Jeff Bishop — Guide-dog journals

Days 16 and 17 – Court, long routes along with ice cream is awesome!

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 07:04:55 GMT

Well, it is 2:30 in the morning on the day I am going home. Yes, obviously I can’t sleep so here I am wrapping up the blog with my journey at the Seeing Eye.
During day 16 I checked out with the admissions staff. I paid the money I owed the school for supplies, and I also received my ID card, paperwork for traveling and a personal picture of Chief. They will send this to me in digital form in the next few days.
we went to the court house in the morning and worked on security review to simulate what we will do at the airport on Thursday morning. This went very smoothly.
After lunch we went on a trip near the water. Here we worked on parking lot work and worked along a waterfront to see how the dogs did. Chief was amazingly great at this and did not care too much about the water.
When we got back, we went straight to the vet for our review with them on Chief’s health record. We received all his medications, and they assisted in putting the tags we received on his collar. They didn’t have the equipment needed to do this correctly, so we took care of this once we returned to the house.
In the evening we had our lecture on dog interference. This is always a difficult lecture to hear but it is so vitally important.
On day seventeen we did this amazing route in the morning. My classmate that I paired up with many times and I worked our dogs on a 3.1-mile route in Madison, NJ. It was a very beautiful area, and the blocks were very long. It was a great route for the dogs and Chief had never been there before so it was awesome to see how he would do in an area that he never had seen before. There were plenty of grass lines to contend with, so his nose was quite active. This caused us to correct quite a bit, but it was also good to see how he would react to this.
After lunch the entire class went out for ice cream. I asked for a sugar free vanilla cone, and a small one at that! What I got instead was a super large cone, and I mean huge! It was very good!
We worked our way back to the school and I rested a bit from the day’s activities prior to taking the dogs out for park.
After dinner it was time to finalize packing activities. I showered for the next day, threw in my laundry and finished packing my remaining things except for my computer. Yes, this is the same device I am typing this on and after I finish this and check email it will get packed.
I made some phone calls to family and friends and then hung out with some classmates in the evening before returning to my room to get some rest. I went to bed around 10:00 and got up at about 2:20 or so. Yes, it is going to be a very long day, but this is OK, I would rather it be. It will be nice to sleep in my own bed this evening!
OK, well, this weekend I will write a bit more about us returning home and I will fill in everyone on how Chief does on the plane, the introduction to his new home, our first visit to work and our first routes in our neighborhood. The adventure is truly beginning!

The Big Reveal

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 12:04:50 GMT

In July 2023, I shared Chief’s puppy profile as I prepared to meet him at The Seeing Eye. His puppy-raising family described a confident, playful dog who loved people, toys, car rides, and a good snuggle.

Chief at a glance

Name: Chief
Sex: Male
Breed in the original profile: Yellow Lab Golden Cross 3
Height: 23.3 inches
Weight: 69 pounds

A busy, well-loved start

Chief was raised by an adult couple in a row home on the edge of a city with moderate traffic. He shared the home with a male retriever and a cat named Sprinkles, and got along well with the other puppies in his club.

His puppy raisers brought him to restaurants, malls, parks, doctors’ offices, grocery stores, ball games, the library, large shops, museums, and pet stores. He also joined club outings and loved car rides.

The small details that stayed with us

They remembered Chief as happy, outgoing, confident, playful, and loyal. He loved balls, bones, and squeaky toys—though the squeakers did not stay inside for long. When he needed to go outside, he sat by the door. They had many favorite memories, especially the times he curled up beside their retriever.

Day 15 –Bussing and Clearance work was for sure not all washed up but coming home is ever so close!

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 10:22:29 GMT

We made it to the last week of class. Things are beginning to wind down and it cannot come soon enough!
I got up a bit earlier than usual and took him out for park and groomed him very early on Monday.
In the morning we ventured out to work on bus work. This went very well, and he is quite a wonderful traveler while on the bus. We worked our way back to the campus and arrived quite early.
I proceeded to start getting organized as far as packing was concerned. More on this a bit later.
I went down for coffee break and talked with a few students and then proceeded to do some laundry. The rest of the class was venturing out to New York, a trip I never have been interested in taking. This gave me some extra time to prep for returning home. I washed clothes and his mat that is inside his crate.
In the afternoon we worked on clearance work as well as more island crossings. We also walked through the park and near a very nice water fountain.
We returned home to campus right about the time for park time. After dinner it was lecture time. Joan gave the retrain students our Going Home lecture. This was almost two hours in length as well. Much of this information I already was aware of, but it was good to get this refresher for our activities once we return home.
After the lecture I proceeded to pack. Yes, I know, I have a few more days left at the Seeing Eye, but I wanted to get as packed as possible. Almost all my clothes are packed along with much of the equipment we received from the Seeing Eye, either by them giving it to us or me buying it. Technology items will be packed probably Thursday morning.
I talked with Keri and found out that we were having a very big storm back home. I am missing all the rain it seems!
On Tuesday we will go work the courthouse. I am taking my dog to the vet on Tuesday afternoon where we will learn a bit more about his history and we will receive all the medications that he requires. As for the second trip, I am unclear on what will be taking place. My guess is something very simple as we do need to be back in time for the vet visit.

Day 14 Part 2 – Tag or Click, your it or better yet, let them eat cake!

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 10:05:17 GMT

In the afternoon on Sunday, we went to the pet store. This was the first time I heard a noise come from my dog. He was quite excited while we were in the pet store.
While at the pet store we bought an ID tag for my dog. The prices of these tags has gone up quite a bit more than I was expecting. I chose one that would allow us to put two lines on one side and three lines on the other side of the tag. So, I put my phone number and name on the first side and our address on the other side of the tag.
After we returned to campus, we took the dogs out and then proceeded downstairs for dinner. BTW, for those that have been at the Seeing Eye before, I am in room 225, in the old wing. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I checked in to see what we had for dessert, and it was chocolate. What a coincidence. You see, today is my birthday. So, they brought out a cake, including candles, and everyone sang Happy Birthday. That was nice. There were raspberries in the cake, not my favorite but I loved the chocolate part of the cake most certainly. They gave me a giant piece, so I only ate a bit of it.
After dinner, a legend of guide dog work, Lucas Franck came to speak to us all about clicker. He spoke to us for almost two hours. As usual, he was terrific and offered all kinds of advice in the use of clicker to all of us. He handed out the clicker pouches, clickers and targets for our use. This is something I want to talk with Keri about. While the pouches are good, I think Keri could come up with something more practical and potentially the target could also be improved. I will check into this after I return home on Thursday of this week.
This brings us to the end of day 14. We only have three more working days left and I am quite eager to return home!
As for making announcements about my guide, I am waiting for the Seeing Eye to supply to me the puppy profile data before the post goes up. I apologize for the delay.

Day 14 Part 1 – Exit Interviews, Packing, planning the trip in the afternoon, clicker and more!

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 11:57:38 GMT

Today is Sunday, July 30. We have more class members leaving the school today. We had one leave yesterday and one leave today so the numbers in the class are thinning out a bit. I leave next Thursday August 3rd.
This morning we had exit interviews. I am planning on raising the following points:
• I would like to see the windows in the bathrooms frosted to ensure people from the outside cannot see into what a private space should be. Yes, you can pull down the shades, but this is sometimes not a failsafe method as these get pulled back up at times and if you don’t constantly check, well, you got the picture here. It is a simple thing and one that would cost very little for the school to implement.
• The rooms have an inaccessible thermostat. This should be changed. They put Echo Dot devices in the rooms. There isn’t a reason why some sort of accessible solution shouldn’t be put in place for the thermostats. You shouldn’t have to call your instructor to help you set the silly thing. They have enough work to do with students as is.
• I would like to see more of an emphasis placed on distractions while in class. Yes, they have two or three roaming cats in the hallways, but we need to do more. I am specifically thinking of food distractions.
• I am hoping clicker awareness training is handled earlier in training. I would have liked to use it more while in class to target specific things. We will be having our last clicker training lecture this evening and will be given our clicker kits to be used when we leave the campus. I understand schedules can be difficult here but earlier would be better.
That is about it as far as things I plan on mentioning during my exit interview.
My instructor Greg will be taking a student to the airport this morning so we will work in the afternoon. I asked to be taken to the pet store. We will see if this takes place. I am planning on buying an ID tag for his collar. My name, address and phone number will be placed on the tag. His name, and no, not yet folks as far as his name is concerned, will not be placed on the tag.
I am planning on doing a bit more packing today after I get back from the exit interview.
I will write more about today’s activities a bit later and stay tuned, more details are coming late today!

Days 12 and 13 – Wide Crossing, overheads, Mall visit, home packets continued work on recall and relaxing on a Saturday!

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 09:26:09 GMT

On day twelve we had two trips. After breakfast we traveled quite a distance from campus to a terribly busy part of town where they had five lane crossings which also included an island in the middle of the street. We also dealt with extensive overheads and collaborated with the dogs on working through them. It was a short but especially useful trip.
After lunch we traveled about 30 to 40 minutes from the campus to a mall. It was an exceptionally large mall with glass elevators, glass railings, escalators and much more. The dogs did tremendously well, and we spent about an hour moving about much of the mall. Stairs, ramps, lots, and lots of people are just a few of the things we experienced during our visit.
After dinner we reviewed the content of our going home packets.
After this we went to the free run area to see what our dogs would do as far as recall and play. My dog really was not interested in it very much. Lots of toys were in the area but he did not care for them.
We are continuing to leave the dogs alone in our rooms. I am up to about 15 or 20 minutes at this point and will try for thirty this weekend. The pup was overly excited to see me when I returned. During this 20-minute window I went downstairs and tried out this new massage chair the Seeing Eye has. Parts of it was a very deep massage which I did not care for, but other aspects were wonderful for sure!
This brings us to the end of Friday, which being day twelve.
Day 13 is going to be a lazy day here as far as guide dog work is concerned. I am trying to catch up on email and work-related projects. We did work our way around the leisure path this morning. In the evening we watched Partners in Travel. You can watch the audio described version of Partners in Travel. We also watched Harnessing Freedom. This second video is not audio described sadly.
I am working on the day fourteen post, or at least the special parts of that post. I am still waiting for some of the data that will be added to it but all of you should try to read Sunday’s post. I am unsure when it will get posted but it will be late on Sunday.
See everyone then!

Day 11 Part 2 – Revolving Doors, Freedom and announcements to work colleagues

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:59:35 GMT

Before we proceed with the rest of day eleven’s activities, I wanted to point out how difficult it is to write without expressing or mentioning gender or names of my guide. To give this a way, my dog is a boy but that is all we will say for now. Come back on Sunday for all the details. OK, let’s continue the activities for the rest of day 11!
OK, now we venture out in the afternoon of day eleven. We all loaded up into the van and proceeded to head downtown where we worked on revolving doors followed by OCS.
I won’t say much about revolving doors except to say that I personally have hated them, and this continues to be true. He doesn’t care for them either so I think we will avoid them at all costs if possible. The goal here is to put the dog on the right-hand side of your body with me keeping my left hand on the glass of the door and walking forward. This keeps the dog’s tail from getting caught in the revolving door. He absolutely hated this experience and rushed through the door to escape the overall experience. I don’t blame him at all!
This brings us back to the second part of our journey for this trip, that being OCS (Orientation, Coaching and Solo). This is a technique where we teach the dogs to target a specific location through a technique of orienting ourselves to the target using sighted guide through the entire route. This is a combination of someone showing us the path, having the dog sit at strategic points and reworking back to the target in baby steps. We do this all without the use of Clicker. This is all based on praise and repetition. Once the path has been determined the team works the route in “Coaching” mode, meaning that the sighted assistant works with the team, standing behind the person’s right shoulder to observe and to “coach” the team where needed. Once this is completed and reworked if needed then it is time to solo the trip. Just like our routes in town, the team does this independently and corrects as needed, including reworking portions of the route if necessary. We targeted a bank teller machine and with one exception the plan worked very well.
We then worked our way back to the rest of our class and other members of the class participated in the activity.
After we returned from our trip, we did a bit of “recall” work with our dogs with the “here” command. The goal here is to work on getting the dog to come when called. We start with recall on leash and then on a longer lead. Because the ExtendaLeashes were being used we did this with him off leash in the hallway with my instructor. The steps are this:
• Have the dog sit.
• At the beginning have the dog rest and make a long leash.
• Command the dog to “rest” in place and walk away from the dog.
• Place a bit of food in your right hand and make a fist.
• Place the fist in front of you, about chest high and command the dog to “here”, meaning to come but with the “here” command.
• While commanding them to “here”, extend your right hand in front of you with your fist closed until the dog touches your fist with their nose.
• Once the dog has touched your fist with their nose then open your hand and treat.
• Repeat this process by making the distance longer and longer each time.
The goal here is to have them sit and then treat. The goal is to not need to treat when performing “here” but this will take a bit of time.
In typical fashion, all of this leads to our discussion in the evening in a lecture that was entitled “Odds and Ends”. More on this in a minute!
We returned from our trip, and I proceeded to get out of the van and worked my way toward the building. Now, this furry friend has been outstanding for the most part with dog distractions, cat distractions and distractions in general. There was only one occurrence on a trip where he was very distracted on one of our routes. The only exception to this was the planned dog distractions with Seeing Eye poodles. He would never really stop for them but would slow down and look a lot. As we approached the building something was significantly different. He was very much distracted, and it showed in his work tremendously. Come to find out the dog’s trainer was standing near me as we worked our way into the building. I will have much more to say about this on Sunday, so stay tuned about this. We talked for a good 20 or so minutes all about my dog, her work with the dog and overall impressions of her work with my guide. The trainer told me a bit about the family and the work she did with the dog. Again, I will reveal much more about this on Sunday so please come back this weekend to learn much more!
After dinner we had our “Odds and Ends” lecture. We talked about the following things:
• Freedom in the room.
• Free range water.
• Adequate recall, “Go to Your Place” and good door behavior. These things are crucial at this stage. If they are not then freedom must be closely monitored, especially if someone knocks at the door and the door is opened.
• Alone time. Yes, the dogs must learn that it is OK for us to leave the house. They must also be reassured that we will be back. So, this is also a crucial part of moving our way forward to leaving the Seeing Eye with our dogs.
• We talked about the importance of monitoring our dogs when outside and not letting them off leash at all costs. Tragic stories were told, and this always broke my heart.
• The last point made was about the appropriate way to place the collar on our dogs.
I wanted to circle back to an activity that took place on day 10, that being a food lecture. We talked a lot about the appropriate and inappropriate things that were allowed for dogs to eat. Much of this was not a surprise to me. The basic rule here is stick to the food we are feeding them now. Limit their intake to this only. They don’t need people’s food under any circumstances!
After dinner I went back to my room and worked on a bunch of work-related activities. After taking the puppy out for park one last time I give my guide some freedom in the room. I found that the furry one loves his crate and would go there most of the time.
I then worked on taking the Seeing Eye “Coming Home” letter and significantly revised it for my colleagues at the University of Arizona. I included pictures, video content from me being introduced to my guide along with video content from the Seeing Eye from their YouTube channel. This was a bit challenging to accomplish as I needed to get the videos and photos transferred to my computer and then placed into an email and on OneDrive for distribution. This was all good prep for this weekend as you will soon see.
While working on this my shopping order arrived so I ran downstairs to meet the driver. I carried my stuff upstairs and put it away. I then completed the email and sent it out to my work colleagues.
After this, Keri, my wife for those that do not know, and I did a bunch of research on crates for both work and home. The crate we had for Rory, Jacinda and Tawny was quite old, so it was time to replace it. We went with the 36-inch Amazon Basics crate, and we ordered two of them, one for home and one for work.
By this point it was about 10:30 and I was wide awake! This is going to catch up with me for sure later today. I am writing this on day 12 after taking the dog out and grooming him.
I spoke with friends on the phone and on Club House and finally made it to bed around 12:30 AM this morning.
It is almost time for breakfast so I will write more later day twelve’s activities. I know we most likely will do something outside in the morning and we will do things inside in the afternoon. The temperatures will reach about 94 here today.
I will have more to say this evening. Come back for more!

