Now that Yasha had been formally introduced to my friends, family, and colleagues (virtually, anyway) and we were well on our way to building a solid partnership, in some ways things started to slow down. We continued with daily obedience routines (something I’ve since heard described as a “skills refresher”), and doing more walks on our own with the trainers being there for observation only, or to provide feedback after the fact. I felt that Yasha was a great match for me, even if her working style wasn’t quite what I was used to.
As things slowed down, though, in other ways, they were speeding up! Yasha would sometimes see a trainer on campus, and would get super wiggly and excited to see her. For a while I wondered why that was, but then I realized that this trainer was Yasha’s running buddy! So if Yasha saw her, she associated that with a run, and that made her very happy!
We went back to the park where we’d done our doubles work a couple of days before. This time, Yasha had her Unifly harness on, and a lightweight leash designed for running. We had a whole party of support, which I thought was great but I think offended Yasha’s sensibilities (“You think I need an escort to do this running thing?”) Yasha’s buddy ran with us, and two other trainers came along – one on a bike and another on a scooter. Yasha kept a perfect pace with me and (I found out later) had amazing facial expressions when she thinks I’m being foolish. Let’s face it, I’m regularly foolish with my dog… While I felt it went well for a first run (read: needs improvement), One of the trainers told me it was one of the best first runs she’d ever seen! I was happy to be able to run again, especially since my running over the past couple of years had been sporadic, and I loved that Yasha loved it too!
After our run, I got cleaned up and had a chance to spend some time with Yasha’s trainer in the grooming room. Grooming! Yasha’s favorite thing! And she just HAD to show her guide dog trainer all the toys and how happy she could be! Oh, happy day! We talked about Yasha’s speed, and how she likes to go quickly but is always on point. But Yasha got jealous of her doggie friends who were meeting with their trainer in the outdoor fenced yard, and spent several minutes staring out the door and they were frolicking and running.
After supper, I had an opportunity to chat with one of Yasha’s puppy raisers. She wouldn’t be able to make it to the graduation the next day, but we had a lovely chat for almost an hour about Yasha’s growing up during the pandemic and how much she is loved. My heart swelled with happiness at making this connection; we’re still in touch to this day.
It was hard to believe that we were almost done training! And while I was very ready to go home in a couple of days, I was glad to have come and made such great connections with amazing people and a wonderful dog.
One of the things I looked forward to from the day I got my acceptance to Guiding Eyes was the New York City trip. Yes, I know, going for a training day with a new guide dog is different from going for a vacation. But I LOVE NYC for some reason I can’t quite articulate.
I got up on time, did the morning routine, and then we headed over to the closest train station. We practiced working on a train platform, which would come in handy when I got home and used our LRT. “Juno” laid under the seat like the good girl she is and took a nap. When the train pulled in to Grand Central Station, I worked with a trainer I’d never worked with before. She was fun and flexible and had no problems taking photos of me and “Juno” in Grand Central Station.
Once we left the hustle and bustle of Grand Central Station, each guide dog team and trainer went our own way. Some took a subway further down the line and then walked to our final destination – a well-known local burger spot. Others, like us, went to street level, walked as far as we could, and then hopped the subway to get to the burger place. I took an opportunity to practice my targeting skills with pedestrian controls, which were not always readily available on our prior training routes. While this impacted our forward momentum, I got some valuable feedback about timing and placement and how to target effectively. We did walk about thirty blocks, and “Juno” handled the hustle and bustle of New York like the pro she is. We encountered lots of foot traffic, little dogs, strange vehicular traffic, and construction, and my girl worked through it like it was nothing. I was so proud! Once our trainer recognized the time, we found the closest subway station and went underground so that we could meet up with everyone at the burger place. let me tell you, it was a ton of fun getting three dogs and a bunch of humans around a couple of tables! And We laughed a lot, shared the fun and interesting things we encountered, and ate some scrumptious burgers!
