items from our trashcan. Well, she has a new nylabon now but every so often she would relapse into the former habits so my roommate, in a moment of genius, laced the trashcan with hot sauce to provide immediate consequences to unwanted investigations. This has worked beautifully. My poor little girl's eyes watered up the first time (and so far last time) she checked out the trashcan and my roommate felt quite sorry for her but kept herself steeled against the onslaught of sympathy-mongering, knowing that it was better for Prada this ay. It seems to have worked, she's not nearly as interested in the trashcan, so thanks, roomie!

The thing about consequences like this is that Prada won't remember WHY she gets sick if she tosses up a bit of undigestible trash or food. The consequences aren't immediate enough for the dog to link them with the action that spawned them. So, like with very small children, the results of misbehaviors, and praise for good behaviors, must be as immediate as possible, or else just forgone.

Halloween and Choir Concerts

2009-11-01T16:48:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid I wasn't terribly original with Prada's costume this year for Halloween. She went as a K9 unit, and a friend and I went as psi-cops from the old Babylon 5 tv show. Thanks to a briliant suggestion from my roommates I'll do better next year, though. We'll go as The Devil Wears Prada. The UAH Honors students hosted a costume party down in the Multi Purpose Room of Franz where Prada made her debut. I opted to leave the harness off for almost the entirety of the party, as I wasn't really in need of a guide and the overwhelming majority of the students present wanted to pet or play with Prada. As the crowds increased, though, I took her upstairs and left her in my room so she wouldn't get too overwhelmed by worshippers. While she is quite social it is easy to cause dog guides, especially shepherds, to feel a bit panicky in such close proximity to too many friendly people. Too much of a good thing, I guess.

The soft crate works absolutely wonderfully as a bed and hideaway for Prada. As a place of necessary confinement purposes (i.e. I go somewhere not appropriate for her to go such as a pool area with an intensely high chlorine concentraiton) it leaves quite a bit to be desired. While Prada doesn't particularly care for being shut in the crate she never complained too much about the hard crate back home, but the soft crate...well, a friend of mine told me his dog guide tore a hole in his crate's door to get out. I always enjoyed bragging to him that my shepherd would just slide a claw or paw between the two zippers and open the crate instead of destroying it. She would then greet me at the door of my room, not having gotten into anything. I usually leave her nylabone with her for entertainment purposes and have never suffered property damage during her escaped periods. However, while I left her in the crate to go rejoin the costume party downstairs Prada discovered a problem with her usual escape route. I had been curious to see if I could get her to stay in the crate so I improvised a lock by unbending a paperclip and using it to secure the two zippers together. This, apparently didn't pose much of a problem to my child, as she simply removed the entire zipper from the door. I can zip it up all I want to but the seam that held the zipper to the front wall of the crate has been quite thoroughly ripped out. Once again Prada met me at the door when I returned. So now she has a $120 bed, instead of a $120 confined space. If I settle here permanently I'll have to invest in a hard crate, I think.

Choir concert last night, congrats to UAH Concert and Chamber choirs! They (we) sounded fabulous. A friend reviewd the performance and when he finishes that I'll have him send it to me so y'all can see a bit of what we did. Prada did not attend, either on stage or in the audience. Having been made quite paranoid by the TSE trainers' stories about dog guides that like to sing along wiwth their persons, and knowing that Prada is quite vocal, and very restless (she's still a puppy!) I decided it'd be better for her to stay in my room. maybe next year she'll have settled down enough to join the audience. Someday I'd like to take her on stage with me, show her off a bit, but that's a ways out, I think. Let her age and settle down a bit.

Invisible

2009-10-30T17:55:00.000-05:00

One of the faculty on campus who teaches courses on special education contacted me this summer and told me about a research project he was working on. He wanted to do a study on how a dog guide affected the life of a college student. So I've been recording observations about how my life on campus is differeent this year because of Prada, as opposed to last year, just being the girl with the cane. The last item that I wrote for him I found of particular interest and so I'm posting it here for y'all to read. I am very interested in your comments on this, but here's a disclaimer. If the researcher who I wrote this for is interested in comments on this topic, anything you post here will be reported to him for research and may or may not end up in publications on the topic. So, post at your own risk, and use spellcheck!

"I noticed an interesting phenomenon, one that I almost expected but thought it more a fantasy, round about halfway through the semester. That is, that Prada is more well-known on campus than I am. As numerical proof, Prada has 80 friends on facebook, and I have 74. And this is after I cleaned out her profile of people I didn’t know! Before clean-out, she had upwards of 200, whereas I had about 140. When we walk through campus I can count the number of people that say “hi Anneliese, hi Prada” on one hand, while I need a calculator with a Riemann sun function to tally the number that say “hi Prada, hi Anneliese,” or just “hi Prada!” This has presented to me an interesting psychological phenomenon. I can easily see how Prada is more recognizable than I on campus—after all, she is the only canine here, and there are several tall, slender blondes with glasses—but the fact that some people choose to address the dog before the person, or leave out the person entirely, is a bit curious to me. I thought of one day sitting in the UC for a few hours and counting how many people said hello to the dog first, and how many people forgot to say hello to the person, or just counting the number throughout my usual routes. I have also considered another experiment. There is a student on campus, a friend of mine, that bears a strong resemblance to me. Purely coincidental, but we have often been mistaken for sisters or even twins. By trading glasses and sweatshirts, and letting her walk with Prada, we could easily pass as each other. How many people would notice the change? How many people would recognize me without Prada, how many people wouldn’t look at my friend closely enough to see that she wasn’t me?"

Now, obviously I wouldn't indulge in this last experiment, that would be confusing for poor Prada. If this could be avoided, though, I think the experiment would yield some surprising results. I have yet to write down any speculation on the source of this phenomenon but when I do I will post them here for y'all. Just 'cause I haven't speculated on it yet doesn't mean y'all can't, though! As i said, I am VERY interested in your observations!

New Friend!

2009-10-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

About a month ago Prada and I spent the night at a friend's house. This is something that we've done before but this time around we threw in a new twist to the mix--my friend has a golden retriever named Roxy. As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, the procedure for taking Prada to another dog's house is as follows: the two dogs meet and get acquainted (the whole butt-sniffing thing) on neutral territory, then the two enter the house together, signifying to both of them that they're part of the same pack now so there aren't any possession issues. Roxy is a very good-tempered, friendly, playful dog about two years older than Prada, but every bit a puppy. The two got along famously, after a few initional "am I being replaced?!?" problems with Roxy. After they got over that, though, the two chased each other all over the house, wrestled doggy-style, and shed in tandem all over ever surface imaginable. I think Prada was a little put-out at Roxy's lack of house manners (well behaved dog, just not up to Her Highness' training) but other than that the two did fine together.

During the week of SCIVIS I had the opportunity to interview with a representative from National Public Radio. They were doing a series on women in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and a focus study on women with disabilities in those fields. My interview won't be aired until sometime next year but I'll post the release date as soon as they let me know. Here's the link to the parts of the series that have already been aired, www.womeninscience.org. There's also a Facebook group, and while you're checking that out, add Prada as a friend!

"Just Because I Can't See the Stars Doesn't Mean I can't Reach For Them!"

2009-10-08T22:14:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while since I've posted...life happens, when you're a college student, or in the workforce, or stay-at-home mom...We're hitting midterm exams this week and last and the next, and last week the UAH Concert Choir went on a retreat to do some super-rehearsing. We rehearsed for aobut 9 hours over the course of two days. Prada came with me and enjoyed all the devoted worshippers in all four sections, and actually ate almost a full meal in a new location! We stayed in cabins so it wasn't too unsettling a locale change for her, very house-like.

Now that the housekeeping's done for this post I'd like to focus a bit on a program known as SCIVIS (Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students). This is a week-long program run out of the space camp in Huntsville, Alabama, where I now go to school. SCIVIS is actually the number one contributor to my being in Alabama right now. This program was started by Dan Oates, who works at the West Virginia School for the Blind, and is operated just like any other week at space camp, but with more accessibility features layered in. These include brailed simulator controls (on the space shuttle and space station controls, installing text-to-speech software on the computers, and providing Braille and large-print MAD books, checklist books, timeline scripts, 'medical' manuals, et cetera. All of the counsellors receive special training to work with visually impaired students, too. Schools for the blind are the primary sources for campers, although some independents come. I've even had international students on my team from places like Ireland, England, Australia, Canada, and parts of Eastern Europe. it is a very intense and emotional week, even for non VI students, but for us even more so , I believe, because we are forced to break an extreme comfort-zone barrier in addition to working 16+ hour days at full speed on deplorable food and in poor temperature-balanced buildings. Extreme physical and mental challenges on ropes' courses and flight and motion simulators provide wonderful mobility and general scientific experiences for VI students of everey level of impairment and a wide range of ages. I could fill this blog with stories and activity descriptions for months to come but i will only do so when I feel they are relevant. If you want more specific information on SCIVIS post questions and/or visit http://www.tsbvi.edu/space/.

The Philosophy of Sight Without Vision

2009-10-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

“See” in the English language is an extremely ambiguous term. It may apply to the perception and subsequent interpretation of light waves or it may mean “understand” or “experience positive proof of existence of.” To one particular cross-section of the world’s population, though, it has a very different meaning. To visually impaired people (VIP’s) it means to touch, hear, or some combination of the two. People are trained at birth to rely on their vision as the most important and accurate sense, thereby equating sight with experiencing positive proof of other objects’ existence, so we VIP’s take “to see” to mean “to experience positive proof of existence of an object by using the most accurate sense available,” in addition to the traditional secondary definition “to understand.” When a visually impaired person says “I see it,” referring to a chair that a sighted person indicated was in the walkway, the VIP means that he or she has discovered it through touch—tripping on it or having found it with a cane, considered an extension of one’s arm. So what is it that a VIP “sees?” When a sighted person “sees,” in the physical perception sense of the word, they experience light waves hitting the retinae and being translated into a mentally understandable concept. When a VIP “sees,” he or she has physical contact with the object, the sensations of which are then transferred to the brain where a similarly mentally understandable concept is created, or takes in sound waves, which are again interpreted by the brain. Which, if either, of these two types of sight is a more definite proof of existence of an object? We will start with analyzing the ability of each of these three senses (vision, touch, and hearing) to be fooled, by both human efforts and natural conditions, beginning with vision, then moving to touch, and finally hearing.

Anyone who has ever seen a magician perform at a circus or fair or other such venue is aware of the concept of an optical illusion. This is the manipulation of psychological patterning and overstimulation to produce false imagery. Take, for example, the red and green cross experiment usually one in the middle-school classroom at some point. A student colors a large red cross on a white sheet of paper, then takes a blank sheet and holds it behind the one with the red cross. The student then stares at the red cross for over a minute, and then quickly removes the red cross page so he or she is now staring at the blank sheet of paper. 90% of these students will tell you that they see a green cross on the blank sheet, even though they know the sheet to be completely white. This occurs because the eye’s rods and cones responsible for working with red light tired after a short period of time, less than 30 seconds, but the mind knows it is still observing the red cross so for the remainder of the experiment it generates the cross image while the red rod and cone pairs regenerate and re-energize themselves to continue producing. But by the time they are prepared to do this the red cross is now gone. The cross image still fixed in the brain will remain for a few seconds while the eye reorganizes the rods and cones responsible for the new color and the green rods and cones take over for a moment, being the strongest in the eye. By the very nature of how the eye works, different cells working in shifts in tandem with cerebral compensation images, we ‘see’ false images all the time. In fact, more than 40% of all visual perception is psychologically stimulated! Then there is the pretentious number of petty magicians floating around the entertainment industry to consider. Both natural and man-made optical illusions are such common, everyday occurrences that we cannot reasonably accept our own vision as an accurate picture of the world around us.

Somatosensory perception, or the somatic senses, include tactile contact, temperature, and pain. These sensations are transferred from somatic receptors through nerves in the spinal column to the cerebral cortex. Only temperature receptors can be triggered without direct contact with another object, but all of the various types of somatic receptors can be internally triggered, that is, activated without external contact. For instance, cocaine addicts often refer to “coke bugs” to name a symptom of long-term usage where the consumer feels the sensation of a bug crawling across his or her skin, or a similar itching sensation. This is not actual touch since the somatic senses have not made contact with another surface, so it is considered a somatic illusion. These are much harder to generate than optical illusions because the somatic sensors do not rely on an intermediary physical phenomenon, light waves, to generate their information packets.

The aural sense, hearing, is generated in much the same way as vision is, through senses stimulated by waves. However it differs in the fact that the wave perceived by the auditory system is the thing perceived, while the visual senses merely detect a collection of light waves bouncing off an object. Sound waves are vibrations through the air generated by two objects or two parts of an object contacting each other. Aural illusions are much more difficult to create but much more convincing, since they play more on psychological tendencies and expectations than the actual sensation manipulation itself. A person creates a sound similar to something his or her audience expects to hear, such as replacing similar-sounding words like “sick” and “six” in the traditional sheep riddle. “There were twenty six/sick sheep. One died, how many were left?” The speaker may use either “sick” or “six” and the responder’s answer will vary depending on his or her interpretation of the similar-sounding word. Because sighted people pay very little attention to their hearing in proportion to the amount of attention they delegate to interpreting visual perceptions they are much easier to fool with tricks like this, or strange echo effects in rooms or off out musical instruments. This is not manipulating the sound wave itself, but producing a different wave than the one expected that is close enough to slide under the radar.

So, what a visually impaired person “sees” when they say that they “see” something is either the physical presence of the object against their somatic sensors or the sound that object makes against another object, or a combination of both. Given that it is extremely easy to manipulate a person’s interpretation of sound waves I would say that hearing cannot be too heavily relied upon as evidence for an object’s existence. How many times have we heard voices on the winds, or the ocean in the cup of a seashell? However touch is a much more concrete experience of an object’s existence, since it can only be fooled by internal means and these are difficult to effect. All of this, of course, hinges on mental interpretation of the physical sensations, and only can be assigned to physical, tangible entities such as chairs, tables, and cabbages. To deal with unobservable entities like emotions and nanoscopic matter we must delve into the subject of “seeing” as “understanding.”

When a VIP “sees” anger, or joy, or any other emotion in another person he or she does not have the luxury of its physical manifestation in body language and facial expressions to assist in interpretation. Instead he or she must rely on context, history, and sound waves. As the latter has already been previously discussed we will focus on context and history for this section of the discussion. In this case, “see” means “understand,” which can be interpreted to mean having gathered information relating to the topic and assembled it into a logical order. The gathering of information part comes from history and context. History, in this context, refers to the VIP’s foreknowledge of the emoter’s character and temperament, and of basic human psychological responses. If there is little or no history between the two people then the VIP must rely totally on his or her understanding of human natural tendencies and responses. Context, for the purpose of this paper, refers to the conversation and related actions in which the emotion exists. Interpretation of these two things allows a person to understand, and therefore “see” emotion.

Cells and viruses and other such unobservable entities are a little harder to deal with. Unless the instrument used to generate reactions to these items’ existence, such as microscopes and spectrographs, use audio output systems instead of visual outputs, then a VIP can have no experience at all of these objects without a second person translating the data into audio or Braille or Nemith code, a tactile mathematics system. Without trusting another person’s interpretation of the data produced by reaction-generating instruments a VIP cannot have positive proof of existence of any of that class of object.

Given all this discussion about which senses work most reliably and produce the best data, can we use “seeing” as proof of an object’s existence? What difference is there between sensory data and mathematical data that are perceived through the senses? How do we know that the mathematics we perceive through our sight or hearing or touch exist any more than the direct sensory perception itself? Sensory data is much more directly derived information than mathematics, which relies on the senses to gather the beginning data, then to interpret it when the results are spat out, so it is quite an indirect way of experiencing positive proof of an object’s existence. I believe we can consider our sensory data as valid proof of existence of an object given reasonable interpretation paradigms based on logic and a suspicious intellect prepared for deceptive conditions. Since we have no proof that these objects do not exist and some types of albeit dubious data that claim they do is it not reasonable to conclude that for all practical purposes our senses provide us with convincing evidence that objects we perceive do indeed exist.

Through Others' Eyes

2009-09-23T10:00:00.001-05:00

One of the traiters at TSE told a story about a retired dog guide who had learned how to silently open a trashcan. He was quite stealthy about it so as not to alert his blind master. When he retired, though, the dog was adopted by a sighted person. His new owner caught the dog sneaking into the trash one day and scolded him for it. The dog turned around and gave him an astonished expression, as if asking "you can SEE that?!?" The dog had learned that his previous master couldn't see, but the new owner could.

I am like this dog guide! Two days ago I was working on a powerpoint presentation for my Spanish 1 class and showed it to a friend, asking if the contrast on the slides was too poor, or if the text needed to be bigger. "no, it looks great, and the text is already pretty big" she told me. I was stunned. "Y'all can see that red-onblack contrast?!?" I apparently have absolutely no concept of what a sighted person can and can't see. I continually make little discoveries like this and it really throws my analysis of peoples' actions for a loop.

Just one of those "here's what it's like to be blind" moments to put our world into a wider perspective for y'all.

Prada continues to show signs of an ever-increasing bond. She looks upset now everytime I trip on something, even when she's not in harness, and has taken to reminding me about our usual schedule, and yesterday she even whined when I left the room. She's never done that before. Apparently she didn't see me leave to go downstairs and let a friend into the building and my roommate reported Prada's unhappiness as she went from room to room in our suite looking for me.

