Another post from the sighted guide

Hey all–I’m sort of spent after this week–so Mike’s filling in for me on this one.

Intervention

I'm rooting for them both.

So when Beth has been in New Jersey to match up with her Seeing Eye dogs in the past, people ask me where she is. After I say, “What am I, chopped liver?”– I give them the story. And I usually say something like, “You know, really, the three weeks at The Seeing Eye is to train the people, not the dogs.” And I’m not joking.

By the time Beth parted with Hanni last November, they’d been together for ten years. And I’d been there for most of that time. And I can’t remember a single thing about what it was like when Beth and Hanni came home to Urbana. All I could remember was how well they worked  together the day before Beth headed to New Jersey. Hanni had developed an uncanny sense of Beth’s routine and our routine.

So when Harper started having problems, I literally couldn’t recall what it had been like with Hanni. I think that means Beth didn’t have any problems with her in the early months–otherwise I’d remember. Then again, Hanni had come home to Urbana–which presents its own challenges, to be sure. For one, sometimes the lack of traffic means an absence of audible cues for Beth to use to make crossing decisions. And Urbana, for all its quaintness, has–at least in our old neighborhood–horrible sidewalks. The old paving-block things are in horrible repair and pretty much impassable in spots–people routinely walk on the street instead. If you’re in a wheelchair, forget it. Drivers are erratic–students from the suburbs, just-licensed international students, farmers, parents of college students–not a good mix.

But all in all, Urbana ain’t nothin’ compared to coming home to the center of Chicago. So it’s hard to compare Harper’s performance to Hanni’s in the early months. And the important thing is, it doesn’t matter–Harper has to cut it or, eventually, cut out.

That’s not what anyone wants. Not The Seeing Eye, which spends tens of thousands of dollars breeding, raising, and training each dog. Not Beth, who’s already invested three weeks of her time in New Jersey and has worked hard to get her and Harper on the same page. And not me. I loved the guy the first time I laid eyes on him.

So The Seeing Eye sent one of their fine instructors to the rescue–we hope–last week. Nicole is a twenty-something with a presence that belies her age. She went for a walk with Beth on day one, and I sat in on the debriefing afterward. It was something of a relief to hear her thinking through what she guessed Harper was thinking when he clenched up and froze in his tracks on route. This anthropomorphizing is something Beth and I do routinely and then check ourselves. Who knows what Harper thinks? We just need him to work. But Nicole studied him–just as we had been doing–for clues.

In the end, she decided that he wants to do well so badly and wants not to screw up so badly that when it comes to decisions and ambiguity, he’d rather just fade away. Faced with ambiguity, all he sees is the opportunity to screw up. So he freezes. I wish I didn’t understand exactly what Nicole was talking about, but I did–and it made a lot of sense.

And, we learned, it doesn’t make a lick of difference unless Beth changes her behavior. The long and short of it is, Beth hadn’t been doing anything that explains Harper’s behavior. She didn’t cause these bad-dog days. But she had forgotten a lot–mostly, how to correct mistakes and to provide Harper clear cues about what was expected. After all, Beth hadn’t needed to for years.

So she and Harper are back to the basics. They’re doing really dreary things like this: At an intersection where they both know they always turn left, they still have to go to the curb as if they’re going straight. Harper needs to wait there until Beth commands “left.” She has to be the one in charge, the one deciding when and if they turn. Not Harper. So back to boot camp. It’s a total grind. But so far, it seems to be helping. And I hope that continues. Because Harper’s a really good guy, and I don’t want Beth to be gone another three weeks. Once every 10 years or so is OK, but that’s quite enough.