Once we were done eating, we realized that it was raining. And not lightly sprinkling raining; the skies would open up, and we’d get caught in the middle. Thankfully, someone drove one of the vans down, and we all piled in before we all got soaked and started to smell like wet dog! As the van made its way down the streets of New York, it got cold enough to slightly snow. I looked forward to seeing how my girl would work in the snow and hoped we’d get some more before we flew home, just because I knew we’d be arriving home and encountering a bunch of it! The van crept along, and we made it back in time to warm up, do some light training work, and turn in for the night.
And after nearly a week of teasing my friends, family and colleagues, and one of my classmates throwing out nonsensical names on social media in an effort to be hilarious, Our work in New York made me feel like it was time to reveal my girl in all of her glory. For nearly ten days, my social media world knew her as “Juno”. One year ago, I formally introduced her as Yasha – a special dog who deserves a special name. And while I can’t claim to have named her, I think it suits her very well.
I hit a point in every prolonged absence from home where the excursion isn’t fun anymore and all I want is to sleep in my own bed, cook my own meals, and wear something that I haven’t pulled out of a backpack in the past week. This time last year, I was so there! and if I could’ve just gotten on a plane and taken “Juno” with me, I would have.
But we had important things to do…
We had the simulated traffic checks, which I already knew that “Juno” would pass with flying colours (she did). We sat for pictures, which was extra frustrating because the trainers guided us to the platform while another trainer situated our dogs, and then some of our dogs would lie down during the group picture rather than sit up. Photos are not a hill I will die on; so long as my dog is out of the way and behaving herself, I don’t care if she’s in the photo op. By the time photos were done, I was so frustrated that I went to my room, and then to the dining hall where I commiserated with my classmates who all had strong opinions on photo day.
After photos and lunch, we headed over to a local park to do some “doubles” work. This is where two guide dog teams practice walking together, alternating who’s in front, so that one dog isn’t always in the lead. This was one thing that Jenny was particularly stubborn about – she always had to be in front – but “Juno” doesn’t care so much about such things. Our doubles partner was not her class boyfriend; we all agreed they’d be too much of a distraction for each other. Instead, the class’ social butterfly was “Juno”‘s doubles partner… for a while at least.
I’m glad we’d switched to the leather harness from the Unifly. One thing I didn’t know was that this park was one of “Juno”‘s favourite running spots. The leather harness constricted her movements enough so that she couldn’t go flying around the park loop… but she wanted to! I hoped we could get a run in before we headed home…
After our invigorating power walk through the park, it was time for vet physicals. All the dogs got their checkups and weigh-ins, and then got taken for baths to make sure the giardia was gone. My girl came back to my room all shiny and clean, happy to be back with me, and out of nowhere got the zoomies! I’d never seen her so happy! I still wanted to go home, but the next day would be one of the highlights of guide dog school – New York City!
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.
I continued waking early in the morning – earlier than I had to. I’d spend some of that time in the early mornings in some combination of bonding with “Juno”, working on my laptop, drinking coffee, and reading audiobooks or watching Forensic Files on Amazon Prime (the latter more for the background noise than anything else). Park-Feed-water-park. Eat breakfast. Head to Alumni Hall for morning obedience session with escalating distractions. Go back to my room to make sure I had what I needed for the day. Load up in the van – all the way to the back – and head off for walking training sessions in various locations.
“Juno” made friends with another dog in class – the dog working with my classmate in the room beside mine. The two dogs would politely but very clearly cuddle in the back of the van, while my friend and classmate and I chatted. The routine changed only in the activities we did or the location we traveled. One day we went to a mall to work on indoor travel, tucking under tables while we had coffee or smoothies or whatever, and escalator work. In the mall is where I discovered “Juno”‘s hidden talents – her astounding ability to find washrooms, her willingness to show me all kinds of little things that may make travel less efficient but more informed, and her “deciding” where I should go. She very clearly decided I needed a new t-shirt; now, I think I’m more disappointed than she was that I never bought a new one.