She has become quite possessive of certain locations around me. In most classrooms I let Prada curl up under my chair 'cause there isn't much room anywhere else, but in choir I am seated on the end of the alto section so she has plenty of room to sprawl out if she wants to so I'd been sliding my bag under the table. For the first few weeks of class Prada had been very restless, sometimes getting up before class was over, and in general just shifting around a lot. Then one day she actually tried to paw my bag out from under the chair and I realized what her problem was! "Mommy, the bag's in my spot..." She has since been rethrowned and the usurping bag put to the side and is much happier now :).

Squeak and Squawk

2009-09-12T21:08:00.001-05:00

Prada killed the squeaky today. It still bounces, it can still be tugged and chewed on, but it has fallen silent.

So what do you do witha seeing eye dog during choir practices? Does the noise bother the dog? Do the high pitches bother the dog?

Prada appears unperturbed by the soprano section (the higher female voices) but perhaps that's because I'm singing alto this year (lower female voices). I usually sing soprano but our director needed altos so that's where I am for the semester. During my audition Prada relaxed on the floor until I got up into the higher registers, then she looked up to make sure I was ok but hasn't displayed any interest in our noise since then. Our seating chart has me on the end of one row so Prada sleeps next to my chair during hte performance and is almost entirely silent during the rehearsals. Every so often while the director talks to us about different sections of the music she'll roll over and hum at me but other than that she's pretty quiet.

I took her to a ocncert last night, a guest faculty piano recital. She was quiet during the whole performance and I feel more confident about taking her to one or two of our shorter performances with a roommate to puppy-sit. If that doesn't work out, though, I'll just stick her in the soft crate in the choir room and check on her during intermissions. We're getting ready for a choir retreat in a couple weeks so I'll get to see how she deals with more noise in smaller quarters (and have her off her eating schedule again :P).

Squeak and Squawk

2009-09-12T21:08:00.000-05:00

9/11 from a dog guide user's perspective

2009-09-11T09:22:00.000-05:00

I heard this story told by Michael Hingson himself at a National Federation of the Blind conference in August of 2007 and thought it appropriate to share with y'all today.

http://upload.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/michaelhingson.htm

Continuing Previous Threads of Thought

2009-09-10T20:03:00.000-05:00

First--an update on the truck problem. Same place, same truck, same scared reaction. Prada tried everything from running away from the truck to trying to climb into the back seat to avoid the location with which she associates pain in her tail. This time, though I decided that halway in my lap wasn't acceptable, that she needed to 'grow up.' So i bodily lifted her into position and held her there firmly but gently, all the while praising and comforting her. She shook badly the first half of the ride, then I rolled down our window and she poked her nose out and settlled down a bit but she was still a tightly wound spring when I let her out. Progress, it appears. We'll just take each ride as it comes and I have confidence that she'll get over her fear with Mommy's help :)

Second...new game and new information! One of my roommates and I took Prada out to play in the long, spacious hallways of Franz' fourth ffloor-OFF LEASH! We checked and made sure all the doors to the various stairwells were closed so she couldn't escape that way, then let her loose and tried to interest her in a game of "chase the squeaky." It worked for a bit, then she decided she just wanted to run for a bit so I raced her up and down the halls. As we gave her more and more reign over the various sidehalls she became increasingly attached to us, and oftentimes refused to run past the door she knew led to home. I see this as a great indicator of how well she's bonded to me, and the fact that she is responding to the "come" command with greater and greater energy, especially when i use it outside of the suite, is extremely encouraging. When people came in and out of their rooms she would trot down to say hello, but if she had to walk past our door to get to them she halted and turned to point straight at the door. She is definitely quite attatched and showing more and more of the singleminded shepherdly devotion that is characteristic of her breed. Yay Prada!

Tails and Travel

2009-09-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

There is one building on campus that's nearly cut off from the main studnet thoroughfares. It's cut off by a six-lane street, Sparkman Drive, and is only partially lined with sidewalks. This makes it inaccessable if you don't drive. I, of course, do not, and the world is a safer place because of this. However, it's here many of my upper-level classes will be, and one class that I have right now. Tech Hall (officially Olen B. King Technology Hall) hosts most of the engineering classes and computer labs and is a hub on campus, despite its awkward location. How do Prada and I get to my Intro to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering class? A friend drives me there a couple of times per week before her class, and picks me up afterwards. We have an unofficial agreement going--she drives me, I feed her. Since she lives off-campus I and my roommates opened our suite to her as a crash-zone, place to leave books and extra clothes, a toothbrush, and a food stop. It's part of the "412 Family," as we call it. Last week when my friend dropped picked me up after lab at Tech Hall I climbed into her truck, moved Prada's tail out of the door, and closed it--right onto the tail that she'd just moved BACK into the door. Fortunately I didn't close it hard and it only pulled out some hair but the experience was certainly painful, and very scary. Prada insisted on riding back in my lap (there's more shepherd than there is lap, but we made it work) and was shaking the entire time. She calmed down as soon as we got out and seemed fine for the rest of the week. Yesterday, my friend picked me up to go to class and Prada had no qualms about getting into the truck so I thought she had forgotten aobut it. This, unfortunately, did not prove to be the case. When my friend picked us up again Prada did NOT want to get back into the truck. It was the same place where the tail incident had occured, and she was shaking again. I got her into the truck without incident but she insisted on riding at least halfway in my lap and trembled the whole way back again. When I took her up to our suite she immediately went into the new soft-crate I'd just purchased for her and stayed there. When I pulled the harness down to go on a quick errand a few minuets later she didn't want to come out, almost refusing to obey my "come" command. Since it was just across the street I let her stay in her crate and took my cane, returning a few minutes later. But between the time that I left and returned a thunderstorm broke over the campus. When I got back up to 412, Prada was still in her crate. She didn't seem upset by the storm, just sort of quiet and punky all afternoon. Eventually I dragged the crate out to the common room so i could keep an eye on her while working, after failing to interest her in a game of 'chase the squeaky." She seemed to perk up a little around feeding time and was fine by that evening. this morning, although she didn't get me up, was awake and perky as soon as my feet hit the floor and was more than ready to work. Questions I have regarding this: Will it happen again? Will it lessen each time we try the truck thing in the same place? Does she actually remember the event or only the sensations associated with the location? Did I handle it correctly? I remember TSE trainers suggesting that if such an event occurs we should be loving, understanding, but not make an event of the deal to let the dog know that if we aren't worried, they shouldn't be. I did curl up with her for a little bit to comfort her, then went about my homework and her schedule as normal for the afternoon and evening. Only time will tell if this actually works. We have to go back to Tech Hall tomorrow so I'll let y'all know how that goes.

In other, happier news, I have discovereed a wonderful thing. Confidence. I'm a naturally curious and confident person. I like exploring new places, people, food, information (especially information!). But I am also incredibly directionally challenged. As aware of this as I am I have often limited my geographical explorations. With Prada, however, I know I can always return to familiar ground--because she can find it! Sunday evening found me with time to kill, a nice evening, and an energetic puppy. So Prada and I went on a walk. I decided to take her somewhere new so her mind would be exericsed, as well. It was a route I travelled a lot last year but hadn't needed to this year so I was confident in taking it. Then inspiration hit--usually not a good thing :). I had heard people describing a route between the library, music building, and the Materials Science Building. My route to the Material Science Building (MSC, in future) was extremely long and a bit on the risky side but I didn't know any other way to get there. That night, though, I realized I had time to explore a bit and Prada could take me back to familiar ground if I got too turned around! So off we went. Now I have a route that cuts a 20-minute trip down to 10 minutes! it's also safer, given that it stays in the moer populated areas of campus. It amazes me how much more confidently I can investigate such things. Prada's presence has expanded my world more than any amount of cane travel ever could have. it's curious to see how I'm not willing to trust a mechanical device that I control (cane) but I will put such faith in an independent being (Prada). Completely unnatural to human nature.

Fixing an "oops"

2009-09-06T13:43:00.000-05:00

Mom pointed out to me over the weekend that I had accidentally posted some stuff for this blog on another blog that I have since let die off, so here's the stuff y'all are missing....

Sweet Home Alabama

(originally dated August 13th, covereing the 12th and 13th) Ok, so that was probably the most cliche title I've used yet but it sort of begged to be in there...I am now in Huntsville, Alabama, prepping for my sophomore year at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Prada and I flew in on the 12th and have been running ourselves ragged ever since then. The flight went well, if a bit delay-ridden. We almost didn't make it to the airport on time but managed to slip in just in time to board. The flight attendants ended up moving me to First Class since that was the only place they had enough room to give me my whole row. Very nice accommodations, I must say, and here's a salute to the flight attendants at United Airlines. Their ground staff and flight crews are wonderfully accommodating to us VIPs and other disabled passengers. Extremely friendly and attentive and helpful. Yay United! The groundstaff for the Denver airport, however, doesn't get the same shout-out. The gate agent at my landing gate (a United employee) was quite irate by the time an M&A (Meet and Assist) agent arrived at the gate. She had called for him to come and guide me to my connecting gate but he'd taken 40 minutes to get there. I only just made it to my gate in time, where the wonderful United gate agent there was waiting for me so she could check me in as a pre-boarding passenger. I had enough time to ask one of the airport staff if there was a place I could take Prada outside to park. Federal regulation requires all major airports to provide a relief area for service animals. Apparently the staffer I asked didn't know about this and didn't care. He tritely informed me that the only way I could take her out was to give him the leash and let him take her out, I couldn't come to the area he was thinking of for her. That, of course, I absolutely did NOT do. Better that Prada have a small accident when I'm the one with her to clean it up and take care of her than to hand her leash off to an already surly stranger who might traumatize her to the point of distrusting strangers in reflective jackets or even growling at them. So I decided she could wait till we got to Huntsville. Fortunately she could indeed wait that long, no accidents for Prada :). So what does it take for a VIP to get started each semester? The first step is to ensure that you're registered with the school's Office of Disability Services, or Disabled Student Services, or whatever they call it. We have the latter, here, DSS. This year we have a new coordinator for DSS who specializes in Asperger's Syndrome. I haven't met with her yet but I did call her to make sure she still had me on file and it looks like everything is in order. The next step is to send in a list of classes to the coordinator that you think you'll need accomodations in (extended testing time, enlarged materials, electronic books, special seating (for hearing impaired or wheelchair bound), in-class assistants to read white-boards or interpret into sign language, et cetera). The coordinator then sends you several LOA's (Letter of Accommodation). This is to be handed to the professor of each class. It's a letter that states clearly what the professor must allow for in your class and gives you a chance to have a quick face-to-face with the professor to iron out any details about classwork that you think your disability might not cooperate with. We also usually send emails to our professors ahead of time, requesting syllabi and book lists so we can start purchasing alternate-format books (audio books or electronic copies). I use the syllabi to go down to DSS and schedule all my exams there. Because I have extended time for my exams I take them with a proctor from DSS instead of under the professor in class. This way nobody gets disturbed and the professor doesn't have to reserve the classroom for extra time. I try to get all my exams scheduled at the beginning of the semester so I don't catch anybody by surprise. The next step is to locate all my classrooms and find accessible routes to and from each building I have to interact with. This now includes taking Prada to the classrooms and praising her each time we get to one successfully. I have only showed her one classroom so far because I was busy running other housekeeping errands on campus, such as returning the parking decal to the transportation office on campus. They apparently have no way to take me off the mailing list for this rather unnecessary item (yes, I park my dog but I don't do it in a parkinglot so they shouldn't charge me for the slot) but they do have a way that I can return the decal and get my automatic charge back. The gal at the transportation office was quite amused when I entered with my dog guide and handed her the parking decal. "I don't suppose you need this, do you?" 'no ma'am, but I sure do need the $120 you charged me for it!" She laughed and gave me the form to sign so they would put back the money they'd already taken from my account. I've been asked by the RA's in my residence hall to attend all of the floor meetings, even the ones of floors I don't live on, to introduce the students to Prada and educate them about how to handle her, answer questions, and alay concerns regarding typical doggy problems that Prada does not cause.

(this post is from about the 15th of August or so)

This is the last of the stuff I wrote and never got around to posting. I've got some more to write up but y'all will have to wait a bit for that. This should get you all caught up to about...oh...beginning of last week or so. To be honest, there haven't been too many major events between then and now, more conceptual discussion about how dog guides affect the lives of college students, professors, res hall life, et cetera. Not very exciting but definitely useful information if you're considering this as an alternative to a cane or sighted-guide all the time, or are just curious in general. So how's Prada settling in? Well, I think the camping trip right before flying out here helped her a bit, since she didn't eat on the trip she was hungry by the time we got here and she's been eating regularly, though last night was the first time she finished everything. It didn't take long for her to adjust her park schedule but she didn't like it when I woke her up this morning at what felt like 4:30. She's been quite happy with our increased work schedule, running all over campus, and has collected several new devotees among the staff and faculty. Her new spot is a corner underneath my halflofted bed, a nice little cave furnished with her mat, a tie-down, her nylabone, and water dish, and we've already discovered that we have room to play with the much-adored oven-mit. My dorm is not your typical college dorm, but a quad. It includes: a common room, kitchenet, two bathrooms, two showers, 4 bathroom sinks and counterspaces, and 4 bedrooms. I have three wonderful roommates, two of them roomed with me last year and the third is a friend from down the hall moving in with us, who are all excited about moving in with Prada and quite good-natured about the pending invasion of dog-hair. We are prepared with lint-rollers, brushes, and vaccuum cleaners to combat this problem but it's generally accepted that she sheds, and it's just gonna be that way. I can't wait till the rest of them move in this weekend, having not seen them all summer!!! Welcome back to UAH, girls! Yes, believe it or not, someone actually tried to deny access to Her Gorgeousness. An employee at Wal-Mart demanded to see papers of some kind proving Prada was a service animal. This demand is illegal and the punishment for making it is quite stiff, and the employee refused to go look at the picture on the door that said 'Service Animals Welcome!" She said she'd go get her manager, which she did. The manager, quite opposite to the surly employee, very politely told us we were fine, to go on ahead, and that Prada was beautiful. She then proceded to educate her underling about service animal protocol. The underling didn't seem happy with the resolution but didn't argue with her manager. However we (a friend had come with me on the shopping trip) decided we'd had enough of Wal-Mart, and as we both dislike shopping there in general, decided to leave. My friend made quite a point of saying "we're going to Target" as we left the store, very audible by the employee and her manager. I am going to try Wal-Mart again in a few weeks and, as unlikely as it is, if we have more trouble there I will see the store manager (not just a department manager, the top dog for that store) and strongly advise an education session be held for all floor employees. I may even offer to provide the education myself, so long as it happens. This experience contrasts significantly with the one I had this afternoon at Bojangles, a local southern fast-food joint. The store manager happened to see us coming in and opened the door for me and Prada, and the staff were quite thrilled to see Prada, had plenty of the typical "is she a purebred shepherd?" questions and compliments, and so forth. Yay for Bojangles!

(this one is not date-specific, really, but if you care to know it was written sometime last week).

Prada has an amazing internal clock. 6:30, on the dot, and she's up and trying to get me to join her. As we live on the fourth floor of our residence hall (to be referred to in future as Franz) I generally accomodate her early rising because it takes us a bit longer to get outside for parktime. On campus I am pleased to report we have had absolutely NO access issues at all. In fact, the staff and faculty and administrators have all welcomed Prada quite enthusiastically, as she is the first dog guide to come on campus. She is quickly becoming the most well-known resident of Franz, one of the RA's has determined that she should be the building mascott. I have to say the few issues I do have on campus are quite trivial.

1. We have to slide a card through a reader to get into Franz (like sliding a credit card). This is a wonderful security feature, I really do appreciate what it does for us. BUT...it is a bit difficult to get out a card from my wallet and slide it through the reader while holding onto Prada's leash. The card process usually requires two hands, though I can occasionally manage it with one. If I'm carrying anything, though, it's quite challenging. My solution to this problem? Make it a flat-scan system where you just hold the card up to a reader pad instead of sliding it. These are generally strong enough to where you can just hold a not-obese wallet up to the reader and it'll unlock for you, so this would eliminate more than half the process, thereby saving time and energy and hastle.
2. Students seem to think that holding a hand out for the dog to sniff (as is the generally accepted method of meeting a new dog) is not included in "please don't pet her, she's working right now." I understand the training they've received from their parents, and normally they're doing the right thing but Prada's working, and even hand-sniffing is a distraction. Really, there's not a lot I can do to prevent this so I content myself with 'red-handed advocacy,' explaining why that's not ok after I ask them not to post act initiation. Minor frustration, but I'll be dealing with it for the rest of my life so it's ok. And better this than people freaking out about her, I think.
3. Our cafeteria doesn't use trays. You have a plate, a cup, sometimes one of those little plastic basket thingies, and then whatever else you're carrying, and in my case, a dog guide hardness to handle with just two hands. it's a touch on the difficult side since I'm not a proficient juggler. However I don't use the caf very often as our suite has a kitchennet and plenty of food-storage space (and my roommates and I collaborated on a rather large collection of small cooking appliances so we can cook in more often than eating out. cheaper, healthier, generally tastes better) and another disabled student on campus informs me that there is a process by which you can request a tray for the caf. Since I'm rarely there, though, I haven't bothered to test this process and I don't foresee this being any major issue. Just something that other dog guide users should be aware of for future considerations.
5. Residence Halls on UAH have a penchant for fire drills, and residents have a tendency to accidentally set off the fire alarm for no real reason other than over-cooked popcorn or smoking too close to the doors. These are extremely noisy and cause myself and Prada no small amount of aural shock. Not a huge issue, Prada doesn't appear too upset by them, but I can tell she's not comfortable with the noise. Nothing we can really do about this, though, so we deal and fire drills are usually followed by short play sessions to release some of the stress of the noise and rush.

As yet, those are really my only issues on campus, and considering the problems I COULD be dealing with and how easily resolvable these are I don't think we're doing too bad.

