It was the yellow Lab guide puppy in training we saw with its owner in a New York subway station that made me finally decide to get a guide dog. During Thanksgiving break, Mom and I were coming home from some Black Friday shopping. Mom never wasted an opportunity to pet any dog that was in our path and talk with its owner, and as we made our way down the subway platform to the front of the #2 train, Mom exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, look at that beautiful Lab puppy!”
It was wearing a bright yellow vest that said “guide dog puppy in training” and the woman holding the dog’s leash was heading in our direction.
“Excuse me, Miss?” Mom called to her.
“Yes?” said the woman, who seemed used to being stopped to talk about her puppy.
“My daughter is blind, and many people have been telling her for years that she should get a guide dog. Is it okay to pet your dog?”
“Oh, how wonderful!” she said. “It is so good for us puppy walkers to meet a blind person one of our dogs could potentially be helping. Let me just get her under control, and then you can pet her.” I stepped forward as she said, “Gracie, sit,” in a firm voice. The puppy obeyed, and the woman told me it was okay to pet Gracie.
“Gracie will be nine months old next week, and I’ve raised her since she was just eight weeks old,” the woman told us.
“What do you teach the dog to do?” Mom asked.
“The Guide Dog Foundation where Gracie hails from asks volunteers like myself to housebreak puppies. We also take them into as many public places as possible to get them to behave around other people, and we expose them to many situations they would face every day with their new handlers.”
“I couldn’t imagine giving the puppy back to the school when they’re ready for training,” Mom said. “We have a yellow Lab who is almost nine years old, and we’re extremely attached to her.”
“It is one of the most painful things to give back a puppy when the time comes,” the woman said. “But we have to look at the reward that makes all of that pain and sadness worth it. The first puppy I raised just got matched with his handler, and when I hear about the wonderful things he is doing to help his new person, I feel so good about having raised him.”
* * *
Everyone, from my loved ones to strangers who met me on the street, told me that I should get a guide dog. Nobody seemed to know exactly what it meant to have one, or what the dog would do to help a blind person, but they felt that a dog would somehow be the magical answer to something about my blindness that they felt needed to be fulfilled. Perhaps some people had read the human interest stories about guide dog/handler teams in the paper, like the one about the blind man who worked in the World Trade Center being led to safety by his guide dog just after the first plane crashed. Or perhaps, people just felt that having a big dog by my side would keep away strangers with bad intentions. Most people, I think, just liked dogs, and felt that I would really enjoy the company of one as I walked the streets.
I knew that I would want a guide dog some time in the future. I had fallen in love with Diva, who we got as a six-week-old pup, when I was fourteen years old. People would often guess that Diva was my guide dog since they often saw Labs guiding blind people, and I knew a dog as sweet and obedient as she was would be a pleasure to have by my side all the time.
However, even when I turned sixteen, the minimum age requirement for getting a guide dog, I didn’t feel ready. As much as I loved Diva, I never had to take care of her when she was sick or hurt. She and our other two family dogs were like siblings who I could play and cuddle with any time I wanted, but I knew their well being was taken care of by Mom and Dad. Every year in college when the subject would inevitably come up again, I still put off applying for a guide dog.
* * *
Mom told Brian and Dad about the puppy walker and the dog we had met in the subway station at dinner that night.
“Laurie, you’ve been dragging your heels about getting a dog for years. Why don’t you just do it already?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not ready.”
“You’ll never be ready,” Brian argued. “You have to bite the bullet and do it. You always talk about feeling so vulnerable with your cane.”
“But what if I kill the dog by accident?” I asked. “I couldn’t even keep my plants alive at Oberlin. The poor things had to be nursed back to health by Olivia.”
“A dog is a lot different than a plant,” Mom laughed. “Believe me, if our dogs were as difficult to care for as plants, or as fragile, they would be long gone by now.”
“Say my dog gets sick. What do I do then?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Brian asked, turning to me suddenly with an incredulous look on his face. “You take it to the vet.”