We changed up the routine one day by changing primary trainers. This was valuable; another set of eyes can see how the team is working, and offer reinforcement or a new perspective on things. It was a nice change on an otherwise gray and cloudy day. That afternoon, we switched things up further by working on clicker training. This was a new thing for me; Jenny was never great at clicker training because she would focus so much on the treats that she’d lose focus on what I wanted her to do (but throw her a praise party and she was happy as a clam!) “Juno” loves her treats, so much so that I had to watch the words I used when talking to the trainer because she’d associate the word “Yes” as a marker that told her a treat was forthcoming… I had no idea I used the word “yes” so much! But clicker training and targeting was different from how I had ever worked before, so I struggled with getting the timing right. Thankfully, “Juno” is an impatiently patient student.
In amidst the routine which was both constant and ever-changing, there was fun, too. We had inside jokes among our class based on songs we heard in the van. “Bony Fingers” was particularly hilarious. My classmates were personable and funny, and I enjoyed spending time with them. Seeing the dogs interact, both at work and at leisure, gave me such joy.
I also had a ton of fun with riddles about the dogs in class. The first little bit of class we could not broadcast the dogs’ names or info on social media or in public forums. This is because puppy raisers need to be notified, and in the event of a dog switch, retracting or changing dogs’ info would be emotional and heartbreaking on a number of fronts. But I had SO much fun with my riddles! I sent the riddles to the office, and posted them on social media, knowing full well that my dog’s name would be by far the hardest to guess, if anyone could guess it at all. My riddle went something like this:
Because I am having FAR too much fun with this… In my class, there are four Labs. One is yellow, three are black. Three are female and one is male. Two of the dogs are different in different ways. One dog might be considered lucky, another is named after a fictional world traveler, one is a designer you’d wear if your future looked bright, and the other looks like someone typed a woman’s name and hit one key to the right on the first letter but decided they liked the name anyway. All dogs have two-syllable names. Juno is a lot like Jenny, just in a different body. Based on these clues, tell me: 1) The makeup of the dogs in class (male and female, yellow and black) 2) The names of all the dogs in class. 3) Who/what is MY dog? (If you know any of these details, you are NOT allowed to comment based on what you know!) Have fun! I’ll come back later!
And my people had fun! 🙂 You, dear blog readers, know “Juno” is yellow and female, but only because I’ve blogged about it before… but one year ago, I felt that this brain teaser would be fun… I had fun, anyway!
And on Saturday night, my classmate and I hung out in Alumni Hall, and tried to order wings because our supper of chicken tacos were both super messy and not nearly filling enough. we still waited more than an hour for the wings to get delivered to us, and when we got them, they were just OK… but we had fun chatting and playing cards while we waited!
The next day would be Sunday, a day of rest, something I truly needed after seven days of intensity. When I closed my eyes, I dreamed of spending the day lounging in my comfiest clothes, going nowhere, and recharging my physical and mental batteries.
As usual, my alarm – whether it was internal or external – woke me well before park-feed-water-park time. So I put on a coffee and got some work done, because just laying in bed made my skin feel like it was going to itch.
“Juno” curled up under my desk while I did the things that needed to get done. I decided to move the mat from inside her crate to the spot under my desk so she’d be more comfortable, and she curled up like she’d been working under a desk for years. If I ever wondered how she’d handle going to the office, I didn’t anymore.
“Juno” HAD to potty, at a time long before anyone was available to pick up. So I picked up, lleft the bag in a space that was easy to find, and sent a text to the nursing staff so she could grab it for more tests. Because that morning, we still didn’t know what was going on with “Juno”, and the more data we had the better.