Prada has taken to charging admission for entering our suite. One bellyrub per person, and the more she likes you the more you pay. I get charged every time I get out of bed in the morning. She has also made it a practice to go poke each of my roommate's doors with her nose every time we come back to the suite after a trip. She wants to know if they're all there and how her flock is doing. If they're not in the suite she checks their rooms (usually closed and locked) and then returns to me. If they're home she visits each one in turn for pets and reassurances that they're ok, then comes to me.

We've designated a corner in our common room as Prada's place in the room, an additional piece of 'safe spot' for her where she can keep an eye on us all while we're hanging out in the common room. her nylabone hangs out in this location and that's usually where we try to keep her while we're eating. She's gotten into a few food items due mostly to me forgetting about whatever I was eating and going to do something else (I'm a bit distractable, but learning to be more responsible) or me forgetting that she's a bit taller than my sheltie. Tables and desks are nose-level for Prada, where they weren't for Lady. But, upset tummy for a couple of hours, whatever it was comes back up (and so far, it's all come up outside). and she's just fine. She hasn't shown any signs of a food-distraction yet, with the exception of cheese. Anything with cheese in it is extremely interesting so we're trying to remind her that she really shouldn't care by making her sit with her nylabone in her corner whenever we're eating. I expect this won't develope into a serious problem, just a temporary inconvenience.

I've sort of developed a system for introducing Prada to various groups I'm affiliated with on campus, such as choir and Bible study. Prada comes with me on harness to the event a few times, then at the end of whatever we're doing, say, a choir rehearsal, I will take the harness off just once for people to get their puppy-fix, get introduced, and for Prada to shed on them to her heart's content. After that, the harness stays on for all future meetings.

I've taken Prada with me to the track a few times since we've been here. Our fitness center has an indoor track that I really like because it is laned out and has a one-way sign on it so there's no confusion about where people are supposed to be. I don't have to keep track of randomly directed runners. it's also in a stable lighting situation and completely obstacle free so I can run with confidence that I'm not going to collide with anyone or anything. While I run Prada's leash is looped around one of the benches in the upstairs lounge area (the track is upstairs over the basketball courts) with one of the collapsable water dishes next to her. She remains in harness and her German Shepherdness has so far deterred interference. The first few times we went down there Prada would get excited when I'd run past her and sit up all perky, watching me. After that, though, she settled down and just waits for me. I've taken to carrying her nylabone around with me so she has something to do when we're in one place for several hours (like computer labs or the track).

OK, that's all the stuff that got posted in the wrong place....

Since then the only terribly significant event is that Prada has a new toy and has decided that the oven-mit can take a break for a while. Due to the fact that this toy contains a couple of squeakers, though, I will be limiting her access to it to hours when myself and my roommates are all awake, healthy, and not intently studying. It's essentially a rubber bone-shaped thing with tennis-ball fuzz covering it and tennis-ball shaped ends containing the squeakers. It bounces, is chewable, makes cool noises, and can even be part of a tug-of-war game, so she's quite pleased with it.

Making Headway

2009-08-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, I think htis is the last for tonight. I'll try to get some pictures up soon to go with this one but for now here's the body of the post.

Prada got to go on the beach!!!! We camped at South Beach, just south of Newport, Oregon, for a couple of days before I flew down to Alabama for the fall semester. Monday morning my sister and i took Prada down onto the sands for a quick walk before breakfast. I found it nearly impossible to keep her nose out of the dune shrubs and sand on the beach so I took her off harness to make it less stressful for all in general and let her nose about as much as she liked. When we got onto the harder sand right down onto the tideline Prada got really perky really quickly. As soon as she felt the water moving under the sand she attacked it with her paws, sending sand flying everywhere. We immediately retreated to our campsite in search of food and the camera. When we returned to the beach, camera with us this time, Karen took lots of pictures of Prada as we played in the waves and on the dunes. I did my best to make sure Prada didn't get totally soaked, only up to her belly from the splashes she made. The water and the hard sand made her really frisky and playful and we had a blast running on the sand and playing in the waves together. The only downside to all this hyperness is that she didn't retract her claws as much when we were playing and, as the Pacific Ocean is quite frigid, her claws dug into my nearly-numb legs quite painfully. She really didn't like it when I handed the leash off to Mom so I could go play farther out into the waves with Dad and was quite exuberant when I returned to her. On the Mom subject...

We realized that Prada would be attached to Mom whether she acknowledged and played with her or no so Mom finally got to pet and adore Prada. Prada didn't seem to increase her devotion to Mom, even seemed to draw a little closer to me now that the forbidden was no longer off-limits. Another student from my class at TSE said his dog was doing the same thing, almost, and we agreed it was probably natural behavior of dogs paired with people still living with their parents and that we didn't need to worry overmuch about it, especially since we were both headed off to college within a few weeks anyway. So Mom no longer has to ignore Prada and they are both quite happy.

(roughly around August 10-12)

How to Destroy a Bathroom 101

2009-08-30T19:05:00.000-05:00

August 6th

Bath time!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, Prada does not like taking a bath. My sheltie, Lady, was too meek to jump out of the bathtub but Prada does not have this same internal inhibition and the bathroom looked about like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when we finally finished. How do you bathe the dog? "Take her to a groomer!" Yeah, that's what I'm doing next time, over Christmas break, but in the summertime bathing her will be my job. Process is as follows.

1. Capture pup and corral her in bathroom. Sandbagging is not necessary but recommended for contianing pending flood.
2. Cover bathroom floor in old towels, preferably several layers thereof.
3. Turn on water to mildly warmer temperature.
4. Corner pup and lift her into tub.
5. Recapture pup and lift her into tub.
6. Finally figure out how to fill pitcher under faucet while holding pup still inside tub.
7. Douse puppy thoroughly.
8. Recapture pup.
9. Hold pup with one arm (preferrably your stronger arm!) while you drizzle a line of doggy shampoo down her back, from shoulders to base of tail.
10. Work in shampoo while bodily pinning pup to inside wall of tub.
11. Rinse pup while restraining.
12. Release pup.
13. Post flickerage towel pup off thoroughly, do a quick brush-over, then release pup into the rest of the house.
14. Call local disaster response team to help clean up the flood damage in the bathroom.

The more practical method of destroying a bathroom, of ourse, is loosing a five-year-old on a sugar high ith spraypaint, but if you do not have a five-year-old available this method proves equally effective

The Silence is Broken

2009-08-30T19:02:00.000-05:00

Wow...I had no idea our last few weeks at home and first few at college would be quite THIS busy, but apparently I was wrong (not surprising). I have so much to upload that I'm going to need quite a while to catch up but I'm finally getting to it! Sorry about the long wait...

Tuesday, August 4th -inhales deeply in preparation-

Fasten your seatbelts and grab your dictionaries, friends. I'm going to try to make this whirlwind of information as concise and understandable as possible and provide as many links to definitions and further reading as I can but it's still gonna be a doozy of a post!

First, a little medical history.

When I was about two years old I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a genetic eye disorder that starts with receding tunnel vision, night blindness, and fluctuating (at best) depth perception. With this prognosis my family and I expected that I would eventually become completely blind. Clearly, though, this never occurred and because my vision never displayed any of the progressions usually associated with RP Dr. Weleber at the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) altered the diagnosis when I was in middle school to Leber's Congenital Amaurosis, another genetic retinal degenerative that isn't quite as violently progressive as RP. Leber's didn't quite fit what I have but it was the closest thing he knew about, and given Dr. Weleber's status as one of the top researchers on genetic eye disorders nobody argued. He promised to narrow down the diagnosis as soon as he could, but that meant I would have to see him yearly and allow him to take blood samples every so often to send to their genetic sequencing lab in Iowa. This was, of course, agreed to, especially since our insurance covered it. The purpose of the blood draws was to take DNA samples to scientists that would compare that DNA with other samples from people with the same condition to figure out what the common thread was. Once the culprit gene was discovered they could sequence it (figure out the amino acid and protein line-up, essentially the building blocks of the gene) and synthesize a working replacement gene to give to chidlren born with the condition, maybe even figure out how to restore my vision through cellular and genetic therapy. This is, of course, decades down the road but it's at least on our horizon.

During the last couple of visits I've made to OHSU Dr. Weleber had made noise about some condiiton he called SECORD, Severee Early Childhood Onset Retinal Dystrophy. SECORD is extremely similar to Leber's with the exception of not being progressive at all (as far as we know) and having to do with deficiencies in the cilia, a thin cellular layer between the two layers of optical receptors in your eye. This is just about as close to my condition as it gets so I FINALLY have a diagnosis! I have SECORD.

Now, to this last Tuesday. An eye exam at OHSU, but not a normal one, by far. At a normal appointmoent the following takes place:

1. Visual Field Test--mapping peripheral (or lack thereof) vision: The patient is seated at a table, upon which rests a somewhat satelite-dish shaped apparatus with slgihtly more square dimmentions than expected. The apparatus has a chin and forehead rest that allows the patient to face into the center of the dish, in which is a green-light fixation point. The patient stares at the fixation point as dots of light of varying proximity to the fixation point steadily increase in brightness. When the dot of light reaches a brightness and is in an appropriate proximity to the fixation point to where the patient can see it he or she clicks a buzzer thingy that the technician gave them and that sends an electrical impulse to the computer, inputting a data point onto a field map. This test allows the doctor to see how good a patient's field of vision is at each point. This is done separately for each eye. The test continues when the technician uses the computer mouse to then take manual control of the dot of light and move it slowly across the fixation point in and out of the patient's field of vision. The patient clicks the buzzer thingy any time he or she sees the light and more data is collected. This map is then usually overlayed with the one made by the previous test. The previous is generally referred to as a static field test and the second a kinetic test. Each one is done once for each eye so a total of 4 field tests is conducted in all.
2. Optical exam: "look at the chart, what do you see?" Yep, that one. I have this built-in habit, though, that tells me 'if you can logically figure out what the letter is, do so!' so I'm sitting htere thinking "ok, that's got to be either a C or a G, 50/50 chance of getting this wrong..." so I would accidentally score higher on the exams, giving the impression that I had an acuity of up to 20/60 instead of my actual 20/200 or so. I'm probably closer to a 20/250 but I'm still teaching myself how to not involuntarily 'beat the exam.' *
3. Optical probe: this is the one where they dilate your eyes and then flash lights and lenses in front of you a whole bunch. Only for me, the dilating drops they use are so powerful that they have to add two numbing drops to each eye before they add the dilating agent. Six drops total, and after the dilation reaches its pinnacle any exposure to light is extremely painful to me for about twelve to eighteen hours following. So, soon as this point is reached, they start flashing the lights and lenses.

*NOTE: The 20-scale (20/20, 20/60, et cetera) operates as follows:
"My distance from object/average person's distance from object." So, if your acuity is 20/40 then what you can see at 20 feet most people can see at 40 feet.

On these regular exams Dr. Weleber would occasionally take blood samples to send back to the lab in Iowa, or have a technician take digital pictures of my retinae when they were sufficiently dilating but these were occasional, not every time. About every other visit or so.

THIS Exam:
1. Visual Field Test--same as above
2. Optical Exam and Probe: same as above, plus several extra drops for prep-work on the next section. At this point I've had a total of 6 drops per eye, 12 total.
3. ERG, Electro-Retinal Gram: The fun part...add three more drops per eye, total of 18. The ERG tech clips an electrical grounding wire to my ear (after I remove my earrings) and then slides a plastic contact-electrode over my eyeball. It's like a giant contact lense with an electrode and a wire attached to it. Right eye first, followed by left eye, same procedure. Then she has me stare at a screen with randomly scattered hexagons on it. "Stare straight at the center of the screen--there's a little red X there but you can't see that. It's going to flicker and rearrange the hexagons very rapidly for about a minute. During that time the electrode will feed data back into this other computer over here. You just sit there and stare at the X you can't see. IWe'll do 8 of these tests per eye." The whole flickering and randomizing thing would have been quite hypnotic if I hadn't had an elecrode stuck into my eye at the time. 16 tests later the technician guided me around the corner into an adjacent room and slid two electrode contacts into my eyes, now I've got two of them (plus 4 more eyedrops, 22 total now). Same routine, different screen.
4. Genetic Counselling: Yes, my genes have an identity crisis, they need serious counselling....just kidding. The genetic counsellor's job is to inform me that a new laboratory is opening up in San Diego. If the Iowa lab doesn't sequence the Cep-290 gene (the one that Dr. Welebere says is defiicient in my) within the year then Dr. Weleber would like my permission to send my DNA down to the new lab to get it done. So I get to sign a form and the vampire--I mean technician--gets to suck some more of my blood.
5. Optical Coherence Tomography: We're graphing Tom's! Not quite, actually. This is the light-wave version of an ultrasound imaging process. So I stare into another chin-rest/foreheat-rest apparatus into a little black boxy thing. At this point my eyes are so gooped out I can't really tell what the thing is. Inside the boxy thing a blue light expands into a nebulous luminosity, has a line going through it, moves around, changes size, and there's a red line above it. Essentially I stare into this vortex-ish light setup and blink whenever the OCT technician asks me to. This gives them a light-wave-generated image of my retinae, optical nerve, and cilia layers.

So.........all of these gadgetry and goopery is theoretically going to hellp Dr. Weleber pin down exactly which cells and which genes of mine need therapy, are causing the problem, and how to prevent this condition from appearing in future babies. I told Dr. Weleber that he couldn't cure me until Prada retired 'cause I loved her too much and he assured me the solution to this whole mes was still a decade or three down the road. No worries there.

-exhales heavily- ok, got all that out. Sorry about the avelanche, there. If y'all have more questions about this material as always you are encouraged to ask whenever you like and I will answer and/or provide supplemental resources as soon as I can.

Prada and Tigers and Hair, Oh My!

2009-08-05T19:37:00.000-05:00

Wow, I've been so busy lately I actualy had to look back at the blog archives to figure out where I left off! I've got quite a bit to catch y'al up on so I guess I'm back to reviewing one or two days at a time until we're back on track. Starting with...

Friday, July 31st

My friend Alan moved into his new appartment that morning so I took Prada along as I helped him move furniture. This is really only an event worth mentioned because I want to give a shout-out to the wonderful landlady who didn't give us any trouble whatsoever about bringing a service animal into the apartment. Some of the retrains told me horror stories about landlords/ladies that really didn't like service animals so here's a salute to the landlady at Alpine Village Apartment Complex on Fairview Avenue! Much thanks! That evening I stayed at my best friend's overnight. She didn't eat at Heather's that night or the next mornng, then that evening we went to my cousins' house to celebrate my grandmother's 75th birthday combined with my cousin's 21st and Prada wouldn't eat there, or at grandma's the next morning (we stayed overnight there), and then a friend and I took her out to a mall that evening (Sunday the 2nd of August). At the mall in a parking garage I stopped to feed her in an empty parking space, not really thinking she'd eat there because she doesn't eat at strange places. I had to try, though. Apparenty she was hungry after skipping four meals 'cause she ate every kibble! Prada had a long few days, there.

Now, we get to back up a bit to the afternoon of August 2nd.

Leah (the friend I was at the mall with) took me out to the property of one of the members of her church who owns tigers, wolves, skunks, peacocks, a bobcat, chickens, goats, horses, and dogs. Jim, the guy that owns this menagirie, charges $100 to pet the tigers, unless it's your birthday. I will be back in Alabama on my birthday so Leah, being the sweetheart that she is, arranged with Jim to let me pet them this Sunday so here are some pics of me and Sasha, the orange Siberian tiger. She's about two years old, roughly 700 lbs.

After I got back in the car Prada (who had remained in the car the entire time to prevent confrontation since Jim brought Sasha out on a leadline) got REALLY possessive. She tried to climb into my lap and was absolutely determined to lick all the tiger smell off my hands and shed all over the side of my leg that Sasha shed on. "MY person!" Very cute

Monday, July 3rd

Mostly boring, got stranded at home 'cause the minivan overheated and Dad had the car at work.

Tuesday July 4th will have to wait for another entry because I need to do some research to help explain everything that happened that day. Basically I went to my ophamologist's office for the day and Dr. Weleber explained a lot of stuff about my vision, its causes, and current and future research on genetic eye disorders like mine. So the next post will have a bunch of links and technical terms and definitions and a cute puppy story about Prada at the office. There's also a developement on the grandma fixation thing.

Paws on the Sand (not)

2009-07-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

The oven-mit continues to be a huge success. Prada and I played with it for over an hour at a park on Devil's Lake, near the Pacific Ocean yesterday. In order to beat the record high of 107 Fahrenheit in Salem Mom and I ran off to Lincoln City on the coast, where the weather was more favorable: lightly cloudy with highs in the upper 70's, lower 80's. Once again, though, I didn't feel like braving the task of de-sanding Prada that evening so we didn't hit the beach, just wandered around the commercial district. One of these days I'll actually get up the nerve to take her out on the beach but that hasn't happened yet. We're planning a beach excursion, a last family vacation before I leave for Huntsville, again, in a week and a half so maybe that'll be the day. While crossing a rather wide street onthe North end of town Prada and I discovereed a new traffic issue: right-hand turning vehicles at an intersection. Y'know, where you can turn right on a red light under certain conditions? Yeah. That sounds just like the parallel surge e blind folks use to determine whether or not it's safe to cross. The best way to avoid this, I guess, is to just wait an entire light cycle to better gauge the flow of traffic. This makes a trip take a little longer but if it keeps us from getting squishes I won't argue too much.

The results are In?