“I guess,” I said, thinking of no other reason that I shouldn’t get a dog.
“It is a lot of responsibility and time to take care of a dog, but I think it would be a labor of love for you,” Mom said. “You know how close you feel to Diva.”
* * *
The following Monday, Mom urged me to call the Guide Dog Foundation. I obliged and asked for an application, which I filled out, sent back to the foundation, and promptly forgot about for two months. One day, late in January, I received an email from the foundation saying they were ready to schedule a phone interview with me.
On the following Tuesday afternoon, I rushed home after a voice lesson just in time for a phone call from a trainer named Kim who asked me a series of questions. How much time did I spend in urban settings, and how much time in rural ones? Did I have a consistent daily routine, or was my life subject to change at a moment’s notice? Did I travel in areas with big crowds? How often would I be traveling on an airplane? Did I walk a lot, or did I mostly find myself in a car?
I told her that I planned to live in a city like New York for several years, to walk extensively, that I traveled a lot for my singing, and that life as a singer varied from day to day. The thorough interview went on for an hour, and Kim ended the call by saying she would visit me at Yale in person sometime in early spring.
“Man, you’re a fast walker,” Kim said as she watched me make my way from HGS to Hendrie Hall. “Do you always walk at that pace?”
“Yes, because I’m always running late,” I laughed.
We spent an hour walking around campus as Kim surveyed the environment and scribbled notes furiously.
“I think I have all I need,” Kim said as we returned to HGS. “I just want to warn you, it could be a while before you hear from us. Each dog’s temperament and personality is so different, we don’t always have a dog right away for everyone who applies. It can take us a while to find the perfect match for your walking speed, your lifestyle, etc.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “When it’s meant to be, I’m sure it will happen.”
* * *
Months went by with no word from the Guide Dog Foundation. My mind was occupied with finishing up my first year at Yale and getting ready for a two-week-long summer music program focused on the study of early music in England. It wasn’t until after I returned home from England in late June that I got the phone call.
“Laurie,” said a young friendly voice. “This is Stacy from Consumer Services at the Guide Dog Foundation calling.”
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“I’m very happy to tell you that we’ve found a dog for you. I know this is short notice, but would you happen to be available to come for our July/August class?”
The Guide Dog Foundation, located in Smithtown, a small, quiet town on the North Shore of Long Island, is a little more than an hour away from New York City. Mom drove me there and dropped me off for the twenty-five-day-long training program I would have with my new dog. The foundation provides dogs, training, room, and board at no cost to their students. People from all over the US and from other countries come to the foundation to get their guide dogs.
The building that housed many of the school’s offices, the dining hall, and the residence hall was undergoing renovations, and trailers had been rented to temporarily take their place. Each trailer was its own apartment-sized unit with a front door that opened into a modest living room and a bedroom on either side of the main room. The trailer I was assigned to had the largest living room and was used to hold all of the evening lectures.
I shared a room with a girl my age named Taryn who was in graduate school for education at Harvard, and we teased each other about going to rival schools when we introduced ourselves. We shared our trailer with a woman in her sixties who occupied the second bedroom and who kept to herself.
* * *
Before I had set foot on the foundation’s campus, the reality that I would be sharing the next several years of my life with a guide dog hadn’t hit me. Now, as I woke up in my trailer, I felt waves of nerves and excitement. The dog was becoming a reality, not just something vague that I kept pushing further into my future. Soon, my dog would have a breed, a sex, and a name, all of which I wouldn’t find out about until the next day.
Our first day of class was spent being taken on walks with trainers who showed us the basic footwork and hand gestures that went with the commands “left,” “right,” straight,” and “about,” which meant an about-face.
“Don’t forget that you want to advance your position and be closer to your dog’s head when you want it to turn left,” said Sebastian, a young trainer who had just come to the foundation from England. “Your body will help communicate what you want from him. If you want him to turn right, you need to stay ever so slightly behind so he has room to move you around right.”
