Harper loves it at home! It's that crazy outside world that's become too much. Who can blame him?

Harper is not the only heroic guy in the family – my husband Mike Knezovich is a hero, too. When I told him I’d have a hard time writing about this, he generously offered to write a guest post about it for me.

Harper the hero

by Mike Knezovich

So I was going to steal a line from Beth and call this post Harper’s Bizarre, because, well, he’s exhibited some really strange behavior over the past several months.

The thing is, if you were to watch Harper and Beth work inside and in the vicinity of our condo building you’d say he was terrific. Because he is. He’s uncanny at finding elevators, weaving through pedestrian traffic, and unbelievably gentle and polite when approaching slow walkers or WPs—wobbly people as we say in the guide dog parlance.

But.

Harper has developed a boundary line—a line only he sees or understands—past which he will not go. Literally. For example, he’ll cross our street—Dearborn—at a very busy intersection and take Beth to the tree where he does his emptying, and he won’t miss a beat. But he won’t cross the next street—a quiet side lane. On a good day, he will follow Beth’s command to walk south, a long city block to Polk Street, then turn right on Beth’s command to head north and back home.

He will not, however, go any farther away from home than that route. He simply stops. He can be literally dragged, but that’s all that will move him. And it’d take a stronger man than me to drag him much more than a yard. He’s one muscular dog.

It’s like this in other locales, too. That is, if I drive Beth to the Chicago Cultural Center, where Beth teaches, he’ll pile out of the car, Beth will grab his harness, and he’ll be off like a rocket up the ramp to the front door, and lead her precisely to her spot in the classroom inside the building. No mean feat, as the Cultural Center is a hulking structure. He’ll take her out of the Cultural Center, too. But only as far as is necessary to be picked up by me or a taxi. He will not venture down the busy city sidewalk to lead her home. Beth traveled to Madison, Wis., recently, and it was the same. She got a ride from Chicago to the front door of her hotel. He brought her to the registration desk. They were led to their room, and he routinely got her out of the hotel and back to the room without help. But he would not travel away from the hotel.

Beth and I have concluded sardonically that we’ve become guide people, service people, our mission in life is to make sure that Harper is able to travel safely with our help. A little gallows humor never hurts when dealing with sad subjects.

But ultimately, this is really sad, not funny. Harper is not bizarre, he’s a hero. And like a good many other heroes, his heroic act has left a lasting—if invisible—scar.
Here’s what happened: about two or three weeks after Beth and Harper came home from training, they were headed north on State Street. Beth waited to hear that traffic on State was moving—indicating that the light was green and she could cross—and she commanded Harper to go forward. They stepped into the street to cross.

A northbound vehicle didn’t see Beth and Harper and made a right turn into their path. Beth doesn’t remember any detail except being dragged backward—by Harper—yanked so hard that she fell to the pavement and hit her head. So hard that it bent and split the metal fitting on Harper’s harness where the handle attaches. (Even back in December during training, Harper had excelled at traffic checks—disobeying the command to go forward in the face of traffic and pulling Beth back if a vehicle darted in front of them.)

The woman driving the car pulled over and came, panicked, to Beth’s aid. She didn’t realize that the reason Beth had fallen backwards was due to Harper’s strength and determination to pull her away from the oncoming car. The driver was sure she’d hit Beth and Harper. Beth, to this day, isn’t absolutely sure whether Harper was brushed by the vehicle or not.

A pedestrian also came to Beth’s aid and asked what he could do for her. Beth asked whether Harper was OK—fully expecting to hear that Harper had been hit.
The pedestrian told her Harper was fine, helped Beth get her bearings, walked her and Harper across the street, and Beth and Harper made it home to tell me the story.

As it happened, Harper was not fine. He behaved normally for at least a couple weeks after the incident. But then, one day, weeks afterward, Beth was on her way to a meeting at her Easter Seals job in Willis Tower. Out of the blue, as they were cruising along Jackson Street, Harper stopped on the sidewalk. It wasn’t at an intersection. A passerby came to Beth’s aid. Beth asked if there was anything unusual—construction or whatever—going on. There was not.