2009-07-28T17:53:00.000-05:00

Once again I must acclaim my mother's genius. She found a more immediate and less labor-intensive solution to the chewing on wrist problem. A heavy, quilted oven-mit was donated to the Prada's Playtime collection. Prada is obsessed with tug-of-war now and I expect to be teeth-mark free by Friday! In other news...the yip yesterday was a good yip indeed! Prada has taken to seeking me out if I leave her for a few minutes without giving the 'rest' command and shows a considerably increased amount of enthusiasm for when I get her up in the morning and let her out of her crate post vaccuuming. She is much more responsive when I call her and likes to follow me around when I let her offleash. Am I still keeping her on leash most of the time? Yes. Normally a dog guide would be permitted offleash by now but due to my mistake in the beginning and continued, though decreasing, fixation on my mother I decided to keep her close to me for a bit longer. I'm thinking I on't leave her offleash all day until probably the 3rd or 4th week that I'm at school. I don't want to take any chances or repeat my error of overconfidence from when I first brought her home. There's just too much at stake.

The weather here's been in triple digits or the high 90's for the past half week or so but Prada's insulation system, the double coat and panting mechanism, continue to amaze me. She's got just as much energy walking around Salem in 90 degrees as she does in 70. For my sake and that of whoever accompanies me I usually try to get out earlier in the morning or after 8pm at night so it's a bit cooler but there really isn't too much difference, except that after 8pm there's a lot more shade.

t-15 days!

2009-07-27T19:00:00.000-05:00

"It's gonna get me, Mom!" Prada shied carefully away from the floor fan in burlington's, a household wares and clothing department store in one of the malls near where we live. My friend and I had gone to the mall for a cool place to work Prada during the heat of a late July afternoon. The whirring fan with its strange, unnatural wind unnerved Prada a bit but not to an extent that she ran me into things. She just didn't want to walk next to it too closely. We had had a similar experience with a bag of woodchips set into a gutter in a neighborhood where Mom and I had walked the morning before so i wasn't surprised. I told her it was ok and to hup-up and she did. Next fan we came across she got a little braver and sniffed it. I was about to give her a correction for sniffing on the job when she jumped backwards, whuffling furiously at the thing and tugging me gently away from it. "IT got me!" No blood, no lost fur, she just got scared by the vibration of the grating that protected us from the blades.

Next day Prada and I went to an outdoor baptismal service yesterday. As the church operating the event was Baptist there was, of course, the requisite potluck involved. Fortunately for the attendees the area where the potluck and most of the service (all but the dunking) took place in a grassy, lightly-treed area with lots of shade and a wonderful breeze. It was warm but not unbearable up there and I dont' think anyone got sick from the boatloads of potato salad present. How does one take a dog guide thorugh a potluck line? By heeling the dog behind you. Now, having previously owned another dog and being familiar with dogs' nose-habits I must confess to not entirely trusting Prada to keep her long sniffer off the tables. I really needn't have worried, though. Every time I glanced back at her, alarmed by a twitch on the leash, I discovered her only intention at the time was to get rid of the gentle leader I had put on her earlier to prevent her from visiting while working! This has done quite a bit to boost my confidence in my dog's training. She hasn't begged once since I got her and only investigates tables and counters where things are moving.

Moving. Like caterpillars! "look, a fuzzy!" Mom bent down to show me a caterpillar crawling across the path at our favorite walking spot, the Oregon Gardens. I put my hand down to let the little guy crawl onto my hand to better observe him and Prada's ears flicked forward. Food? given that she had pulled her shepherdly trick of not eating this weekend while we stayed over at a friend's house for a night and she'd only eaten half her breakfast this morning I am not at all sprurised she looked at the little critter as crunchable. when I held the caterpillar I told her to sit. sit she did, but salivated the entire time, eyes glued to the little crawly bug. Eventually I let the traumatized creature crawl along its merry way and took Prada away so it could crawl to safety off the path.

On a more serious note...also while at the Gardens this morning I ended up giving Prada a two-handed correction for sniffing bushes on the job (she has a bush distraction?) and she yipped at me! I'd never made her yip before, though Bryan did once while in training. He explained to me after doing so that he hadn't hurt her at all, it was more of a 'oh shoot! I got caught!' yip. As soon as she returned to my side and did what I had originally asked her to do I knelt dewn and gave her quite profuse praise, including a bellyscratch-on-the-go (apparently it's possible to scratch while puppy is standing). She performed almost flawlessly for the rest of the day and seemed somewhat more cheerful about working with me. Have I made a tiny little breakthrough? Another step towards our bond? I hope so. Keep praying!

Puppy Quirks

2009-07-22T13:10:00.001-05:00

whoever named instant oatmeal obviously didn't know what they were talking about. While I heat water in the microwave for this almost-healthy breakfast item I have time to throw the kong toy 4 timex and retrieve it from under the couch at least once! Prada and I found ourselves exceptionally exuberant in our playtime as the weather finally cooled off a bit. As soon as we could we headed out with Mom to the Oregon Gardens for a long walk while it was still somewhat cool. We find ourselves at the Gardens quite frequently since it's good mental exercise for Prada--lots of turns and obstacles and overhanging avoidances--as well as physical exercise. A few trips previous to this one found us with a friend at the Gardens. We decided to take the little tour train around to see the whole thing before exploring. Prada apparently enjoyed the ride as this morning she made a point of showing me the train. "are we going for a ride?!?" Nope, sorry Prada. Gotta use your own four paws this morning!

I have fallen into some bad 'sighted' habits again, such as slowing Prada down before steps or curbs. Time to make my own occlusion glasses! It's amazing how difficult it is to not pay attention. I rarely, if ever, used my cane as a guide, reserving more for identification purposes so I never really learned to trust another object or being as a guide. This, I think, is yet another major disadvantage to being a 'high partial.' Oh well, another challenge for God to help me get through!

Although she still seems to have a "grandma fixation" Prada daily shows signs of transferring small pieces of loyalty to me. I am confident that we're doing the right things to develope the relationships properly and that first week at school before my roommates move in again will be exceptionally helpful to this end. 20 days before takeoff!

running out of mildly creative titles...

2009-07-21T11:58:00.000-05:00

It is a common fact among dog owners, breeders, and trainers that one should never alter the routine of a German Shepherd. This is why, on car rides, I usually appropriate the front seat in our minivan, and the back seat in the car. There's no room for Prada to sit on the floor of the back seat of the car, and it's a little tighter in the front seat, so I put a towel across half the back seat bench for her to sit on and I sit next to her. In the van, however, she can curl up at my feet on the floor of the front seat. The other day, though, Karen got to the front seat in the van first so I decided we'd try the back seat. There's plenty of room for Prada on the floor back there, right? I slid the door open and told Prada to hop up. Well, she did...right up onto the back seat. The other side of the seat was full of junk so she took MY spot. "Prada..." She looked so darn cute, all perky and smug and ready to go! I shooed her off and made her ride on the floor so I could sit down and she looked quite offended.

So this morning, while I was wrestling with Prada and trying to convince her not to chew off my wrist I had a sudden revelation, followed by a stroke of genius from my mother. I was wearing one of those cloth wristband things they sell at Hot Topic or Claire's for the goth wannabes (no, I'm not a goth wannabe, I just happen to like the wristband) and Prada seemed content to chew on that, which gave me some protection from her jaws, instead of just my wrist. When I showed this to my mother she had the bright idea of making fingerless gloves, like what we wear for skiing and just plain cold weather, and then reinforcing them with canvas or denim and making the wrist-coverings a bit longer. Lion taming gloves? No, but close enough so that I don't run the risk of often being mistaken for a chewtoy. I tried using one of our fingerless gloves and Prada was quite pleased with the thing, after she figured out what it was. She tried to pull it off to kill it but I wouldn't let her and eventually took it away so she wouldn't destroy one of our nicer ones but we're going to make doggy-safe gloves to save my wrists. Mom asked what colors I wanted and I said black but she thinks I should use neons and florescents so I can find them :P

Motherhood and Lion Taming

2009-07-17T13:04:00.000-05:00

She's gorgeous, that's all I can say! When I play with her I often feel like a lion tamer, dancing just out of reach of big ol' jaws as she leaps around me in the sunshine. These shots were taken by my sister at a park in Silverton, not too far from where we live.

When we play chase inside the house Prada and I take turns guarding certain entrances to the livingroom. Because of where the couches are set the open side of the living room has two entry points, each with a step down 'cause the room's sunken in a bit. Prada says in the living room and I run the hallway behind the couch. The goal is to not let the ohter one onto our territory. If i get distracted Prada will sneak up and stick one paw up on the stair to the hallway in a very toddler-like "nana you can't get me!" gesture. She is very much a two-year-old.

I have discovered that having a dog guide is very much like raising a toddler. She requires lots of love and attention and consistency and...geeze, I sound like my mother! Y'know that mom on the little league team with the bag full of extra stuff: the extra sweatshirt, extra juice boxes, extra granola bars, extra band-aids, extra everything? Yeah, that's me. When I go anywhere with prada for an extended period of time (several hours to overnight), or if it's warm outside when we're working I've always got my 'doggy bag' with a water bottle, extra water bowl, doggy boots, extra park bags, sometimes a nylabone, gentle leader...it's like a new mom's diaper bag, I guess. Got everything in it, and then some. When I go somewhere I'm always making sure I have a place to put her out of the sun if we'll be in one place for a while, somewhere to park her, feed her if necessary, got something for her to play with if we're seated for a long time...seems like a lot of extra work, doesn't it? So is it worth it? HECK YES! Not having to worry about running into poles, people, cars, tripping over steps or curbs, the security of having her with me...it is a huge stress relief from travelling independently or even with a cane. It's someone I can communicate with when I'm lost, someone who cares enough and knows how to make sure I don't run myself into something...I feel much safer and more relaxed working with her. I spend much less time watching where I'm going and more time focusing on the more important aspects of the journey: who I'm with, the destination, what I need to do when I get there and after I leave, run through that pesky section of a choir piece that I"m struggling with...it's so nice to be able to free up that much mental space!

Multas Gratias!

2009-07-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

I read once somewhere that in Hebrew there is no word for thanks or gratitude. One showed this sentiment by, whenever the person one wished to thank entered the room one would speak loudly to all of their deeds and virtues. I don't know if this is acurate or not but I'm going to pretend that I know it is because it makes what I'm about to do sound that much cooler. I am going to thank some people Hebrew-style.

Ok here's to the real heroes and heroines of my adventure so far. Mom, Dad, and little sister Karen, you guys have been WONDERFUL these past few weeks as I work on getting Prada acclimated to my lifestyle. These three awesome persons have been more than willing to accomodate our need for lots of exercise away from home, our rather limited functionality inside the house as far as housework and yardwork, and all of that. They've driven us places, picked up some of the slack for work around the house, and in general helped me and Prada do what we need to do to further our bond and training. I can't imagine better help than my family has given me and their selfless devotion to my success is a true blessing that I can only dream of repaying fully. I daily thank God my Father for giving such amazing family members. Mom, Dad, Karen, much love to you guys, you rock!

"Bad ol' Putty Tat!"

2009-07-14T13:37:00.000-05:00

Our cat, Mittens, has taken to teasing Prada mercilessly. When I'm outside working in the yard, spreading barkdust or picking our berries Prada is on her tiedown hooked to the fence near me with her nylabone to keep her busy. Her nearness and need for attention gives me a few welcome, short, play breaks. Mittens, however, has figured out taht the dog is restrained and can't get to him. He walksa cross the driveway, tantalizingly near to the grass she rests upon, or liesurely paces the yard over to a tree to climb, walking just a foot or so out of reach, quietly mewing at my mother, demanding her homage. That bratty furball has it in for my poor dog. Prada tries her best to ignore him but he's so close, and when he runs past her it's just too much temptation for her.

Kids, Beach, Shopping, Non Sequitor!

2009-07-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

Prada meets yardwork. That's where she gets to sit tied down to a porch support post with her nylabone and watch me stain a fence or haul barkdust! Not the most exciting thing for the dog but it's a good chance for her to learn how to stay out of trouble when i can't be with her at all times. She did great, as I expected.

Mom continues to ignore her and Prada's fixation seems to have diminished slightly but not enough for comfort. Mom says it's really hard not to affirm that little puppy look Prada gives her with her huge brown eyes but she knows it's better for our working relationship and has hope that by Christmas break, when I come home from school, she'll be able to play, too.

On Saturday we took Prada down to a family reunion-ish picnic to meet Mom's side of the family. In order to curb Prada's too-social working habits I cut back on the 'sit, ok now you (to small children) can pet her unless she stands up' routine. After a couple of hours I removed the harness and let the kids come and say hello, and then the harness went back on. This seems to have made a bit of a difference and I think I'll have to discipline myself into making this a habit. It's just so hard to say no to a cute little guy that asks so politely if he can pet the doggy!!! Saturday evening Prada joined me and a friend for a church service for college-aged students at my friend's church. Afterwards we moved to one of the rooms upstairs converted into a college-kid's hangout complete with food, couches, a TV, and fooseball table. I'd brought Prada's nylabone and, to distract her from the volleyball flying around the gym down the stairs, unharnessed her and gave her hte bone. Several of the students spent more than an hour watching my girl tear that thing apart (or try to) and chatting. Apparently it was quite phenomenal to them how the bone never really changed shape and she never lost interest. Afterwards she and my friend and I retretaed to a house where my friend was house-sitting. Prada spent the night literally halfway on top of me as we slept on the floor of the livingroom close to where my shepherd's mat was placed. I think that helped the bond a bit. Pack mentality? Once again Prada refused to eat more than a mouthful of kibble, being in a new area. Yet another reason why I'm moving back to school a week early: get her eating schedule back to normal before the rush starts.

Next morning Prada and my friend and I went and worked in her church's 2-year-old Sunday school classroom. I took Prada out of harness 'cause it's just a bit difficult to explain the concept of a orking dog to 2-year-olds, tied her down to a chair, gave her her bone, and let her sleep the whole time. She turned out to be a great hit with the kids, and tolerated their gentle stroking, even the wrong way, very quietly. One little girl, who apparently is growing up on a farm, got a puppy kiss on her cheek! She let me mostly ignore her and play with the kids, color, and hand out snack without much complaint, though she looked miffed when I left her alone to take the kids out to the gym to play with balls. That afternoon Prada got to go to the Oregon coast with me and my friend! Wheeeeeeeee.....wet! No surprise there, so we didn't go down onto the beach. Guess we'll find out how easily her fur collects sand on another trip. Instead we walked around one of the shopping centers in town, then went to our favorite restaurant. Prada received, as per usual, many admiring glances and comments and behaved rather well, though she clearly doesn't like shopping as much as I'd originally thought. To her it's about the same as museum work, except with the added oddity of the fitting room. Yet another tiny space for her to cram her loooooooong slinky body into while I monkey around with wierd bits of fabric and all that. Just doesn't make sense to my doggy. Oh well, she'll learn to live with it. Fortunately for her I'm not a huge shopper and have only done so much recently in order to get her out of the house. Once school kicks in we won't have time for hardly anything except essentials.

Random Musings

2009-07-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

This may or may not turn into another blog entry, i don't know yet. I'm just going to go through some of the emtoional history behind me and Prada to keep myself occupied for the next 45 minutes or so while I wait for the plane to take off.

When i first met Prada back in March i thought she was the most beautiful dog in the world. I loved working with her and I could tell she loved working in general. She had an energy and a curious intelligence about her that I like to think I myself possess. I never thought I'd get her, though. She was already older than most dog guides are when they're first assigned because at one point TSE had so many successful candidates in their puppy raising program that they asked the puppy raisers to hang onto a few of the dogs for a couple more months (and i"m sure they didn't argue!). Prada is about 2 and a half years old, where most dog guides are matched by the time they're almost 2 years, many at 18 months. Prada was also held for me through the April class because we worked so well. When Bryan handed me her leash that Monday afternoon, May 25th, I wanted to scream and cry and laugh and yell all at once, I was so excited. i expect I would've been for any dog but the fact that I knew Prada already and had allowed myself to develope an albeit slight emotional attachment to her made it that much more exciting. She was excited, having never been in the house (the main school building) before, and getting to meet a new--wait, do I know you?--person. She's extremely social for a shepherd. They say this is better than being more aloof and suspicious because that can lead to growling at people, overprotectiveness, and that's just plain dangerous, but we'll definitely have to find a balance and I'll always have to be feeling where her head moves through the harness when we're around people to make sure she's not visitng when she should be working. I heeled her back to my room and just sat on the floor with her for a whilee, petting and rubbing her belly and trying to calm her down as she suddenly realized that Shannon wasn't there anymore. She cried for a little bit and I felt her loss but I wanted her to transfer that same devotion she had for Shannon to me so when she cried I tried to redirect that loss to comfort, but not enough to train her that crying is ok on a regular basis. She settled in for a while but I don't think she ever had that sudden turnover that most shepherds experience. Because it took me so long to earn her respect and find her playstyle we didn't really develope an emotional connection till about the end of the second week together. it's been a little rough, and she still gets really excited when she sees Shannon, which is hard for me but I know someday when she doesn't have Shannon in front of her to remind herself of what was she'll transfer that excitement, and augment it considerably, to me. I admit to being jealous but not too much and I was patient, I knew I had to wait for her and someday it would happen. Shannon did nothing to encourage Prada's continued devotion, shepherds are just very loyal. Last ngiht Shannon came in to say goodbye to me and I let her and Prada say their goodbyes because I knew they would never see each other again and one or two minutes of exuberant petting and prancing wouldn't ruin her relaitonship with me. It was a beautiful thing, watching Prada's entire body fling itself into excited energy when Shanonn finally acknowledged her presence, after so long an indifferent ignorance. Prada threw herself at Shannon's legs demanding to be scratched and played with and Shannon readily obliged. I can't wait to see her do that with me someday. Shannon tells me that that was a fraction of what will be between us someday.