“Now I’ll show you how to give your dog a correction when he’s not paying attention or is misbehaving,” Sebastian said. He handed me one end of a training handle, which simulated the feel of the handle on my future dog’s harness. “I want you to release all the pressure, and then give the handle a good snap.” I did as I was told. “Much harder,” Sebastian said. “You are not hurting the dog, you’re just getting his attention, showing him you’re his leader. Good, now I want you to let go of the handle, and give the leash around your wrist a good snap. This is a more severe correction for when the dog is riled up about something and needs an extra reminder of who the leader is.”
* * *
The first evening’s lecture, given by a trainer named Mike who was on night duty, was designed to prepare us for meeting our new dogs.
“It’s hard to say how your dog will react when you meet,” he said. “Every dog is different. Some dogs will be excited to meet a new person, and will bound over to you when your trainer tells you to call the dog to you for the first time. Other dogs may balk at being left with a new person. Whatever happens, just be patient, and talk to and pet your dog calmly. You’ll have twenty minutes alone with your dog for some initial bonding before your trainer will call you for your first walk.”
The energy in the room was growing more intense as we all began to anticipate our first meetings with our dogs.
“You could get one of a number of different breeds or crosses. We have Labs, Goldens, Lab/Golden crosses, and now we’re trying out Lab/Poodle crosses.”
“Lab/Poodles?” Taryn asked. “What on earth would that combination look like?”
“Quite nice looking actually,” Mike said. “They are super smart and alert, sharp as whips, but the Lab side tones the Poodle’s high-strung side down.”
* * *
You could cut the tension with a knife the next day as we all sat in the lecture trailer silently, awaiting the announcement of our dogs’ breeds and names. At long last, Krista, a young apprentice trainer, entered the living room, and we could hear her shifting papers.
“Are you guys ready to hear about your new dogs?” she asked.
“Yes, please!” we all said.
“Taryn, you’re getting Lady, a female, black Lab/Poodle cross. Anthony, you’re getting Gino, a male, yellow Lab/Golden cross. Ireanne, you’re getting a male yellow Lab/Golden cross named Solo.” She continued going down the list, until, at last, “Laurie, you’re getting Mark, a male black Lab/Poodle cross.”
I gasped. He was real! He was male! He was a cross between a Lab and a Poodle, and I was a nervous wreck.
After the announcement, we were told to go to the dining trailer for lunch and then to go back to our rooms where we would be introduced to our new partners. As I nibbled on the tuna sandwich and potato chips on my plate, I began to feel as though I were being set up on a blind date. Several thoughts and questions went through my head in rapid succession, “Will he like me? Will I like him? What if we don’t click?”
And then my conscience would answer, “Laurie, he’s a dog; of course he’ll like you, and how could you not like him?”
* * *
I was instructed to wait in the living room for Mark while Taryn would have time with Lady in our bedroom. After a few minutes, I heard a trainer say, “Forward,” followed by the clicking of claws. Krista entered the living room and walked straight to Taryn, who I heard exclaim happily as Lady approached her.
“Sit,” said Sebastian firmly just outside the door. Mark was here. The door to the trailer opened a second time, and Sebastian and a panting dog entered. “Laurie, this is Mark,” he said, smiling.
“Hi, Mark!” I cooed happily. A skinny dog with thick, shaggy hair panted nervously in front of me. He was tall, his head reaching my mid-thigh when we were both standing.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Sebastian said as he exited the trailer.
“I know you’re confused,” I told Mark. “It must be hard going from a puppy walker’s home to a kennel, and then getting attached to a trainer, and now having to work with a total stranger.”
Mark just panted in reply.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “ I’m going to take care of you. You’re going to be surrounded by people who love you. Mom and Brian and all my friends at school will adore you, and we’re going to have a wonderful life together.”
I marveled at Mark’s long square face, the expressive hairy eyebrows, which, I was told later, made his face look human-like. Though he was thin, he had broad shoulders and a very noble, heroic appearance. Nobody could have asked for a more gorgeous blind date!