We hit a milestone in training one year ago today. Our first few walks were with the support leash – where a trainer holds one leash while I hold another. This was interesting for a dog I’d already discovered had boundary issues (do not crowd her, please!) but it’s an important part of the process; if things go sideways, someone who knows this dog well will be able to pull you back from the brink. But one year ago today, the metaphorical “training wheels” came off. I saw some of “Juno”‘s hard-headedness, particularly when it came to going to the bathroom in the rain that had started pouring that morning. I made the inevitable miscalculation of comparing her to Jenny. But to be honest, seeing her stubbornness made me feel more comfortable. I could work with stubborn; I could not work with a dog who just went la-di-da along with everything I did. But while both Jenny and “Juno” are stubborn, “Juno”‘s stubbornness had manners. She decided she was going to be maybe sort of kind of distracted by something, keeping far to the left of the sidewalk. Jenny would have been FULLY DISTRACTED by whatever “Juno” was interested in, and getting her out of that headspace could be a challenge; “Juno” asked politely if I’d reconsider my position on the thing that distracted her, and then moved on when she realized I would not.
Again, guide dog training is exhausting. And the rain didn’t make it more pleasant. When we came back to campus from the training centre, we were all ready to dry off and warm up.
They found me and “Juno” in the grooming room. “Juno” loves loves loves to be groomed; I discovered very early it’s one of her favorite things in the world. You’re brushing her and touching her and all she wants to do is lean into it and soak it up for all it’s worth. If they were looking for me, I knew they had her test results.
“Juno” tested positive for giardia. This is not surprising in any group of dogs in a congregate setting; my partner’s dog tested positive while he was in training as well, and I know they introduced the dogs at some point to see how they got along. Is it possible that my partner’s dog gave it to “Juno”? Maybe. Could it have come from somewhere else? Maybe. Did it really matter? Nope.
“Juno” got medications with every meal. There were two types of medications, one she would take for five days, and one she would take for ten. The dogs in class all got a special treat called a “meatball” with their supper to kill any potential parasites they may have been exposed to. One of my classmates cracked a joke over our supper that there was no blame for “Blondie” (“Juno”‘s class nickname) potentially giving everyone an STI (socially transmitted infection). I was too emotional to find it truly funny then, but looking back now, I can admit… it is kind of funny.
The one constant for me at guide dog school was the fatigue. Not the type of fatigue that a night’s sleep improves, but the physical and emotional exhaustion of constantly doing normal things in a new environment that’s more like boot camp (with a time change to boot!) and new people and a new dog who didn’t know me like my old dog and I just wanted to go home! Throw in an infection that while easy to treat can become chronic, and I was so very exhausted that very little could break me out of this funk.
But “Juno” did…
After ignoring all the toys in the toy box for two whole days, she decided that she wanted to play. And if I was sitting and stewing or working and not moving or paying attention to her… she would nudge me with a toy. If I still ignored her, or didn’t give her the play time she needed, she then decided the way to get my attention for real for real was to throw the toy at me. I didn’t know dogs could throw toys a foot in front of their faces, but she did! I started laughing… And then couldn’t stop.
And, again, after another long day with important steps forward, I thought that maybe it would all be OK.
My mornings started early. Like, off the charts early. Like, 3:00 AM in Alberta early. This was both by choice and by necessity. I couldn’t seem to get a full night’s sleep, so I might as well embrace it and get some work done while I had the brainpower and time to do it. This had the added benefit of giving my brain something to focus on while I was busy doom spiraling and awfulizing in my head.
In truth, I had little to complain about. I had a nice dog that worked hard, loved her job, and made me work for her affection. She was self-contained enough to hang out in her crate – door open, by choice – but was just as content to curl up under the desk at my feet while I typed away on my laptop and drank a cup of coffee before taking “Juno” outside when it was late enough for someone to pick up after her.
Yup… you read that right. The first week of guide dog school had school staff picking up poop. This was a hard thing for me on one hand it seemed kind of strange and infantilizing, and besides it was hard to undo the habit of almost ten years of daily poop pick up. But transitions are hard and scary times for these dogs, and one way dogs show either stress or health concerns is through their poop, so it did make a certain amount of sense for a neutral third party to be able to keep tabs on things. As I found out later, this would be important.