I wrote this on that long wait out of Newark on the way home from TSE. Prada and I have had a sort of rough road since then. There are brilliant flashes of extreme devotion on her side, and overall she is growing closer to me but it appears that she is much more excited to see every other member of my family except me. Especially Mom. When my sister or father enters the room Prada runs over to greet them with tail wagging. When I enter she sometimes looks up at me but generally isn't interested unless I've been gone for a longish period of time. Then she gets up and trots over to me and wants to be played with. She doesn't ask anyone but Dad to play with her and he doesn't give in as much, but she still would rather trail mom than come when I call her. 'Come" is improving but she is now learning that just because I don't have the leash on her doesn't mean I can't discipline her when she ignores me. It's hard, watching her be excited over everyone else and be almost indifferent to me. I fully expect, and Shannon confirmed this when I called her, that when I move back to school Prada will attach herself solely to my person but as it is it really is hard on me. I'll live, though. The end is in sight.

How is Prada? she is wonderful. Our playtime now consists of chasing each other around the couches in the living room, playfighting in the same room or out in the yard on our new retractable leadline, and playing with the kong toy. If I play dead she circles me, then picks up my hand, lays down and holds it in her paws like a bone, washes it thoroughly with her tongue, and then chew lightly on my hand. Anytime we end up sitting somewhere for a while she'll lay down and rest her head on my foot, or sit on my foot, or encircle said foot in her paws and rest her head on it. She is quite possessive of my feet. She continues to want attention as soon as I get up, then proceeds to breakfast, parking and then playtime. We've apparently gotten bored with the long straight country roads where I live so I've started volunteering to accompany Mom or my sister or father on any errands they have to do so I can get her out. My parents have been more than accomodating to our higher exercise needs, I am very grateful for that. Today we went to the pet store to pick up some doggy stuff; more park bags, a flexi lead, doggy dental wipes (think wet wipes with doggy toothpaste on them to wipe teeth and gums). These aren't absolutely necessary for dog health but they're generally recommended and i'd like Prada to be able to work for as long as she can.

Overall we're doing well as a team. Her work continues to build my travel confidence and she makes me laugh one way or another almost every day, between crossing her paws when she lays down on occasion, holding on to my foot, or being startled by a chipmunk. Prada saw her first deer the other day from inside our car. She'd been laying down on the back seat with me but when the deer crossed the road in front of us she shot upright and followed the odd creature with her head, ears askew as she tried to identify the strangeling.

I feel like this entry has been very nonsequitor, a bit on the disorganized side, and somewhat incomplete. So if there's something you guys wanna know about that i didn't cover or didn't cover well enough please let me know but I'm running out of energy at the moment, my puppy wore me out, so I'm going to sign off for the evening.

More Catching Up

2009-07-08T19:27:00.000-05:00

Friday, July 3rd (almost caught up!)

Prada does not understand museums. I may or may not have mentioned this before but it became quite apparent as my friend and I toured the Evergreen Aviation and Space museum. This is one of my favorite locations in Oregn, especially with the new building that holds all the space artifacts and displays. Yes, I'm a NASA nut. We could've spent hours there, and I probably could've spent days just in one of the buildings but Prada didn't understand why we would move two or three steps, then stop and stand there (reading or looking at something) for almost ten minuets, then scootch another few steps and stop again...confused puppy. She did well, though, and didn't run me into any tailfin tips or drop-foils (those little flap thingies that hang off the ends of wings and tails on airplanes). After grazing the museum floor for a while my friend and I continued back to OMSI for an imax dome film. Imax screens are six-seven story movie screens, but the one at OMSI is domed over the theatre so you get this awesome 3-D effect and surround image. Now, at TSE instructors mentioned that movie theatres and drama theatres aren't necessarily dog guides' favorite places. Lots of visuals and sounds with no logical explanation. So I was a little apprehensive about taking Prada into this scenario--and such an intense version thereof. When you go to an imax film, especially in a dome, you go for effect, not for plot or subject interest. In this case subject interest came along with affect, since we watched Adrenaline Rush: The Science of Risk. It was a phenomenal film, well worth seeing unless you're afraid of heights. Lots of skydiving and base jumping and wingsuiting and parasailing and all that fun stuff (that I want to try!). Prada did just fine, though. Slept most of the way through the film and behaved beautifully for all the other viewers oohing and ahhing over her gorgeous coat and working style.

Saturday, the 4th!

Prada and I didn't see fireworks. Neither of us are fond of high-pitched whilsting noises. Instead we went up to Champoeg State Park to observe a reenactment of how the 4th was celebrated in 1859, the year Oregon received statehood. It was simple, short, very interesting, and relaxing. We went with a few friends who had nothing else to do that day (all our families abandoned us for other plans) and then returned to my place for the evening to hang out. Prada got a bit bored at the reenactment and tried to play tug-of-war with the little tiny American flag they gave me but otherwise performed wonderfully.

Sunday, July 5th

nothing of interest

Monday, JUly 6th

Item of interest: a tour of the YMCA. Prada came nose-to-nose with basketball courts, an indoor track, weights, exercise machinery, a martial arts class, and an indoor pool. The only thing that really bothered her was the treadmill but after a quick investigation she relaxed. She has not interest at all in flying balls, which pleases me, and seems to somewhat dislike them so we shouldn't have that issue since I spend a fair amount of tiime at my school's fitness center during the school year. My only concern is that she may grow restless when placed on tiedown when I run the track. Oh, well, guess she'll get used to it. If it becomes an absolutely unsolveable problem there's always the treadmill option.

Yesterday Prada acted like a little two-year-old at my dentist appointment. She refused to lay down for more than a minute and a half at a time, bound and determined to investigate every strange smell and sound. I finally resorted to the gentle leader and she stayed down for the rest of the appointment, then walked me through a drive-through at a small local coffee shop (that's how blind people use those things, even drive-up ATMS, so that explains the braille on them, I guess). Wouldn't be the first time I walked thorugh a drive-through but Prada made the process a bit easier. More visible mass to encourage cars to keep their distance behind us.

Today (I DID IT! all caught up now!)

Lovely long walk through the Oregon Gardens (when did I stop starting sentences properly?). Prada has a slight plant-distraction but that's easily remedied by a phooey and sometimes a leash-correction.

So how's her work in all of this coming along? It seems as if i've just been keeping an events journal and not focusing on the more interesting aspects such as her work improvement and quirks, and the emotional trail that we've been walking the past month and a half. Since this entry is long enough, though, I 'll save all that for tomorrow or the day after. I know at least a couple of y'all have lives other than reading my blog :)

Back Again!

2009-07-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

Ah, summer 'vacation!' Vacated has free time, vacated has lazy warm afternoons and relaxing mornings...yeah, we've been busy and you, my poor readers, have suffered a probably much-needed break from my electronic ramblings. But, work must resume!

Sunday, June...last Sunday in June (yes, I'm too lazy to look it up or do the math).

Church, full service this time. Prada behaved wonderfully and received many acolades. Her fanclub continues to grow exponentially. I have discovered that everywhere we go it is imperative that we be accosted by anyone who owns/has owned a sheperd, knows a shepherd owner, has seen a long-haired shepherd. It is a law of nature. What will be, will be. That afternoon my friend and I went to World Beat Festival at the riverfront park, a multicultural music and food and crafts event. Prada cleared paths and sniffed razor-sharp obsidion arrowheads and listened to Japanese drum music and watched my friend and I spar some more with long stems of anis (forgive the incorrect spelling, it's the stuff licorice is flavored with).

Monday, the day after the last Sunday in June (oh that took some figuring out, my brain hurts :P )

Mostly a relaxing day, Prada got to observe pool activity as my friend and I cooled off after a long walk in the surrounding countryside with a dip in our in-ground pool. She didn't have the lifeguard reaction and didn't seem interested in playing at all so I'm confident that lap-swimming at my school's fitness center won't be an issue.

Tuesday, June 30th (yes, I actually did the math (counting backwards from the 4th...))

Big day! Prada's first camping trip! Across the mountains to the high desert area my mother, friend, and I took Prada yurting. Yurting? Is that a verb? About as valid as google and iki, I guess...but I digress. Yurting is considered 'cityslicker' camping by most people but it's ideal for travelling with a dog guide because it gives a contained space where we can play and shuts out some of the night noises that might set her off. It was also warmer at night, which is a good thing when camping in the desert, and kept Prada a little cleaner. She still managed to get herself dusty everey ten minutes or so but...c'est la vie, we're camping. I'll summarize the camping trip into one day's section and then call it off for the night and post more tomorrow evening (hopefully). Tuesday evening we drove into Bend to let Prada stretch her legs a bit, wandered around downtown by the river a ways. Prada was quite fascinated by geese out on the rier. mesmerized. "Why are there animals floating on the water?" The next day we hiked up through the obsidion flows, hillsides covereed entirely in glassed rock. Absolutely stunning! Prada wore her little boots and complained almost the whole way about it. We discovered that the rough obsidion trails aren't the best for working dogs and I think I should have heeled her through most of that. The trail was hard to find at times and it was impossible for her to anticipate what I would trip on or run into. I don't think a lot of hardcore offroading is in our near future but I won't give it up. Maybe give it a year or so for the two of us to learn each other's body language and figure out some systems before we give it another go. We drove up to Paulina Peak and hiked around there for a bit, then that evening we drove into Sisters to do another last walk-around to tire the puppy out so she'd sleep better. We brought the hard crate for her to sleep in and I discovered that packing a minivan with a hard crate in it for storage purposes makes fitting everything in work very nicely. Haven't purchased the soft crate yet, can't decide if I want to wait and buy that when I go back to school so I don't have to ship it. Once again her eating habits suffered but as soon as we got home the next day they went right back to normal.

Camping, day #3 (July 2nd).
Hiked most of the way up Black Butte after packing everything up. Apparently Black Butte is sort of on the way home so it made sense to break camp and then go hiking. At first I had Prada wearing hte boots again but the trail proved mostly sand and a few roots and larger rocks so I took them off. It was a really hot day, a steep climb, and a long one. At one point a large log crossed the trail and on the way up Prada and I went boony-crashing around it but on the way back we just climbed (well I climbed, she jumped) over it. After we crossed the log on the way up we hiked a bit farther, then Prada lay down in the trail. -flop- "I'm done, mom." We'd stopped a couple of times already for water, and since I'd brought her collapsable water bowl Prada wasn't dehydrated, it was just long and steep and hot so I decided to take her back down and not risk heat exhaustion on her part, letting my mom and friend finish the hike. Apparently they didn't top the butte, deciding that a trip in to Sisters to the Snocap Cafe for ice cream was more important. After a lengthy drive back over the pass we got home, got cleaned up, and Prada's eating habits returned to normal. Yay!

Ok, that's enough for one post, I think. I really hope to have y'all all caught up by this Saturday but I think I've said something like that before and here we are...anyway, I'm trying!

The Silence is Broken

2009-07-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know I said the posts would be more infrequent once I returned from New Jersey but I didn't really mean a whole week's silence. This did occur, however, due to the arrival of a friend of mine in the area from out of state. Spent the whole week taking her and Prada all around Oregon showing off our wonderful state. I've got quite a bit to write about and some great puppy pictures for y'all but I'll try to break it up into several posts so I don't everwhelm y'all 'cause I'm sure y'all have lives and don't just spend all day surfing the net while waiting for me to post again.

Friday, June 26th
Prada and my friend and I visited the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), where Prada took on the role of a K9 unit sleeping at our feet as we played around in the interactive CSI exhibit. OMSI is an interactive science museum so there were plenty of things to touch and fiddle with and sniff, including a static electricity display that set Prada's fur on end. She wasn't too impressed with that and shook herself out several times to try and diffuse the effect. I have discovered that Prada, understandably, does not understand museums. "It's a route, right? So we get through and get done quickly and go home and play!" Eventually I got her to steady down to a more sedate pace as we toured the exhibit halls, laboratories, and such. Mom held her leash while we rode the motion simulator thingy and Prada fairly jumped into my arms as I came back to her. She still retains a certain level of attachment to Mom but she's slowly transferring her loyalty more completely to me as Mom and Dad studiously ignore her to help her get the right idea.

Saturday, June 27th
Took Prada and my friend to my grandmother's ranch, where we hiked thorugh the cow pastures looking for the bovine inhabitants. Didn't find any of those, but collected a huge number of burrs and other irritating little seets and stickers in both people hair, socks, and dog fur. I got to see how Prada would behave for a martial arts class when my friend and I sparred with both sticks (makeshift foils) and some hand-to-hand combat drills. I put her on tiedown around one of the porch supports at Grandma's house and she lay quietly while my friend and I practiced falls, throws, gardes, blocks, and self-defense techniques. She got a little excited when I came over to check on her. "Pleaytime?" so I obliged briefly, then hooked her back up. While at the ranch I discovered the hard way that Prada and "come" haven't quite gotten well acquainted yet. Coming down from the upper pastures (where we didn't find any cows, to our disappointment. Prada will meet them later) I slipped on some dry grass. Prada, on leash and out of harness, slid from my grasp and trotted away, despite my mildly irritated commands to return. She went straight down to the house , where my father caught the dragging leash and held her for me. I have since implimented a game that shoiuld help with this slight problem, and appears to have made a bit of an improvement on the situation. I command her to lay down somewhere, on leash, then go hide and call her to me. When she successfully reaches me she receives lots and lots and lots of praise! Hide-and-seek has become a teaching tool.

Ok, I think that's enough for one post. I'll write more tomorrow and hopefully by Tuesday have y'all all caught up.

Problem Alert

2009-06-26T00:15:00.000-05:00

We have a problem, diagnosed as Grandma Fixation. My mother has become 'gradma' to Prada. "Mom's making me sit -looks up at my mother- you're not going to make me do this, are you?" I think that my letting her off the leash in the house yesterday was too early. She's not enough of a shadow to me for such independence. So..."you mean TSE was right when they strongly suggested two weeks on leahs? really? They know what they're talking abut after 80 years of dog training?) Ok, I get it, I messed up, we're fixing it. Solution: Mom (my mom, not Prada's) ignores Prada more when she's out of harness and Prada goes back on leash so she's glued to my side for a while longer. After several long walks today with and without my mom along the situation seems to improve slightly but I expect it will take some time to clear up.

Kitties and Languages and All That Jazz

2009-06-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

Sunglasses! I've never felt comfortable wearing them before but now that I have Prada I don't need to see while I'm walking. Random fact? i want to go buy sunglasses :).

Language Barrier

I found it quite funny the other day, a misunderstanding my mother and I had at an intersection. She told me it was a fourway stop and then said 'ok go when you're ready,' allowing me and Prada to make the crossing choice. Well, I kept waiting and she kept telling me "they're waiting for you to go, honey" and we both got frustrated as neither of us nor the cars at the intersection moved. Tthen it hit me. "What kind of control does this intersection have/" I asked. "It's a fourway stop" Mom repeated most unhelpfully. "Ok, but is it a light or a stopsign or...?" "It's a fourway stop so it has stop signs" she told me again, both more frustrated than ever now. CLICK! "Mom, I never read the drivers' manual, don't drive. I have no idea what a fourway stop is." Language Barrier: I don't speak Driver and she doesn't speak Blind Traveller. She knew what a fourway meant to her but I'd never had to learn. To me the important thing about an intersection is how it's controlled. Light, stopsign, et cetera. Time for both of us to learn a new language!

Attack of the Black Cat:

Last night I went to a friend's house for dinner. She has two cats: Koko is accustomed to dogs, and has no problem bossing them around, while Ayden is not used to them being there and was quite freaked out by Prada's entrance. I kept her on harness at first and she ignored the hissing black angry creature. Koko left her alone. Then I took her off harness and sat down on a couch. Prada slid herself under the couch and was quite happy to sit there and watch Kok, who watched her. Ayden orbited our location several times at varying paces and distances, then got to within a foot and a half of her at one point but never made nose-contact. They observed each other passively and created a soldier's truce. Then it was time to leave. Koko sat himself directly in the hallway and since Prada was back in harness she was quite bemused, kept glancing up at me. "Mom, I know I'm supposed to ignore the kitty but I can't get you around it without running you into something..." I bent forward and shooed the little fuzzball out of the way. Ayden perched himself on a box as we were heading out and as we walked past him took a swing at Prada's nose. Fortunately he didn't make contact, and my friend had been courteous enough to cut his claws down a bit before we came over but it scared my poor doggy and she yelped and leaped behind me instead of pursuing the offending feline. YAY PRADA! That's EXACTLY what a Seeing Eye dog should do, leave the kitty alone, don't pursue! I am confident that she'll behave herself around almost anything now :).

Mom dubbed Prada Tinkerbell this morning because I let her off leash with her bell on for a few hours. Prada is ecstatic about her new freedom but I'm afraid I won't let it last the whole day. Too early for that.

Details, Details...

2009-06-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

So, more details on last ngiht, as I realize the blog is almost turning into an online journal, and that's not exactly what it's supposed to be. I dont' think Prada's ever been on a footbridge beofre because when I walkekd her across the one bridging the Mighty Muddy Willamete River she kept sticking her nose through the bars to see why the walkway didn't wall into the water that was clearly visible below. I don't think it made her nervous, just confused, so I'm going to take her there a couple more times. Other new experience? Screen doors. "why can't I get thorugh this/" Doggy vision is best with moving objects so screens are ahrder for them to see 'cause they don't move unless you're optening them. She sniffed ours thoroughly several times before deciding it was OK. This morning I took her grocery shopping with mom and she got quite confused by the doors of the refrigeration units used for dairy products. it had a door handle but it didn't touch the ground...what was she supposed to do? At first she showed me every single handle, then decided that since I wasn't interested it wasn't worth her while. We stopped at the next store over, a kind of everything miscellaneous store, and worked through there a bit while Mom looked for tablecloths and then came home. I hope to take her out on a longer walk tonight with Dad since Mom's kicking us out of the house for the evening (ladies Bible study group dinner). Prada has reduced her food-intake, which Im sure my wallet will appreciate, since we're not working as hard, but I expect that it will increase again when we get back to school. It's harder right now since I'm not working or taking classes anywhere so I don't have set places to go and I find myself having to look for opportunities to get out. i expect Christmas break to be a bit like that but slightly more busy, and hopefully next summer I'll be working somewhere so we won't have as much downtime.