Minutes later, Sebastian was back to teach us some obedience exercises.
“Hold the leash in your left hand,” he said. “Now take a step forward and turn your body slightly to your left while bringing Mark into a heel position along your left side. That’s called the continental heel, and you will use it whenever you need to get your dog under control. Now tell Mark to sit.”
“Sit,” I said. Mark, who had suddenly gotten very excited and had begun wagging his tail and snorting, did not sit.
“Tell him again,” Sebastian said, sounding stern. “You must get him to listen to you.”
Mark obeyed the second time.
“Okay, you’re going to make him go down, and then let go of the leash and start walking around him in a circle while telling him to stay.”
I tried this a few times. On the first two tries, Mark would pop up as soon as I let go of the leash. On the third time, he stayed, wagging his tail, as if thinking this was all a game.
“Mark is a hard-headed dog,” Sebastian said. “You’re going to have to stay on him constantly and demand his attention. He’s a great city dog, though. Doesn’t let anything bother him. You should do obedience with Mark every day. Now let’s try doing step refusal with him.”
Step refusal tested Mark’s ability to show me when we were approaching steps by stopping short of them. Without fail, Mark stopped when he had guided me to the steps down from the trailer.
“You will indicate to him that you’re ready to go down by putting your left foot on the first step down. If he doesn’t see your foot in that position, he should not move forward even if you tell him to. Try this out.”
“Forward,” I told him, both feet on the top step. He didn’t budge.
“Good,” Sebastian said approvingly. “That’s called intelligent disobedience. That means he’s not obeying a command you’re giving him because you haven’t shown him you recognize that there is a potential danger ahead. In this case, it’s the danger of you falling down the steps. If he ever tries to go down before you’re ready, you tell him firmly to watch it, and you re-approach.”
* * *
The strict, boot-camp-like schedule began at 6:00AM wake-up and ended with lights out at 10:00PM. We had regularly scheduled bathroom break times for the dogs, which required them to do their business on command in a designated spot. Meal times were at 7:30AM, 12:00PM, and 5:30PM. When it was time for our morning training at 8:00AM, we told our dogs, “Find the bus,” and we were off to a variety of different places to give us a chance to work our dogs in every kind of environment the trainers could think of. We were taken to residential areas, which had the distractions of a dog barking behind a fence, a woman walking with a baby carriage, and flocks of birds above our heads.
“Leave it,” I had to tell Mark many times, as every distraction seemed to be taking his mind off of his job.
We were taken to areas with busy streets and were told to trust our dogs as they stopped or slowed down to indicate cars that occasionally came too close for comfort. We went to malls and learned to navigate the busy aisles of department stores, between clothes racks, around shoppers, and around carts, which were often in inopportune places and forced our dogs to choose a different path.
“Okay, Laurie,” Sebastian said as the escalator clunked rhythmically in front of us. “This is how you’ll take Mark on escalators. You let go of the harness handle once he lines you up with the escalator, then you feel for the rail on the right side. As soon as your feet are in position on the ledge of the escalator, you tell Mark to go forward. Once you reach the end of the escalator, and you feel the steps growing level, you will pick Mark up by his collar so that his feet don’t get caught. Dogs can get fatal wounds from escalators, so you must be very careful. Are you ready?”
I placed my feet on the stationary ledge of the escalator. As soon as I was in position, I called Mark forward, and we stepped onto the moving escalator. When I felt it level off, I lifted Mark just as he simultaneously decided to jump off, causing the goofy, furry beast to be at head level with me. Sebastian, along with the girls at the makeup counter, burst out laughing.
“Well, we did it,” I said. “Albeit a bit clumsily.”
“That was one of the funnier moments I’ve witnessed as a guide dog trainer,” Sebastian said, trying to regain his composure.
* * *
Working with Mark required me to take a leap of faith I hadn’t anticipated. When I had walked with my cane, I was in control of where I was going, and when I was guided by a friend or a loved one, he or she would tell me what was in our path. I had to learn to interpret Mark’s wordless communication from his movements through the harness handle.
