Last Updated on July 29, 2022 by sensation-experience
Juno, forward. Yes! Good borl!
Holding onto that leather-covered, U-shaped harness in my left hand, I walked briskly through an empty parking lot of the school one warm Friday afternoon where I and a few other students had taken a tour a few hours before.
‘Juno, halt!’ I said in a firm but kind voice, the way I had been instructed. But how did I know when it was time to stop? The instructor had previously shown me how the dog would take me across the parking lot from one kerb to the next. So, as soon as the incline of the kerb cut approached beneath my feet, I knew it was time to verbally command the dog, as well as sometimes use hand signals, such as pulling back on the harness to halt, or imagine like I was tossing a ball forward to go with that command.
Meet Juno, the Roman Goddess of protection
Whether you are new at the game or an old hand at it, you will always have up to three days upon arrival to the school (sometimes longer) to go on several Juno walks. And more recently, one school has even introduced a robotic guide dog called Wheeler, which, in fact, might replace or supplement real guide dogs in the future for things like stop lighted street-crossings, since dogs are red and green colourblind. But how does that work, and why is it important? Walking with Juno or Wheeler does two things, and more. First, it gives you an experience of what it would feel like to hold onto that harness while being guided by the dog. The second, and the most important, is that it will allow your instructor to analyse and gauge how quickly you walk, your stride length, your overall patience and vocal intonation, and so much more. Juno is the time for your instructor to completely immerse themselves in the role of your potential guide dog, and thus you will be expected to treat them as such to better help them when it comes to finding you a match on Dog Day!
Visiting the Guide Dog School
As part of our biweekly field trips, my fellow students and I went on a group outing one sunny Friday morning which was nearing the end of our second-grade school year. It was quite a long drive, but we were lucky that Guide Dogs for the Blind had a campus in Oregon. The first time we went, we met all kinds of dogs that were in various stages of training. In fact, when I petted one, I noticed that they were wearing a vest that covered their bottom part of their body. ‘Why is that dog wearing clothes?’ I had asked, and the trainer had told me that it informed others that this was a guide dog in training. We continued walking around the campus, occasionally being given dog treats to hand out. I am not sure how it started, but I became increasingly timid of having to feed them whenever they jumped up to grab it out of my hand with their snout. I was afraid that they would miss and grab my finger instead. Of course, I didn’t always think of this every single time I came across a dog, but for whatever reason, I always asked the handler or pet caretaker, ‘Can I pet your dog’s back?’ Most people who wanted me to pet their dog always wanted me to start with their head.
We went back to the school about four years later and were given a bigger tour of the residential facility for students who would be staying there for about two to three weeks. I got to feel a huge standalone Kurzweil reader, which felt like a standard commercial photocopier. I would later read more about what an impact the school had on a blind 9/11 survivor who made it all the way down to Ground Zero with his trusty guide dog, Roselle.
The Night of the Big Change
A few days after our field trip to the guide dog school, our mobility instructors started working on our transition plan from primary school to middle school. That meant familiarising ourselves with the layout of the building, so that we would learn any patterns associated with a particular category of classes. For example, my school’s halls were colour-coded with four corridors running from left to right, with two parallel corridors on either side. I memorised the order of the halls from left to right, so that was not an issue for me. Anyhow, I had my first experience in sharing the grief of potentially having to lose a beloved and faithful companion that one of my teachers had for over ten years. Since my mother was so preoccupied in trying to make sure my brother was being taken care of, we could never really afford to have any pets. We’ve had a few baby chicks that did not last long, as well as some goldfish and parakeets, but something always ended up happening to them. My uncle even gave me a cat, but she quickly ran away after about a week. Finally, we bought a cockatiel at a garage sale in May of 2006. My dad even found us a bunny rabbit which we tried to take care of, but it died. But out of all those pets we used to have, none of them was ever a dog. Sometimes I wonder if that was a good thing. In late 2003 to 2004, I met one of my mum’s friends who happened to have a lot of dogs. One of them was even whelping, and I got to feel the puppy at three weeks of age! Still, they warned me that the mother could sometimes be aggressive if you oversaw her babies too much.
