The Seeing Eye, Week 1. First Impressions

Monday, April 26. Arrival

On my last possible day to sleep in a little, of course I woke up early. I was up around 6 AM and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Resigned, I went through my usual morning ablutions and went about packing the rest of my toiletries I’d left out. I was ready to go hours before 10, which is when I was to be picked up and driven to the school. I spent the rest of the morning tidying up my room and chatting with my hosts. The lady who picked me up was on time, more or less, and it felt kinda weird to finally say goodbye. I was staying with people I knew but had never actually met, and by the time the goodbyes came, they didn’t feel like strangers anymore. Thank you again to my Philly friends for putting me up for so long. I hope to come back some day under more normal circumstances.

For the sake of privacy, I’ll leave names out of this blog, but the lady who picked me up from Philly was very nice. We talked almost the whole way about the school, dog training principles, horses, photography and different aspects of our respective lives. She used to ride horses as well, so we had a lot to talk about. Having someone to engage with makes tedious car rides go by so much faster. She answered many of my questions about class and how things have changed at the school since pre-covid. We were there before I knew it and were met by a nurse at the front doors for temperature checks before being allowed to enter the building. My first reading was 81 degrees Fahrenheit, so I definitely wasn’t fevered… LOL. I was given a brief introduction to some of the staff and more specifically to my guide dog instructor, who I’ll be working with for the duration of my time here. For our purposes, let’s just call her “A”. She’s a super cool, high-energy lady; just the sort of person I’d hoped to have as a teacher. A took me up to my room and gave me a brief tour before lunch.

It’s how it should be, of course, but I think that one of the best things here is that everything is set up in a way that everyone can use it without needing sighted assistance, both in our dorms and outside of them. In the rooms, there are brailed instructions on the wall beside the phone on the dest, including a list of relevant extensions we might find helpful. The washing machines are all labeled, as well as the workout equipment downstairs. There are tactile maps of each floor near the stair wells, all labeled and made of a durable plastic so they can be explored without coming apart. On the lower floor where the gym, grooming area and laundry facilities are, they have a technology room with a library. There are braille books as well as books on tape, and that room is filled with stuff I haven’t seen in years. They keep a ham radio in one corner and have several older computers for student use. The rooms themselves are comfortable. We have our own mini fridge and thermostat, along with a private bathroom. It’s somewhere between a hotel room and a college dorm, I think. Small, but enough space for student and dog to be comfortable. There’s a dog crate beside my bed, and they left some grooming equipment on top that’s now safely stowed in a drawer. I’m on the second floor, and there’s a big lounge up there with a little white piano and an awesome little coffee machine. Two flights of stairs below that is the main floor with the dining haul, lobby, a bunch of offices and who knows what else. One flight below that is a door that leads outside onto a large cement pad. This is called the “parking area” and is where we bring our dogs out to relieve them. One flight below that is the basement with the gym, laundry, library, grooming area and a bunch more offices.

We have meals in a large dining room on the main floor. I’m told it was a lot more crowded pre-covid, as well. Now there are these huge tables and only like six people at each. Before, everyone would have meals together, including all of the staff who worked on campus. Now eighty percent of staff are working from home, and only the students, nurses and instructors are allowed to eat in the dining hall. We’re serve all of our meals and often eat with plastic utensils, which is kind of sad to me. We went from maybe being on the right track of reducing our plastic waste to making everything disposable again.

After lunch, I had my first brief Juno walk. This is where an instructor holds the end of a harness handle and plays guide dog so they can get a better idea of what kind of dog you should be matched with. If the dog’s pull feels anything like that did, it’s definitely a little different than I thought it would be. All good things, but it’s definitely something to get used to. People spend a lot of time with a pet dog teaching them not to pull. The opposite is true here. It feels kinda weird to get pulled around by a dog, because I’m not the one initiating the motion. We don’t move unless the dog moves first, and we’re taught to always have tension on the harness handle. It’s not difficult, but it takes a couple tries to get it right. When the dog slows down, you have to put some pressure into the handle so the tension remains until your strides are even again, and I think this is what I forget about the most.

We had some time to ourselves after the walk, and I spend some time in the lounges getting to know some of my class mates. There’s a fellow Canadian I know in this class as well, which is awesome. We had a fire drill directly after dinner, and my ear drums almost turned inside out. When we came back in, we had our first lecture, pretty much just a welcome meeting, and were given our leashes. We were free for the rest of the night, and after a quick visit to the gym I headed into my room to unpack a bit and hit the hay. Mornings come quick here at The Seeing Eye. We’re woken at six AM the first two days and five-thirty on all subsequent ones.

Tuesday, April 27. A Day Of Assessment

We had two Juno walks today. The one in the morning was a longer root with busier street crossings, and the one in the afternoon was a pretty short and quiet one. My instructor asked me questions about my lifestyle and asked me if I had any specific preferences regarding what kind of dog. I told her that I did not; as long as they matched my pace, pull requirements and working style, I was good to go. After some pestering, she gave me a few hints about some potential dogs she had in mind, but she wouldn’t say for certain.

I spent a lot of time in the outdoor student lounge after my final walk. I called a few friends and listened to the dogs making a racket in the kennel. The Seeing Eye has around 250 dogs on campus at all times, which is crazy to me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I can’t even imagine the work that goes into caring for that many. They have the class-ready dogs, of course, the dogs in each month of training and their breeding dogs. I think they also have a section for working guides that come in for medical reasons, as well.