“You must learn to follow and trust your dog,” Sebastian had said as Mark weaved us around some construction on one of our walks in a more urban area. “Otherwise, you could get injured. Mark will keep you out of trouble, but you have to stay with him at all times and to not question his judgment.”
“How do I know when he’s sniffing, or when he’s weaving because there’s something he wants to get to?”
“That’s something that will come as you get to know your dog. Some dogs will start to quicken their pace when they’re going after something they shouldn’t. Some dogs will have jerkier movements when they start sniffing. You will learn when Mark is all business and when he’s walking with purpose.”
* * *
As I got to know Mark, I learned that his favorite time of day was first thing in the morning. As soon as I poured the food in his bowl, he would snort happily and do a little dance around the room. Then he would make a beeline for the front door when it was time for him to do his business. I also began to notice the way he loved to blow off steam at the end of the day by running around the room at intervals, and then freezing for a moment before running around again. He had a repertoire of different sounds, the most frequent of which was his loud yawns, which he would broadcast to the world around him. He had a beautiful deep bark and an ominous low growl. He would nudge me insistently, almost violently, for petting, which Sebastian told me not to allow him to do.
“He does not decide when you pet him. You do,” he said. “Remember, you are always the boss, and he will feel better knowing he doesn’t have to be in charge.”
It did not take long for my heart to melt for Mark. Though I felt like I was just learning how to understand and communicate with him, I would forget at times that he was just a dog. Spending so much time with Mark made me realize how much I had underestimated what dogs are capable of.
* * *
In the evenings, we were given lectures on how to brush our dogs’ teeth, clean their ears, give them medicine, and, my favorite lecture, how to pick up after them. This lecture was given by a trainer named Barb, who had a deep voice and a cackling laugh.
“I’m warning you,” she said. “The warm, wet washcloth I’m going to use to simulate poop feels pretty real.”
She made us all take turns as she positioned our dogs in the pooping position, and placed the washcloth just so. Then, she showed us how to put a plastic bag over one hand like a glove, to gently feel the dog’s arched back while in action, and to position ourselves near the present the dog left for us. Barb cackled away as we all shrieked upon making contact with the soggy washcloth with our gloved hands.
* * *
“Okay everyone,” Sebastian said as the bus parked in Flushing, Queens. We were approaching the last week of classes now, and our walks had reached a challenging peak. “As you know, Flushing is one of the most crowded cities you’ll find. You will probably find it very challenging since it is very loud out there, there’s lots of traffic, and there are vendors with carts selling food, flowers, and many other things. We brought you all the way here because we want you to get experience navigating congested areas like this, and to give your dogs the chance to make important decisions about how to get you from one block to the next. Then, we’ll practice taking a ride on the subway. I know some of you aren’t from New York or any big city, but we think it would be good for you to work the subway today because this is good practice for other means of public transportation you may find yourselves on one of these days.
“Okay, Mark, it’s just you and me now,” I said. “This is going to be our life, kiddo. I hope you like the city.”
Sebastian stayed behind a bit and watched Mark’s stellar performance, weaving me flawlessly and smoothly through the crowds, around vendors’ booths, sharply pulling me left as a person who wasn’t looking almost smacked right into us. It was like following the leader in a ballroom dance to the dissonant sounds of people shouting, car horns honking, and the subway’s occasional deafening rumbling. Mark’s city work was thrilling, like cruising the streets in a fast Ferrari or skiing my favorite run. I felt both terrified and safe as I held onto Mark for dear life as he zoomed this way and that.
“Looks like we found you the right match,” Sebastian said. “This dog loves a challenge.”
Mark treated the subways as if he was born to travel them and was always on the train side of the platform to protect me from falling into the tracks as we walked. When the train came zooming towards us, Mark automatically positioned us in front of where the open door would be.
“Right inside,” I told Mark per Sebastian’s instructions.
“Tell him to find you a seat,” Sebastian said.
