A Walk With Racer

We went for our usual early morning walk and chose a route we haven’t done in a few weeks. We were walking along and Racer stopped which usually means there is an obstacle in our path, i.e. overgrown bush or someone’s lawn tools or anything people leave on a sidewalk. Sometimes he stops me though and it is just because he thinks it is time for a treat because he is such a good dog. It is up to me to figure out why he stopped.  I reach a hand in front of us but I couldn’t tell anything was in our way so I said, “Let’s go” and Racer immediately placed a paw on my foot. It was so super cute. I then reached up high and there was a leafy twig sticking out about to hit me in the eyes. He is such a good guide dog. He has improved so much. I don’t know if it is him that has improved or if I have improved my handling skills or if it is just that we are better in tune to each other. I love it though and these are definitely the good years right now so I want to document these great experiences so I don’t forget them.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Racer has a nice bed under my desk at work and another one at home in the living room. In the corner of my bedroom though we only have a huge dog pillow for a bed and it started wearing out and got a hole in it so we went to the pet store to see what we could find. We decided on a fluffy bed and the price seemed too good to pass up. When we got to the cashier though he told us it was double the price of what we had expected because it had been put on the wrong shelf. I had already fallen in love with it and just decided to buy it anyway. The cashier told us if Racer didn’t like it we could bring it back. We got home and put it in place and it seemed way too over stuffed and puffy. Racer stepped onto it and wagged his tail and settled in. Good sign! I walked into the kitchen and started the microwave. I walked back to the bed and reached down to pat Racer but he was outside the bed lying down. I placed my hand on the new bed and said, “Racer, do you like your new bed?” and he stood up and got back into it. The microwave beeped and I went back to the kitchen to check on the food. I came back into the bedroom and once again Racer was outside the bed lying on the carpet. Hmmm, I sighed. My phone rings and my boyfriend says that he thinks the bed was too expensive and we should take it back and I agreed. Racer just wasn’t taking to it. Back in the car we go, and we find a bed that is more the same style of our other beds and it is 15 dollars cheaper so we get home and try again. Racer steps onto it and wags his tail, lies down and stays there. I go into my computer room and get online. Racer usually follows me into the office but he stayed in his bed. Good sign. After about twenty minutes he walks into the computer room to check on me and I finish typing and we both walk into the bedroom. I start folding clothes and he looks at his new bed and runs toward it wagging his tail and jumps on it greeting it as if it is a long lost friend that he hasn’t seen in ages. YAY! Usually in the middle of the night Racer gets out of his bed and walks over to where I’m sleeping and rubs his nose with mine and then runs back to his bed and falls asleep. I think it is super cute but it wakes me up and sometimes I can’t fall back asleep. The first night with his new bed, he stays there all night and never wakes me up with his nose. I do however wake up once during the night because I can hear him snoring loudly. He usually isn’t a loud snorer but I laugh to myself because I think he really is taking to his new bed. Success Finally!   

Purple Booties

We went to the Utah Arts Festival last night. We put on Racer’s cute purple disposable booties to protect his paws from the hot pavement. The temps were in the 90’s. We stayed in the shade the entire time and listened to music. We bought some food and I put a bowl of water down for Racer and after he drank from it he proceeded to lie down on the water. He didn’t exactly lay his face in the bowl but he positioned himself so that his neck was in the water. When we stood up, I felt his cold dripping neck and said, “What a good idea Racer.” He had stopped panting. Last year at the Arts Festival I remember hearing lots of people walk by us and say things like, “what a cute dog.” This year it was all about the booties. “Look at his cute purple mitts” “Ahh did you see those paws!” I think about twelve people stopped and asked if they could pet him and we told them no. We got the chance to educate people about why it is best not to pet service dogs. Bob said it was just funny to see people walking by and they would be frowning and then they would suddenly see Racer and his cute purple booties and a big smile would emerge. A couple of people asked if they could take his picture. Racer definitely steals the show wherever we go. He is our little celebrity.  

Time Races By

I was thinking back to the first few days home with Racer . The morning we flew home he knew something was up because I skipped his breakfast so that he wouldn’t be needing bathroom breaks during the flight. I shouldn’t say skipped because he did get his breakfast that day only it was a little later after we were in SLC. Bob had arrived in CA in time to attend the graduation and we were now flying home all together. We landed in UT and Bob told me to wait by the baggage claim with Racer while he stepped outside to find out which shuttle to take. He starts walking away and Racer looks up at me, once he realized I wasn’t budging, he took matters into his own hands and I think he was thinking, We need to follow that man because I have no idea where we are and this girl is blind! He takes off trotting after Bob as if to say, WAIT! Don’t leave me alone with this chick! I was gripping the harness and calling out to Bob, “I guess we are following you! “Racer had only known me for 2 weeks and only known Bob for 36 hours. It only took him that long to realize who knew what was what. The next morning I was at my office bright and early ready to show Racer around the area. All the cubicles look alike of course (rat maze), and Racer took a while to learn exactly where to turn for my cubicle. He kept turning into the cubicle next to mine instead. Ron, one of my co-workers, in an effort to help Racer remember my cubicle, drew a picture of a dog and splashed some coconut oil on the drawing (he said his dog loves coconut oil). He placed the scented drawing right outside my cubicle right at Racers level. It was a cute idea! The GDB instructor and I had a good laugh.     