Days 9, 10 and the first part of day 11 – Clicker, Shopping and to Solo or not to Solo, that was the question!

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 15:48:41 GMT

This brings us to Tuesday, and it was a remarkably interesting day to say the least.
We started with the normal park time and breakfast. We proceeded to go out to practice the Elm street route once more on Tuesday morning. The weather was quite nice. All things went quite well on this trip and traffic checks along with barricades were the theme of the day in the morning.
After our trip we went down for coffee break and then took the dogs out for park.
The plan was to take the dogs out on the shuttle for our Elm street practice solo trip. I was supposed to be called for the 1:45 shuttle but my name was not mentioned over the intercom system, so I was a bit perplexed. I proceeded to go out for park before the trip and waited outside for a few minutes when …
God, or in this case Mother Nature, sometimes loves to play games with those of us in class. While waiting outside I heard very distant thunder. Thinking nothing of this I thought, well, I will go inside and wait in the lounge. I am glad I did. A few minutes later it was storming! Suffice it to say, we did not do our practice solo trips Tuesday afternoon.
In the evening we worked on more clicker work and targeting in the dining room. Dogs love this!
Wednesday morning, we were again paired up to perform our Elm street solos! This went very well. I only had to do one rework of an approach to a crosswalk which in the scheme of things is not bad at all!
We got back early and proceeded down for coffee break followed by picture-taking time!
This was ridiculously cute! It will be interesting to see what photos they use for the ID cards that we receive. All I will say now is that I have one very mischievous little puppy here!
After pictures were taken we waited for lunch. Before our afternoon trips we received our new harnesses. They are initially very stiff so you need to be careful on how long the dogs wear them. We were instructed to take them off during lectures and other periods of down time.
In the afternoon we went to the grocery store. I must say, this little pup did exceptionally well in the store. There were no distractions while in the store which was amazing! My guide was very alert and “Follow” was truly spot on for this big furry pup!
After we returned, we waited for park time and then dinner. After dinner we had a food lecture.
After this I decided to do a load of laundry. I got to bed a lot later than usual, around 11:00 or so but the day was filled with lots of fun!
This brings us to day eleven where so far, we have done country work. This was quite a small trip in the scheme of things and that work went very well.
One more thing, I determined yesterday the size of the cooling vest that I needed to buy for my dog. So, I will get this purchased today and depending on how quickly they ship it I will have it shipped either to the Seeing Eye or at home. Time will tell. Temperatures are still hovering around 110 or so in Tucson Arizona so this will be a must have part of the dog’s equipment.
Sunday will be a special day for the blog so stay tuned! Many secrets may be revealed!

Days 7 and 8 at the Seeing Eye – Soloing we have gone and Entering Elm we will go!

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:41:41 GMT

Yes, I am behind a bit so combining two days.
On Sunday we got up at the normal time and prepared to venture out for our South Street solo. We did quite well as a team. Lots of people were bustling about on a Sunday morning so we had people distractions, dog distractions but less traffic as there were more people walking about. We did have one crazy lady yelling at people as we traveled near the end of the route which distracted not only the dogs but us humans as well which required some rework at one of our last turns on the South Street route.
In the afternoon we reviewed:
• Clicker! Yes, we started with some very basic clicker work, mainly loading the clicker and doing some simple targeting work in our rooms with a targeting stick. We will do more of this on Tuesday to target our chairs in the dining room. My dog really doesn’t need that targeting work as the dog finds my spot at the table with significant ease!
• Equipment for purchase. I purchased the light from Ruffwear that attaches to the dog’s harness, a harness pouch and two collapsible water bowls. BTW, if you have not signed up as a Guide Dog user for Ruffwear’s discount program then I would highly recommend it. For privacy concerns I will not provide the link here but if you know how to reach me then please do. I will send it to you privately via email or text. They are very quick at onboarding you into the program and you get a 40% discount off many of their products.
• We received a bell and shoes for our pups. We tried the shoes on and walked around the building a bit. My dog was fine with me putting them on but walked very funny in them as we moved about the building. This is very normal. At the end of working in them my dog jumped up on the couch and refused to get off. My dog loved my bed the first day and I think still does. This may be challenging when we return home next week. Something tells me the cats won’t allow the dog on the bed and nor will I. There isn’t room for a fifth member of the family in our bed!
The rest of the day was ours to do as we pleased. I did some work-related activities and relaxed a bit. It has been a long week for sure.
Now, this brings us to day 8, the Elm Street route! This route is approximately 1.4 miles in length, and I will post more details on its make-up a bit later this week. It is a bit complicated and the written description I have needs some touching up due to changes in the route that were done after it was written by our training manager. This route has the following characteristics:
• Dog distractions
• Silent car traffic checks
• Much more complicated traffic/crossing patterns
• A round-about to contend with
• Some Clicker-like commanding to find traffic polls
• Much tighter spaces to navigate and much busier environments to navigate.
• A lot more people that are traveling the same walk path.
As you can see, things pick up a lot during this route. We have worked this path twice on Monday and we will do it twice again on Tuesday. We will solo the route on Wednesday morning. After this route it is off to freelance. This is a lot more relaxing.
After we got back in the morning, we had our dog care lecture. For those of us with dogs this was pretty much a repeat. We pilled our dogs, washed out their ears and received other information pertaining to the upkeep of our dogs.
When we returned from our afternoon trip, we had dinner followed by the vet lecture. A couple of things to note here for those that have been at the Seeing Eye before:
• Microchipping is now free at the school.
• All the information pertaining to our dogs will be supplied in written and electronic formats. Yeah! This is good!
After the lecture I took the furry one downstairs to groom the puppy.
After we took the dogs out for the last time I returned to my room and prepared for the next day, which would be Tuesday, July 25, what would have been my Mom’s birthday.
OK, so I think we are up to date. Again, we will be continuing to work the Elm Street route again and will probably do a practice solo in the afternoon like we did for the South Street route.
See everyone in the next post!

Day 6 at the Seeing Eye – Solo Practicing Makes for Perfect Traveling!

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 23:32:16 GMT

We are now on day six, almost at the half way point for retrains. Believe it or not, I am already starting to pack things I won’t use for the rest of class. Yes, I am eager to get home!
Today is the day we run through the South Street route one more time before we solo the route.
After breakfast we did a bit more on door behavior work with us taking the lead of opening the door after a knock. Again, the goal here is to ensure that the dog stays at rest and sitting while we answer the door. My little pup is doing well at this!
We all then loaded into a van (shuttles do not run on the weekends) and made our way to the Training Center. We were the last team to go out to practice the route. This time, Greg kept at a distance, and we worked the route. We made sure to stick together with each of us treading off who lead on alternating blocks. I had a number of distractions to contend with, all natural and not planned by the Seeing Eye. Other than that, all things went very well.
We then proceeded to come back and took the dogs out for park, and we then worked the Leasure Path. During this adventure we were given the full breed, weight, height, and identifiable markings of the dog as well. I am not disclosing some of these details for security reasons here. At the end of class I will reveal all of the details on my dog.
We then went down for lunch, and we were moved into the back dining room.
After lunch I made a few phone calls and laid down for what was intending to be a short nap. After 2.5 hours it was time for park. I guess time was catching up for me this week. I feel great now though!
We then went down for dinner and following this we attended the Going Home lecture. As a friend commented on Facebook, I thought this was done during the second Saturday and not the first but what do I know. For those interested, here is the video we watched during the lecture (with audio description of course).
The rest of my day will be to go groom the furry beast and to get ready for solo day! I am hoping we get to go first during the solo so that we have a bit more Sunday to have for ourselves.
See everyone on Sunday!

Day 5 Part 2 at the Seeing Eye – Who nose what will happen that makes sense!

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 22:07:36 GMT

OK, this is actually being written on day 6 in the early evening. I will get to the activities we had on day 6 in the next post.
I forgot to write about an incident that took place in the later part of the morning after we returned from doing our route. A bit of description is in order here for those that have not attended the school before:
• The Seeing Eye building is in the shape of a capital H.
• After you enter the building, you turn right and proceed down the hall toward the offices of many of the trainers and admission staff members.
• The hallway is carpeted and also has tile to mark specific locations that are important.
• Once you reach the tile you can turn right and proceed down the hall to the nurse’s office, or you can turn left and proceed to the main staircase. An elevator is also close by for those that need it. BTW, I am not documenting all aspects of the building.
• After entering through a door to the staircase you can take stairs up or down. Downstairs is the door to the park area, and you can continue downstairs where you can find the laundry area, library, vending machines, gym and other facilities that are in the basement.
• In the case of my story coming up I went ahead up the stairs to the second floor and exited the stairway and traveled down the hall to the right. The woman are to the left.
• The common lounge is on your left if you are traveling right from the staircase.
• The common lounge is a rather large room with kitchen supplies, a machine that makes all kind of coffee and hot chocolate and, a very large fridge (I would not advise keeping things in it as it is public property if you do), an Alexa device is here along with musical instruments, CDs, movies and more.
• I went ahead down the hall to a door which under normal circumstances is closed. We will get to this more in a minute.
• If you open the door here, you can go ahead down the hallway where the rooms are. The rooms are equipped with: your bed, a desk with a NLS player located on it (and a thumb drive in the shape of a bone with all lecture material on it will be on top of it when you arrive), a dresser, two closets, lots of shelving, a fridge, an Alexa in your headboard, power strips are provided on the desk and by the bed and of course your dog crate.
OK, now that you have an image of at least part of the building let’s proceed with the story here. If you looked closely at the title of this blog post, you probably know what is coming up next.
After arriving upstairs, I issued a” Forward, Right” series of commands and we went ahead down the hallway, passing the common lounge. We then started to approach what is normally a closed door. However, the cleaning staff were in and left the door open. My pup walked right through the door and my face, specifically my nose, decided to become what was felt like a permanent fixture of the door frame. I normally don’t comment on these things but boy oh boy did that hurt! I didn’t feel well for a while after that, but all was well after lunch.
OK, let’s continue with day 5’s activities here.
In the afternoon my classmate and I worked the South Street route. It did not rain, and it was quite warm. My dog at least did not walk as quickly and frankly I don’t blame the dog one bit. The dogs do at least the Maple Avenue part of this route around 20 times, so they find it rather lacking as far as a challenge is concerned, so this sometimes shows in their work. Once we got to the South Street part of the route things for sure picked up in pace and pull. We had minimal issues on the route, and we were well prepared for the practice solo run for the South Street route on Saturday morning. For those interested, here are the instructions for the South Street route:
• The Training Center is located on Maple Avenue. halfway between Market and Dehart streets. The specific address is 14 Maple Avenue.
• Starting at the training center, walk down the alley towards Maple Ave. and turn left at the end of the alley. Maple is now on your right.
• Walk 4 blocks, crossing Dehart, Community, and Miller. Keep your toes up on these blocks. The sidewalks are tricky! Miller is a lighted intersection, and it is best to travel when traffic is front to back on your parallel. At the end of block 4, turn left at Madison Street. Walk one block to South Street. (Swiss Chalet Bakery is on this corner)
• Turn left at South Street and walk 4 blocks. Things get very busy along this series of crossings. Market Street is at the end of block 4. You will cross Miller, Community, and Dehart during those 4 blocks. Both Miller and Dehart are lighted intersections.
• Turn left at Market Street (Starbucks is on this corner) and walk one block back to Maple Avenue.
• Turn left at Maple Avenue. Half way down the block is the alley leading to the training center where you started the route.
We went ahead to come back to our rooms and feed and take our dogs out to park. After dinner we had a lecture on the senses. We were then handed out a ball for the dogs. I need to get the spelling of the type of ball that it is, and I will post this for all of you a bit later.
ACB aired the Friends in Art showcase on ACB Media 4 so I listened to this while I prepared for the next day. II went to bed at around 9:30 or so and woke up on Saturday morning around 5:15 or so.
Stay tuned for day 6 after we have our going home lecture. Going home, really? This early? I am heading to this now and will write more when I return. Be back soon!

Day 5 part 1 at the Seeing Eye – South Street and Crossings, oh my!

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 17:47:29 GMT

It is the middle of day five and I have a few minutes so I thought I would update folks about the activities that are happening thus far today:
• I got up about 4:45 and started to work on work related things that I was asked to complete. There is nothing like doing a web assessment at 4:50 in the morning 😊.
• I then got ready for the day and prepared my furry friend’s breakfast and took the pup out to park. We finished rather quickly. This probably was due to the weather, it was sprinkling, or the fact that the puppy saw the food being prepared. Either way, it is all good. I love it when we get out and back in before most of the class arrives.
• I then finished up writing up the blog post for day 4 and then posted it to the blog along with Facebook.
• I went down for breakfast and then returned to the common lounge and talked with classmates for a while until it was time to leave for the training center.
• We are now taking shuttles into town, so this makes it quite nice. In fact, as I write this it is after lunch, and we are the last team to go into town this afternoon. If we finish early, we can take the next available shuttle back to campus. This gives us more time to do personal things before and after routes.
• The morning route went fine. I had to deal with one small distraction issue and one stupid Jeff mistake when performing a crossing but other than that all was almost perfect! I for sure approached our class manager and my instructor to apologize for my mistake. I would rather be the one to own this than them coming to me. It is all about safety here and this was truly about me!
• We then had a small lecture on Clicker Training. The Seeing Eye makes this optional for students. Personally, if it is used properly and not abused or overused then it is a tremendous tool to have in your toolbelt. It truly makes a difference when patterning the dogs to landmarks, doors, light poll buttons, ETC.
• We then had lunch. After lunch I went down and groomed the furry beast!
I will write more later about the rest of the day’s activities.

Day 4 at the Seeing Eye – A South Street Route we will go!