The stranger gave Beth his elbow and walked her and Harper “sighted guide.” As soon as Harper saw Willis Tower—a familiar sight—he picked it up. But later, he kept doing this type of thing: balking, crouching, cowering in the middle of a block—for no apparent reason. He just didn’t want to go any farther.

After a visit from a Seeing Eye instructor, Beth got some great tips using clicker training and treats and Harper started to improve. It looked like he was going to make it.

Then Beth broke her foot.

For weeks she could only take Harper out once a day on harness. And that was only as far as his favorite tree. I’d take him the rest of the time. And that’s when we knew the problem was getting worse, not better. When I took him—or tried to take him—on a walk, he cowered and froze any time we went past his usual spot and on into unknown territory. And he wasn’t even working. He didn’t have his harness on. He knew

I was leading. And he still didn’t go.

I held onto the hope that it was because he knew Beth was back at home, and he didn’t want to go any farther away from her than necessary. The last hope was lost after Beth’s foot healed and she got the doctor’s green light to start walking as far as she wanted to. Where before, a clicker and a treat would get him going, now Harper—a Yellow Labrador Retriever mind you—was not motivated by treats.

The Seeing Eye sent another instructor out our way. Chris spent a couple days with us and Harper. He tried the clicker/treat routine and witnessed what we had. He said he’d never ever seen a Lab who didn’t want a treat badly enough to obey a command.

We talked a lot with Chris, and he said that although the training at the Seeing Eye includes a trip or two to New York City with the trainer, then another with the person they are eventually matched with—there’s really no way to know for sure how a dog will react to city surroundings—or any surroundings, for that matter—in the long term.

He also explained that although Harper didn’t start balking right after the near-miss with the car, the stresses on the dogs can be cumulative.

The three of us talked and imagined what swirled around in Harper’s head. In the end, Chris made it clear that city life had just become too much for Harper. Beth would have to get matched with a new partner. We all agreed that Harper would stay with us at least until Beth could go to another class. He’s still good at what he is able to do, as long as we can provide door-to-door transportation. And we’re more attached to him than ever. As for Harper’s future, Chris said he’d talk with his colleagues when he got back to New Jersey about whether Harper could be retrained and perhaps work in a calmer environment.

We doubted he could, and silently hoped—for Harper’s sake—that he’d be able to spend his years as a plain old dog. But we also hated the idea that all that training, and all Harper’s gentle ways, would be wasted.

Well, we needn’t have worried. Last week John Keane—the Seeing Eye’s head of training—called Beth. He made clear that there was no intention to retrain Harper.
And John drove home that the Seeing Eye’s hard work and Harper’s training were hardly wasted.

“He took a bullet for you,” John said. “And for that he earned an early retirement.”

That’s Harper in his Seeing Eye graduation picture.

Last week we got word that Harper, the lovable yellow Labrador who saved Beth from being hit by a car years ago, passed away. He was 14.

 I chronicled Harper’s heroism in real time in a blog post—I hope you’ll take the time to read (or re-read) it. He really was a hero.

 Speaking of heroes, our friends who have taken Beth’s retired Seeing Eye dogs all should get Purple Hearts. They get terrific canine companions, yes—but the dogs are at the back end of their lives. To Randy (Dora), Nancy and Steven (Hanni), Chris and Larry (Harper), and Elisse (Whitney)—thank you for your generosity and for making parting with Beth’s dogs happy retirement parties, rather than sad goodbyes.

With that I’ll turn the blog over to one of Harper’s humans—Larry, who has his own poignant story that, as fate had it, would intertwine with Harper’s. After Harper and Beth’s near miss with a car, Harper experienced a sort of canine PTSD. Harper simply would not guide Beth more than a block from home. As it turns out, Larry—a Vietnam war veteran—understood Harper, and vice versa. With that, I’ll let Larry tell their story:

Harper came into my/our life at just the right time. I had mistakenly decided that I would retire, having convinced myself that I didn’t have the desire or energy to do the resume/interview thing again.