I’ve had a few minor incidents where little or medium-sized dogs sometimes chased me as they growled and bared their teeth ferociously, but nothing like what happened to me that night, Sunday, 23 July 2006. A couple of months before, my mother hospitably invited a couple who had been displaced from their earlier apartment because one was a chain smoker, and the other was an alcoholic. I forgot exactly how my mother met them, but it was through some church gathering. Anyhow, they started using my bedroom and made themselves at home. One more person was even using our garage. We then had a full house, so I ended up sleeping in the living room with my brother, who sometimes went into his bedroom.
Sunday began like any other day. Hot, barely humid, and bored out of my mind, I wandered outside to play with our sprinkler. I had always been fascinated by the oscillating and impact sprinklers, as they had moving parts driven by turbines and pressure valves. Anyhow, I had discovered using goggles whilst swimming, so I decided to use them when showering, as I always hated it when water mixed with shampoo dripped into my eyes, which made them sting terribly. I always wanted to have goggles that professional snorkellers used, but my instructors were worried that I would never develop the habit of fully breathing through my nose, for I always tended to breathe through my mouth. Anyhow, I wished I still had that pair of goggles, for that night when I was showering, an unusual amount of shampoo had somehow gone into my eyes, and I desperately rubbed at them, trying to rinse them out. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally got everything out. I continued bathing like normal, and then I got dressed to go to bed. My mum told me that the couple had gone out, so I decided to meet them as they came in. I was outside for a short while before I heard a car pull up and the doors slam.
‘Say, harmony,’ a voice said. I recognised it as belonging to the chain smoker. ‘Wanna see what I got?’
‘Sure, what is it?’ I asked, feeling around for whatever the thing was they brought. Finding nothing, I asked, ‘Is it for me?’
‘No, it is ours, but I will let you feel him.’
So, it was some sort of an animal, I presumed. I later felt the blue healer that was right next to me. Long story short, after asking them if he bit, and assuring me that he did not, I was given a snake-like apparatus that the dog’s owner explained to me would go into the grass and function as a post for the dog to be leashed. I walked to where the dog was and tried it out. That is when he went into a frenzy of movements, too quick for me to react. He lunged at my face while I tried to get out of his way. Too late; he had brutally attacked me, and had I not moved quickly, he would have severely mauled me. I first felt a slight tapping and tugging, then followed an excruciating pain. Then I felt drops of blood pouring down. I ran back to the house and told them that the dog bit me on the nose. We quickly drove to the accident and emergency area at the hospital, where I received four stitches. That all happen around twelve in the morning to about three. When they finished, my dad let me sleep in his house. I spent Monday Morning resting and going outside to absorb some sun. I had to have both nostrils flushed with a saline solution, which felt extremely uncomfortable. I also learnt that because so many nerve endings were damaged by the bite, I did not feel the pain that resulted from the bite. A topical anaesthetic was used to stitch up the wound, although I had initially asked for sedation. The doctor said they could not do it without giving me a shot, which sounded strange to me at the time.
The couple clearly regretted what had happened and at once agreed to move out and pay all my medical expenses. They even told me that they were going to have their dog killed. The day before, though, I learnt that they had gotten their dog microchipped, and they said that it was shaped like a grain of rice that was injected underneath the dog’s skin, right by their shoulder blades. After that, I vowed never to approach dogs again. I was too ashamed to tell anyone what had happened, lest they make fun of me for it, so I tried to make a story out of it, pretending like it had happened to someone else, but they eventually found out the truth by hearing it from my mother. I got my stitches removed seven days later. I also learnt how to use our telephone’s intercom system, so that I could communicate with my mum in the kitchen while I was in her bedroom. I had to take high doses of antibiotic capsules, as well as a rabies prophylaxis capsule.
I eventually started the school year without incident, and I forgot everything that had happened, or at least put it in the back of my mind. I was too busy reading audio books that I borrowed from my public library. I still remember reading a book by Beverly Cleary about Ribsy one rainy Monday afternoon in October of 2006.
I never gave thought to what happened until I was faced with having to meet my teacher’s new dog a couple of years later. But interestingly enough, I could totally relate to Sheila Tubman from Judy Blume’s book when I read about her and how she had cynophobia one sunny afternoon during spring break. I do not know if she were ever bitten, but towards the end of the series, she had gotten a much smaller dog, which I, too, could also relate to, because even though I was truly afraid of big dogs, I had absolutely no problems with cute little puppies. So, I could totally understand how she must have felt when she was being pressured to be in situations where a dog might be around, because I had to go through the very same thing. Worst yet, when my mobility teacher organized our third trip to the guide dog school in my first-year division of high school, I thought I would never make it through the day, but everything came out fine.