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 10:40:34 GMT

We are now on day four and what a day it was. I was extremely tired at the end of the day, so it was nice not to have any lectures in the evening. Wait, I am getting ahead of myself.
We took the dogs out at 5:30 AM and then returned and fed them. I found it easier to do all the prep work before taking the dog outside so that things would be ready for mealtime. This also seemingly encourages the dog to part. I found that the dog was much more eager to complete needed tasks outside.
In typical fashion I completed some work and email before breakfast and then we were told about the schedule for the day. Here is how the day played out:
• We went into town after completing door work. We arrived at around 8:00 or so.
• We worked on the modified Maple Avenue route again to verify things with the new harness handles that were distributed to some of us. I am now using an offset handle due to me stepping on feet. I am hoping that this isn’t the case as these are a bit more difficult to travel with when getting dogs under chairs or tucked away. If it is needed then no worries. We will see. I will ask about this this weekend to see if a longer handle will work instead of the offset. We did these routes individually, more on that in a moment.
• We then returned to the Seeing Eye and had two class lectures. The first on traffic and traffic checks. The second was on the rules of working the dogs inside the house, which was scheduled for the afternoon, but we got it done early. Woot! More free time for us later!
• We then had lunch and then returned to the training center downtown.
• We were then paired up with another student and we were first on doing the South Street route. I will put the routes up here later for those that are curious. It is about a 1.25 mile or so walk but is a bit longer if you account for reworking issues and the like. It basically is about 10 blocks in length with the pattern for this route being four blocks up, turn left, 1 block, turn left, four blocks up, turn left and walk one block back to Maple Avenue. We then turn left to work a half a block back to the training center. I believe I have that correct but it is early so I will triple verify this and correct it if needed.
• Greg, our instructor, was very pleased with our performance on the route. We will solo the route on Sunday.
• We then returned to the training center to wait for our rides back to the school. All of us were extremely hot and tired from the afternoon route. Temperatures were up there, close to 90 with significant amounts of humidity.
• I came back and rested a bit before we needed to feed, park and harness our dogs up for working them in the building for the first time. We are now working the dogs throughout the building with one exception, that being if we are just on our floor then they want us to heel the dogs if we are not navigating to other areas of the building.
• We had dinner and dessert was delicious!
• We then had a small lecture on degree of corrections and worked with the stuffed dogs in the downstairs lounge.
• After this we were free for the evening!
Friday and Saturday will be pretty much the same as far as activities are concerned. I expect we will do the South Street route twice on Friday and once on Saturday. Soloing the route will be done as I stated on Sunday when we will put our eyes on the Elm Street route. Elm Street routes will be completed on Wednesday morning and then it’s freelance time! The Elm Street route is a much longer route, and it is much more complex.
Oh, rumor has it that we will get toys for the dogs Friday evening. This should be interesting.
See everyone on day five!

Day Three at the Seeing Eye – Dog Day

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 10:26:06 GMT

We finally made it! Dog Day! Now, no, I won’t reveal today the name, breed or any other characteristics of my dog, but stay tuned. All will be revealed in time.
I got up at 3:30 and proceeded to go down to the gym and get some exercise. I checked in on email and other work-related activities while I waited for the instructors to wake up the class at 6:00. Breakfast was at 6:45, a bit early due to them wanting to get things moving as it relates to dog day.
We then had a lecture at around 7:30 on praise, corrections and fears. After the lecture was completed, they gave us bones for the dogs, and we proceeded to our room to await our instructor.
Greg came to me first. Brian, one of the instructor assistants came into the room first to help with videotaping the experience for family with my iPhone.
Greg brought in my dog, and I connected my leash. Greg provided some visual descriptions of the dog and then it was off to hand off more dogs to students!
After this, he returned, and we worked on heeling the dogs down to the dining room. We are required to put the dogs at sit at the top of each set of stairs. Getting them under the table was a bit challenging but it all worked out OK.
We then took the dogs out to park and then proceeded to lunch.
All of us then got in the van and proceeded to work our way to the training center where we worked the dogs in harness for the first time. Lessons learned thus far:
• Pace and pull are coming along nicely!
• Crowding is a bit of a problem so we are going to try a few combinations of harness handles to see how we can deal with this. This may solve over time anyway as we work together as a team.
• The dog’s work is tremendously great with limited distractions.
We then got back to the Seeing Eye and worked on door control. Basically, this is to teach the dogs that if they are at sit and rest and someone knocks at the door it isn’t their job to be the greeter. This is a bit challenging for the dogs as they know their instructors well or at least they know our instructors well as they have worked together at some level. They want to jump up and go greet them at the door. It is all about discipline.
We then fed our dogs and took them down to park.
Dinner was right after park time. We used our gentle leader on the dogs down to the dining room. We were allowed to take it off once we arrived at the table. I can tell you that my dog and I had some conversations about the use of the gentle leader, and I don’t blame the dog one bit!
We then proceeded to have the grooming lecture along with grooming our dog’s downstairs. We were then free for the rest of the evening until park time.
I was extremely tired, so I laid down for a bit until park time and made a few phone calls to family and very close friends to talk about dog day with them.
I am writing this on day 4 now and I slept in a bit today, getting up at 5:15 this morning. So far, all is going well this morning and my dog slept very well overnight with no problems.
See everyone in the next post!

Day Two at the Seeing Eye – A Juno Walking we will go!

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 08:52:04 GMT

I am at the end of the day and staying up to do three days of laundry so I thought I would knock out the post for today’s activities.
I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and worked on writing Monday’s journal for the blog along with answering and handling several tasks for work at the University. Breakfast was at 7:00 and then we proceeded to get ready to go into town.
For those that will be coming to class, the address of the training center is 14 Maple Avenue. Using VoiceVista, I added a marker for the training center once I arrived. This will become more important when we start to do routes on Friday with our new guides.
I was the last member of our class to go out for my first Juno walk with Greg. My pace is very quick, and I love a strong pull. So, we walked about a half a mile one way and practiced corrections, hand signals and verbal commands that we will use with the dogs. Simple things like:
• Forward!
• Straight! This can be repeated as you are slowly crossing the straight with your right hand extended.
• Left and right turns. Foot placement and shoulder alignment are crucial for crossings as well as turns. Some of this becomes second nature with the team once they are well seasoned, but it is vital that we perform it the way the dog expects initially.
• Hup Up and Steady!
The first Juno walk went very well and the weather was amazingly nice for NJ. It was very humid, about 98% but the temperature was much cooler than Tucson, Arizona.
We then returned for a hands-on activity with our small class on harnesses, gentle leaders and collars. This was really meant more for the new people in our class, but it was a good refresher for those of us who have been around the block a few times at the Seeing Eye.
Lunch was delicious. I had tortellini soup for lunch. I then ran downstairs and got in a good work out on the treadmill. I saw two instructors in the gym, and it was wonderful to see them. Jim was crucial near the end of Rory’s life, and I so much appreciated his kindness during this difficult time.
We then returned to the training center in the afternoon, and I was the first one to go out for our second and final Juno walk before the dogs were matched. It was a shorter walk and we spent most of this walk working on harness feedback when crossing streets as well as verifying some things in my environment back home.
Once we returned, I spent some time catching up on email and work-related activities until we had our lecture with Dave Johnson at 4:00. This was mainly a history lesson of the Seeing Eye along with many of the more interesting things about activities that happened in the school in the past 20 years or so. I found some of this fascinating and some of this was new for me to hear. It goes to show you that even we retrains get much out of each lecture.
After dinner we had our class fire drill. I don’t think I have ever heard such a loud sound from a fire drill. It was almost to the point where it would have been difficult to navigate the building if we didn’t know it as well as we did. I certainly hope we don’t hear that sound again while in class.
Finally, we had a very small communication meeting about dog day tomorrow. The plans are this:
• We will be woken up at 6:00 with breakfast at 6:45. Breakfast is a bit earlier on Wednesday due to dog day.
• We will have a lecture around 7:30 or so.
• Dogs will then be given out to us after the 60-minute lecture.
• We will then spend time bonding with our dogs until park time. Park time is generally around 10:30 in the morning.
• The instructors will then take each student down to the dining room to work on patterning and getting them in place when we officially go down for lunch. We are all sitting in the main dining room and have an exact spot at the table. We will teach the dogs to find that specific spot and it will become second nature to them, until we change it of course. Later we will move into the second dining room. That dining area is a bit smaller and is a bit more challenging as far as placing your dog under your chair. This also gives us opportunities to work the dogs through a restaurant-type atmosphere as the staff will be eating in the main dining room after we move.
• Lunch will be served at noon, and we are having Mexican food for lunch.
• After eating lunch, our plan is to head into town to do a small and heavily modified Maple Avenue route. We will not be paired as students for this activity. I will write a lot more about this on day three’s post. Stay tuned to this!
• We will then return for park time followed by dinner.
• At the end of the day, we have a grooming lecture followed by park time.
I will fill in a lot of the details here on each of these activities Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
Please do not expect the name, breed of the dog or any other characteristics at this early stage. All will be revealed in time but for privacy reasons as well as protecting the matching process we are asked not to share this information until later in class. I will share as much as they will allow of me meeting my new guide. I am hoping to video tape the experience or at least record it from my Apple Watch or iPhone using Just Press Record.
OK, see everyone on day 3! Be thinking of us in class starting at around 8:30 or so when we believe dogs will be handed out.

Day One at the Seeing Eye

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 09:50:26 GMT

Well, we made it! This was a journey unto itself. Suffice it to say, I have been proven yet again why “I hate space travel”, oh, wait, that’s a different sense of reality isn’t it 😉. Seriously, my faith in the airlines and their associated apps has been tested yet again. I spent the night before I flew trying to determine why my flights were being canceled. It turns out they weren’t, but other computer issues were giving me false alarms. All of this to say the trip process started a bit rough.
Keri and I left the house about 11:30 and grabbed cash and a few snacks for the trip. We arrived at the airport, and all was well going through security. By the way, if you don’t have TSA Pre-Check, get it! It is the best money I have spent from a travel perspective.
I am a strong believer in tracking my luggage when I travel. So, Air tags went into everything! My former Seeing Eye Dog Rory’s Air tag was in my main bag, so it made me smile to see her travel once again.
Once I arrived in Phoenix, I needed to pick up my bag from American and move it to United. That was a bit of an adventure as they really didn’t want to take the bag that early since the flight wasn’t leaving for another 8 hours. Reluctantly, they took the bag.
Karen and I made our way to her home where we spent some wonderful time just talking, watching old TV shows and just truly enjoying the early evening. I left for the airport and left for NJ around 12:30 AM, about 45 minutes later than we expected. I arrived in NJ at about 8:00 or so and after retrieving my bag, yes it made it, we made our way to the school.
The first surprise was seeing Lukas Franck just as the doors of the van were opened. That truly made me smile! For those that do not know, Lukas is retiring from a very long career at the Seeing Eye, and he will be missed. Lukas, we love you and truly cherish all that you have and will continue to do for each one of us.
The next few hours were spent:
• Meeting with the admission and training staff.
• Getting a tour of my room and the entire building.
• Unpacking and of course setting up technology on my desk. I must say, I did this backwards this time, meaning my clothes and other things got unpacked before the technology did.
• We did the traditional Juno walk in the driveway at the school to check pace and pull as well as correction strength. I am a very fast traveler with a dog, so my expectations are broad as far as my needs are concerned.
• I spent some time exploring the building and getting in enough time at their small gym to meet my exercise goals on my Apple watch. I must keep those rings going you know! This shouldn’t be a problem starting Tuesday.
• We ate both lunch and dinner at school. Lunch was a traditional turkey or ham sandwich along with ice cream for dessert. Dinner was a full-fledged turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
• In the evening we had our welcome lecture and then were given our leashes.
All activities ended at about 8:00 PM and I went to bed! So, that is day 1.
Here is what is on tap for day 2:
• After breakfast we will make our way to the training center downtown where we will do our morning Juno walks after a manager’s meeting with Joan Markey. Greg Marino is my instructor.
• We will return for lunch and then work our way back in the afternoon for more Juno walks.
• At 4:00 PM the instructors will meet to determine the dog assignments and we will meet with Dave Johnson for another lecture.
• After dinner we will have a wine and cheese social. I think this means I will go to bed early in preparation for Dog Day on Wednesday.
See everyone later with a summary of day two!

Seeing Eye Eve – the preparation and reflections of a Guide Dog User

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 16:01:10 GMT

Well, here we are again with yet another Seeing Eye journal as I undertake the journey with my new guide dog. This comes at a time in my life where I have been doing a lot of self-reflection with an emphasis on my family, my career and my activities outside of all these things as well. Suffice it to say, life has been busy for the Bishop family. I have moved back to Tucson Arizona, left Microsoft Corporation, returned to the University of Arizona, I now serve on the Board of Publications of the American Council of the Blind, I have gotten back on track with my exercise and health journey and so much more. Now comes another major step, my next Seeing Eye dog!
As I have been packing up my technology and other items for the trip, I have been thinking a lot about the guide dogs I have had in the past:
• My first Seeing Eye dog was Sunny. She truly was an angel and introduced me to my sweetheart and love of my life Keri. I was 19 years old and had a lot of learning to do in my early adulthood, but Sunny was there to assist me in college, the early part of my career and most importantly was a critical part of our larger family when I married Keri in 1988. Sadly, Sunny passed away shortly after we were married, and it was one of the most difficult times in my life. She taught me how to love and to truly cherish things that were important. Thank you, Sunny, I love you. BTW, Keri forgives you for eating her stuffed animals the day we were married.
• Tawny, Jacinda and Rory were all amazing dogs in their own special ways, and I could not have been as successful without each one of them in my life. Thank you, girls, for leading me, guiding me, teaching me and most importantly loving me for who I was as a person. I love you and miss each of you.
I will write more about each of them in future posts.
Today the journey starts with a flight from Tucson to Phoenix. I leave Tucson at 2:57 and arrive in Phoenix at 3:57. Then the waiting game begins. The flight to NJ leaves at 11:42 PM so I will spend the afternoon and evening visiting a family friend with the hopes of having a nap.
You might be interested in the tools I am planning to utilize for the posts to the blog this year. I am planning on using a combination of the following:
• Microsoft Word along with Writage.
• WordPress on my website.
• The Drafts iOS app along with the WordPress iOS app.
• I expect there may be some video posts late in the journey and I will use the iPhone’s camera along with other voice recording technology to bring some sound seeing tours and other activities from the Seeing Eye.
Note: I will get links in this post added later.
In class we learn by completing routes. This year I am hoping to utilize several iOS apps to assist me in this process. Before I list these let me first say that the most important is the work that we must do with our guides. Technology is not meant to replace the bond or the working relationship with our new companions. A close friend put it this way, “I don’t want to have to memorize the number of blocks and turns to complete a route. I want to complete the route with some slight guidance from technology so I can stay tuned to the important aspects of the process, that being the communication from the dog, the harness and the teamwork and bond that we are building”. “Well,” said Ms. Anonymous!
I respect the opinions of our instructors and their wisdom so I will determine what will be allowed when class starts but I am hoping that these tools can at least play a small part:
• VoiceVista – this is a new replacement of the former Microsoft SoundScape app. If you haven’t tried this app then you really must give it a strong look! On July 15th the developer added iOS Shortcut support for the app so investment in the app continues with lots of great features coming quickly for the app. I just wish it had a few more things to make it the gold star of travel apps:
o Better Street Map Preview support.
o Let me move to a place of my own choosing by providing an address and letting me plan routes from a distance.
o Better recognition and automatic adjusting of routes as you travel.
• GoodMaps Outdoors – This is another app you really want in your toolbelt. I don’t think it is as feature rich as VoiceVista, but I have used it with great success.
• BlindSquare – If you just want to know where you are heading and keep on the straight path then this is a tried and true up to have available.
These are the three apps I use most often. I am eager to hear from others on what you may be using for your travel and route planning efforts.
I have been preparing for class by picking back up on my exercise. All the moving activities and other things happening put 2 or three months pause on my exercise, so I needed to get the ball rolling again. After gaining about 5 extra pounds, it was time to get my butt in gear! This has been difficult due to the record level of heat we are experiencing in Arizona. Most days lately have been 105 or warmer so my exercise process has been done in the very early morning hours and late into the evening. I have been getting between 4.5 and 6 miles of walking in a day along with other exercise activities. All of this is paying off. I lost a total of 8 pounds so go team Jeff!
Stay tuned for more. I will try hard to keep everyone updated on all things going on at the Seeing Eye. Expect the next update to be posted Monday evening, probably after lectures are complete. Here is what I am expecting to take place on Monday:
• I should arrive in NJ around 7:40 or so and I expect to get to the school at around 9:00 or 9:30.
• Generally, the instructor will guide us to our room and will give us a couple of hours to unpack and get settled.
• I expect a Juno walk will take place in the morning or early afternoon. It all depends on the scheduling and arrival of other students.
• Lunch is generally around noon, and I am hoping to get a nap in for a few hours in the afternoon due to taking the red eye flight this evening.
• Dinner is around 5:00 or so and then I expect a lecture at around 6:00 or 7:00. This is or at least has been an introduction to class, a review of the rules and expectations for us while at the school and we may get some supplies at this first lecture. We will see.
We will see if this is true or not. I will report more on this tomorrow evening. See everyone then!