Before dinner, we had a meeting with the president and CEO of the Seeing eye, and he told us the story of how the organization was founded. This was the time where the instructors had the match meeting, and they all finalized which dogs were being chosen for class and who they were going to. The story was interesting, even though we were all ready for the morning to come. We learned about Morris Frank, the US founder of TSE who got the idea from Dorothy Eustis, a lady in Germany who was training guide dogs for military veterans who’d been blinded in battle. Morris went to Germany to be trained with his first guide dog, a German Shepherd originally named Kiss, but which he renamed Buddy, as he did with all of his subsequent guides. He was an outstanding advocate for the use of guide dogs in the US and established The Seeing Eye, the first formal guide dog school in the world. We learned about the development of the school over time and were given a brief overview of things that had changed over the years and things that had remained the same. Once the meeting had finished and dinner had concluded, we had the rest of the night to ourselves. Needless to say, I did not sleep well.

Wednesday, April 28. Dog Day

We were woken early this morning, and in 25 minutes or so we’ll be heading off to breakfast. In just a few short hours, the instructors will bring the dogs in, and we’ll meet our new partners. I have a hunch about who I’m going to get, but time will tell. The primary emotion I’m feeling is excitement, but also a touch of nervousness as well. There isn’t really a reason to be, but this is the iconic moment, the day everyone talks about. I’ve seen this on TV shows and heard many first-hand accounts from fellow guide dog handlers. It’s still a little crazy that today is my turn.

I have faith in the people here. Everyone is great, including the instructors, so I’mm sure the matches will be well thought out. I’m trying to go into this with as much of an open mind as possible and to commit every moment to memory. This is a new beginning for me in a lot of ways. I know people look back at this day, and some credit it as being one of the most memorable moments in their lives. The finding of new independence is such an empowering thing. I’m a pretty independent traveller already, but I’m looking forward to having someone to take on the world with.

We’ve now had breakfast and our morning lecture, and now everybody is waiting in their rooms for the instructors to bring the dogs up. I’m a lot more nervous than I thought I’d be, but I know everything’s gonna be fine. It’s almost better that they don’t give us an exact time, but it definitely increases the anxiety a little. I hear doors opening down the hall…

When A brought in my dog, I wasn’t really sure how to feel. I didn’t feel anxious like I thought I would, and the excitement I felt was contained under a layer of surface calm. As I was instructed, I was sitting on my bed when she walked in. This huge German Shepherd walked over to me and sniffed my legs. She introduced him to me, let’s call him W for now, and told me to clip my leash to his collar. I sat on the floor with him when she left, and he came over and licked my face. I walked him once around the room and let him get a good look at everything before showing him his new crate. He paced at the end of his leash for a bit and then sat at the door, crying. I got him interested in a new toy for a short time, but then he forgot it and resumed his lament. I understand it, to some degree. This time is stressful for these dogs, especially when considering how much change they’ve gone through already. At 7 weeks, they went to live with their puppy raisers. At a year and a half or so, they were taken from their families to come back to TSE and live in a kennel while they went through their formal training. The bonds they develop with their instructors are close and deep, and all of a sudden they’re given to this new person and the one they love most in the world ignores them so they can eventually move on and form a new bond with their human partner. If it’s stressful for me, I can only imagine how it is for them when they have no inkling as to what’s going on in their world.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent trying to get through to him. It can take a while, especially with Shepherds. They’re such great dogs, but you really have to earn in with them, I find. We had our first trip that afternoon, and that was a moment I’ll never forget. W was hesitant. He didn’t move forward on the first try, but with some encouragement from myself and especially our instructor, A, he was moving out in no time. It was a short and easy root. We went over basic commands and practiced a few simple street crossings. He did everything he was supposed to, and we returned to campus in one piece.

Sunday, May 2. Early Days

The week progressed. I’m writing about it now because I was so tired each evening when I might have had some time to write. W was pretty winy the first few days of class. He definitely strikes me as being a bit of an extrovert. All of his thoughts and feelings come out of his body in one way or another. When we weren’t working, I spent a lot of time trying to keep him distracted. I brought him down for grooming sessions, which I’m still doing, and we spent a lot of time in the common lounge on the upper floor. He’d still wine in there a bit, but things were a little easier for him with other people and dogs around to keep his mind occupied.

As time went on, his work improved steadily. We started with the South Street root on Thursday and practiced it twice a day in preparation for soloing it this morning. His hesitation isn’t completely gone, but he gains confidence in our partnership with every walk we take. He’s working well past distractions and starting to become more willing to approach down curbs on his own. For a while, he’d stop a bit short, and we’d give him lots of encouragement to finish the curb before we turned onto the next street or crossed the intersection. He’s careful about obstacle work, and He’s a great guide on the whole. I’m excited about every trip we take together, and he seems to be, too. The Solo went well, all things considered. We moved out slowly for the first block or so, but after the first crossing I was able to encourage him to his normal pace and pull. We never got lost, and he’s never yet blown a down curb at a crossing. He guides carefully in busy areas, which is nice to know. We came across several pedestrians, some of whom had dogs with them, and he was pretty good at keeping his distance.

It’s been a crazy first week. The second one’s already started, and it too will be over before I know it. We have our ups and downs, but such is life. He’s showing a lot less stress than he was, and I think we’re starting to build something special together. I can’t say too much, but my boy has two siblings in this class, and it’s very cool to see how they’re all progressing. The instructors affectionately call them “the W’s”, and I’m looking forward to see what the other two get up to in their careers. 

It’s full speed ahead into week two, with busier roots and some free lance work toward the end, I think. If I’m not too tired, I’ll try to write more often to keep the entries shorter. 

Until Next time…