After a momentary sniffing distraction and a snap on the harness from me, Mark showed me the empty seat by the door. I had always found subway stations intimidating and scary with my cane. Mark’s confidence made me feel better about the prospect of negotiating them than I had ever felt before.
* * *
The Guide Dog Foundation did not have a formal graduation ceremony the way some other guide dog schools did. Instead, they had an event for the puppy walkers to meet their dogs’ new handlers and for the sponsors who had donated $6,000 to the foundation for the privilege of naming a dog. The gathering was held in the lecture trailer where tables and chairs were set up for each guide dog/handler team and their guests. Mark’s sponsors did not come, but a couple in their seventies named Steve and Mary Trupp who had raised Mark were there. They were not allowed to be in the same room as Mark. The trainers worried that the dogs seeing the puppy walkers they had so recently been parted with would trigger them to be overexcited and stressed when they left again.
“We’ve raised nine dogs for the foundation,” Mary said proudly.
“Yeah, and Mark was one of our favorites,” Steve added, trying to keep his voice from sounding choked up.
Meeting Mark’s puppy raisers made me feel as though I could glean something from the piece of Mark’s life I had missed.
“He was a very quiet dog,” Mary said. “He didn’t chew much. He just loved to be petted.”
“Is there anything I should know about him, things he likes or dislikes, any cute or funny stories?” I asked.
“Well, I can tell you this,” Mary said. “We used to go to the foundation for class and socialization with the other puppies his age, and he always enjoyed it. But the last time I brought him back to the foundation for training, he did not wag his tail. I think he knew he wasn’t coming back home. He actually climbed into my lap on the way there, even though he was way too big to be a lap dog.”
My eyes filled with tears. “I’ll take good care of Mark, I promise,” I told the couple. “They told us that our dogs can see their puppy raisers in a few months, once the bond is stronger between us, so we would be happy to come visit you any time.”
“I know he’s in good hands,” Mary said, grabbing my hand and giving it a firm little shake. “And we would love to have you for a visit.”
Though Mary and Steve couldn’t let Mark see them, they were allowed to watch through the window as I worked Mark in harness around the lecture trailer.
Before I climbed into bed that night, I put my arms around Mark, listening to his rhythmic breathing, nuzzling my cheek against his soft fur. I couldn’t imagine how heartbreaking it must have been for Mary to cuddle with him for the last time after working hard to house-train him and taking him everywhere she went. I had only been around him for three weeks, and I was smitten.
“I’ll never leave you,” I said to him as he leaned into me for more petting. “We will do Mary and Steve proud, won’t we?”
* * *
Mark and I entered Sudler Hall for my second year at Yale and yet another Death by Aria.
“Find a seat,” I said. Mark began snorting and wagging his tail as he noticed the room full of people. “Find a seat,” I said more firmly. He began taking me to every person in the room, sniffing and saying “hello.” I let go of the harness handle and gave him a sharp snap on his leash. Everyone gasped with horror.
“Find a seat!” I growled.
“There’s one to your right, Laurie,” somebody whispered. Though Mark had not done what I had asked, I did not feel like making a bigger scene to make him get it right. I sat down, feeling frustrated at Mark’s antics the past few days. He had begun testing me the way the trainers warned us our dogs would once we got home, barking whenever people knocked on my dorm room door, taking his sweet time to do his business, and now he wouldn’t find a seat.
“Down,” I told him firmly. He obeyed for two seconds, and then got up again. “Down,” I whispered as a first-year mezzo began singing her aria.
It took me half the recital to get Mark to behave. I knew we were causing a disturbance, and I felt all eyes in the room on me instead of on the current singer who was performing.
* * *
Having Mark was like being taken on a constant emotional roller coaster, but he delighted me by committing my class routes to memory after having visited them only once or twice.
“Find Hendrie,” I would say after I had crossed Elm Street, knowing we were just a building or two away. Miraculously, he would take me to the correct doorway I needed to enter.
“Find Leigh Hall,” I would say. “Find Harkness.” Though all these buildings were in the same general area, he knew exactly which one was which by name.