Completion of Day 26 and Day 27 – Going home

Fri, 21 May 2010 15:54:24 GMT

In the afternoon Kyle and I went to go see the Morris Frank statue. I have never seen such a realistic statue before. Even the textures will remarkable. The harness felt like a harness. The leash even felt somewhat like it also. The face and the rest of the statue was very cool to touch. We took some pictures of us there (I hope I can get them from Kyle).

We then went for some snacks with the rest of the soon to be graduates of our class. I got some fries and a drink. We spent quite a bit of time there and really enjoyed ourselves.

We got back to the school at around 3:00 and I began the last minute activities of packing. I showered, finished up the laundry, fed Rory her two thirds of a cup of food (slightly less then she normally eats), went down to have the Seeing Eye print out my boarding pass and paid for my bag for the flight and packed the USB keyboard into the suitcase. Everything fit. Shannon weighed the bag and it weighed 51.5 pounds. I was sweating it when we got to the airport. Thank goodness it weighed 47.5 there. The costs for taking luggage on the plane is getting crazy.

After 8:00 PARC time I went upstairs for a while and hung out with Shannon, Kyle and Kim. I finally left at about 9:30 and decided to check email for the final time and packed the laptop. I laid down listening to some OTR and fell asleep. I only got about 2 or 3 hours of sleep though. I kept waking up and checking the clock. I finally decided that enough was enough and started getting ready to leave at 2:30. Shannon wouldn’t call me until 3:30 but what the heck. I finished getting the last minute stuff into the laptop bag (Shannon took the big suitcase already to the front door prior in the evening). I then took the laptop bag to the front door but had to make three or four more trips putting stuff into it ;).

Shannon called as I was walking back to my room so I called her back. I took Rory out to PARC and she peed. I came back in and we did her ear (cleaning and medicine). I then went back to my room and waited for 4:15 to take her out again to she if she would finish her PARC schedule. With a bit of assistance from Shannon the mission was accomplished. I went in and sat on the couch in the front area of the Seeing Eye and waited for Jim to arrive.

Jim picked me up at 4:45 and off we went. We got there and I went to use the bathroom before we went through security and Jim went and parked the car.

Security went fine and so off to the gate we went. We sat for about 30 minutes and talked. Jim also wanted to play with the iPod Touch for a few minutes.

I got onto the plane and I think I have decided that I liked where I was seated. I had a who aisle to myself so Rory sat on the floor by the window seat and I sat in the middle and my technology sat on the left seat ;). I watched Star Trek episodes, listened to ABBA and the Beatles on the plane and the time went quickly.

I then took the Arizona Shuttle back to Tucson. The flight was very uneventful. Rory did awesome.

Keri met me after I got off of the shuttle and poor Rory started dancing as we got off of the bus due to the heat. Her boodies were packed in the suitcase and her harness also got messed up a bit so it was a bit of a challenge getting her to the car.

We got home and introduced her to the house, our cat and to her crate. The rest of the day went well. Later on in the evening Keri and me went to CVS to pick up some medications and Rory worked great in the store. We then went home and I fed and PARC’d Rory. It was then time for us humans to eat so we did that and I started to get sleepy.

I attempted to get my email read but we had major issues with Office so I sent Brian on a mission to get it fixed. Things are now working fine and I went to bed around 6:30 or so. Keri was up for a while longer (until 8:30). Rory slept through the night well and I got up at 5:00 this morning and got ready for the day. I fed her and took her out to PARC. She did awesome! I then came back in and did her ear and got ready to take the bus to work.

I am now sitting in the office as I write this and Rory is sleeping next to me on her dog bed. We will be leaving soon before it gets to hot.

More later and thanks everyone for reading the blog.

Day 25 and a partial day 26 at the Seeing Eye

Wed, 19 May 2010 15:32:29 GMT

I got up on Tuesday at about 5:15 or so and really didn’t want to get up. The forecast predicted rain all day so I was pleasantly surprised when I found that while it was cool outside it wasn’t raining, yet!

I met the guys down in the men’s lounge before breakfast and we chatted for about 30 minutes and then down to breakfast we went.

After breakfast I took Rory outside to PARC again before we left and guess what, the rain started. She wouldn’t go but I staid out there for about 20 minutes. I can’t blame her, who would want to do that in the freezing rain ;).

Barb and I would go work revolving doors in the morning. Oh the joy of that. The place we went to use a former mall which is now used for businesses. It was quite an interesting building and very quiet. We then worked back to the van and went back to the school.

In the afternoon we all went to the mall, the entire group. It was fun working through the mall. Barb picked up vacuum cleaner bags and other students picked up gag toys to play jokes on people and others picked up stuff to assist with their travel home.

One interesting thing is that we stopped at a glass elevator and you could watch it moving. When the floor was coming back up toward us Rory jumped back as though it were a traffic check. She is extremely alert and focused in her work (well, most of the time anyway).

In the evening we met with Lucas Franck (it was optional) and talked more targeting work, clicker and other situations we wanted to discuss with him. I started to do 2 loads of laundry and got them done around 9:30 or so.

I am writing this post on Wednesday morning at around 11:20 or so and did another very small load this morning. It is drying now. I will have to do one more load before I leave this evening but then the world will be good. I have all tech stuff packed accept the laptop which will take 5 minutes. I suspect I will wait to do that as late as I can honestly.

Barb, Kyle and me went out to do more country work in the morning today (Wednesday). We then stopped by the store and to that yummy bakery ;). We then stopped to get a large cup (so I can put ice in it for later) and the machines weren’t working so they let us take the cup for free. Very cool.

Rory went down to get her ear and paw checked and we will get the results soon on the slides they took from her ear.

I will write another update later today with this afternoon’s activities.

See you in a few hours.

Addendum to Day 23 and Day 24

Tue, 18 May 2010 10:12:43 GMT

After I got done posting the prior post I got an email from a distant cousin named Tommy who lives in Long Island, NY. He came to see me. I don’t recall meeting him before but my Dad says I had many many years ago.

Later that evening we again had pizza courtesy of the Seeing Eye. It was from the same place again. I again got some on my shirt so I spent the next 3 hours trying to get the stupid thing out of the shirt. I had to wash it three times but happiness prevails, it is gone.

I did watch Survivor while I was doing this and I was a bit disappointed in the result. I watched the first 5 minutes of the third hour and then went to bed.

I also tuned into ACB Radio to listen to some of Robert J Sawyer’s discussion. It was fascinating and I love his writing.

On Monday we did two routes. In the morning we went to a University to work on OCS (orientation, coaching and solo) or to those of us that are old school, patterning. That went quite well.

After this we went to the bakery we had gone to before. It was quite good.

I got back and continued to pack more tech things and started to get worried that everything isn’t going to fit. This is getting a bit scary because I probably need o decide today if I am shipping anything.

In the afternoon we went out again and worked a semi-solo small route (about 1 mile) where Barb used 2-way radios and signaled us where to turn. She remained a distance away so that the dogs wouldn’t see us. That went very very well and we sped around the mile quite quickly.

After dinner I went to the Going Home lecture again. I did start reading a new book earlier in the day and read about 45 minutes of it while waiting for the meeting to start.

After the meeting and PARC time I continued to read my book and fell asleep.

I am writing this now on Day 25 and we are expecting lots and lots of rain but none has fallen yet when we went out for PARC.

I will write more later.

Days 22 and 23 at the Seeing Eye

Sun, 16 May 2010 15:35:40 GMT

Saturday couldn’t come soon enough. I really needed a break. I did lots of personal stuff on Saturday:

* I did some obedience with Rory

* I groomed Rory.

* I did three loads of laundry and packed all three of them into my suit case.

* I packed many other items. I am almost packed accept for technical gear and some personal items I still have to use while I am here.

* I caught up on last weeks Survivor episode on CBS.com. This Sunday is the final episode of the season but I doubt I can convince people to watch 3 hours of it ;).

I spent other time talking with Keri on the phone. I really miss her and the kids. It will be good to get home soon.

I spent time talking with friends, tweeting on Twitter and checking into stuff at work and following up on a few items.

The rest of Saturday was pretty much just resting and taking it easy. One of the instructors came in and asked me some questions to write a letter to the puppy raising family that raised Rory. That didn’t take to long. She did help me get blood out of Rory’s mat from her foot and I ran that down to wash it (part of the three loads). I went ahead and packed it. I actually think I will wrap the USB keyboard I brought with me in it to better protect it.

On Sunday morning Barb took me to the grocery store and to a drug store. I bought some groceries and then went to the other store to buy a ball for Rory. We will try that a bit later.

Lunch is at 12:30 today and then this evening we will be having another pizza party. Let’s hope that the pizza is better this time from the last order we placed ;).

After today we have three days left and they couldn’t take place fast enough. Let’s get home!

See you all on day 24.

Day 21 at the Seeing Eye

Fri, 14 May 2010 21:00:32 GMT

Karen woke me up at 5:00 or so. I could hear her XM radio or laptop playing music and she was quite chipper for 2:00AM Tucson time. I bet Joyce is really thinking she and Darrell are crazy with that sleep schedule ;).

Today started with a yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, cinnamon bun and bacon. Yummy stuff!

Barb and I went out and worked on clearance work as well as the court house. We got back about 10:15 or so and I spent some time calling Apple to try and figure out why I can’t delete items off of the Touch from the device. You have to do it through iTunes with the iPod in manual mode.

For lunch we had chicken breast sandwiches.

In the afternoon we did a solo route to a bank and worked on some clicker targeting.

Later after I got back we did more games with Lucas and “Touch the Tony”. This is getting better and better as we work with him on her fears.

It is almost dinner time where we will have meat loaf and mashed potatoes and pees (yuck).

The rest of the evening will be spent doing laundry so that I can spend Saturday relaxing as much as I can. I do want to catch up on this weeks Survivor. Sunday is the final episode of the season.

Saturday I will be spending packing as much as I can for the trip home. I really don’t want to wait for the last minute on that.

See you all on a combined post for days 22 and 23. From that point it will be a down hill from there to home.

Day 20 at the Seeing Eye

Thu, 13 May 2010 22:14:26 GMT

Today was the day to do country work and escalators.

We got up about 5:15 and I gave Rory her pill for her foot and took her out after giving her food and water. Breakfast was at 7:00 and it felt odd having so many people already gone. Rick would be leaving at noon our time today so he was at our table but many of the retrains had left for the airport and many of them were already in the air.

After breakfast I went and checked email and groomed Rory and we played some.

Barb got back from taking someone to the airport at about 9:00 and out we went to do country work. It went fine.

We got back in time to soak Rory’s foot and then it would be lunch time soon after. Many of my classmates went to New York City (just two) but I staid here. I relaxed a bit before lunch and then took a nap after lunch. I needed it. Rory kept me up most of the prior night.

Barb woke me up at about 2:30 and we went to Century 21 and to the drug store that was right next door to it. She did great in both locations.

We did have a bit of a dog distraction issue at the corner after leaving the drug store but we got through that (be it a high collar correction needing to be used).

I got back and we again soaked Rory’s foot. We then went down to get our dog’s food and fed them and took them out to PARC.

We then had dinner. We have no lecture this evening so it is great that I have some time to myself. Lucas is here and we are going to again do “Touch the Tony” again in a few minutes. Lucas is now reading the blog, so “Hello Lucas” :).

See everyone on day 21.

Day 19 at the Seeing Eye

Thu, 13 May 2010 10:15:07 GMT

Today would be bus day and pet store day.

I got up about 5:10 and got ready for the day.

After PARC Shannon noticed some blood on the floor as I went upstairs from the PARC door. It was from RORy’s foot. It seems as we found out later to be a puncture from her stay with the other dogs. We are treating it now twice a day both with soaking her foot and pills. She just loves those, not!

Rory and I went down for breakfast at 7:00 and then waited to go on the bus at about 9:30 with Rick. The bus trip went well but she kept turning around when we entered the bus looking behind us for Rick and Barb. Some things I noticed about the bus ride:

* They don’t announce the stops or if they do (we hear something over the speaker once in a while) it is very distorted and not understandable.

* The seats are very nice unlike the seats on most of the buses at home.

* They drop you off and just sit there and you have to walk up a hill and wait for it to pull around. That seems silly to me and also to Barb.

We got back around 11:00 or so and took our dogs out to PARC. Barb brought me a crate to try with Rory.

At lunch we sat at our normal tables but it would be the last time for the majority of the retrains as they would be leaving in the morning. Lee and Harold left on Wednesday with Joel leaving on Tuesday.

After lunch we went to the pet store. That was very much uneventful.

We stopped and got a treat on the way home and then it was time for “Touch the Tony”.

Tony is the security guard that Rory is afraid of. She growls and barks at him when she sees him in the building. Lucas Franck suggested we play a game with her using clicker and make Tony a target. He called it “Touch the Tony”. It was pretty funny.

