It happened, literally, in the blink of an eye. Betsy Folwell was at her magazine job, squinting at her computer screen, when all of a sudden her visual field filled up with gray. The diagnosis: nonarteritic ischemic optic neuropathy. She was blind. I met Betsy five years ago when Bark magazine asked me to write […]

Today Bark Magazine published a blog post I wrote about my first weeks at home in Chicago with Whitney. I start out the post describing how the Seeing Eye-dog thing is supposed to work. The blind person memorizes or finds the route, the pair gets themselves situated on the sidewalk, the blind person commands “Forward!” […]

The email came from a veterinary student in England. Her name is Rachel Orritt. “I hope this isn’t too out of the blue,” she wrote. “I have been enjoying reading your ‘Safe and Sound’ blog and was wondering if you would be interested in guest posting for my blog.” Rachel’s note went on to explain […]

While preparing my essay for Chicago Public Radio this week I decided to send something about Harper’s early retirement to Bark magazine, too. They liked what I wrote and published When a Seeing Eye Dog Gets Off-Track as a guest post on the Bark blog last Tuesday. The post I wrote for Bark is similar […]

This week The Bark published a post I wrote for them about guide dog Roselle and her blind partner Michael Hingson. The pair were on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They worked in tandem to get out safely, taking 1,463 steps one at a time. […]