Yet, after one minute of impressing me to no end, he would lunge playfully after a skateboarder, almost making me lose my balance, or he would take us off course to sniff a plant. One afternoon, as I entered Leigh Hall, the School of Music building, I heard a group of girls giggling at him.
“What has he done?” I asked them. They went silent.
“Oh no, I don’t want to get him into trouble,” one of them said. “But he looks so funny with a bagel in his mouth.”
“A bagel?” I exclaimed. “Where the heck did he find a bagel, and how come I didn’t notice?”
Mark had learned how to grab things off the ground in a very subtle way, and I began checking his mouth on a regular basis.
* * *
To add to the frustration, Yale had proven to be more like my middle school days in terms of my lack of connection with the other singers. I was shocked at their immediate discomfort around me, the fact I was never invited to social gatherings, which I was all too aware the other singers were all going to, and the unpleasantly familiar defensive responses when I wanted to be included. Mark was just another part of me my fellow singers did not wish to tolerate.
“You don’t seem to have very good control of your dog,” Liza, one of the sopranos, said to me as I sat down for diction class. “My dog Bubbles isn’t even a guide dog, and all I have to do is look at her for her to go lie down.”
“I’ve only had Mark for a few weeks,” I said, annoyed at being judged on such little knowledge. “It takes a good year before a team like us is bonded.”
Liza was not the only one who complained about Mark. My colleagues would get squeamish when I brought Mark into class after a rainy day. All the dry towels in the whole world would not get rid of that wet dog smell.
“How often do you bathe him?” asked Isabel, a fellow mezzo during one of our opera scene rehearsals, covering her nose.
“Once a month,” I said.
“Yuck, Laurie, that’s disgusting. Would you bathe yourself once a month?”
“No, I wouldn’t, but that’s because I’m not a dog. I was told over and over at the guide dog school that bathing a dog more than once a month could really dry out his skin.”
“My parents bathe Bubbles once a week, and her skin is just fine,” Liza said.
Fortunately, I had found a little group of friends shortly after starting at Yale the year before. Tina, a violist, and Ming, a clarinetist, were the people I spent most of my time with after class. They, and my other friends, had no complaints about Mark. In fact, people seemed to like my room as a hangout spot with Mark’s energy in it. He became the School of Music’s unofficial mascot.
* * *
As Mark’s testing phase began to subside, we found ourselves running into a few other issues.
“I’m sorry, he can’t come in here,” the occasional restaurant manager would say.
“You have to let us in,” I would say. “It’s against the law for you to refuse a guide dog.” The argument would either go on for several minutes until I threatened to call the police, or they would realize their mistake and apologize profusely.
Passersby would sometimes get offended when I told them that I was sorry, but they could not pet my dog.
“Aren’t you being cruel, not allowing your dog to socialize?” they would protest angrily.
“He might stop paying attention to traffic and get us both killed if he runs across the street to someone who will pet him in harness,” I explained. “He gets plenty of love and plenty of free time.”
And then there were the well-meaning people who were just trying to make conversation who said, “Oh, he must be your very best friend in the world,” or “It must be nice to have a companion dog.”
“If I wanted a companion dog,” I would think to myself, “I would have gone to the pet store or a pound, not spent over three weeks working with a dog that had thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of training put into him. And I also have plenty of human friends, thank you very much.”
* * *
At the end of the day when Mark and I would return to HGS, no matter how frustrating a day we had had, no matter what uneducated statements I had to endure, I never regretted my decision to get a guide dog for one minute. He became the four-legged extension of me. Walking with him made me feel what I imagined a sighted person would feel as they walked, enjoying their surroundings without worrying about every minuscule detail of their environment the way I did with a cane. Knowing that I was traveling independently yet never alone made me feel liberated. The frustrations that went along with having a new dog were a small price to pay, and besides, showing everyone how good a team we would become would educate those who didn’t understand, and in so doing, Mark and I would make it easier for the next new team that would come along.