So, we started by any time Rory looked at Tony we would click and treat. Then she had to touch his hand and then we would click and treat. We did this for about 10 or so minutes and she was wagging her tail. After PARC we did it some more but this time had him stand and move around a bit but keeping the focus on fun. We will continue this process to see if we can manage to break her fear of him. She is getting there. She only quietly barked when we left dinner, which, dinner description is next.

After the first week we moved into the small dining room (it is the second one past the larger dining room). The purpose of this is to simulate a restaurant type atmosphere. The Seeing Eye staff eat in the larger dining room so we have to work through the area to our assigned seats.

Anyway, for dinner we came back out to the large dining room and ate with our original classes since the retrains would be leaving in the morning. That was fun indeed.

We had no lectures this evening so we played, soaked Rory’s foot, I did some emailing to work and called home to talk to Keri and the boys.

I went up before PARC to see the gang in the common lounge. Dawn was looking for me so I went to see her.

I called Karen after PARC and wished her a safe trip.

I went to bed and listened to the news and tried to sleep. Rory made this difficult as she kept moving around in the crate making life quite interesting. Suffice it to say, I am quite tired this morning.

More to come on day 20. Today is Country Work and escalators.

Days 17 and 18 at the Seeing Eye

Wed, 12 May 2010 01:12:13 GMT

Monday was solo day for the Elm Street route.

I got up pretty early and got ready for the day. In the morning Barb and I went out on the first trip and it rained for most of the route. It went very very well. I told her what actions I would take at each corner and ran through the route rather quickly.

We returned for lunch and I was going to do the solo later in the afternoon after she took care of the other students.

The afternoon came and off we went. On the first block she bumped me into a 4H family member (I think it was the father). I re-worked the incident and kept going. Things went well including a very aggressive traffic check from Tom Pender right after a natural traffic check. Rory ran all the way back to the curb. I think she has Tom figured out. Thank goodness there are no more routes.

We got to the final crossing and this is where things kind of went wrong. Rory has some issues with dog distractions and due to this fact we veered into the street to the left. Luckily, there was no danger and we reworked the issue. Then I ran into some sidewalk construction that was going on in the afternoon which made for some interesting navigating to our final destination.

Overall Barb said that the solo went well. It is best that we find these issues out now and not later when we get home.

After dinner and a lecture on going home Karen and I spent some time playing with the iPod Touch. Rory saw the security guard sitting behind the desk and started to bark at him. We went and got Jim (another instructor who actually trained Jacinda my last dog) and he worked with me to try and determine the issue. Rory was afraid of the security guard. We had him feed Rory some treats and this seemed to resolve the issue somewhat. We did more on this later on day 18.

I got to bed about 9:30 or so.

Today, Tuesday I got up at 5:15 and got ready for the day. I did obedience and groomed Rory in the morning. I left at 9:15 to begin freelance work with Lee. This was going to be a fun day. We were going to work on street crossings today (I wonder why ;)).

We first stopped at a bakery on the route and picked up a doughnut (courtesy of the Seeing Eye) and we then got started. We crossed many many streets each with different complexities (lots of traffic, very wide crossings, angled crossings, islands, etc.). It was a bit tricky but she did awesome!

In the afternoon we were going o go out to eat at Friendly’s. It is a ice cream and burger place. So, at lunch I didn’t eat on the campus. We left at 1:00 and did a partial South Street route and had to workaround a very large truck parked on the sidewalk coming back to Maple after turning left after the crossing at South Street. The trip went well. Lee and me soloed it with Barb watching.

We then went to go eat. I had a burger and fries and many others had ice cream type stuff. It was a lot of fun.

We got back in time to PARC our dogs and head in for dinner.

Before dinner I worked with Tom, Barb and the security guard to see what we could do to get her to not be afraid of him. You see he is dressed in all black and he is a very large man (quite tall as I understand it). She did quite well outside but did bark at him as we re-entered the building. We will continue this effort on Wednesday with the use of Clicker and we will see how it goes. This should be interesting. Now a security guard will become a target :).

I then went down for dinner and again didn’t eat. I wasn’t hungry.

We had a lecture on dog attacks and for many it was a tough discussion.

On Wednesday we will be doing bus work among other things. The retrains are about to go home (some left today with some leaving on Wednesday and the rest on Thursday). I have to stay the extra week.

More to come on day 19.

Day 16

Sun, 09 May 2010 23:41:39 GMT

Today turned out to be a pretty busy day at first.

I got up to take Rory out to PARC.

I took her down stairs to groom here.

I did obedience.

I then played with her for about 10 or so minutes.

I then threw in a small load of laundry (actually two loads but both were quite small).

I then showered and got dressed for the day and went for breakfast.

I got back to my room and then hung out in the lounge while the cleaning staff worked. Before I went back to my room I went down and collected my laundry.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much relaxing. I listened to some radio dramas and some music on Mushroom FM.

This week will be filled with completing the Elm Street route and then freelance activities. I am looking forward to that.

See you all on day 17.

Day 15

Sat, 08 May 2010 23:59:35 GMT

Today is Saturday and I had to work it like a normal day due to being slightly behind in class.

We got up at 5:30 (actually I was up at 5:05 and was dressed and ready to go by 5:20) to take our dogs out. Breakfast was at 7:00 and I was told that Barb would pick me up at 9:30 to do the Elm Street route. We would end up doing it twice that day.

The route had more dog distractions the both times that we did the route then normal throughout the week. She has some significant dog distraction issues but I can handle that, no worries.

The afternoon was spent relaxing. We got read our puppy profiles and she actually emailed them to us and I already posted it to the blog.

I took about a 2 hour nap and got ready for PARC and then a short visit to the dining room. We all ordered pizza for dinner instead of eating the normal meal. They say it was the best pizza in NJ but I am sorry, it really wasn’t that special :).

I answered some phone calls I had received and now I am writing the blog post.

We get to sleep in until 6:30 on Sunday which is awesome. I am quite happy about that.

See everyone on day 16 which will probably be very boring. It is relax time!

Rory’s Puppy Profile

Sat, 08 May 2010 20:04:03 GMT

Rory was raised in Pennsylvania by a family with 4 children aged 8 to 15. They had 2 other friendly and affectionate dogs but no cats. She was a good eater and was clean in the house. They took her outside to empty on a regular schedule so she didn’t need to tell them when she needed to go out. When her family was not home Rory was left in a crate.

Rory and her family went many places such as church, malls, hotels, baseball games, movies, on elevators, to school, and after school functions. Rory was friendly towards children and strangers.

Rory’s family said she rode in the car a lot and enjoyed the rides. She liked to have her belly rubbed, and to play fetch with tennis balls. She did also like to eat the tennis balls though.

Days 13 and 14 at the Seeing Eye

Sat, 08 May 2010 10:20:27 GMT

The next two days at the Seeing Eye were pretty uneventful compared to the last few days :).

We started the South Route on Thursday and soloed it on Friday afternoon.

The first two trips went without a hitch. She is really focusing on curbs now and doing a great job. I did notice that her pull was slowing a bit near the end of the route but I wasn’t concerned because I knew it was not her normal pull.

Thursday morning and afternoon I had to continue to heel her around the building. Starting at PARC time I was able to start using the harness. I could work her to and from the shuttle when we were downtown though which was nice.

Lucas Franck and I did a double Clicker training session to try and get caught up. That went well and boy is she a quick learner.

Thursday evening we had a discussion about the harness and giving free water and freedom in the room. I can not start these activities quite yet as she is quite new still.

I got to bed about 9:00 or so and boy was I tired.

Friday we continued the South street route. Barb was going to be going to New York City with Lee in the afternoon so we did a practice solo before the real thing in the afternoon. It turns out I would be doing it with the class supervisor Tom Pender. Talk about nerve racking :).

Both routes went great. We had some dog distraction issues and a couple of clearance issues on the solo but over all the day went great!

In the morning on Friday Lucas Franck worked with me on Clicker training with the new seats in the dining room. Again, she picked that up like a charm.

We got back and I had to work with Rick on cleaning her teeth. That went fine, she honestly doesn’t mind her teeth done unlike all of my other dogs.

After this it was PARC time and dinner. We had to go to our new seat locations and she did it very well.

The evening was spent dealing with some personal things going on at home and then went upstairs to discuss the pizza party we are trying to plan for Saturday. We are not sure we can pull it off.

At this point it was PARC time.

I got to bed about 8:30 or so. I was very tired. I laid there and made a few phone calls and fell asleep around 9:15 or so.

This brings us up to Saturday. Some students have today off and some have Sunday off due to when instructors are off. Barb and I will be doing the Elm Street route twice today to try and catch up. More on that later.

I did find out that I will be staying at the Seeing Eye until 5/20 instead of 5/13. This is making for a very long trip :). Poor Keri.

Rory’s Birth Date

Thu, 06 May 2010 10:45:13 GMT

Rory was born on 3/29/2008. Barb just came in and told me. She is also a pure Black Lab.

Day 12 at the Seeing Eye

Thu, 06 May 2010 01:18:13 GMT

This turned out to be an exciting day.

I was a bit worried that Rory would keep me up during the night but she slept very well. I could hear her sometimes moving around but she really did a great job sleeping.

I got up at 5:10 and quickly showered, shaved and got dressed before PARC time was called and before them bringing the food to our doors.

I then played with Rory for about 30 to 40 minutes and also did obedience with Barb with her just prior to breakfast.

I am having to heel her around the house for the first few days just like I did with Vincent.

I learned that I would be on the 9:15 shuttle so I went back to my room and picked up my phone and went into the Men’s lounge to check email while the cleaning staff did their work in my room.

We had a lecture on the care of your dog today but I couldn’t do the hands on work with her due to her being so new. I did go and sit in and listen to the meeting. It was good socialization work for Rory.

I then left on the shuttle and Barb and I set off for our first walk with Rory. All I can say is that if I had wings I would have flown to the moon and back. Her speed and pull were off the charts, even a bit more then I wanted. It was a nice problem to have. Tom followed Barb and me for part of the route and we ended up finishing the route quite quickly. Tom suggests that her speed will decrease as well as her pull over time but so far at least the first trip it didn’t that much.

We went back and we had our class pictures. They now email out the picture of your dog to you which I think is very cool. I hope it gets here soon.

I was on the first trip after lunch and we did half the route using a short handle and the other half with the longer handle. I am unsure which I want to stick with so we will see. Rory loves me giving her praise with a chipmunk type voice and it makes Barb laugh. The second working of the Maple route was also good but indeed speed and pull decreased a bit more from the morning. Parts of this could be due to the heat. It was a bit warm out.

We got back to the school and I laid down for a nap after calling Keri to check on how she was doing. I slept for a couple of hours and then got up in time for PARC and feeding time. Rory eats very fast.

We then went for dinner.

After dinner Lucas and I worked on the beginnings of Clicker with Rory and we will continue on Thursday. We then had the vet lecture with Dr. Holly. I found it interesting that the question I had about snake bites and training dogs to avoid snakes was never asked of her until this evening. What brought this up was a snake bite that Keri’s Mom received yesterday and she ended up in the hospital for quite a while for observation.

After the vet lecture it was time to go out to PARC again and now after checking email I am writing blog posts. I did go up and spend some time in the Common Lounge with the rest of the class after PARC time for about 20 minutes or so.

That brings up to the current.

Steve wanted more information on the booties. We are using them simply for training purposes. The weather wouldn’t mandate their use right now but they want us to be familiar with putting them on and getting the dogs used to them while traveling. They are trained with them on also so it is really more re-enforcing already learned behavior (well, sort of).

See everyone on day 13.

Day 11 at the Seeing Eye

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:59:37 GMT

Tuesday was a difficult day for me. We got up, parked our dogs and ate breakfast. I was going to go out with Tom Pender (the class supervisor) to work on pull with Vincent. I went in on the 8:45 shuttle and met Tom there. We drove in the Prius to Madison, NJ. He had me work with Vincent with lots of play and praise to attempt to increase his pull. At times there was some but for the majority of the time it was not very strong. I expressed these concerns to Tom while we went back to the campus.

He then did a Juno walk with me in the driveway and told me he would begin searching to see what he could find.

I spoke to Michelle and Lucas Franck as I really wasn’t handling the situation very well. In addition, those on the Internet with whom I communicate with were a huge help to me throughout the day.

Tom came on got Vincent just prior to lunch and boy did it feel weird walking into the first dining room without a dog. It felt like all of the eyes of the room were looking at me (of which they probably were not). I started to cry at the table a bit and then we had a guest so I had to quickly compose myself as much as I could. I ate my hamburger and fries (that was what was for lunch) and kept pretty quiet.

I went back to my room and checked email and then went down to the front lobby and watched a Start Trek episode on the iPod to try and get my mind off of all of the activities that were taking place.

The afternoon crawled and I honestly thought it would never end. I stopped by to see Michelle, I went outside to stand in the rain a bit (it was lightly sprinkling) and went to talk with Pauline on potential travel plans if a match couldn’t be found. I wanted to have all of the options on the table if worse came to worse. I am Grandfather Chicken Little and many know this about me. If the worse could happen then I tend to believe it will (one of my unwanted features). The Unwanted Features is something that came up in class at our table and I will BLOG about it later at some point, everyone remind me ;).

I was sitting in Michelle’s office and she received a phone call:

“Is Jeff in your office?”

I guess Tom and Barb were hunting for me.

I received the news that they had found a new dog for me and that I would meet HER after dinner.

I ate dinner and then went back to my room to wait for Tom to bring her to my room.

Her name is Rory. She is 21 inches tall and 51.2 pounds. I do not have a birth date yet but hope to get that soon. Verification that she is a pure Black Lab is also needing to be determined but we think she is.

The rest of the evening was spent bonding with her and then off to a lecture on more Clicker Training activities from Lucas. Lucas is probably one of the most dynamic speakers in the filed there is. He really makes training fun with his sense of humor and overall tone.

We then took our dogs out to PARC and I returned to my room where we played a bit more and then it was time for bed. It was a day that started with lots of tears and ended with lots of them but the emotion swing was completely opposite. Man, I hope I don’t have many more of those while I am here.

More to come on the day 12 post. Thanks for reading everyone.

Day 10 at the Seeing Eye

Wed, 05 May 2010 10:18:06 GMT

I am writing this on Wednesday, May 5. I am a bit behind.

Monday, May 3, we got up at the sound of the wake up call and I got ready for the day and took Vincent out. I had cereal for breakfast.

We started the Elm Street route and I expressed more concern about Vincent’s lack of pull. So, Barb started to work with me much more on this both in the morning and the afternoon. I used a harness that was offset to the right and the handle was a bit shorter. Vincent wore his booties in the morning but not in the afternoon. It rained on us in the morning and as we got near the end of the route we heard lots of emergency vehicles screaming by. A transformer blew underground on Miller and boy did that create a big mess. The weather was warm so the rain actually felt kind of nice.

When we got back Barb took Vincent to the vet to have his paws looked at. It turned out that he had a bit of a problem with his left back paw, but nothing serious. Just need to medicate it.