Our days are settling into something of a routine, at least the mornings are. Get up, play with puppy ("rub my tummy!"), feed, water, park, then into the kitchen where I seal off that area, take the leash off, and throw the kong toy for her. Can't do that in my room, kongs don't bounce on carpet, but the kitchen is a contained area so I can keep track of her and it's got wood floors, perfect for kong play. I usually try to take her out into the back yard to play on leash a bit (no fence, gotta be on leash) if the weather's nice. Mom bought Prada a rope toy--long ropy thing with a knot at one end and a loop at the other--and sometimes when I bring her back to my room she'll go get it and throw it at me, a suggestion that tug-of-war would be appreciated. it takes her a bit to get a good grip on the thing, though, 'cause she can't decide if she likes biting hte knot or somewhere between the knot and the loop better. Then breakfast time for me, and I usually try to get a walk or a trip in at about 8:30, 9am ish. After that, who knows what's going to happen but I'm trying to get Prada out at least twice a day, if only for long walks in our area. Where I live there are no city blocks and very little shoulders on the road so we get a lot of practice with country work.

Tomorrow I'm taking Prada in to one of the state offices here in town where my father works so she can meet his coworkers. Good education opportunity for them, good practice for us, then run a few more errands to keep her active during the day. The quirk in tomorrow's planned route is a cube farm. Lots of those little office cubicles, lots of filing cabinets, tight spaces, all sorts of fun obstacles!

Days Go By

2009-06-22T00:09:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy couple of days but so far Mom and Dad are passing 'how to deal with your daughter's dog guide 101' with flying colors. Over t he past couple of days I've takken Prada fabric shopping, out to an Oriental restaurant in town, the mall, church, and a long walk along the riverfront park. She's eating less than she did at TSE but that's only 'cause we're not walking as much, though I'm trying to increase the number of times we get out. If I can't get length I'll go for quantity. She's settled in to her new home, new park place, new routine quite nicely and I hope to have her firmly scheduled by the middle of next week, as best I can here with my own rather erratic schedule. She's making structure my days a bit more, which my parents approve of :) I'm hoping to take her to my dad's office next week, as well as the local community college, the YM/WCA's pool, and a few other business places, maybe a grocery store. Some of these are errands I have to run but I really don't h ave that many places I need to be in this particular summer since i'm not working or volunteering anywhere so I'm making special outings to keep he rin practice for when i get to school and have a more crowded schedule and need her work in top condition.

I expect the posts will be fewer and farther between for a while but I'll definitely keep writing. Haven't found any international dog guide law websites yet but I'm still looking, for those who are curious.

Service Animal FAQ's

2009-06-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

Thought some of you might find this interesting...

Service Animal FAQ's

Prada woke me up a half hour earlier than I'd planned on getting up but it was later than I thought she'd sleep so I'm not complaining. Had a fairly uneventful morning, didn't eat, went on a nice walk...I think she's starting to settle in here. Going to try a quick lunch outing today, see how she does.

At Home

2009-06-18T20:35:00.000-05:00

As y'all can probably guess by the fact that I'm posting again I am home with Miss Prada. How'd the firts planeride go? Perfectly. No whining, no crying....she popped her head up once during takeoff and again during landing looking for an 'ok' from me but other than that she slept the whole trip through. Didn't even twitch an ear when the flight attendant brought berages and little snack stuff around. At the end of the flight we got introduced to a four-year-old and a one-year-old on board and since she was off harness she got lots of loves and pets. Other than that the day was quite uneventful. Got home, got introduced to the house and the family, and the only one that's not impressed is the cat. he came in, took one look at Prada, bolted, and fluffed up his coat to increase his size threefold. Prada got up and wagged her tail but didn't bother pursuing, lay back down and rolled over for a bellyrub. I'm planning on taking her with me to church tonight. Mom's got a rehearsal with a musical group so there will be less than ten people there and I'd like her to get used to the building before we meet everybody Sunday morning. Mom and Dad have approved my plan of only bringing her to Sunday School the first time around so hopefully by doing this I can cut down on her rambunctiousness until she settles in.

Homeward Bound

2009-06-18T19:57:00.000-05:00

Given Prada's tendancy towards hyperactivity in the mornings i rather expected to have quite a fight with her through the airport this morning but as soon as we got out of the van at Newark she was all business. I was so proud of her as she demonstrated to the instructor accompanying us that moving-object avoidance is her specialty, weaving and clearing people, suitcases, and those little electric car things. Security had no problems with the instructor accompanying us to the gate and Prada behaved wonderfully while she got patted down. I personally lean towards the idea that TSA does this just so they can pet the dog :). Prada certainly didn't mind. At the gate we found out that the person seated next to me is allergic to dogs. While there is no legal weight to this we thought it'd be courteous to see if we could move so the instructor approached the gate agent and arranged for us to move up a couple of rows. We also discovered that the flight wasn't full so they blocked off an entire row fo rme and Prada. I won't be able to post this until I get home to Salem but at the moment I'm seated in the airplane in an area known as the 'ballpark.' The captain wasn't too specific about the origin of the name or what the ballpark is for but I gather that it's some kind of holding area. Maybe like a bullpen for sports events. Anyway, we're holding here for an hour due to inclement weather and general delays out of the NYC/Neark area. Prada slid right into her place underneath the window seat and is now sprawled out like a luxurious fur rug just to my right (I'm in the middle seat of a 3-seat row so we have plenty of room.) She didn't fuss or fight about sliding in at all, led me right down the jetway and in general showed off amazing training and good behavior. We're scoring points for the Dog Guide Reputation Team! When the plane started to taxi over to the ballpark she didn't even raise her head, just kept on sleeping. I expect her to pop up and try to look out the window when we actually take off but so far she's been a perfect angel. As I expected she didn't eat this morning, not even the reduced amount, so I saved a few kibbles in a baggy for a treat on the airplane if she gets upset. This is convenient for me because we're all the less likely to need to park until we get home. I plan on trying to park at the airport but I doubt she'll really need it. This behavior on her first flight gives me great confidence in the breeding program and training that TSE puts into their dogs and I know I probably won't ever have major problems flying to and from school! Yay Prada!!!

Prayer Request from last night? Our Belgian student was denied permission to take her dog on the airplane in the cabin area because someone remembered a wierd rule that Belgium has: if there's a dog in the cabin they can't land the plane. ADA has no hold in Belgium and apparently their access laws are a bit limited. TSE is going to help fight this and the student said she was already preparing appeals and letters and phonecalls and visits and all that to get this law changed when she got home. What they're doing for her is allowing her to crate the dog and have her ride underneath with the rest of the luggage. This will be extreely traumatic for the dog and the student is worried about crate usage after the flight is over. Will the dog be so traumatized that he won't go in the crate anymore? At least nobody's charging her to take the dog! So, she will get to go home and take the dog, but please pray about the access laws in Belgium. Apparently both instructors and students have flown in and out of Belgium with Seeing Eye dogs and nobody's blinked at it but for some reason they decided to pay attention to the law this time and it's really ticking us all off. The entire school--even the housekeeping staff--is in a tizzy over it and I know Michelle and Judy and Jim and all the other administrative staff is going to have a hayday this morning trying to get things fixed once and for all. it's hard for me to imagine countries that don't have access laws like ours but I guess civil rights groups aren't as common in other countries. When I get home I'm going to do some research to find access laws for other countries and link them to this blog so anyone who's interested can have a look at them.

Interesting problem when we get home. Today is the day that the people who are sealing and retopping our driveway picked to do their work so for a couple of days we can't walk, drive, park cars, or park doggies on the driveway. I planned on heeling Prada up to the house anyway but this means we'll be going through the fields and up the hill--dragging my suitcase, too. Prada didn't seem to mind me dragging the suitcase behind us at the school but it'll be fun tyring to get it thorugh the grass. This will only last 2-3 days so it shouldn't be too inconvient, but it'll make life interesting for a day or so.

I learned that you can bring dog food and dog cookies through security, whether they're in their original package or not. Can't do this with people food but apparently Kibble is an exception. TSE gave me a big gallon ziploc bag of dogfood to take home to get started will, and our night instructor fixed us all little flight emergency packs with parktime baggies, doggy cookies, and paper towels. Mom assures me that she has dogfood waiting for us but TSE gave me Purina Proplan and I had Mom buy Purina One so I'll probably end up mixing the two for a few days to get her used to the new, essentially identical, food. I don't expect her to eat very regularly for the first few days, anyway, just like when I first got her. Big change for my little girl, here. New weather, new ground, new house, new people...the only familiar things will be her doggy gear and me.

Just got another announcement from the captain--apparently we're tacking on at least 45 minutes to our time right now. It's about 9:40 Eastern and we were supposed to take off at 9am. I've flown out of Newark a fewtimes and never had this problem before but I guess there's a first time for everything. I just feel sorry for the folks on board with small children. Prada's still napping, being such a good girl. I really wish I could get into the airport's wireless network and post this for you but I'm not interested in paying per minute and I dont' think I could gete access to the right codes, even if I did want to pay for it, anyway.

And now I realize that I'm falling prey to writing just for the sake of entertaining myself so I should probably end this entry and go write something that I won't post so y'all won't have to read through my idle ramblings.

Prayer Request

2009-06-17T17:40:00.000-05:00

The student here from Belgium was supposed to fly back this a fternoon but for some reason she couldn't get thorugh Customs so she's back at TSE for at least the night until they get evereything straightened out. Pray she can go home soon!

Preparing for Auto Sequence Start

2009-06-17T15:04:00.000-05:00

How do we prep the dogs for flight? Reduce dinner the night before and breakfast the morning of to cut down on the need to park during that day. Also reduce the amount of water available. I also plan on taking her a few laps around the leisure path tonight in addition to our two trips today to tire her out so she'll sleep tomorrow on the airplane, hope she'll be calm (somewhat) in the airport and during takeoff.

This afternoon's trip was to The Creamery, a local ice cream legend. Prada must know something's up because she did her worst today. Had to distract on everything in sight. Plus side to this was that I got to practice my corrections and Shannon is finally satisfied with my corrections! (About time, MST! Took you long enough!) At one point I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, slid her off to the side, and ran throuhg an obedience drill to regain her focus. It helped enough that I would use the technique again if I had to but the whole afternoon she was just wild. She followed me around this morning as I started packing, trying to figure out what I was doing and why. It's too bad I can't just explain it to her...

INCOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-06-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

How to Meet a Dog Guide Team 101.2

1. IGNORE JUNO. It's not rude, it's preferred that you pretend the dog guide isn't there while she's in harness. You can comment to the dog guide handler ABOUT her (how gorgeous or well-behaved she is :) ), but don't talk to her, pet her, make eye contact with her. This is distracting to her and will incur a leash correction and a pfui.

2. DO NOT FEED JUNO: While the church I attend is a Baptist church Prada is a GERMAN shepherd so she's probably Lutheran. This means that potlucks aren't always kosher. Please please please PLEASE do not give her table scraps of any kind at ALL. No doggy cookies, either. Most of them aren't good for doggies, anyway, but if she is accustomed to getitng tidbits from other people she will develope a food distraction. This is one of the highest disqualifiers (especially for labs) for a dog guide.

3. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH A WORKING TEAM: If I look like I'm about to run into something, please don't move me. Prada either sees it and is planning a last-minute dodge (she likes showing off like that) or she will ignore it and run me into it. This is OK. This gives me an opportunity to remind her that I need a little more clearance on that side. The correction that ensues isn't a 'bad dog,' it's a 'pay attention, please.' If you interfere you will untrain my dog and make her very unsafe to work with. Grabbing a blind person's arm or their dog's harness to help them avoid something is as dangerous as grabbing the steeringg wheel in somebody else's car. BAD BAD BAD! pfui on he that does so. Ok, done beating a dead horse.

Those are the three most important rules when meeting and interacting with a dog guide team. When the dog is off harness and on leash, it's just liek any other dog. "Can I pet your dog?" is always preferred for pets, always safer, same thing with dog guides. On harness? no touchy. There i s a video that covers all this information and then some in a bit more of an interesting format. I have permission from TSE to put it up here so I'm going to take it home and figure out how to do that because i think it would be a great educational opportunity for dog guide teams. Show it to the kids, friends, family, whoever. Share this link, and anything I put up here that you think they'd find interesting. The more people that know how to deal with us, the easier and SAFER our lives are :)

I'm flying home tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Should be back on the West Coast by shortly after noon. I'll be sure to let y'all know how Prada handles her first flight!

Nightlife in Morristown

2009-06-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

Night trip finally! Wow, I LOVE Prada's night work! The techniques and procedures are exactly the same as regular city daytime work but it was like a completely acurate occlusion drill for me. I could see some things but not everything, only a few shadows and lights and all that and Prada was just a DREAM to handle!!!!! I finally have a good idea of what our all-the-time work flow should feel like! And she didn't even stop to flirt with the people that oohed and ahhed at her sitting outside a coffee shop we passed. Dogs often behave differently at night because things look and smell different to them. They might spook at some things, be more curious about others, but Prada didn't appear to be anything but on-task. I'm guessing we'll have a couple of interesting night trips in the future wiht one or two corrections, but last ngiht was just so much fun!!!

This morning we waled Patriot's Path, a hiking/jogging/biking trail outside of Morristown. The path was wide, wooded on both sides, and heavily gravelled. Due to hyperness we had to use the gentle leader this mornig, and to protect puppy paw pads against sharp gravel the extra indignity of the boots was added. Prada was not a happy camper but she got over it. Then we went to go visit Solo, the cat on staff. Prada showed relatively little interest in Solo and Solo certainly wasn't interested in Prada. Bryan told me that's how they reacted last time they met so I'm confident that any friction between Prada and Mittens, our own household demigod, will be initiated by the cat, not Prada, if there is any.

Here Comes the Bride!

2009-06-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

Wedding bells chimed at TSE today as Biblical Literature major Sarah and Spike joined their hands in unlawful matrimony, all unbeknownst to Spike's male cohabitation partner. Yes, it was truly blind love that met a few short weeks ago down in the exercise room at TSE. Just a few short nights ago they began talking about a more serious relationship and then at the dinner Sunday night at Redwoods Grille Spike proposed to Sarah when her purity ring was brought out on top of the brownie sundae they were splitting. Shortly after I also received a proposal but it just wasn't a good match so I had to turn him down. Sarah asked me to be her wedding planner so this evening I made my way out to one of the gazibos (pardon the incorrect spelling) to rearrange the benches for the ceremony. I also found a wooden box-shaped trashcan to use for the altar, covering it with my sweatshirt to help with the aesthetic appeal. Our night instructor baked a cake that promptly fell apart and we decided i t was symbolic of the unofficial wwedding that took place to the sound of Arabic punk rock music and small bells that one of the other insturctor handed out. The divorce party is planned for tomorrow night.

I love the sense of humor evereyone has here! At first I didn't think that the joke about Sarah and Spike getting married would go anwhere but we just all played along and eventually ended up faking our way through an entire ceremony! Sunday evening I even convinced one of the older students to give a toast to the couple! "May your marriage be short and painless and your divorce long and happy!" Later he told me he'd just taken a real wedding toast and turned it backwards. sarah's 'best person' was her dog guide Sam, and Spike's German Shepherd named Faith stood proudly at his side as their left hands were joined in a knot of caution tape to represent their union.

Begins the Count-down

2009-06-16T14:19:00.001-05:00

Only one more trip after this one, not counting the ice cream run tomorrow afternoon!!!!!!!!

Prada and I learned a new technique today called backchaining. This is especially helpful for on college campuses and in office complexes. Process. Heel the dog and go sighted guide over the entire route, praise the dog lavishly when you get to the office or classroom you're destined for. Then heel back outside to just out of the building and work the dog in from there. Praise again upon arrival at destination. Heel back a bit farther, say another 20 yards or so, then work up to the end and praise. Repeat this until you're working all the way from your starting point to your destination. This is ideal for places you will be going on a daily or almost daily basis. Prada and I tried this working at a college in Morristown and my girl performed excellently.

We were going to try to get into the college's pool area to introduce Prada to swimming pools but it was closed for construction s o this will wait until we get home. I figure a couple of days around our pool at home, go through the whole exposure/desensitization process there, then maybe convince someone to give me a ride in to the YMCA/YWCA in town to work with an indoor, slightly larger pool that's more similar to the one on my own college campus.

Due to a thundrestorm last night's night trip was cancelled but I'm hoping we'll be able to get one in tonight. Otherwise that's just one more thing I'll d o when I get home. I'm confident that that won't be an issue for me, but it's always best to give it a try with an instructor hanging over your shoulder if you can.

Lotsa Stuffs cont.

2009-06-16T08:51:00.001-05:00

Change of plans. One of the reasons Bryan wanted to take me to the college to work around there was because they had a pool I could introduce Prada to. (did I cover pool exposure procedures? Somebody remind me, please) But he found out that we oculdn't get in to the pool area until after 10:30 local time so we did a country route this morning, very uneventful, and will do the pool later. However, this gives me the opportunity to fill what might have been a rather uninteresting post with more of last night's lecture.