Guide dog training is both highly technical and highly boring to write about. What I will say is that it’s absolutely exhausting. You repeat and repeat and repeat things, slowly building on the thing you did a few minutes ago. I walked 4 km one year ago today with “Juno”, something I could do on a given day without thinking twice about it. But even though these walks were broken up into 30-45 minute training sessions at a time, and even though those were broken up into segments with explanations of what my new dog was doing or waiting for traffic to stop or comments about how sloppy my guide form had gotten over the years (my words, not my trainer’s!), and between sessions I could take a break and have a snack or read a book or do some homework while my trainer was working with one of my classmates, I was exhausted by mid-afternoon. Probably because I was wide awake at 5:00 AM in New York…?
At lunchtime, I took “Juno” for a “park” (AKA a bathroom break). One of the trainers watched through the window in case she needed to do poop pickup. She did. She mentioned briefly to me that she saw some blood and was a little concerned. She scooped the poop and brought it back in the van so it could be tested when we got back to the Guiding Eyes campus. We didn’t get test results back that day.
Once we were done for the day – we were always back by 3:00 PM or so – I would nap. Or read. Or snuggle a Labrador who seemed so disinterested in the box full of toys in the room. At supper, she walked on leash with me to the dining hall, and I sat with my classmate whose room was beside mine. “Juno” and her dog had developed a very cute bond in the van that day, but during supper it was important to keep the dogs from misbehaving.
After supper, my classmate and I decided to see what kind of games we could find in Alumni Hall. My class was comprised of four students – two women about the same age, and two men about the same age (twenty years or so older than the women). We invited the guys to join us for games, but they declined. I brought “Juno” with me to Alumni Hall, in truth because she was so gassy I didn’t want her to stink up my room! My classmate brought her dog with her, too. “Juno” decided to take a bone from the box in the corner of Alumni Hall; if all she felt up to was chewing a bone while we played Scrabble or Uno or whatever, that was fine with me. My classmate’s dog was perfectly behaved until they decided that THEY wanted “Juno”‘s bone. This dog frog-walked under the table and got right in front of “Juno”, and stole the bone right from her mouth. And what did “Juno” do?
NOTHING!
For about ten minutes.
And then she snuck under the table, and stole that bone back!
Once that happened, it was ON! We called it a night when the dogs started getting rowdy, partially because “Juno” wasn’t feeling great, and partly because we didn’t know our dogs well enough to objectively gauge how they’d react in a given play scenario. They’d get plenty of playtime later, but tonight was not that night.
I walked back to my room, laughing at the antics of the dogs, worried about my girl, and yet oddly confident that everything would be OK.
I had high hopes to sleep during my red-eye flight over most of the United States. The universe had other plans. I caught some snatches of sleep but was interrupted by turbulence and a screaming baby. When I disembarked the plane – no wheelchair that morning – I was cranky and exhausted and wondered what in the world I was doing.
I was met at the airport by a member of the Guiding Eyes staff and was directed to the baggage carousel. When I said I had my backpack and that was it, the response was surprise – this was something that would happen frequently over the next two weeks. But with no baggage to pick up, I was that much closer to my ride, a cup of coffee, and a nap, not necessarily in that order.
I was the first of my class – all four of us – to arrive at Guiding Eyes. I was directed to my room, where I promptly put down my backpack, sprawled out on the bed, and fell asleep for three hours. I connected to the wifi, sent a few emails, and then headed down the hall and up the ramp for lunch, where I met one of my classmates for lunch.
The first time training with a guide dog, I trained in my local environment, so any food that was prepared, I had to either make it myself or eat it in restaurants or coffee shops locally. For years I’ve heard amazing things about the food at guide dog school, and while I was fed and the food wasn’t bad, I felt disappointment that the food was… decent.
After lunch and a chat with my classmate, whose room was right beside mine, I went back to my room and waited for the Juno walk.. with a real dog! Maybe my real new dog?
The first introduction I had to “Juno” was her nose in my crotch. AWKWARD!!! I knew she was a yellow lab female, and that’s it. Everything I said during our entire walk was using the name “Juno” (a standard name used by guide dog schools to indicate a non-specific or – when a trainer is simulating a dog’s movements – a non-existent dog).