In the afternoon she tied the harness handle to the body of the harness so that it did not give. We had no rain in the afternoon. The pull pretty much remained consistent.

The Elm Street route is much longer and the amount of traffic is much greater along this route.

I got back to the campus and was told that Tom Pender would be taking me out in the morning to work in Madison to see what he could do with Vincent’s pull.

On Monday night Shannon talked to us about dog food and toys. We started to switch Vincent from Imes to Pro Plan (or would on Tuesday morning).

I got to bed at 8:45 or so and slept pretty good.

Day 9 at the Seeing Eye

Sun, 02 May 2010 23:43:10 GMT

Sunday was a great day of rest. We got up at 6:30 and took the dogs out to PARC. We had a yummy yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and English muffins. Did I tell you it was really really yummy .

After breakfast we went upstairs to get the information on our dogs. Vincent’s are:

67.5 pounds
24.5 inches tall
Birth Date: 7/18/2008

He is a young pup.

I spent the rest of the morning kicking back and then met with Barb for our progress meeting. Things are going well. She dropped off another harness that is two inches shorter and offset to the right. We are going to try this to see if his pull will increase using this new harness. Let’s hope so.

She noticed he was licking his feet and so we put bitter apples on them to get him to stop. We will take him to the vet to get his feet checked just prior to lunch.

Then we had lunch. The afternoon was spent just relaxing and then dinner/PARC time. Really a completely uneventful day.

See everyone on day 10. It is Elm Street route week. We will do this on Monday and Tuesday with solo on Wednesday morning.

Day 8 at the Seeing Eye

Sun, 02 May 2010 02:28:12 GMT

Today is solo day where we have to work the route we have been working out without any instructor involvement.

It was hot in my room over night so I slept on top of the covers and was awakened by the announcement of PARC time. I quickly dressed, fed Vincent and took him out. I came back to my room to focus on reading email, doing some obedience and getting ready for breakfast.

I had cereal for breakfast and got ready to go out on the solo. The trip was uneventful accept for the major jump in temperature. It is 20 degrees warmer here then in Tucson for goodness sake. We got back to the lounge down town and man was I hot!

We then got back to campus after everyone finished and we took our dogs out for PARC again. Right from there we went to walk the leisure path.

Then it was time for lunch. I honestly wasn’t very hungry and just wanted to go lay down and take a nap. I ate quickly and went back to my room. I checked on email and proceeded to lay down and didn’t wake up until PARC time again. Boy, that 3 hour nap sure was nice!

It was then dinner time and we had pizza.

After dinner we had a short meeting on “Going Home”. They showed us a video that I have seen many many times.

I then came back to my room and called into Mushroom FM after PARC time at 8:00. I am now writing this blog post and heading for bed. We get to sleep in in the morning until 6:30. I am happy about that. Sunday we are only having a meeting to find out more about our dogs. I will post the specifics when I get them.

See everyone on day 9.

More on Day 7 at the Seeing Eye

Sat, 01 May 2010 10:19:32 GMT

I did forget that I worked with Lucas Franck in the morning on Clicker Training again. We first sat at a table and looked at a map of the dining room. He then had me work Vincent to the new location where I will be sitting to eat in the new dining room. He attached the target to the back of the chair and we worked on teaching him to recognize the target. We would back chain (move further back as we worked the dog away from the target). For those that haven’t used Clicker you are in for a treat. It is a very valuable tool and I would strongly encourage that you sign up for the training when you come here.

Day 7 at the Seeing Eye

Sat, 01 May 2010 10:15:04 GMT

The day started about 5:30 or so. I took Vincent out to park and came back to write Day 6’s blog post and to read mail and tweets. I then went down for breakfast. As usual I was on the first trip and went with Lee as a pair on the South Street route. Walt (one of the supervisors) drove the silent car and the first traffic check he moved in front of me right by a very large truck. I thought Vincent was afraid of the truck but no it was Walt :). The rest of the route went well including the second traffic check.

I then came back to the school and groomed Vincent.

At 10:50 we took our dogs out again and then went directly to a meeting about “Dog Senses”. This is a lecture that hasn’t changed much but was fascinating. The mp3 player has a much more in-depth lecture on the subject then we heard.

It was then lunch time.

I finished lunch and went back out on the South Street route again. This time it was a semi-solo type route. What this means is that we made all of the decisions on what tasks would be done as far as crossings goes. The trip was uneventful. Only one run curb and an issue with a meter poll. He is doing quite well.

When I got back I decided to do my laundry. I lugged the bag down stairs and got the clothes loaded by 3:30. I had the clothes done just after dinner. I was quite happy about this. I really didn’t want to do it over the weekend.

The rest of the day was very uneventful. We had dinner and then I just kicked back. This week has been very long and tiring. I am looking forward to the weekend.

Steve commented on the blog and wanted an update on the use of GPS on the routes. I haven’t been able to do that. Barb hasn’t wanted me to turn it on on the routes. I was a bit disappointed by this. We will see though about doing it later on during training.

See everybody on day 8.

Day 6 at the Seeing Eye

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:14:28 GMT

Day 6 began around 5:25. I staid up until about 11:30 the prior evening and man was I feeling it that morning. I fed and gave Vincent water and took him out to park. I came back to my room and in a few minutes did obedience with Vincent and Barb. This is the first day in which we are taking the shuttles into town. I was on first trip and we started the South Street route. This basically is like a rectangle (kind of anyway) route. We start by walking up to Dehart, then Community which is a light. We then move to Madison and then up to James. We turn left to South Street and walk along it back to Dehart. We turn left back to Maple and then cross Dehart back to the lounge. It is definitely more then a mile walk. We had traffic stops to deal with, dog distractions, very narrow sidewalks, flags waving over our heads and more.

I got back to the school at around 9:30 and I just kicked back. I was quite tired. It was soon park time and then I came back and continued to rest up. The week is long here and man was I feeling it.

I went down for lunch and then back out on the route.

I took the 2:45 shuttle back to campus and worked with Lucas Franck on more clicker training with a door knob. We started by having Vincent touch the target with the bell and treated. We continued this until he did it pretty quickly and we slowly moved further back and had him work up to the target. At the end we removed the target and had him bring me to the target. I would touch the target and click and then give him a treat. It worked out well.

I then had to do some work at the office for our Admissions department and then fed and gave Vincent water. I continued the work with the issue at the office. I went to dinner and had a chicken sandwich and went back to finish up my work before the 6:30 meeting with Shannon. We discussed the upcoming weekend schedule as well as on social behaviors with our dogs. We then got Kongs for our dogs. Vincent isn’t to interested in it.

I came back to my room, grabbed a soda from the fridge and began work on testing some Window-Eyes script changes I am working on.

See everybody on Day 7.

Day 5 at the Seeing Eye

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:00:19 GMT

I woke up at about 4:45 and began the day. It was about 45 minutes prior to taking Vincent out to Park. I started to write yesterday’s blog post and also read some email and tweets. It was very quiet here that early.

I took Vincent out and boy is that guy quick. I was out and back in in less than 5 minutes. He did that all 4 times today. It is awesome. It has been very windy today and quite cold in the morning so it was good to get back in doors.

I then worked on obedience with Barb and also “Go to Your Place”.

For breakfast I had cereal and went back to my room to get some things ready to take to the down town lounge (or Training Center).

We got down town about 8:15 or so and I was paired with another person in our class and off we went to do the Maple Avenue route once more. We had a traffic check during this route. Tom Pender basically drives up through an alley or driveway right in front of the dog and the dog must stop to insure the safety of himself and me. It went perfectly. He drove a van today but he will drive a silent car later on in class.

We got back pretty quickly. I then had some hot chocolate to try and warm up a bit and then Lucas Franck came over and asked me if I was ready to do some Clicker work. I was ready for that. Karen watched my things as I left with Mr. Franck. We went down two flights of stairs into this room I had never seen. It is a large open room where training staff can meet. It was very nice.

Now, since I had participated in Clicker training at GDB I was a bit familiar with the process. I was excited to see how the Seeing Eye approached the training.

For those that don’t know Clicker Training is a process of teaching the dog to “Target” things through the use of positive reinforcement. You will see how this works as I describe how the Seeing Eye does this.

Lucas handed me a food pouch to clip onto my belt (not a fanny pack like GDB gave us to use). He then handed me the clicker which I placed into my left hand. Lucas then held out a bell wrapped with duct tape and it had a magnet on the back. It was all hooked together on a key chain. He then had a long telescoping stick (one that someone would use in a mechanics shop to get screws with). So, the magnet would stick to the stick. He then had me click when I would hear Vincent touch the “Target” with his nose and the bell would ring. After the click the dog receives a treat. You do this to get the dog “in to the game”.

The process of targeting can be done to find almost anything (door knobs, empty seats, traffic signal buttons, etc.).

Eventually the goal is to slowly remove the need for the clicker for the specific target and simply use normal techniques of praise to reward the dog.

This process is very affective in training the dog. The big difference here is that the entire process is a very positive and rewarding one for the dog unlike the use of corrections when reworking a work related issue.

I had a blast with Lucas working on Clicker and we will continue the process on Thursday with finding door knobs.

I then went back and sat down to wait for everyone to finish up their routes. We got back around 11:30 or so so we took our dogs out to park and got ready for lunch.

For lunch we had grill cheese sandwiches and fries. It made me feel like a kid again.

After lunch we had a short meeting discussing traffic work. That was entertaining. The instructors played different roles in discussing the topic and they played a CD with Lucas Franck giving us examples of things not to do. I want to get a copy of this CD, the things on it are great fun!

We then discussed working our dogs in the house using the harness. Nothing new here really. I am just glad we don’t have to keep having them sit at the beginning of each set of stairs. It really slows down moving around the building for sure.

After the meeting we went to the Men’s lounge and we got booties for our dogs. We put them on and walked around with our dogs. Vincent wanted to run like a little pony and really wouldn’t listen to me to much with those things on. I can see this will be an interesting challenge with him getting used to these things. It made everybody laugh which probably didn’t help matters LOL. It really was quite funny.

At 2:30 we went down and had house keeping show us the new washers and dryers. These are side-by-side models and are quite different from the machines I used last time when I was here. They seem simple enough though and do have Braille and markings on them to help in where things are.

Barb came to see me around 4:15 or so and we worked again on “Go to Your Place”. She then told me she would bring in a crate for me to use with Vincent for a few days.

It was then time to feed, water and park our dogs just prior to dinner. After this was done we got to work the dogs down to dinner in harness. That was very nice. I love working Vincent in the building. It sure makes life a lot easier.

This evening we have the night off. I am very happy about this. I got a lot of things done tonight and just relaxed. I went down to groom Vincent and also transferred some files from Karen’s DS50 and emailed those files to her.

This concludes day 5. On day 6 we will start a new route, the South Street route. It is a very simple route but I am bringing Mobile Geo with me to aid in street names and just to have a play as I work with Vincent. It will be interesting to see what POIs are around along the route. Who knows, I may go in somewhere perhaps :).

See everyone on day 6.

Day 4 at the Seeing Eye

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:56:41 GMT

Day 4 is the first full day with our dogs. I got up around 5:00 on Tuesday and proceeded to get ready for the day. We took our dogs out at 5:30 and I cam back to work on my third day blog post as well as catching up on email and tweets. Before breakfast Barb came over and we worked on some obedience with Vincent.

Breakfast was at 7:00 and I had cereal for breakfast. We are now using gentle leaders to bring our dogs down to the dining room.

We then had a meeting on dog handling and dog fears. We had some good laughs during this with some of the audio segments played on the CD player.

We then got ready to go into town. We left around 8:30 or so. I brought my iPod to listen to local Tucson radio stations. Man does that work well.

I was first to go out on the Maple Avenue route. It went quite well. We are still having some issues with running curbs and some pull issues but these will come in time.

I came back to the lounge and listened to the iPod and took a power nap. I was pretty tired. I hadn’t slept well the night before.

We got back at 11:45 or so so we immediately had Park time with the dogs and then went in and gave them water and then it was lunch time. I had a roast beef sandwich with chips.

We then got ready to go into town again. This time we didn’t leave until about 1:45 or so as Barb worked with other students with obedience drills.

We came back about 4:35 and parked our dogs as well as giving them food and water.

It was dinner time at this point. They had a meal which included fish and I really wasn’t in the mood for this so I again had a sandwich. I really wasn’t that hungry honestly.

After dinner we had an introduction to Clicker Training. That was a very fun meeting. After the meeting the instructors came around and had us practice with the clicker. The program is optional but it looks like the majority of students will be participating in it I think.

We then took our dogs out to park for the last time. I then took Vincent down to groom him and came back to the room and crashed after getting ready for the next day. I was pretty tired and I slept like a rock!

Stay tuned for day 5 activities.

Day 3 at the Seeing Eye

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:15:02 GMT

Today is the big day.

I got up at 5:30 and got ready for the day. It seems that the morning is the time to write blog posts. I went down for breakfast and head a bowl of cereal and then it was off to town.

The trip this morning was to verify findings from the prior Juno walks and to also talk about lifestyle and other factors in the match verification process. The most wonderful thing about the walk was that it wasn’t raining. It was a lovely morning. Barb told me that her opinion hasn’t changed and that “I will be happy”.

I went back into the building and waited to leave. Michelle came down to see us and it was fun seeing her again.

When we got back to campus we had a meeting with Jim and Michelle. Jim is the President of the Seeing Eye. He told us a number of facts about the Seeing Eye, what was new, and a few other things. It was fun listening to him. He is a geek like me so it would be fun to talk tech with him at some point.

Then it was lunch time. I had a ham sandwich and left pretty quickly as I wanted to get back to my room for the big event.

Barb yelled from down the hall at about 1:10 or so and so I proceeded down the hall without my leash like a goone LOL. She sent me back to get it and then I meant Vincent. He is a Yellow Lab Golden Cross and he is very tall. It will be interesting to see if he fits in our very small car . He has a very full coat. The majority of his colors and hair look like a Lab and his tail looks to be like a Golden’s tail. His hair is a bit longer then a Lab but not quite as long as a Golden. I know, quite a hairy situation.

After a few minutes we went out on the leisure path for a walk with Vincent. He did quite well. It will take some getting used to with the way he moves but nothing of great concern.

We went back to our room and he decided to take a nap, so thinking that he knew best I did the same. It was wonderful. I slept for about an hour and a half. It felt wonderful.

By now it was feeding time and park time. He is a typical lab and loves to eat.

Dinner was fun. It took a bit of work getting him under the table but once there he did quite well. He wiggled around a bit but overall he did awesome. For dinner we had pork and potatoes.

After dinner it was grooming time. We had a lecture on this process as we groomed our dogs. After this we were given our gentle leaders and a bone for the dogs.

After this I went down to the nurses office and got some pictures taken of Vincent. I will be posting these in the next day or so. I am waiting on descriptions to insure that all can enjoy them. I then came back and uploaded the files to my home ftp server for Keri and the kids to see them.