The problem with that thinking was that I have used work as a narcotic in my life. If I worked 12, 16 or 18 hours a day I could sleep through nights that would otherwise be the playground of the bugs and demons of my military and childhood experiences. When Harper came to live with us, I had run through all of the home repair projects that I had been using to keep me busy, and had become a raving insomniac. Harper arrived disoriented, and I had the impression that he also had demons that he was confronting.

When Hanni (on the left), met Harper (on the right), and Whitney with her back to the camera.

Chris worked with him during the day showing him that it was ok to relax and walk and sniff. At night Harper and I would sit in the dark, each, I’m sure, thinking “What is he thinking about, what is keeping you awake tonight?” At first he would stay in his bed with me watching as he would slowly drift off into a sometimes fitful sleep. I started to realize that I was drifting off first, sleeping in my chair, only to wake up to see a big yellow dog staring at me as if to say, “OK, now what?”

As the months rolled by, Harper became more comfortable in his new surroundings. I was sleeping more, and he was now sleeping in our bedroom—mostly in his bed. Sometimes he would sleep on the floor next to me. He would wake me up by laying his big head on the edge of the bed on those nights that my dreams were not so nice.

Harper was never one to be hugged, yet he loved to have his back and butt scratched. He loved to play the game of “find it,” where Chris would have him sit in the kitchen and then hide treats throughout the house and have him find them, encouraging him to “find it Harper, find it.” He loved the game or maybe it was the treat; regardless, I loved it.

Harper always met us with a wagging tail; I believe he loved people. If Chris and I got too heated in our breakfast conversation, he would come and stand between us, as if to say, “Is this really necessary?”

As we got older he became more and more uncomfortable with thunderstorms. We all spent some sleepless nights listening to thunder and rain. Nothing in my life has had as much meaning as those rainy nights when I was sure that in some small part I was repaying Harper for the nights that he helped me get through.

Yep Harper was a special guy, and will be missed.

Loyal blog readers know that my third Seeing Eye dog Harper was traumatized after being clipped by a car in Chicago traffic last year. When it became clear that this heroic Yellow Labrador couldn’t work any more, our friends Chris and Larry agreed to give him a home with them in Wheaton, a quiet Chicago suburb. I’m sharing this update from Chris as a guest post in honor of Thanksgiving — Mike and I are so thankful to have Harper in such loving hands.

Looking forward to year two

by Chris Towles

Heroic Harper hangin’ in his new harness.

Has it been a year since Harper retired and came to live with us? I can’t imagine our house without him. When he came to us last year, he did fine in the house and loved playing in the backyard, but walking anywhere on a leash was tough. He would often refuse to budge, cowering at times, planting his paws so firmly that we could not get him to move, all the time with a look on his face that seemed so troubled and anxious it would just break your heart.

We started by taking small steps, going no further than one house away, then two houses. I would walk backwards most of the time, doing a lot of coaxing and no leash. We had tried treats, toys, other dogs, but nothing really worked until we hit on the “we walk backwards to get Harper to walk forward” technique.

Finally after a couple of months, we were able to get all the way around the block. That seemed like such a huge accomplishment. Building on this success, and after lots of trial and error with various collar and leash combinations, we found that a “Premier EasyWalk” harness and a retractable leash were key in convincing Harper that our walks were less about work, and more about fresh air and exercise.

Now when we walk, we get loads of compliments on how well behaved Harper is. People are always amazed to hear the heroic story of this lovable yellow lab who has become such a part of our life. We gladly acknowledge that our training is a small part of who he is, and that the credit really goes to the folks at The Seeing Eye who trained and cared for him so lovingly. These days we can walk over three miles on the bike paths and in the forest preserves without problems, and with all of us facing the same direction — yeah! .