Sniff, Sniff!
An interesting fact I had noticed was that the human body, or practically any living organism with skin, hair, fur, scales, or feathers, and if they could sweat, had living fungi and bacteria that produced odorous gasses and compounds by breaking down the sugars and complex proteins found in sweat produced in apocrine glands, which activated at the onset of puberty in response to androgens that people of different biological sexes produce in various quantities. Most eccrine glands produced sweat that rarely smelt, except the feet, but most of them smelled sweet and salty. Whether humans actually produced pheromones to attract mates is largely debatable, as most people would argue that it was only the bacteria causing those smells and musk, and that it was not our bodies directly. Still, we are mammals, and like all other mammals, we need a way to connect with our mates in a sexual manner. Therefore, when I met a dog who started sniffing me furiously in certain regions, it quickly made me feel very uneasy, and this was even after I had showered, so I think there must have been a lingering scent about me. Still, people always told me that when meeting a new dog, it was crucial that I held out my hand with my outer wrist pointed outwards, to give the dog a chance to sniff it and get familiarised with my scent. Still, having their nose running over me quickly in many directions made me feel uncomfortable, and it was even quite embarrassing when their pet parent reminded them not to sniff me in those places.
To Get a Dog?
As I started making more on-line friends through the various social media sites with which I registered, I soon started meeting other blind people from around the world. I even met some people locally who took care of guide dogs or raised them as puppies, and many of them shared success stories about how their dogs have changed their life, and of course, how unfortunate that they never lasted more than nine or ten years. My former partner was also a dog lover, and we did our best to be sympathetic and respectful of each other’s differences after I told them why I was terrified of dogs. More recently, however, I got to take part in a group that was solely focused on guide dog adventures, and I got to hear firsthand what it was like going to one of the schools and taking part in various outing events. That made me wish I could visit those schools and go on a tour of them, and perhaps even gain hands-on experience on breeding and genetics research. Another valuable tool I learnt was clicker and marker training, which helps the dog associate a good behaviour with a primary or secondary form of pleasure, like food, a pat on their shoulder, or verbal praise. They even talked about how not all schools taught the same methods. For example, the way you write hop up/hup up. Both mean the same thing, to add more tension to the harness if there is any slack. Additionally, some schools used German words like suche, which means to find or search for a particular thing, mostly a chair or a table. I was even surprised to learn that not all schools taught the halt command! So, I was, like, well, how does the dog know when to stop when you want them to? I have still yet to find that out. But one thing that everybody agrees on is that you and your dog are like a team. And like everything else, team members can get used to a particular routine. That is why they emphasise the importance of never going to a certain location the same way every time. If you do, then your commands to go in a similar direction will become useless, because they will assume that you wanted to go there.
But with many schools to choose from, how does one know which one to go?
- The Seeing Eye: First school founded in the United States.
- Leader Dogs: Can train DeafBlind students using hand signals and vocal supports. Requires SSP, street-crossing cards, or remaining vision to cross streets.
- Freedom Dogs: Able to train clients in their own homes and community.
- Guide Dogs for the Blind: Has two campuses… one in Oregon, and another in California.
Like all schools, each one has its unique style of teaching. Some are more formal, while others are more laid back. Out of all those schools, though, I have not found any that specifically catered to blind and LGBTQIA+ people with a history of trauma and other mental health challenges, since some places do train their animals to be therapy dogs. And technically the Americans with Disabilities Act does not cover such animals, unless they were specifically trained to perform a service. Still, there has been a recent influx of fraudulent guide dogs, which has caused many private businesses to deny service to legitimate guide dog users.
While I will advocate for anyone who uses a guide dog, I would personally not want one for myself. Not everyone is a dog person, as I am more of a cat and bird person. I hope this will give my readers a chance to be more understanding and sympathetic about my past so that they can be more accommodating in the future. If they add more pressure on me to socialize with a dog, it will only make it that much worse. And again, I will always, always love puppies!