“Juno, forward.”
She was off like a rocket. She pulled like a tank.
“Juno, left.”
She took the turn smoothly at a wide angle; I was used to Jenny’s turn-on-a-dime style.
She was smart and quick and eager to please, and I was a teeeeeeensy bit smitten.
I learned very quickly with “Juno” that I’d let my body posture get sloppy. With Jenny, I could move in whatever ways I felt comfortable, and they’d communicate to her; Jenny and I knew each other. I could move my right wrist only slightly and she’d make a turn; “Juno” required fuller movements. Jenny didn’t mind my being right beside her; “Juno” required a bit more space. We tried different harness handles, and the walk was both exhausting and exhilarating, and I wanted more than anything for “Juno” to be my match.
After the “Juno” walk, as my other classmates arrived, we all settled in, ate dinner, and turned in early. I was exhausted. All I could think about was a smart yellow lab with inconsistent boundary issues, and how much I could sleep that night while I fretted about bonding with a new dog while Jenny hung out at home.
I need not have worried:
Dear diary… I was so sad when my mom left yesterday without me and I don’t know where she went, and she wasn’t there this morning either. Then my bestest friend came over and took me out for the day, we went to his house where I got tons of cuddles and belly rubs and played in the snow. Then we went on another car ride and some long walks and went to a great coffee shop that serves puppuchinos, we met another friend and then went to a school where I met a bunch of small humans who thought I was awesome. A little girl gave me liver treats and I showed her how well I could follow directions, and then we had a cuddle and a nap on the couch before I went home and played with my new little brother until we both had to lie down for a rest. I still miss my mom, but sure have some great friends. Is this called retirement ? I was exhausted.
I look back over the past year, and realize just how much has happened, how hard it’s been, and how little I’ve written about the whole thing. Jenny retired. I trained with a new guide dog who, in October, was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor that thankfully got removed but resulted in a complicated healing process. My schooling misadventures feel like how I tried to write about them earlier this year – fits and starts and momentum and slammed-on brakes. We adopted a fourth cat. I’m going through a period of self-discovery that I’m not ready to discuss yet, but it does bear mentioning here because it’s part of all the things I’ve done in 2023 and will move forward into 2024.
In short… this year has been harder than I ever expected it to be. I feel like I’ve spent most of it treading water, being handed a lifeline (like a new opportunity), and then getting buried by another wave that might not be really massive, but certainly feels like it. But for the first time in most of a year or maybe longer, I feel like I’m breathing now. I know more about what I need to cope, and hope in 2024 I can share more about this self-discovery journey I’m on… but first let’s look back over 2023, such as it was.
Jenny’s Retirement
Jenny has been retired for nearly a year. She showed me in very real ways in the fall of 2022 that she was ready. My decisive dog – who made even incorrect decisions with 100% confidence – was reluctant to make decisions if there was more than one option. I still tear up thinking of the ways she tried to gently tell me she was ready – being more interested in hanging out with other people, general restlessness, slowing down on routes – until she told me in the most obvious way she knew how that she just was ready to be done. She loves retirement, but whenever I can I love taking her on leash trips to pet-friendly places; she loves those trips, too. She loves curling up and napping in her crate, enthusiastically greets me and Yasha, her successor, whenever we get home from work. She’s made friends with our newest cat, who I am convinced should’ve been born a dog. Her life is about snuggles and playtime and love, and she’s loving retirement!