Harper has a special knack for doing things that warm our harts. Every night he meets me at the back door, dancing and wagging his tail. Every morning he’s an alarm clock, laying his big ol’ Labrador head on the bed right next to Larry and breathing loudly – I love it! He’s great around kids and has managed to turn my dog fearing nieces and nephews into dog lovers. He’ll play catch, keep away and tug-o-war with them for hours, while being incredibly gentle with the little ones. Neighborhood kids also have great fun playing with our Harper.

Harper and neighbor Beau, caught in one of the rare instances in which they’re standing still.

Harper has made some dog friends too. He and Beau, the collie next door, wear themselves out running and chasing each other around the back yard. Harper also looks forward to playing with Wallace, another yellow lab who lives down the street.

Occasionally I take Harper to my office, where he has several FOH (Friend’s of Harper – Beth is president of the club). He helps to relieve workplace stress just by hanging out and letting people pet him.

We’re looking into getting certified as a therapy animal team and maybe spending some time with veterans at a VA facility. Larry and I were both in the Army, so the idea of sharing Harper’s special calming skills with veterans seems like a good fit. I can’t wait to find out what year two has in store for us.

When I was newly blind and learning to use a white cane, orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors taught me to rely on the surge of traffic at my parallel to recognize when the signal is green and it’s safe to walk. That principle is reinforced every time I travel to Morristown, New Jersey to train with a new Seeing Eye dog. In fact, at the Seeing Eye, one isn’t eligible to be matched with a dog without having completed O&M training.

Dogs are color blind. Seeing Eye dogs can’t read the stoplights, so it’s not their job to determine when it’s safe to cross a busy street. They are trained to go right up to every curb at each street crossing they get to, stop right there, and trust their human partner to use their sense of hearing to figure out what direction traffic is moving. Once we’re certain that traffic is flowing the same direction we want to travel, we give our dogs the command to cross.

As those of you who know the story of Harper know—the dogs are trained to keep an eye out and to disobey their partner if the team is in harm’s way. If, for example, the human just makes a bad call about crossing, the sidewalk has been ripped up for construction, or, as in Harper’s case, a car simply doesn’t stop when it should. It’s called intelligent disobedience, and it’s a pretty difficult thing to ask the dogs to do, when you think about it.

Since that near miss with Harper the hero, I do whatever I can to have the parallel traffic on my right rather than my left. It means that at four-way stops, cars in front of us won’t turn right into our path. I also don’t rely on pedestrians who tell me it’s safe to cross – the sound of the surge at my right parallel is more reliable. Once the traffic on my parallel starts going, the cross traffic can’t run a red light without smashing into the surge. An excerpt from my book Writing Out Loud might help explain. It took place when my Seeing Eye dog Hanni was guiding me down a busy Chicago sidewalk with Michigan Avenue at our right parallel:

Hanni stops at the curb at Jackson.
I feel pedestrians rushing past us. They’re crossing, but the traffic on Michigan hasn’t started yet.

My face betrays my confusion. That, or the guy next to me is a psychic. “It’s red, but there’s no traffic,” the mind reader says. “We can go. You want my arm?”
I tell him thanks, but I’m waiting for them – I point to the traffic on Michigan – to go before I cross.

“Okay,” he says. But it’s one of those okays like “Okay, I tried to help you, but if you’re crazy enough to stand here all day, be my guest.”

When I hear the Michigan Avenue traffic start up, I say “Hanni, forward!” We’re off. “Good girl!”