How to Introduce Juno to Your Household Fluffy

This is a bit of a play-it-by-ear piece with a standard starting procedure and some suggested follow-up options but no real set-in-stone checklist because every Juno is different and every Fluffy is different. We'll assume Fluffy and Juno love each other and decide to become best friends from firt sight. With both dogs on leash introduce them slowly and under good control on neutral territory, not in the house or on the property. Let them do the doggy things they do, get acquainted and all that. They like each other, yay! Together enter the house as a pack to let Fluffy know that his new friend is now part of the family and it's ok for Juno to be in the house. Juno's not an invader but a new family member. Fluffy's a little rambunctious? let Fluffy go outside or intoa back room a nd play out some energy. Keep Juno on leash as you introduce Juno to the house. Take Juno on a sniffing-permitted tour. If it's a big house, start with just a section of it and then set u p Juno's crate and let Juno go to her place and rest in her quiet safe home. All of Fluffy's toys and food and all that, anything ocntestible, should be PUT AWAY so there's no arguments ont he first day. Fluffy should not be allowed i n or near Juno's crate for a while, and probably not ever unless you happen to walk in and they're both curled up in there (which has been known to happen on occasion)

Juno, Meet Your New Home

To prevent in-house parking keep Juno's water and feedon a regular and limited schedule (no free choice water) for a while, couple weeks. Baby-proof the house. Mom, Dad, we need cabinet doors in the kitchen like yesterday. Especially the one under the sink!!! For the first few weeks Juno should be on leash and at her handler's side at all times. In the handler's room freelance is ok ifthe door is firmly closed. On leash does not mean on tie-down while the handler is elsewhere in the house. This allows the handler to know if the dog is getting into anything (counter-surfing, trashcan diving, all that fun stuff that can get expensive, veterinarianally speaking).

Juno, Meet the Family and Friends

Welcome home party!!!!!!!!!! Bad idea because....
1) tons of new people,dog could get excited and accidentally park inside
2) tons of new people, dog could get v ery nervous and stressed out
3) most people don't know how to interact with a dog guide and will probably overwhelm the dog and make good behavior next to impossible.
4) opportunity for improper feeding and/or petting while in harness

I plan on introducing Prada to family and friends i n small groups in very low-key situations. Lunch out with a couple of friends, Grandma and Gramdpa coming up, or we go down there, that sort of thing. What I'd like to do for church, and I don't know if this will happen, but I'd like to be able to take her just to the Sunday School part for the first week and skip the regular service. Here church was fine because it was just a service and no one knew me so there was somewhat minimal interaction and much more respect for the dog, much less familiarity. But I know family and friends tend to get this idea about pets and such along hte lines of "my good friend, I can pet the dog 'cause we're such good friends, we're so familiar with each other..." that sort of thing. Ok by me with just about anything. People know I'm fairly easy going. Open door, open cupboard, open refrigerator policy. Heck--I've even had friends at school walk up with a "hey, let me see your cane for a minute!" to get a frisbee out of the tree. That's cool by me, but people taking such liberties with Prada is dangerous because she will become socially distractable and not focused on me in harness. So, Faith Baptist people: i love you, but I may try to limit our interaction for a while so I have education opportunities.

Ok, I think that's about all from the Going Home lecture. Again, I'll post some very detailed "how to meet/interact with a dog guide team"' rules and guidelines Wednesday afternoon, so pay attention to those PLEASE!!!!!!

Lotsa Stuffs

2009-06-16T06:37:00.000-05:00

I learned two things this morning (and a whole bunch more than that last night at the lecture, but I'll get to that in the moment). First? Our night instructor is not above the ultimate cliche when it comes to wake-up calls at TSE. Secondly....your stereotypical Italian mama (you know the kind, "eat, eat! you're too skinny, eat!!!!") should NEVER own a German Shepherd. That's what I sounded like this morning, trying to coax Prada into eating. i guess she figured that since we only did one route yesterday she should only eat one meal today to keep herfigure :P Silly puppy.

Going Home Lecture:

The infamous Going home Lecture was every bit as long asthe retrains claimed it was (for once). It summarizes how to deal with airports, especially the first time through, weather changes, dog guide first encounters with family and friends, how to introduce the dog to the house and other pets, how to keep your dog's house-breaking and other skills up during hte first two-three weeks while not making those weeks as jam-packed a s they are here, and other helpful hints.

1) Airports: There's a new charge going around for taking pets on airplanes. THIS DOES NOT AAPLY TO SERVICE ANIMALS. However, many, if not most, airline ticket cunter attendants don't know this and it takes them a while to get it. This is why, for our first flight, an i nstructor goes with us. "It's the law, lady, now give me my gate pass so I can escort X and X;s dog guide Y down to their gate!" Wrong response. Right response? "Accordidng to the ADA regulations and state protection laws service animals cannot be charged extra for. Want to see the card?" -instructor hands attendant access card across counter- Security: These are worked just like the metal detectors at the courthouse. Warn the TSA officer that the harness will go off and they will probably want to pat the dog down--that's ok. They can NOT take the dog away from us. That is illegal. They can also not require us to remove the harness. Another legal no-no. If you're in a hurry and may miss a flight? Go ahead and humor that last one if it'll save t ime. The first one, though...do not EVER give your dog up to ANYONE. This is an absolute and should be carried as far as court, if necessary. no one can pluck your eyeballs out for a security check, no one can take our dogs away for a security check. Puffer machines: those little airgun-chamber things that TSA uses to look f or explosives? Essentially they blow strong puffs of air at you to make sure nothing's on it that'll go boom. DO NOT permit them to do this to Juno. It is extremely unnerving to the dog. Ok, so the nice TSA man let you go thorugh wiht just a routine pat-down. To the gate! On the first flight it's generally recommended that, to minimize stress, you heel the dog and go sighted-guide with the instructor to the gate. There, introduce yourself to the gate agent and request a pre-boarding. SEATING MYTH #1: You are not required by law to sit in the bulkhead. This is actually the least-convenient place for you and Juno to sit, because the dog has nowhere to curl up and so will have to share leg-space with you and your rowmates and, if there's turbulance, the dog has no safe, secure little cave (under the seat in front of you) that will protect it from getting tossed around. Airline attendants are required to give you a bulkhead seat if you request it, but you are not required to sit there. If your flight isn't full, it's often recommended that you ask the gate agent to block off the seat next to you so you and Juno have more room. If this isn't available, oh well, move on. DO NOT fall asleep during take-off and landing. This is extremely stressful for poor Juno, who doesn't understand why the thing she'sjust been crammed into is now shaking and accellerating invisibly and roaring and all that. Stay awake and comfort Juno, scratch her neck, play with her ears, keep her calm, stay calm yourself. If she cries or barks tell her to be quiet but don't scold her too sharply, that's more stress and she's likely to increase her disturbance. Don't let Juno up into your lap, calmly push her down if she crawls into it. Must juno be lying down? No. In a car Juno must be down to protect herself from the airbag deployment. On an airplane that's not an issue. If Juno sits up? Fine, let Juno sit up. MAKE SURE YOU PARK BEFORE GOING TO THE AIRPORT!!!!!! Seems like a no-brainer, right? Ok, then, moving on. Do not permit the stewardess to give Juno water, or you may have a parktime session under the seat in front of you. An icecube melting in your hand is ok, a little bit of a doggy cookie to keep Juno happy and remnd her that hte world is not ending is ok, too. After a while Juno should settle down a nd sleep through the flight. Upon landing: if possible go sighted-guide with a gate a ssistant to baggage claim to avoid stressing Juno out over corrections and directions and all that. MYTH #2: if the gate assistant doesn't get it and brings a wheelchair to the gate to pick you up, you do NOT have to use it. If they insist, put your bags in it and hold onto one side of the chair while the gate assistant holds onto the other. They'll get the idea eventually. Ok Mom, Dad, this is for you guys. When meeting Juno and juno's handler at baggage claim the greeting should be calm and towrads the handler. The dog is in harness and hsould not be acknowledged at all. Doggies in harness are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to everyone except their handler. Don't rush up to the handler and smother them in hugs and all that (esp if Juno is a shepherd!) It is strongly recommended especially if you have a long-ish drive home from the airport, to park the dog while at the airport.

I think I'm only going to cover one more of toe above-listed Going Home topics in this entry and keep working on the others for future posts so y'all don't get overwhelmed. However, 'our regularly scheduled programming will be interrupted Wednesday evening for a special presentation, "How do YOU meet a dog guide?"'

2) Weather changes. Snow? These dogs have encountered jersey snow and are at least familiar with that wierd cold wet stuff they don't like getting their paws in. The most important thing about working in snow is to put the little doggy booties on to protect their paws fromsalt or other chemicals used to melt off the snow and ice. Second most important thing is to bring your cane along to figure out why your dog stops at certain places that it doesn't normally stop. Snow bank in the way, snow pile at a curb, can't see the crosswalk due to snoe...all that fun stuff. Heat: Boots to protect against hot pavement. Overeheating is a huge concern with dogs in the summer time. This is one of the myriad reasons that dog guid ehandlers should have their vet and emergency clinic numbers on speed dial. I plan to carry a little spraybottle to help cool Prada off when I work her in the summer, and quite often a collapsable bowl and waterbottle to keep her hydrated whilte at my destination. Ice water? BAD IDEA. The temperature shock to the stomack will probably cause a reversed-gravity effect and all that ice water, plus some other stuff, ill end up all over the floor. Ice water bath? HYPOTHERMIA. Need I say more? Good ideas? Wrap an overheating dog in a cool, moist towel, splash water (not ice water) on their legs, feet, bellies, heads. Don't be out in the heat of the day if you can help it, and certainly not for too long. Looks like I'm going t o be a strictly morning/evening classes student for a while...Signs your dog is overheating? Dog starts walking drunk, gets a bit lethargic, think human signs of heat stroke, basically. A safe body temperature for a dog is up to and around 102.5. 103's a little on the iffy side but not horrible. 104 is BAD.

Ok, that's all for no. Next time I hope to cover how to introduce Juno to your household Fluffy, how to maintain dog's house-breaking and social behavior within the first 2-3 weeks, a ndhow to introduce Juno to friends and family, as well as a description of this morning's trip--to some college.

New York New Yokr!

2009-06-15T16:05:00.001-05:00

Ok, you had to know it was coming, so here's New York.

New York City! Prada goes to 5th Avenue! Really wasn't as eventful as it could have been, which is a good thing. I have discovered that Prada has aconsiderable amount of energy on our morning runs and she always behaves better if I use the gentle leader for the first hour or so. I'm hoping this iwll wear off eventually and Shannon assures me that it will but I used it this morning forthe majority of our NYC run. We drove in to Port Authority Bus Terminal, the largest bus terminal in the world, and parked up on the 7th (not hte top mind you, just the 7th) floor. I can't imagine what TSE pays for parking up there...anyway, worked down to the subway level, the lower one of two subway levels in there and took the E from 42nd Ave to 53rd. From there we walked to 59th, Central Park, and bordered the park for a block or so. Plenty of distractions, what with horse carriages and dogs and fishbait--I mean little tiny doggy thingies--and tons of people and sidewalk markety things all over the place. Prada and the other student team we were pairing with did absolutely wonderfully around the distractions and Prada even forewent eating the annoying little pug that barked at her! Good girl, Prada! Same that for a midnight snack (just kidding!). From Central we wove around a few differen blocks and ended up in a little Italian place for lunch a block or so from Time Square, then walked back to Port Authority and drove home. No major fiascos, no major mix-ups, we returned w ith the same number of dogs and students that w e showed up with, good day! Oh, and we didn't get rained on, either! It was a bit overcast but warm and not too humid. Because the NYC trip is a bit long and can be stressful to the dogs due to the number of distractions a nd all that the instructors make that the only trip for that day. Our only other engagement for the afternoon was a quick vet visit. The vet read our health report to me then implanted the Home Again microchip that will help a shelter ID her if she ever ends up lost. So has Pradahad ahealthy life? Yes, remarkably so! The only major entries in her health record were a couple of removed teeth due to fracture. This can be caused by roughhousing with other dogs in the kennels, destroying hard toys or chewing on the kennels, and doesn't cause any future issues with eating or anything. Just notes on the paper, that's all. Prada was not at all pleased about the microchip shot she received, crying and jumping back i nto my arms after the vet let her go. Other than that she was fairly well behaved in the vet's office. Tonight we have our Going Home Lecture. They say it's a long one so you probably won't see a summary of it until tomorrow.

Last Night

2009-06-15T05:45:00.001-05:00

Last night was a sort of graduation dinner for all the retrains out at a restaurant called Redwoods Grille. The whole crowd of 8 students, 8 dogs, 3 instructors, and the nurse on staff piled into a couple of vans and managed to navigate the restaurant's darker atmosphere to our table. The evening as fairly uneventful, which, when you're working dogs, is a good thing, except that one dog managed to unhook herself fromt he leash (fortunately the nurse grabbed her before she went table-diving) and Prada slipped herself out of her harness! I'd fastened it a little more loosely than I usually did, and at the rstaurant had tucked her under my chair. Well she used the cross support bar under the chair t o hook the harness and then crawl backwards out of it. Fortunately I still had the leash in my hand so she didn't get too far. Got a pfui and reharnessed and behaved herself for the rest of the night, yay! this morning Prada and i are bound for New York City! I'll let y'all know how that goes when we get back. I'm also hoping to do a night trip either this evening or the evening after.

Busy Day!

2009-06-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

(The title's another layered link)

So just how fast does Prada walk? Well, this morning we took a liesurely 20-minute mile walk out in the country to do one of our last country work trips and she performed b eautifully. With barely a raised heartrate we drove back to TSE and Bryan brought a regular car around instead of the big van we usually use. Time for front-seat training! Bear in mind the dogs have done all of this before, it's mostly the human's training that we do here, as well as reminding the dog how to do things and convincing them that their new handler should receive the same work that the instructors did. How do you fit a sixty-pound shepherd into the front seat of a car? ell...work the dog up to the open door, then drop the handle. Slide into the front seat but leave your rightleg out (we're assuming that you're in the US and the right side of the front seat isn't the driver's side.) Heel the dog i n and have Juno sit between your feet on the floor, then draw your right leg in to surround the dog and do a tail-check to make sure that superbly important part of doggy anatomy isn't caught in the door. Close and buckle, and hit the road! Prada apparently REALLY likes car rides. She wanted to get in first, then she wanted to sit on the seat, then jumpto the back seat, and lastly tried for the drivers's seat. none of this, of course, was permitted and once we got rolling she settled down a bit. Next stop--airline seating! Downstairs in the Tech Center there are two rows of airline seats, three chairs in each row. Bulkhead seating, no bar: if there is no metal bar under your bulkhead seat have the dog sit facing the bulkhead in front of you, harness off. Then slide the dog under the seat so eventually you end up with a head and two forepaws between your feet in a lying down position. The Dog should sleep through the entire flight. Bulkhead seating, metal baar: The dog really doesn't have any other option than to lie down parallel to the bulkhead, head and paws facing the aisle. Non bulkhead seating: (oh, all of this is harness off, by the way) sit down, draw t he dog in with youand have Juno sit facing you, then slide the dog butt-first underneath the seat in front of you, protect the dog's head and forepaws by plaicng your feet on either side of aforesaid appendages. Prada didn't protest a bit and even found enough room to curl up underneath the seat a bit, I was quite impressed. You have no idea how small these guys can make themselves if they wawnt to, it really is amazing. Can't wait to try it for real. I may go down and practice on those seats a couple of times before I fly home to help prevent any trouble on our first real flight.

Evolution: Stage #2

2009-06-13T20:25:00.000-05:00

Prada has discovered a new talent--catching kong toys as they are tossed into the air. Instead of pouncing on them it's now more fun to catch them. I think this might have to do with the praise I gave her the first time she did it. I was so impressed that I just let loose a torrent of "good girl!"s and so forth that she tried it again and discovered it was quite entertainig. She just spent the past five minutes thoroughly investigating the bottom of my dresser for no discernable reason...funny girl. We've had a fairly relaxing day so far, very quiet after yesterday's work-out. Just a few more days before w e go hom! I can't wait to introduce her to everyone back home and at school i n August! She is quite the character and could easily make herself the queen bee of any social gathering if I let her...

Long Day...

2009-06-12T15:55:00.001-05:00

Today I think was the most uneventful day I've had here. After this morning's exciting discovery of our new favorite game Prada and I worked the high school route again, this time with a modification due to construction. That modification entailed a step off the sidwalk into the street and under a make-shift tunnel to protect the pedestrians from the street. They're a bit more conscious of such measure here in Morristown than in other cities I've travelled during construciton seasona nd I really appreciate it. Basically to work a tunnel like this the dog will take you to the curbside right at the entrance of the tunnel. You can use your hand to ifnd it or your foot if you can't see it's there, then give the command 'forward' and stop after one pace. You're inthe street now but protected by an extentiono f the outter tunnel wall. Command the dog right or left, whichever way that will point you back the way you were previously travelling and then suggest that same turn off and on until the dog finds the way back up to the sidewalk. Prada performed like a pro! Part of that had to do with her wearing the gentle leader, though, I think. I got tired of her puppy antics in harness the last couple of days and had her wear the leader while we worked. The only drawback to this practice is that every time we stop Prada tries to rub the thing off on me. She really doesn't like it. It's not uncomfortable, s he doens't complain, she just doesn't like it. This afternoon we ran the Dean's Road route minus the gentle leader and I really don't think I needed it, either. She had mellowed down and started behaving like a dog instead of a pup, which is exactly what I want her to do. I have a feeling I'll be carrying that gentle leader around everywhere with me just in case she gets squirrelly on me again. It really works. The Dean's Road route is the longest one we do here at the school,roughly two miles around a residential area with freakishly long blocks and curved street corners that tend to throw the dogs off a bit. A couple of the street corners were so well-blended with t he sidewalk that the dogs ran them straight into the street and got the big pfui to back u p and rework them. I also started teaching her about how tall I was by having her rework s ections where I'd hit my head o n low-hanging branches. After the first couple she got the idea and cleared them b eautifully. How do I do this? Well firstlet me clarify something. "Pfui" to the dog is not always "bad dog!" Sometimes, i n the right tone, it can mean "that's not right, let's try that again." This is the tone I used with her today when teaching her about overhead clearance. When she ran me into an overhanging branch I stopped and gave her a pfui, then brought her back and sat her in front of it, showing her the branch with my hand and praising her. This tells her that she's a good girl if she goes around it. Then we back up and I command 'hup-up!" and we go forward again. She will either go left or right to avoid the branch and gets lots and lots of praise! "GOOD GIRL, PRADA! You did it! Good girl!" -standing bellyrub, pets head and plays with ears vigorously- During that route the sun came out and due to our faster pace and the heat Prada and I came straight back to our room and crashed. Naptime! she just finished inhaling her food like a lab and I suspect that after I take her out, as I'm going to in a minute, it will be playtime again.

I Believe in Evolution

2009-06-12T07:17:00.000-05:00

Playtime is in a state of evolution, as Prada and I begin to build a stronger emotional bond. Last ngiht playtime meant a short puppy-wrestle. This morning? As i sat at my desk working on some projects on my laptop I suddenly discovered a slimy red kong toy had been deposited very unsubltely into my lap. At first I couldn't figure out what she wanted me to do with it. She'd never showed any signs of interest in 'fetch' before. I picked it up and immediately a pair of strong German Shepherd jaws locked onto the other side. My hypothesis that Prada likes tug-of-war was correct! I need to get that girl a rope toy so she has something more to hang on to. When I finally one I tossed it for her to see if she would fetch it. Fetch isn't a Prada game,but apparently cat-and-mouse is. She chased ita cross the floor, pouncing on its irregular bounces and finally wrestling it to the ground, pawing at it and chasing it across the floor before she got the ornery rolypoly little thing solidly in her mouth, whereupon she returned it to me to begin the process all over again. SHE IS SOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!

Splish Splash Sploosh!

2009-06-11T20:04:00.001-05:00

This morning we did a quick trip through Wal-Mart, nothing terribly exciting there, just more practice. Went fairly well. After lunch Bryan and Shannon took our group to Elm street, where we parked (the vans, not hte dogs) and walked to the bus station to do bus and train practice. Procedure for getting on a bus? It's just like stairs. Work the dog up to the bus, the dog will halt and you can find the step up with your foot, then command forward and start seat-hunting. Tuck the dog under the seat or as out of the way as possible and continue as normal. Same basic principle for getting off. We got off in Madison, a small town just west of Morristown. After a quick run inside a store for more inside practice we headed to the train station. There Bryan showed us just how well-trained these guys are. He had me and Prada face the tracks and told me to command "forward," which I did. Prada,however, did not go forward. She dragged me left, quite determined that no matter how many times I told her to go forwrad we weren't going anywhere NEAR the empty tracks. "GOOD GIRL!" was the reward for this intelligent disobedience. The dogs are so conditioned to train tracks that if there's no train there they will absolutely refuse to go near them. When our train showed up Bryan told us to have the dogs sit facing the train as it pulled in. This is to help get rid of the fear of that big noisy thing flashing past us at such a high velocity. Bolting dogs are dangerous. After the train stopped and the doors opened Prada took me right to the door and we proceded from there like it was a bus. On our walk back from the train station an SUV sped past us and splooshed thorugh a huge mudpuddle, sending a tidal wave over myself, Bryan, and another student. Since the car was on the right side and the dogs on the left Prada and the other dog, Van Gogh, barely got wet at all besides teh constant barrage of light raindrops from the cloud seige. We, on the other hand, looked like we'd just gone swimming in the Mississippi! Fortunately we got back to tSE in time to shower and change and dry off the dogs before the annual Board of Directors' banquet that we students were guests at for the evening, a mildly formal affair. Of course, Prada put on a stellar performance and preened herself incessantly in front of the board, showing off in e very lighting she encountered. Because of her unusual coat she always draws a lot of attention and has no issues with making herselfthe center of a ttention. My girl quieted down a bit for dinner, though, and behaved remarkably well, not even getting up when I rose for a toast to one or two long-time staffers that were retiring that year. Tonight at 8pm parktime I found out just how much of a priss I've got on y leash, though. She usually reserves her #2 action for early morning and late night parktime but tonight she did her typical #1, and then demanded to go inside when the rain increased from a drizzle to a steady downpour. I was fine, out there in a t-shirt, s omething I'm not normally ok with, but she wanted none of it! I warned her not to get me up to go park in the middle of the night and let her back inside. Hope that works...

circles and circlesand circles and circles...

2009-06-10T15:30:00.000-05:00

This afternoon's lesson revolved around..revolving doors! These can be quite scary for dog guides because they sense that a door is literally chasing them and may 'nip' at their heels if they don't move fast enough. They odn't like going into them because that door is coming right behind them, oh scary!!! The trick is, just like with escalators, to keep the dog moving. Work the dog up to the door, then switch the leash to the right hand and drop the handle. Heel Juno into the revolving door and keep Juno's head right by the forward entrance. Keep the dog moving while the door goes around, and when you hit the opening again the dog will dive out, indicating that it's clear to go. Then switch the leash back to the left hand and pick up the harness. I have discovered that Prada is a competitive worker. She does not like working behind other dogs and will pull my arm out of its socket just to get in front of the dog. She's one of those drivers on the highway that will speed up to pass you, then get in your lane and settle to a reasonable or even slower pace. We're workingon different techniques to get her pace under control when there are other dogs in front of her. Fortunately that won't be much of an issue at home or school because there aren't too many dog guides around those places, but while I'm here it's a bit of a pain.

In somewhat depressing news, all the retrains are gone now. They only stay for three weeks, then go home and do a couple of days of home training. We rookies hang around until next Thursday. Out of our full 24-person class o nly 8 of us remain. Quiet builind...all the retrains were so much fun to talk to and they had great stories and insights for us n00bs, a lot of them would give advice and sort of mentor us in areas we struggled in. I love how supportive our group was to each other and it's sad to see them go, but I'm excited for them to get started with their new dogs. Good luck to Don, Bonna, Jen, Jan, Ken, Pete, Deborah, and all the others!

fancy footwork

2009-06-10T08:32:00.000-05:00

I love this little house because
it offers after dark
a pause for rest
a rest for paws
a place to moor my bark

A while ago Prada and I were issued doggy boots for hot pavement and salted snow, which can burn puppy paws. This morning Bryan and Shannon took us out on moderate-length, minimal distraction routes and had us put the boots on the dogs. The dogs have trained with them on but for the first block or so with a new student they like to pretend they've never worn them before. This was for the student to get a feel for what the dog's pace feels and sounds like when t he boots are on, and a reminder to the dog about boot-wearing no-no's, such as trying to pull them off. Prada did e xcellently after she got the idea that I wasn't going to t olerate any monkeying around on the route. We didn't lose a single one en route, so Shannon called it a good trip :)

Cave Canem, BEWARE OF DOG

2009-06-09T19:25:00.000-05:00

So far the weathermen were wrong and we haven't gotten the second round of storms for the day. This fortunate turn of events permitted us to work the country route during the afternoon lesson that we'd planned for this morning. So Bryan and Shannon drove our group out to an area they usually park in and launch from...only to discover that that somewhat rural resitendial area had construction crews out putting in sidewalks, which is contradictory to the entire premise of country work. "No one asked TSE!" Shannon shook h er head, grinning, as she directed Bryan down a few more blocks to an 'undefiled' starting point. Prada behaved wonderfully, just like this morning, completely foregoing her usual over-the-shoulder glances at Shannon. My corrections are improving, as is her response to them and we're finally reaching that well-melded point that we should b e at for this stage of training. I am so excited! Just in the past five days of training we've come such a long way towards becoming a safe and fluid team!

Ok, so I mentioned that park time was the subject I got the most questions about in person. The second most asked-about topic is 'what happens if another dog attacks your dog guide?' This is a very real threat to working dog guide teams, and also the subject of tonight's lecture. This is a rather emotional subject for many retrains because of the trauma involved with having their dog attacked and either injured, traumatized, killed, or some combination of these. The first thing we talked about tonight was prevention.

During the dog's initial training they are socialized with other dogs to increase their lack of aggressive behaviors towards other dogs, increase their tolerance. They are also given 'dog distraction' training. A trainer walks a dog along their route where another trainer and another dog are waiting. The dog in training is told to 'leave it" as they approach the other dog. The first few times they just walk past and the other dog does nothing. If the dog in training turns to investigate the other dog (for confusions' sake we'll call that one Fluffy and the dog in training is, of course, Juno) the trainer corrects Juno with a two-handed correction and a firm "pfui." Dog distraction is ABSOLUTELY NOT permitted and must be curbed strongly and immediately. This is repeated until Juno ignores Fluffy completely. The next round of training involves Fluffy's handler getting up and following Juno and Juno's trainer to help Juno understand that it is imperative to ignore Fluffy, despite Fluffy's actions. What is the student's role in all this when they are graduated and working in the 'real world?' KEEP YOUR DOG GUIDE MOVING! I cannot stress this point enough. If a dog guide is kept moving it cannot make the first step towards an aggressive exchange: eye contact. "Leave it, hup-up!" and a gentle right-handed tug forward on the leash to insist taht the dog ignore Fluffy. If Juno decides to ignore that, we use the two-handed correction and a loud and firm "pfui!" WORST CASE SCENARIO: you are not able t o keep Fluffy from attacking Juno by making juno ignore Fluffy and leave Fluffy's territory quickly. DROP THE HANDLE AND LEASH. You MUST allow the dog guide to devend itself and prevent yourself from becoming tangled in the mass of bodies and teeth and claws. Drop the handle and leash, yell/scream for help (an eye witness is crucial for reparations), CALL 911. "I need help, I'm blind and I and my dog guide are being attacked." They will come for you, do not leave out the part about yourself. Do NOT just say your dog guide because some dispatchers won't send for you. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SEPARATE THE DOGS ONCE THEY ARE ENGAGED. This goes for observers as well. And don't try to mace or stun either of the dogs. When dogs fight they become a tangled mass of bodies that is nearly indistinguisheable. The odds of the wrong dog getting hit, or even yourself, are just too great.

Between 1998 and 2002 28 Seeing Eye teams were attacked. this is a moderate number if you look at only Seeing Eye graduates, but even that number is too high if you are the team that is attacked. Imagine yourself in a car wreck in which your car is damaged and a loved one is injured and/or traumatized. You lose time at work, money for repairs, time in appointments, time and mony for your own injuries plus that of your lvoed one, time with insurance and settlements, plus the loss of confidence in driving, something both parties lose. Now escalate this to where you have a human-like emotional attachment to the car? This is a fraction of the hassle we deal with if we are attacked. Retraining may or may not be possible for a traumatized guide dog and if it is not the owner must rebond to a new dog and the old dog adopted out and must bond to a new family. The consequences of a dog attack are unmeasureable.

A Problematic Situation: Often owners of aggressive dogs will take them to humane societies rather than deal with the problem directly. Then the humane society will quite often euphamize the dog's character o n the kennel card and adopt the dog out. These dogs are extremely risky to dog guide teams but this practice allows the dog guide team's human component to track the dog and gain reparations for damage done or have the dog impounded.

What can a sighted person do? If you're a pet owner 1) keep your dog on a non-extendable leash, 2) don't allow someone to walk your dog if they cannot or do not control the dog, 3) alert a dog guide team of your animal's presence ('Hi there, got my dog and we're coming up behind you" is extremely helpful). If you see interferance or an attack: DO NOT ATTEMPT SEPARATION, but stay as a witness, try to prevent the dogs from going near the blind person or the street, get pictures if you have a camera or cameraphone on you.

Hate to end this on such a serious note but that's the way it is. I'll try to brighten up your reading experience with the next post for tomorrow's work.

Prada and the Thunderstorm

2009-06-09T07:35:00.000-05:00

"And the thunder rolls/and the lightening strikes/another pup grows bold/on a sleepless night..."

An absolutely spectacular thunderstorm woke me and Prada up this morning around 3am Eastern. I half expected to have a terrified German Shepherd jumping up into bed with me but she was cool as a cucumber the whole night. Got up at one p oint to go get herself a drink but other than that she was fine, just went right back to sleep. Now, unlike Oregon's thunderstorms this one lasted until...well, it's still going, actually. Bryan came around and told me this morning at breakfast that we'd be oding country work, and I'll admit that I wasn't a bit excited about that. As the storm got worse, though, Bryan and Shannon changed their minds and took us to a grocery store to do some inside work instead. Prada performed beautifully, even with Shannon walking right behind us. Didn't turn to look over her shoulder once! 'at's my girl! They say that the weather will improve for the next two-three hours, then get worse right about the t ime we're supposed to go on our second trip. Timing i s e verything...but it's good to know that thunder doesn't bother Prada--we were crossing a parkinglot as a big ol' clap hit right over our heads and she didn't even bat an eyelash (that I could see)--'cause we've got two thunderstorm seasons in Alabama. I think she'll do fine, though, if today's nonadventure was any indication. Yay Prada!

Prada goes shopping

2009-06-08T14:54:00.000-05:00

This morning another student and I soloed a short route up to Walgreen's and the instructor had me occlude while working in the store. Working inside isn't too different from w orking outside when it comes to general technique and commands, your reflexes should b e a bit faster for avoidances but that's about it. The main difference that I noticed was that I was so focused on making sure I turned down the aisles that Bryan indicated that my pace suffered. I think he might've chalked that up to uncertainty but it wasn't--I trust Prada to make sure we don't run into the Keebler display. I just now got back from Century 21, a department store in the area. Our focus on this particular lesson was escalators. Procedure for escalators? 1) work up to 'onramp.' 2) drop harness and heel while working escalator. 3) halt 2-3 steps onto escalator, lay left ahnd (while holding leash i n same hand) on the backstrap of the harness and, telling the dog to rest, take one more step onthe escalator so you're ahead of the dog, sliding your hand along the rail as far as you can reach. 4) when you feel the up/down curve of the rail command 'heel' and start walking again. The important thing here is to make sure the dog is moving when you step off the machine, otherwise puppy toes get caught and that's just a big, painful mess. Dog guide users prefer stairs or elavators over escalators but in some cases we can't avoid using them so we learn anyway. But they are a bit on the dangerous side for the dogs. Prada handled our 4 escalators beautifully but behaved like an untrained puppy throughout most of the store. Everytime we stopped she jumped aorund to face behind me to see Shannon and Bryan and I spent most of my walk towards the store giving her leash corrections (the quality of which have improved significantly, by the way, thanks to some practice and a shorter leash) for looking over her shoulder. I think she got the impression by about halfway back to the van that I wasn't taking that from h er anymore and she needed to straighten up a bit. This is what's usually referred to as a bad trip because of the apparent regression in behavior but overall I think it was a good learning curve for the both of us, so more of a rough trip. it's wierd to hear folks around here talking aobut having a 'good trip' or a 'bad trip,' like they're talking about drug highs or something!

Puppy Report

2009-06-08T11:56:00.001-05:00

Here is a copy of Prada's puppy report. Every puppy raiser writes one of these for the new owner togive them heads' up on quirks and experiences the dog is familiar with.

PrADA

Family Composition:

Mom, Dad, Daughter (18, raised 2 successful dog guides), Son (15, puppy raiser).

Environment:
12-room house, 3 levels, w/ 3/4-fenced in yard, heavily wooded, in New Jersey

Pet Friends:

Neighborhood dogs

Exposure:

Prada has been exposed to many different situations including fairs (both street and 4-H), mall, school, offices, airport, kennels, parks, trains, and sporting events.

Characteristics:

Prada is very friendly (I believe that one!), is great with the vet, and likes to be groomed (I guess i have yet to see that one). She is familiar with baths, showers, getting muddy paws dunked and cleaned up, and being towelled off, the latter being a real treat after a rainy day.

Toys:

nylobone--loved
stuffed animals--destroyed

Cute Stoires:

Too many to write

Prayer with Puppies

2009-06-07T11:58:00.000-05:00

This morning Prada and I attended Washington Valley Chapel, a small nondenomenational church in the area, with a nother student and her dog. Both dogs behaved beautifully during the service, lying mostly underneath the pews at our feet, and didn't even askfor a sample of communion. Neither dog joined us for worship (thankfully) or snored during the sermon, which was about forgiveness. The pastor used...I think it was Matthew 18, where Jesus tells the parable of the master who forgives a servant's debt, t hen the servant goes and demans payment from someone who owes him money and the master cancels the cancelation, and finished with where Peter asks how many times we should forgive. Jesus answers with 70x7, a nonliteral figure indicating that we should forgive an unlimited number of transgressions agastin us, even as we are forgiven unlimited times by Christ. The pastor pointed something o ut that was new to me. Apparently the Jewish rabbis taught that if you forgave teh same offense by the same person three times you didn't have to forgive them anymore so when Peter makes his inquiry he doubles the numberand adds one, a sking "how many times should I forgive my brother, up to seven times?" And then Jesus responds with that lovely 490+ answer. Finally the pastor gave Ephesians 4:31-12 as a benediction at the close of the service. It's always such a wonderful thing to me to be able to go across the country, or across the world, and stand side by side with spiritual 'distant relatives,' all praising the same Father, with often the same music, as was the case this morning. Soli Deo Gloria!