Introducing: Yasha
IN January, 2023, I took a trip to Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York to train with a 3-year-old yellow Labrador named Yasha. They tell you not to, but I had a hard time not comparing her to Jenny. Both girls are smart, both are stubborn. But where Jenny thought everything work-related was a new adventure and would do just about anything unless there was a very compelling reason not to do that thing, Yasha is more cautious and insists on a “business plan” as to why my decision(s) should override hers. The first year has been challenging in a way Jenny’s first year with me was not. I took her to the vet in October because I had some concerns about some symptoms and behaviors, and it turned out that she had a mast cell tumor. We spent most of October and November in and out of the vet – removal of the tumor, suture check post-surgery, redoing sutures when one or two blew out 10 days post-surgery, redoing sutures ten days after the first set was re-done, staples ten days later because it was clear sutures weren’t working, and then removal of the staples and hoping for the best when all of those didn’t hold. Thankfully, her prognosis is good, and her surgical site has healed over and is growing fur again!
But our first year wasn’t all about surgeries and vet visits – thankfully! We got to travel this year. Our first trip, to Vancouver, was a good experience for us. Like me, people in my life seemed to compare her to Jenny; or at the very least made comments about her hard-headedness, while I was trying to pick my battles with my new young dog. Our trip to California in December was a great team-building experience, because for the most part, it was her and I taking on Sacramento and San Francisco – areas I knew only slightly. She freaking rocked it, and loves the challenge of new places. One of her fun quirks is her “regrouping” strategy; if she figures out that neither of us know what we’re doing, she’ll take me to an out-of-the-way space to take a deep breath, get our bearings, and then come up with a game plan. She’s found great places to do this (like out of the way corners), and less than ideal ones (like bike racks), but I love her intuitiveness and how we are connecting in these ways. As I come up to one year with this smart, stubborn, serious working dog, I am glad we’ve had these times together, and I look forward to so many more adventures.
So… we Have a Whole Menagerie!
Jenny retired, I trained and brought home Yasha. My partner trained with and brought home a new service dog of his own. So, in the span of about 3 months, we adopted Madonna (a cute white and black cat that everyone calls “Maddie”), and brought home two new Labrador service dogs. This meant our household included 3 Labrador retrievers, three cats, and two humans.
So what did we do?
We adopted another cat. This one, a boy. Wiley is sweet and funny and a little bit foolish – how else can you describe laying in the middle of the floor, getting tripped on, and still not moving? We named him Wiley because he convinced us that he was a chill, mellow marshmallow of a cat… and then started tipping over water bowls in his excitement to go to a new home. He likes to sit beside me when i drink my coffee in the mornings, and can make a cat toy out of just about anything. Wiley is so sweet. He gets along with the dogs (Yasha’s his best friend in the whole wide world), loves Maddie, doesn’t mind getting bossed around by Monkey, and is still figuring out how not to get the crap beaten out of him by Wolfie. That last one is a work in progress.
Our menagerie makes us laugh every single day. Whether Jenny is trying to play with Wiley, or Monkey’s finding interesting and bizarre places to nap, or Yasha is throwing toys at whoever she wants to play with her… I laugh every single day. There’s almost always someone to snuggle with. There will always be fur on my floors, and I’ve made peace with that; but the love and laughter is worth more to me than perfectly clean floors.
School Is… School!
I’ve written before about how school is going. It’s been great in some areas and extremely frustrating in others. I’ve had course coordinators and tutors be extremely supportive – from making accessible format materials and answering all my questions, to the point of contacting accessibility services on my behalf because “it’s your job to learn the material, and it’s my job to make sure that happens” – and those that were much less helpful. I am finishing two courses right now for which I’ve requested extensions while starting two new ones. Online education for me has been a mixed bag, and I do want to write more about it as I move along this journey. But right now, writing about it seems counter-productive; it feels like I should be doing the school things, rather than writing about them.
Cool Unexpected Opportunities
As much as it feels like I didn’t do much in 2023 because I was so busy treading water and putting one foot in front of the other, I stumbled into some cool new opportunities this year. A friend reached out to me late in 2022 about a local docuseries about guide dogs she was participating in, and thought I could share my story too. At the time, Jenny’s retirement was imminent, and I felt it was just the wrong timing, especially with that experience being so raw and training with a new unknown dog, so I let it go and didn’t contact the creators and (I realize now) just hoped it would go away. But life has a funny way of throwing opportunities back at you. Next thing I knew, I was being interviewed on camera, talking about guide dogs, and – after a few months – viewing the final product. Edmonton’s Guide to Guide Dogs debuted in September and can be found on Youtube and Telus Optic TV. I’m glad I was a part of it, and hope it can entertain and educate about the important work that guide and service dogs do in our city.