This afternoon the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), in coordination with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) is hosting an open house Public Meeting about a plan to pilot 50 to 75 Chicago intersections with Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS). An email invitation to the open house describes Accessible Pedestrian Signals as “devices that communicate information about pedestrian signal timing in non-visual formats such as audible tones, speech messages, and/or vibrating surfaces.” I’ve come across APS in other cities we’ve visited — Madison, Wisconsin comes to mind, Urbana, Illinois had a few, and many cities in California use them. I find APS pretty useless. They don’t all work the same, they can be difficult to understand, I can’t be sure if hearing “beep, beep, beep” means I should cross or I should stay put, looking for the button to press to activate the APS can get me off-track and make it hard to find the crosswalk again, that sort of thing. And sometimes the beep, beep beep noise makes it difficult to hear and judge the traffic surge. And then there are the poor people who live and work near one of the APS and have to hear it all the time!

Translation: I am skeptical. And I can think of a million other excuses not to attend the open house this afternoon (I lead three memoir-writing classes in three different Chicago neighborhoods on Thursdays, temperatures outside today are suppose to be in the 90s, yada, yada.

But I think I’ll go. Here’s the info if you want to join Seeing Eye dog Whitney and me there:

The public is invited to attend an Open House Public Meeting regarding this pilot project at the following time and location:

Date: Thursday, July 18, 2019

Time: 4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m

Location:
City of Chicago
Chicago City Hall
121 N LaSalle Street, Room 1103
Chicago, IL 60602

The purpose of this meeting is to introduce the project, APS prioritized locations, and sample equipment, and to receive input on the proposed improvements.

The meeting will be an open house format (no formal presentation). City representatives will be available to discuss the project and answer your questions.

Comments can be provided at the time of the meeting and will be accepted through August 1, 2019.

Comments can be submitted at www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/aps.html or http://tinyurl.com/ChicagoAPS

Seeing Eye dog Luna has been working with me in Chicago for a year-and-a-half now, and somewhere along the way she has picked up a tendency to veer when leading me across certain intersections. We could be, say, on a sidewalk along a busy street with the traffic at our left-hand side going the same direction we are. We get to a busy crossing, I listen to when it sounds safe to cross, I command , “Luna, Forward!” and for her first three or four steps into the street she veers left into that parallel street before curving back into the crosswalk we’re supposed to be walking in.

I contacted the Seeing Eye about this, they asked if Mike could take a video, and after he forwarded that video to the Seeing Eye they called to assure me Luna is not the only guide dog they’ve known to develop this bad habit. “We even have a name for it,” the instructor on the phone told me. “It’s called “arcing’.”

The Seeing Eye is sending instructor Chris Mattoon out tomorrow to spend three days here helping Luna think straight.

Likely he’ll be teaching me a few things, too – I could be inadvertently holding the harness incorrectly at intersections, not facing my shoulders in the right direction before giving the command, delivering my commands too quietly. These dogs pick up on such things.

Longtime Safe & Sound blog readers might recognize Chris Mattoon’s name.

Chris in a photo taken back in 2010 with his own dog Gilda.

Ten years ago he came out to help me decide to retire my third Seeing Eye dog, Harper. In 2011 that heroic Yellow Labrador Retriever saved me from getting hit by a car at a Chicago intersection, and when Harper developed PTSD behaviors afterwards, Chris helped us make the decision to give our hero an early retirement.

From there Chris spent months training Golden/Yellow Labrador Retriever Whitney to become my fourth Seeing Eye dog. I flew to the Seeing Eye in 2012 to spend three weeks working with Chris and Whitney before bringing her home to Chicago. Since then, and especially during the pandemic, Chris has become the Seeing Eye’s main troubleshooter, the trainer they send on house calls to fine-tune the work of people — and dogs — who need a little extra help after graduating from the training program in Morristown, New Jersey.

Please don’t worry that Luna and I are having a terrible time working together! Really, we’re doing very well. We just need some helpful suggestions and reassurance, and I’m grateful the Seeing Eye is sending Chris to provide just that. Cutting this blog post short now to start getting ready for the next three days training — and oh, if you are reading this and are in the memoir-writing class I lead Wednesdays at Admiral-at-the-Lake, don’t fret. Chris is meeting me early this Wednesday morning. We’ll see to it that Luna and I are done in time to lead your afternoon class!