Followers of our Safe & Sound blog know that my Seeing Eye dog Whitney will be retiring soon. She sleeps more than she used to, she walks slower when leading me through Chicago, and every once in a while she loses focus. All that said, she is still one smart dog. Whitney was leading me […]
I am pleased to have Hava Hegenbarth back as a guest blogger today. Hava volunteered as a puppy-raiser for Leader Dogs for years. We’ve never met face to face, but she’s been following our Safe & Sound blog since it started, so we feel we know each other. Hava is retired after a career in the […]
Travel everywhere you go with the help of a guide dog, and strangers will feed you an earful of stories about all the other service animals they’ve read about. Helper parrots pecking at shoppers in stores, comfort pigs going crazy on airplanes, a therapeutic rat that quells anxiety in his owner, you name it. The […]
After we published Mike’s thoughtful post about my Seeing Eye dog Whitney’s upcoming retirement, caring friends and family have been asking if I know what breed my next dog will be. Do I know the name of my next dog, Will they tell you if it’s going to be a male or female? Hearing myself […]
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 […]