Tails and Tractors

Racer and I arrive at our first bus stop and he taps his nose on the pole to tell me we are there. I praise him and stand facing the street while he sits beside me. I hear the manager of the store behind us unlocking the door. The manager often says hello to us in the mornings and I hear him call out to us. I turn around to wave and he says, “I should tell you that there is a large tractor parked right in front of you where the bus usually pulls up.” He walks over to us and walks me around to the side of it and we decide that I should stand off the curb next to the tractor so that the bus will see me and stop for us. The manager says I should be safe standing under the bucket of the tractor. I thank him and he walks back to his store. I laugh to myself picturing what Racer must have been thinking when he saw the tractor sitting there and here we were just standing two feet from it just staring straight ahead and I had no idea. He was probably thinking this should be interesting…  

Adventures with Racer

Visited the City Creek Mall on Friday night with my niece and boyfriend. Waiting for the elevator, the doors open and a girl about five years old exclaims, “Oh, how cute, please come in this elevator, please, please!” The elevator is going down and we need to go up, so we say Sorry as the doors close. We continue to wait and then the elevator appears again, this time going up. The door opens and it is the same family with the pleading little girl, only this time she is cheering, YAY! We step in laughing as the cute girl makes room for Racer to sit right beside her. I love encountering polite children and she just calmly stands near my dog saying sweet little things like, what a good boy, what a sweet dog!

There is a creek running down the center of this mall, and we decide to stop and see if Racer notices the large koi fish that are swimming in the creek. My boyfriend tells me that Racer starts to curiously watch the fish; his ears perk up and the tail starts wagging.  Passersby stop to watch my dog watch the fish.

This morning we went to the park for a walk. Racer decides he needs to relieve and my boyfriend says he will do the honors. He takes the leash and steps onto the grass while I hold the harness and stay on the sidewalk. After a few minutes, I hear my boyfriend’s footsteps and my dog sidles up to me and leans into the back of my legs. I say hello, and am about to reach down to buckle the harness on when I hear a guy say, “C’mon, lets go buddy.” I suddenly realize it isn’t my boyfriend or my dog! The owner gently pulls on his leash and they walk away. Then my boyfriend walks up. Having seen the whole thing, he says, “It was a black lab.” At least I had the breed right!” Smiles ensue.  

It Makes Sense

I am in awe of my experience with blindness. I’m not saying I wouldn’t jump at the chance to get my vision back, but honestly it is interesting to me to think about the way I experienced the world when I had sight verses now when I am blind. Just thinking about the human body and how it compensates, I remember going to a lecture where the speaker said that the visual cortex is a very large part of the brain. But when a person goes blind the brain switches gears and sends more signals to the other parts of the brain which control the other senses, so they get more nutrients and blood flow and they grow larger and larger while the visual cortex actually shrinks.

It’s springtime now, and today I was on my early morning walk around the Avenues. My guide dog leads me and takes the stress out of navigating through the neighborhood so I am able to daydream and notice what my other senses are picking up. We set out at 6:30 am, and at that time there are so many birds singing. It is so loud and beautiful that it makes me imagine that I am in a rain forest. I even hear a wood pecker nearby. I start to smell fragrant flowers that are so sweet and the scent is so potent I think I must be walking through a flower shop. I want to bottle it and use it for perfume. This particular morning a very unexpected scent hits my nose, and I could tell my dog was keen to it too. The most sensational aroma of fried chicken permeated this section of the block. How strange! At this hour of the morning? Really! I don’t know who was drooling more, me or my dog!

I used to go on many walks when I was sighted, but I don’t remember experiencing any of the things that caught my interest this morning on our fabulous walk through the Avenues!

Street Corner Religion

This originally appeared on the Vision Through Words blog on Feb 10, 2016.

https://visionthroughwords.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/street-corner-religion/

 

 I was walking from the bus to my office one cold morning. I was standing at the corner of an intersection waiting for the light to change and cupping my one free hand over my nose and mouth to stay warm. A man walked up and said, “Hi doggie, what’s your name?” I said, “Please don’t talk to him because he is working.” The man then starts talking to me and says he used to be on oxygen, but then God healed him. “Oh that’s nice,” I said. My ears perk up and I realize that the light has changed, and we are so close to getting to my warm office. I give Racer the hand gesture for forward, and don’t have to say anything; he just starts leading me across. The man stays put, but I hear him calling after us, “I prayed, and prayed, and prayed.” His words just hung in the chilly air echoing on and on. It’s weird but I felt like my dog was in agreement with me that this guy was a quack. Maybe what he had to share with me was meaningful but his delivery was lacking. I couldn’t help but wonder why he had decided to share that bit of information with me. Was he indicating that his illness was similar to my blindness and he wanted to offer praying as a solution? Would he have shared this information with just anyone at the corner? I can’t help but feel that it had something to do with my disability. Multiple times I’ve been approached by other strangers who try to tell me that there are doctors who can fix my blindness. They are certain that they have read somewhere about a procedure that will help me. I assure them that I visit a specialist every year who would inform me of any cutting edge remedies. I’ve come to terms with my blindness, but apparently people I sometimes encounter have not. If I were to tell that man my true feelings about praying to be healed, I would say that it would feel too arrogant to ask God to heal me. I would rather God spend his energy on more pressing issues, like granting food to the starving children around the world. Blindness, I can deal with. Going without food, now that’s a problem.

Old Yeller

We stepped onto the elevator at the ski lodge and a young boy exclaimed, “Your dog looks just like Old Yeller!” My boyfriend says, “How do you know about Old Yeller?” The boy explains that he read it in school and saw the movie. We arrived at the 6^th floor and the doors opened. I decided I better download Old Yeller so that I could participate in future literary discussions with ten year olds. The next day is Sunday and boyfriend stops by my place and notices I’ve been crying and asks me about it. “Old Yeller,” I said. He can’t believe I’ve finished it in one afternoon. I remind him it’s only a three hour audio book. Aren’t Mormon Church services that long? Hey, and it is a Sunday after all.

 

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis