I needed the day of rest. I needed the exercise bike ride I finally had the energy to do. Fun bonding time with “Juno” without anything related to work was special; a toy tornado blew through my room! I was pleasantly surprised by a goodie bag from Guiding Eyes with some of my favorite snacks (they called our friends or family members to find out what to buy). We sang happy birthday to one of my classmates, whose guide dog was the best birthday present ever!

When Monday came around, I was ready to go back to work. Learning a new dog is fun and exciting, in addition to exhausting, and after the rest I was ready for the fun an exciting bit.

“Juno” is wonderful. She is focused and poised and takes her job very seriously. She proved just how impressive she is when we were waiting to do some sidewalkless travel and encountered Thomas Panek, CEO of Guiding Eyes, in the hallway with his dog. We had a full five-minute conversation, and “Juno” laid down flawlessly at my feet while we chatted. I don’t know if she was trying to impress anyone, but I was impressed!

Over the past week, “Juno” and I had worked exclusively with the Unifly harness, rather than the more frequently issued leather harness. It’s a lightweight harness with a fully customizable handle, which helped a lot with some of our spacial issues. Jenny didn’t mind being right up against my left leg; “Juno” required more space. That Monday evening, we decided to see how a leather harness would work, and of course (because I can’t try something new on an easy route), we tried the leather harness for the first time on our night walk.

The night walk is an important part of training, because it makes sure that both dog and handler can work well together in the dark. I have very little usable vision, so how I work a dog in the dark doesn’t change much, but that may be different depending on the handler. The leather harness was great! We moved smoothly and flawlessly…

And had our first, real, traffic check.

Traffic checks are an advanced part of training. Most schools in the United States and Canada use simulated traffic checks (where a trainer from the school drives a vehicle either in front of or behind the team). You know on some level it’s coming…

This was not simulated. This was real shit. This was a pizza delivery driver rushing to make their delivery and not paying attention. That vehicle came way too close to comfort. And “Juno” handled it beautifully. She got a huge praise party when we made it onto the far side of the street.

We were thankfully not far from the training centre; the humans – me and the trainer – were rattled by this traffic check. We came inside, took a bunch of deep breaths, and had some hot chocolate.

“Juno”‘s work was done for the night. She’d done so well, and passed all the big things that day with flying colours. Once my nerves calmed down, I was ready to sleep, and looked forward to what the next day had in store for me and my girl.