by Sarah J. Blake
(Editor’s Note: This is a second article in a four-part series about one person’s experience of retiring one faithful guide dog and learning to love another. Look for the next installment in Sarah's story later this summer.)
I was very tired as I boarded the plane in Indianapolis on September 25, 1999. I had not slept well the night before. I had been packing instead of sleeping. Now I was just hoping for a smooth, uneventful flight to Newark. Maybe I could catch a few winks while we were in the air.
Once the flight took off, I got what I had hoped for. I slept so deeply that I didn’t even realize we had landed until I heard the engine become quiet and the captain turn off the “Fasten Seat Belt” sign.
In Newark, I expected to be met by a driver who would take me directly to the Seeing Eye in Morristown, N.J. I waited about half an hour before he located me, and the uncertainty caused quite a bit of anxiety. When he located me, he told me that he was also meeting another student. I was glad to have company on the way to the Seeing Eye.
Many things had changed since my previous trip to the school, the most noticeable of which for me was the fact that this time, each student had his or her own room. I wasn’t sure whether I would like this arrangement or not. In the end, I decided that it was a positive change. After all, I could usually find someone to talk to in one of the lounges.
The other major change was that dogs were now given to us on Monday instead of Sunday. Several of us complained about this, and the students at my table tried to convince our instructor to bring us our dogs early. Of course, our pleas didn’t work. We were given an opportunity to practice obedience with some dogs — not our own — on Sunday afternoon, and this appeased most of us. However, one student stated emphatically at Sunday dinner, “You know I won’t be able to sleep tonight!”
Monday finally came, and we all went to our rooms after lunch to wait. I was in the middle of reminiscing about my first meeting with Elli when my instructor knocked quietly on my door. I opened it excitedly, and there she stood with my dog — just far enough away that I would have to follow them down to the lounge for the meeting. I did this anxiously, and Dori, my new black Labrador retriever, responded to me with much licking and tail-wagging. My instructor commented that she had never seen Dori “this animated.”
I had already determined in my mind that this training was going to be different in several ways from my training with Elli. I had learned a lot from mistakes I had made with Elli, and I intended to keep those lessons in mind. The first thing I wanted to do was to ensure the best possible bond between myself and this new dog. It started with our first contact.
Interacting with Dori was not always easy. I had much less energy than I had had when I trained with Elli and was also in poor health. I had to unlearn some bad habits. I also found that Dori required a different style of interaction than Elli had. I struggled a great deal with this during the first few days and realized that I was having difficulty emotionally with correcting her because of certain regrets I had about the ways in which I had handled Elli.
I understood the reality of this when Lucas Franck, who had trained me with Elli, asked me how I was enjoying Dori. “She’s awesome,” I said, “but I feel guilty saying that.”
“Why?” he asked. “Elli’s awesome, too. Elli’s old and awesome. Dori’s young and awesome. You’re young and awesome, and you need a dog who’s young and awesome. God designed this so you could enjoy more than one dog. So if you feel guilty, you talk to God.”
He was right. Elli was a wonderful girl. Elli is a wonderful girl. And so is Dori. But if I allowed my guilt about things that happened incorrectly or didn’t happen at all with Elli to control my relationship with Dori, we would be getting off to a very bad start.
From that moment on, I was at peace with my decision to retire Elli and learned to communicate my expectations to Dori in the ways which were appropriate for her temperament. Much of our training after that went very smoothly.
We had been told that we would have a fire drill on Friday at 5 p.m. Each of us had been shown where the various fire exits were in the building. We were all prepared for the drill. We were not prepared for the fire alarm to sound at midnight on Tuesday night. I was still awake, writing in my journal. I hurried downstairs and outside with Dori. I was amazed at my ability to maintain my composure, but I lost my bearings in the stairwell, which had a number of places where I had to turn.
The alarm was a false alarm. However, we all stood outside for some 30 minutes until the firemen came to investigate. We were told that they were required to come anytime there was an alarm. Some of us laughed and joked about the incident. Others grumbled about the loss of sleep and the rain.
I had just climbed into bed and was drifting off to sleep when the alarm sounded again. Tired and annoyed, I made the trip back outside with Dori and all my classmates for another 30-minute wait in the rain. I didn’t laugh this time, and neither did many of my classmates.
There were three more alarms during the next two days. It was finally discovered that some of the fire-detection sensors were malfunctioning. Needless to say, we did not have the scheduled fire drill on Friday.
Days in training were long, beginning at 5:30 and ending with an 8:00 trip outside for the dogs’ benefit before we had some free time. I enjoyed my time there, just as I had the last time I was in Morristown. I spent quite a bit of my free time using the Technology Center to learn about Windows and to correspond with friends via e-mail. I sent frequent reports about my experiences to my parents, friends, and other family members. When I was not in the Tech Center, I napped, read, or spent time talking and playing games with my classmates. I also took occasional walks on the leisure path with classmates; alone; and once even with Rachel, my former classmate, who had come to visit with her guide, who was still working at 10 years of age.
Having visitors while I was in class was a new experience for me. During my training with Elli, I had come from Texas, and most of my friends lived in Texas. While in training I had been introduced to telecommunications for the first time, and since then I had become active on the Internet. One of the ways I had put my interest in the Internet to good use was to start an e-mail-based discussion list for parents of blind and visually impaired children. One of the families from the list visited me while I was in class. I enjoyed having some contact with “the real world.”
Life at the Seeing Eye is not very natural. Beds are made for us. Meals are cooked for us. Schedules are planned and very strictly adhered to. I found that sitting with my visitors helped to remind me that I was preparing for re-entry into a life that I often felt I had left far away when I came to training.
The day of departure finally arrived. Thursday, October 14, was a bittersweet day for me. My instructor took me to the airport that morning. As we walked through the airport, she commented that Dori looked “classy, even though she doesn’t know where she’s going.” I was proud.
We checked in and sat down to wait for the plane to arrive. My instructor asked if she might say goodbye to Dori. I didn’t mind this at all. I knew that there was still a special bond between them, evidenced by Dori’s tendency to become distracted whenever the instructor was passing us in the hallway.
My instructor knelt down beside Dori and began talking affectionately to her. “I want you to be a good girl,” she said. Then she used what had become Dori’s nicknames when she was disobedient. “Don’t be Doris or Dorothy. Just Dori, all the time.” I smiled to myself. It was almost as if she was giving Dori instructions for life.
The plane arrived, and I left my instructor standing at the gate. I was now in “the real world,” on my way home.