On top of that, this year found me opening the door to becoming a real published author! I am one of 15 authors whose stories will be shared in an upcoming publication “Run for your Life”, which will be released in March, 2024. The writing was both easier and harder than I thought it would be; I’d written about running for years now. But telling your story as it is intertwined with other peoples’ is a complicated business. how much can you tell of your story without veering off-course and telling the stories that truly belong to others? I think I succeeded in telling my story, and am excited to hold in my hands a real physical book with my name in it!
Speaking of running… I ran my fastest half marathon in years in Edmonton in August! I also ran the Vancouver Half in May, and had a wonderful time! And in December I ran/walked a marathon! I went back to Sacramento to run the California International Marathon, even though I found out in July that the support that’s been provided to visually impaired runners for the past 15 years would no longer be provided. My training was insufficient (I had a hard time training with guides this fall), and my lack of motivation didn’t help. But I crossed the finish line and made a new friend in my guide runner in the process.
So… now what?
Normally, my partner and I light a fire and burn all the paper and cardboard things we’ve accumulated during the year as a symbol of ushering out old things so we can move forward in the new. But it’s so dry and warm that we have no snow to buffer against the fire. So… I guess… I’m thinking about the fire that will be whenever it’s safe to do so. I’m thinking about all of my hopes for 2024; more writing, more jewelry making, and maybe more music. I plan to run a marathon in 2024, but I will be careful about the race I choose, and make sure ahead of time that I’m able to secure guides regularly to train – the past two years have not made this possible. I hope to get through school and re-discover the joy an excitement that I only now realize has been left behind in much of the frustration I’ve faced over the past few months.
In short… In 2024, I just hope. I hope to breathe. I hope for strength. I hope for grace. And I hope 2024 is gentler to me than 2023 has been.
However the past year has been for you, I hope the coming year brings you love, peace, rest, discovery, joy, and productivity – in whatever healthy ways those things look like for you.
OK, I did not take one detour on my path to my certiciate. I took two!
In hindsight, which is always 20/20, my first detour was probably more of a catering for my need for validation than an actual practical need on my education journey.
This second one? I 100% believe I needed it.
Admn 100 – or, as I have affectionately dubbed it, “Business Math for Dummies.” – was both incredibly useful and incredibly frustrating for me. I re-discovered my hatred of fractions, and that I am surprisingly good at graphing equations non-visually. But there were some difficulties that I didn’t know about, and wouldn’t have known until partway through the course.
First off, my textbook was an etext. I’ve written before about the etext book. This one was easy enough to navigate, though I can’t say I was a big fan of the chapters and units in the textbook collapsing, and needing to expand them, rather than going and moving seamlessly and directly from one unit or section to another. Using a braille display was absolutely essential for me to quickly read any formulas, though this was not completely seamless either (it was almost impossible to tell if a numerical value was a fraction). But overall, the textbook experience was relatively simple.
The practice exercises in the textbook were doable, but I found myself going back and forth between the textbook and my computer’s calculator. The same for using the practice exercises online – with the added fun of the exercises being technically accessible (I could do them, but not without a bunch of frustration and scrolling up and down on my screen).
Enter the veritable needle in a haystack experience that was finding a talking financial calculator.
I did find one, which does much of what I needed to. However, there was only one distributor I could find in North America, which meant I paid a small fortune for shipping, plus the exchange rate. I am only now (as of about 24 hours ago) finding a couple of shortcomings with the calculator that, again, I would probably have known had their been more accessible options out there.
And the quizzes… did I mentioned I hate fractions?
Join me tomorrow when I tell the whole story behind the “it’s just a few things” inaccessible quiz experience.