I then went down to the nurses office again to help Karen with her phone. It seems she can’t send MMS messages so Darrell will need to add that feature back on her phone.

I then came back and got ready for the next day and went to bed listening to another Star Trek episode on the iPod. It wasn’t long before I was sound asleep. I slept very well considering. Vincent did awesome. He didn’t make a sound. Now, the other dog next door on the other hand LOL. Let’s just say that he was one very very very happy boy. Thump, thump thump throughout the night. I am not sure how his master slept LOL.

Well, today we have two walks with our dogs and then a clicker training event this evening. I am sure there is more but it is unclear as we haven’t been told yet.

See you all on Day 4.

Day 2 at the Seeing Eye

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:02:03 GMT

Sunday started with me getting up and getting ready. I heard the announcement for the wake up call and it took a few minutes for me to get out of bed. I proceeded to write up Saturday’s activities and get them posted to the blog.

Breakfast was very good. We had a cheese omelet, English muffins and fruit. After breakfast we went to town for our second Juno walk. It was raining so I grabbed my coat which turned out that it didn’t help much. More on that in a bit.

We got into the vans and drove for about 5 to 7 minutes to the down town lounge. I walked into the building and didn’t sit down as Barb (my instructor) informed me that I was first. So, out we went. We worked on pace, pull, correction strength, hand signals, voice level for giving commands and all things we will need with the new guys. A lot of emphasis was placed on reminding us retrains on those things that are different from our older guides then with the new guys. The basic rule is that you need to be very clear with the new dog and not assume that they know how you wish to be guided. In time, communication will become more clear and you can be assured that your expectations will be met, just be patient.

Tom Pender (the class supervisor) was out and about watching us work with the instructors. We saw him along the route. Barb forgot her pass at the school so she borrowed one from Tom. By this time I was completely soaked. My jacket was sopping wet. I am certainly glad that I left my cell phone on the table with Ree (a person in class).

We got back to the lounge and I proceeded to listen to the MP3 files that were given to us on the little MP3 player. These are all lectures we will get in class. They are assuming that we have reviewed these prior to each lecture.

I listened to the Sirius radio description. I am following in love with it and I think one may be in my future at the house. I love all of the options available on it.

After all of our us finished our Juno walks we went back to the school and had a fire drill. They told us that it would be very loud but it really wasn’t. It was still raining and Karen didn’t bring a coat out with her. She shivered the whole time we were out there.

We then had a meeting with Tom Pender prior to lunch. We talked about dogs and how they think. He told us a bit about the training process. It was really more information that we had received in prior classes so it was fun to listen to it. He went long so we were a bit late to lunch.

Lunch was steak, potatoes and evil vegetables.

After lunch it was dog play time. We went up to the common lounge and got to see four dogs while Barb went over obedience commands. We basically had all types that the Seeing Eye breeds. Barb gave them fake names. We had Juliet (a Shepard), Blackie (a black Lab), Goldie (a Golden Lab), and Yellow (a yellow Lab). Very original names ;).

One thing I noticed was that obedience commands were quite different from 7 years ago. All commands can now be given with only the left hand (with few exceptions). Come and Sit were vastly different. It will take a bit of practice for those of us that have done it the old way for so many years.

Barb then took the dogs back and came back to show us the Gentle Leader. I am very familiar with this. She then read us a short paper on “Go to your Place”. None of my dogs were good at this so I am hoping this one will be.

I expressed a concern about the Dog’s place in my room. It is right next to the door. This will make things very interesting.

Those of us who were retrains were excused as Barb worked with the other 3 classmates on how to put on the harness.

I went back to my room and listened to Mushroom FM (a brand-new radio station on the Internet) and checked email and tweets. I gave Keri a call and she was taking her brother Tim back to his house.

Dinner came at about 5:15 and it was yummy. I am unsure on what the name of the pasta is now (very early Monday morning as I write this) but it was very good. We had Italian bread and those that wanted it had salad. Desert was Pound Cake, yummy. Up to this point I hadn’t eaten desert. Lunch and Dinner meals have deserts. I am trying to watch that for a number of reasons :).

After dinner we went up to the common lounge and got a lecture on Dog Day activities. For those of us that were retrains it was pretty basic stuff. We received our grooming supplies for the new dogs.

After the lecture they had a social for the class with wine and cheese and crackers. I made my exit and went to get ready for Monday.

A bit later I came back out and talked with a few guys in the Men’s lounge. Joel, one of our class members, is a judge. He had very fascinating stories to tell. I have to get to know him a bit more. He seems like a very interesting guy. He went to bed one evening and awoke totally blind. It was caused by a very rare medical condition. The rest of his story was amazing to hear as he described how he moved up throughout his career. He even served as a clerk to the Supreme Court.

I saw Barb wandering the halls and we chatted briefly. After this I came back to my room and put my iPod in the headboard and plugged it in. I listened to some old Star Trek episodes and fell asleep.

Today is going to be an exciting one as we get our dogs in the early afternoon.

I will try and put up a post later today with the details. I suspect it will be in the evening so stay tuned. The nice thing is that most of the people at home will still be at the office more than likely so they will get the news.

We are expecting more rain this morning. I am not looking forward to that.

I will write more later. Keep the comments coming on the blog, I love it.

Day 1 at the Seeing Eye

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:30:38 GMT

The journey to the Seeing Eye began on Friday, April 23. I got up with Keri and the kids at about 5:30 or so and started checking email and handling some work issues. The rest of that day was spent packing, gathering last minute technology items to put into my laptop bag and getting my home machine ready for the trip. I set up a secure FTP server to be able to access all of the data on my drive while I am away. I am a Qwitter user and insured it would collect tweets while I was traveling so that I could retrieve it later.

Keri and I left the house about 4:30 and went out for dinner near the University of Arizona where the shuttle would pick me up.

After dinner we went and waited for the shuttle. It was a very long wait as the shuttle driver got there about 30 minutes late.

I arrived at the airport around 8:30 and proceeded to the gate. I will say that if you are going to travel in the Phoenix airport that this is the perfect time of the day to do it. There were no lines. The only waiting was for someone to assist me to the gate. I then sat and waited for pre-boarding. The plane was a 737 and was packed!

Karen Shandrow and I traveled together on the flight and we watched movies during the flight. We first watched The Water Boy which I had seen before but really enjoyed. Karen really liked it. We then watched the movie Up which both Karen and me thought that the movie wasn’t very good.

We landed in NJ at 6:30 and were taken to the Presidents Lounge to wait for the Seeing Eye driver to arrive to take us to the campus.

We got to the campus around 9:45 or so. I had a very short room introduction and then began the process of unpacking the important stuff, the technology. I was almost complete with that when Beth the nurse came in to visit with me. I really enjoyed her visit.

I then started to unpack clothes and other items when my instructor arrived and gave me a tour of the building. I really thought I remembered most of it but man, it is going to take some time to get used to some areas again. I am in room 103 and I have never been on the first floor before so a lot of this area of the building is not as familiar to me.

After the tour we went out for a Juno walk around the big driveway in front of the building. She wanted to see my correction strength, pace and pull preference and more. All I can say is I am surely going to get nagged at for all of the bad habits we retrains have. It is OK really, it is all to insure the new dog works out well but man it amazes me what we pick up. You really never realize it until you come back to campus.

I came back to my room and finished unpacking and then went to lunch. I had a ham sandwich with chips and a glass of milk. I had a hard time eating it as I was starting to fall asleep at the table. I got up and went back to my room and crashed for about 3 hours.

I then got up and started checking the thousands of tweets and email messages I had gotten during my travel to the Seeing Eye. It was then time for dinner. We had a yummy turkey dinner. Jim, the President of the Seeing Eye, sat at our table and his wife Ginger was sitting behind me. Ginger was in my 2002 class so it was good connecting with her again.

After dinner we had a 6:30 meeting where we received leashes and a MP3 player with the lecture material on it. It is a 4GB player with 5 basic buttons on it. If we want to keep it the cost is $15. It will be nice to have just to keep the lecture material on it.

After the meeting I helped Karen get wireless working on her netbook. I then went back to my room and called Keri and the kids to check in. I finished checking email and started to get ready for bed. I showered in the evening and laid down to listen to the radio.

I am typing all of this up at 6:30 on Sunday.

Today, we will go into town for another Juno walk. We will then have a “practice surprise” fire drill as they called it at around 11:00 or so.

In the afternoon we are going to get a silent car demonstration and then it is play with puppies time at around 2:15 or so.

Dinner is at 5:30 today.

I will write more later. Breakfast is coming up and I am a bit hungry. We leave the building at 7:45.

Just a quick update. Breakfast was awesome!

See everybody later on the blog.

Day 24 or Work Day 1

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:08:48 GMT

Just a quick note as I am at work.

Harold and I arrived to the office at about 9:00 this morning and things have been going well.

I took him out for lunch (no, he didn’t eat :)). We did a simple route of about two very long blocks (probably 4 or 5 Gresham blocks) to Jack in the Box. I am not eating there anymore. Their prices have gone through the roof. Well, overall his work was good considering. The issues we had were:

* Approaching the down curb was a bit problematic as we approached the crossing. Having lots of people around probably was a good cause of that.

* Not getting directly to the down curb on the second crossing. This was my fault and was a bit of a surprise as we traveled across the street.

* Running the up curb (no step up). I showed it to him and told him “careful” and his work on the way back was flawless with curb work :).

* His pace was a bit slow, almost walking and I ahead a bit of a time getting him to “Hup Up”. This was mainly on the way back though. It is almost like, “I have been here and it is boring”. Something to mention to Don Frisk if this becomes a pattern.

The rest of the afternoon should be pretty boring as I am back into code land.

Days 22 and 23 – Excitement Builds, arival on campus, lunch, graduation, party time and leaving on a jet plane

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:04:52 GMT

Harold and I are home safely and I am writing this on my desktop. Boy does it take some getting used to switching keyboards :).

I got up early on Saturday and was dressed for the day by 6:00. I ran down to the nurses office to speak to Mary who assisted me with getting the digital picture frame ready for Robin (who loves it by the way). Mary put in the 1 gig SD card (that I had loaded pictures on prior to me leaving to the nurses office). She then plugged it in and made sure that it was working. Sure enough, it went great! She spent time reviewing the pictures in the frame and then afterwards proceeded to wrap it for me with Guide Dog puppy wrapping paper that I bought from the store.

After breakfast I assisted a classmate with some Victor Stream questions. The day was going slower then a turtle. At 11:00 I went down for lunch and ate quickly. I then proceeded to take Harold out (we were now allowed to take them out by ourselves and not as a group). While at lunch my cell phone rang and it was the Goldstein family letting me know that they were on campus and in the visitors center. We finally met at 11:45 or so. It was so wonderful to meet them. When I approached I handed Robin the leash and she took Harold from there for quite a while. They really missed him and you could tell how much love they had for him.

We talked for quite a while and then went and had a group picture taken. We will get copies of this picture. Robin, Scott and me went outside to relieve Harold. We then hurried back inside and talked for just a bit more. Once we were done Robin took Harold from me (in harness) so that she could present Harold to me on the stage.

Then the graduation. I saw Marlaina just before the start of graduation and she took my DS50 and recorded the entire graduation. We are also getting DVDs of the ceremony and when I get it I will rip the audio from the DVD and post it.

Many funny stories were told, as well as a few sad and touching ones. The time went by very fast.

After graduation we went on a tour with Robin and her family. I got to see portions of the campus I actually hadn’t seen, so that was fun.

We then went out to Outback for dinner. We had Robin’s entire family, Marlaina, Gary, myself and Erika, a friend from our class. I believed at the time that she would have been the only one left on campus so we took her with us. We road in Marlaina and Gary’s van. We were there for over 3 hours and it never seemed like it.

When we departed we all give hand shakes and hugs goodbye. I guess when I got into the van to leave Sam started to cry. That really touched my heart.

I got back on campus and proceeded to make final preparations for home. I took a shower, washed remaining clothes and packed all of the electronic goodies. I purchased the Rising, an audio drama from Earflix to listen to on the plane and copied it to the stream.

I was up at 4:00 or so and took my luggage out at around 5:15. We loaded into the busses and we proceed to the airport. Harold did a bang up job in the airport.

The plan rides were uneventful, save it for the nurse who kept offering powdered doughnuts to Harold.

It was great to see Keri and the kids. Harold has been doing well. He gets along with our cat Mew, at least on leash anyway :). He really likes Brian and Keri very much. David has yet to interact with Harold yet.

Time to finish unpacking, one more suitcase to go!

We will give more updates this week along with some audio clips.

Stay tuned for the blog update on day 1 of Harold’s working week.

Day 21 – Mall Visit, packet review, graduation walk through, Goldstein family confirmation and packing

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:29:30 GMT

Friday was going to be a short day as far as routes go. After breakfast we meant in the Visitor’s Center and talked about graduation a bit and then transitioning home with our guides (travel, expectations at home, feeding, relieving, etc). After this we loaded into the busses and went to the mall. Jim was back and he worked with me on moving turns. Harold did awesome today! I picked up a card for the gift I am going to be giving Robin. The front of the card has a picture of a yellow lab (as a puppy) that very much looked like Harold. The inside is blank. More on the card later.

We got back from the mall and it was time for lunch. We ate and then proceeded into the discussion/lecture room to review our packets. The notebooks are quite large and most of the documentation is included on the accompanying CD. The top right corner of the first page of each documents has a hole punch if it is included on the CD. We were going to have the development lecture but our guest speaker didn’t make it.

We then had a ten minute break and then went to the visitors center to go through the graduation. They lined us up on the stage in the order we will be presented in and we walked through the entire process. After this we reviewed the plans for Saturday night and were then told to go and pack.

I waited until after dinner to start packing. I listened to Darrell and Karen do the Desert Skies Show on ACB Radio Interactive while I packed.

After packing I wrote up the message that was going to go into the card. Here is that text:

Dear Goldstein Family,

I would like to sincerely thank you for the precious gift you have given me of raising Harold.

Sheri and Scott:

Thank you for raising such wonderful children who are so loving and giving to others. Thank you for the time, patience and huge commitment you have undertaken as a family to raise Harold for my benefit. You will always have a special place in my heart. Thank you so much!

Robin:

Your love, compassion and willingness to serve are traits that are simply amazing. I can see through Harold what kind of special young woman you are. I so very much appreciate your willingness to be there for Harold and me. It took a lot of work on your behalf when you could have been doing a lot of other things as a young woman going to high school. Thanks for your courage, strength and willingness to put Harold first. You are truly an ambassador for Guide Dogs for the Blind and have represented what true character means in today’s youth! Thank you so much!

Bryan:

Thank you for the honor of reading the essay you wrote. It gave me insight into your family and especially Robin. I can tell you are a part of a close
family and the respect and honor you have shown toward your sister is wonderful! It is amazing that Harold and Robin have transformed many lives and for that I am sincerely appreciative.

Sam:

Thank you for the time and patience you had in working with Harold. I can just see him now going to your fourth grade classroom and interacting with the rest of the children. This will be wonderful as I interact with youth at church and in other settings.

Our hope is to stay in close contact as Harold and I transform into an even stronger team. We will send pictures and continue blogging events in Harold’s life as he travels around my home town and in other areas.

Again Goldstein family, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

With lots of love,

Jeff Harold Bishop

PS. The signature above represents the signature that Shari posted on blog comments and I love it!

I emailed it to the nurse Mary who assisted me in wrapping the gift and preparing the card. Thank you Mary, your awesome!

I am writing this on Saturday, the day of graduation. It is an exciting day and I am looking forward too meeting the Goldstein’s. This will be a wonderful opportunity. I will write more later. It is breakfast time.

Day 20 – Taking trips, Getting security concious, Freelance and buying Smart for our Dogs

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:03:07 GMT

We are almost done! Today started with a discussion about taking trips with our guide dogs. All of the basics were covered: feeding, watering, relieving, riding in cars, cruses (they should have asked Marlaina to do that one ), planes and much more. After that we all went to the airport to practice going through security with our dogs. Frankly, I am not sure who this was for more, the airport staff or us. For me it was for sure for the airport staff. I had a great discussion with Kim at our table about many things along with other classmates.

After lunch it was time to load into the busses and go to Gresham. I just did a very simple freelance route. After this the gang went to Pet Smart. I staid on the bus. I really didn’t need anything and the outing was strictly optional anyway.

We all said our goodbyes to Sioux, as Jim will be returning on Friday. Again, she worked with Mary to train Harold and she really was a great help to me this week. I gave her a hug and thanked her very much. She did awesome with Harold as well as Mary of course.

One thing I learned about Harold is that he was one of two dogs in class that went through the “accelerated training program”. GDB is doing these trials where they cut the training time in half for the dogs by taking them out 2 times per day, 6 days a week. So, Harold left the Goldstein’s on 10/31/2008 and entered class the first Thursday that I was there. Talk about quick! To make it clear, all of the same training is done as well as testing, it is just done in less time and more often.

This evening I gathered contact information for the entire class and will be emailing it out to the gang. Another classmate, who has simply been a God Send to me in class as far as helping me with some things, wrote cards out for all of the staff here at GDB. I will comment on this later.

So, the last formal day is tomorrow, Friday. Here is the schedule as I know it:

8:15 – Obedience and transitioning to your home area
9:00 – Head to the mall to do last minute shopping
1:30 – Review packets, development discussion and graduation review and practice with mics and other items.

To answer a question that I have received by many, yes, the blog will continue with Harold updates as well as updates on my personal life. Many have also asked if the blog will return to a focus on technology type topics. The answer to this is an emphatic “NO”, unless it is such an item that could dramatically impact my life personally. In that case, I will.

See you all the next day for another review.

Learning Life Lessons through Guide work

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:08:41 GMT

Below is an essay that Bryan Goldstein wrote about his sister Robin. Remember that Robin raised Harold even though the entire family played a vital role in making Harold who he is today. This was very touching and I just received permission to post it here for all to read. Bryan, you are an incredible young man! Robin, with character like yours you will go far in life.

My little sister taught me everything I needed to know and she was only in eighth grade at the time. I may be an older brother by 17 months, but I must admit my younger sister has influenced my life the most. In my growing years, I was always the kid who messed around and enjoyed life rather than taking any piece of it seriously. My sister was the one who enjoyed life by getting involved in it. She was only in middle school when she decided to devote her time to raising guide dogs for the blind. She began her commitment by puppy sitting for others who were raising guide dogs and our family finally decided that she was so determined in her decision that we could not stand in the way.

Robyn brought home her first 6 week old puppy and began the process of waking early for feedings and potty training as well as training in proper behavior every minute of the day that summer. When school began, she determined to take him with her every day for socialization. Guide dogs have to be comfortable with being on duty for a blind person in spite of the confusion of the workplace. Therefore going to high school was as good a place as any for him to learn proper behavior. This decision of hers astonished me more than anything else because it’s not that easy to be completely different than everyone else in a school of 4,000 students. She reported getting weird looks and funny glances, but she said that it was simply part of the sacrifice that she was willing to make for another person’s life.

I think that it is fair to say that she is one of the most self-confident kids at our school these days. In a place where the majority is looking to fit in and at the same time looking for an identity, my sister has already figured it all out. Her identity is in making her own decisions and helping others. It was during this time that I began to realize that my sister and I were not that different at all. I recognized my own talents for helping others and I began to volunteer at the local retirement center playing the piano for senior citizens every Wednesday. I thought that giving to others would mean sacrifice, but I started to realize that it mostly means sharing your talents so that others find joy in their lives.

I am proud of my sister. She is now raising her third guide dog. I am also proud of myself. I have stopped looking to others for acceptance and I have begun reaching out to others who stand alone in the crowd. I believe that this is the greatest characteristic that I can bring to a college campus in order to make a difference. I am determined to bring joy to others through my love of music and performance, but I am also just as determined to help others find their gifts in order to find their own purpose. The minute that a person finds their unique gift to give back to the world, their life takes on a new dimension and meaning. My sister may be younger but she taught me the most important lesson of my life.

Day 19, AGS discussion, Clicking through to Caring for your Dog and Mewing as we moved toward Crossing the diamond rough, Exit Interviews and Alumni discussions

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:35:48 GMT

We are nearing the end. I got a very nice note from my boss today and I sincerely appreciated that. She is awesome. I actually have two supervisors and Zach is out all week at an Oracle conference.

In the morning we got up at the regular time and took the dogs out. I checked some email and other such things and then went down to breakfast. I ate very fast to get two loads of laundry into the washing machines before the start of our day. It was either do it now or don’t do it at all today and it had to be done. I certainly love procrastination :). I finished up by 8:00 and waited for our lecture on the Admissions and Graduate Services offerings. After this we took our dogs out and loaded onto the busses to head too the lounge.

Today it was phase three of the Clicker training. We would take what we learned and teach Harold to find light polls (actually the button to push to cross the street). He picked it up very fast. Harold is an awesome boy! More proof of this is coming soon.

We finished up early and we headed back to campus to have a lecture on the care of your guide dog. This was mainly a review of material already covered.

At lunch it was cafeteria day. We had to go into the kitchen with our dogs, load up trays and move back to our tables. They made pizza for lunch so at least it wasn’t something more difficult to balance :). We had two eye doctors at our table (one was a student) and he was from Mesa Arizona.

After eating lunch I hurriedly moved back to the laundry room and moved my laundry into the dryer. I went into the Visitor’s Center and did cat distraction work with Harold and the cat. Harold completely ignored the cat. Keri will be happy :). Harold was more interested in the humans across the way then he was with Chester the big fluffy cat laying on the floor about 4 feet from Harold.

We then moved into town on the busses and worked on large street crossings. Harold’s work in this area was simply amazing. We first showed Harold the crossing at each curb giving him a food reward. This was done using sighted guide and not holding onto the harness. To Harold it was a game. Lots of praise and “Let’s go’s” were the words used to motivate him across each part of the intersection. The intersection was a diamond shape and was 5 lanes wide. We walked across and back rewarding at each stop. Sioux then told me to work with Harold across the intersection by my self. He did it perfectly and with gusto!

When we got back we had exit interviews and then dinner. Before the exit interviews I retrieved my laundry and through it on the bed. I must say, no socks lost since I have been here :).

After dinner we met with Aaron to talk about the Alumni association and to also discuss things about the Victor Reader Stream.

On Thursday we are going to the airport to work through security after a discussion about going home with our dogs. In the afternoon it is freelance work in Gresham. As for me and Harold, Sioux and I will focus on moving turns. We will be off that evening where I will work on gathering contact information from everyone and emailing it all around. I also plan on starting to pack for the trip home. I promised Keri I will do laundry on Saturday night so nothing comes home dirty accept of course what I am wearing :).

See everyone on the next post.

Day 18 – Route, Clicking, going to the doc and the night life

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:17:02 GMT

Today was again going to be a very long one. We went into Portland to work on routes in the morning. Nothing special here. We did stop at a Goodwill and walked around inside. Harold did well here. He is still having a bit of trouble with moving right turns but it is something we are working on.

In the afternoon we split into two groups. I was in the first group so right after lunch we went to the vet for Harold’s last checkup. We also reviewed his medical profile. He is quite the healthy boy. His weight was 68.6 pounds (unchanged from the last time he got weighed). Harold and I then went outside and did overhead work. He had a bit of difficulty with this but admittedly it is the hardest work for guide dogs to master and frankly the routes I take generally are overhead free (most of the time). I am not trying to make excuses but this will come in time and experience.

Then we did a 30 minute clicker session with Sioux and Molly. We taught Harold to find empty chairs. It seems quite the tool to use indeed. He got it down very quickly. The trick in all of this is to make it like a game. We will go out on Wednesday and do more clicker work. This will happen on Wednesday morning.

After this we went back to the lecture room and heard a lecture from the vet. I honestly had a hard time keeping awake. I did record the vet visit earlier in the day, the clicker training and the vet lecture so I have it to review for later. I don’t think I fell asleep completely but my head kept bobbing. I think I need a week just to recover from the hectic schedule. I am glad work is coming, it will be relaxing compared to the very busy schedule here (not that I am complaining).

After dinner we loaded into the busses and went on another night route. Harold did absolutely perfect on it. I took Mobile Geo with me for this one sense we had to do these alone. I really didn’t need it but it was nice to hear the intersection crossings as I approached them. We got home close to 9:00 or so, and man was I ready to crash.

Super Bowl Party and Day 17 – Route, Clicking and Targeting

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:24:32 GMT

Sunday morning was pretty lazy. I kind of hung around in my room and then took a nap at 12:30 or so until we had to take Harold out again for relieving at 2:00PM. I was out like a light and had to be woken up to take him out. Man was that tough going out there just after waking up.

We all ventured over to the Visitor’s Center for the Super Bowl party. It started at 3:00PM. They had: chips, chicken wings, pizza on french bread and much more. They made these very rich cupcakes that had dark chocolate frosting. I had one but wow was it rich! I went back at half time to my room to attempt to get my laptop back on the wireless network. I actually didn’t get it back on the network until Monday after lunch.

Earlier in the day Keri told me that the microwave oven gave up the ghost. So, I kept getting calls from her throughout the day as she shopped around for a new one.

I was about ready to call Darrell and Karen when I received a phone call from Harold’s puppy raising family. What a huge surprise that was. It was wonderful to talk to Robin and her mom and dad all about Harold. We talked for over an hour or at least it seemed like it. In fact, I was late for taking Harold out for the last time Sunday evening. The weekend instructor knocked on the door and I told her I was chatting with them and she said no problem. I loved talking with them. They are trying very hard to make it for graduation this Saturday. They will call me on Friday to let me know if they made it or not. Marlaina and Gary will for sure be coming so I am very excited about that.

Monday started at the usual time and man did I not want to get out of bed this morning. We went down for breakfast and then lined up to take the dogs out at 8:15AM in preparation for heading into Portland again. While waiting to go out on a route I called Keri and we worked out the final details on the gift we are getting for Robin when they arrive or one that I will mail them. Keri did an awesome job in getting it all arranged. I just hope and pray that it gets here in time. It better dang it! We paid extra to get it here so I think we will be OK.

I worked with Sioux today. She told me that Harold and I are really looking smooth together and she is quite impressed. Harold only got himself in a bit of trouble with one sniffing incident, but other then that the route was absolutely perfect. Robin and Shari would have been proud of Harold for sure.

We came back to campus and got ready for lunch. After lunch we lined up to again go to the Visitor’s Center to work on the beginnings of Clicker Training. I was called out first. I have a recording of the process and will be asking Sioux if I can post it to the blog. So, keep an eye out for that.

This first session is basically to teach clicker timing and technique with a human and the fictitious dog Wheeler. Basically, as I recall, the steps are this for teaching to find an empty chair:

1. Find the item first.

2. Step away from the item and walk to it placing your hand in a closed fist with food in it on the edge of the chair and wait for the dog to touch your hand with their nose. Once the dog touches then “Click”. The click must be done at the time of the touch.

3. Move back away slowly and then rework (this is called back chaining). Continue to work your way back a few more steps and rework.

4. Eventually the goal is to eliminate food in your fist and eventually the hand association to the point that the dog will place their nose on the chair and then you check and then click and reward.

5. The ultimate goal is to associate a command to the action and not have to utilize the clicker.

From those that I have spoken with this is a very powerful tool and is very affective in real world situations to teach your dog new things. I am excited to teach Harold all kinds of things utilizing these techniques.

On Tuesday we will actually work with Harold on finding an empty chair. On Wednesday we will go into Gresham and work on benches, light crossing buttons, ATM machines and more. I am jazzed about it.

After clicker training we went back into town and ended up at Target. I bought a couple of items and then it was time to come home.

This brings us up too the current.

The rest of day 15 and Super Bowl Day!

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:08:08 GMT

The last time I left you we were all preparing to go out on our routes in the afternoon. We all eventually met for pizza or ice cream. We had no problem getting there but getting back was a bit of a challenge. Main and 2ND is a T-intersection and a few of us had a bit of trouble with it. We ended going up a block and reversing our steps but I could have sworn that Jim told me to cross there. Oh well, so much for my memory. Other then that, the trip was fine.

I joined the rest of my classmates at the table for dinner but didn’t eat. I ate enough when we went for pizza. The pizza was so so. We have far better pizza places at home, that is for sure :).

After dinner I groomed Harold. It must have been a lot of fun for him as a puppy or something. He is the only dog who wags his tail throughout the whole experience. That makes for an interesting challenge at times :).

It was time to go hear all about those things that we can buy from GDB. I left when they got into the clothing items. I am going to mainly get equipment items: extra leashes, extra rug, extra tie downs, a collapsible water bowl, a comb, an extra bone for the Harold boy, a Kong (although I may get that at the pet store) and more.

I took Harold out and then started to get ready for bed. I called Keri and found out that Brian wasn’t back from his school event. He didn’t make it home until 11:00 or so. Oh what a fun night. Suffice it to say, I am a bit tired this morning.
Today, Sunday, it is Super Bowl day. We will have Brunch at 10:00 until 12:30 and then a Super Bowl party at 3:00PM at the Visitors Center. They will show the game on a big screen. I will bring my walkman and listen to the commentary of the game on the radio. That really is the best way to hear the game anyway if you want to truly know what is going on.

Stats on Harold

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:59:56 GMT

Here are the stats on Harold:

Birthday: July 3, 2007
23.5 inches tall at the shoulder
68 Pounds

I do not remember his parents names but will revise this post when I get them again.

She did it!

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:48:42 GMT

OK, that post I mentioned by Mary, the nurse here at GDB? Huh, well, she posted it :). It is on her blog in the post Welcome Back. So, go take a read and comment at will. I love you Mary .

Days 14 and 15 – Revolving around the bank, stepping it up, playing dodge car, going home interviews andd pizza time!

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:39:18 GMT

Friday was a day of stairs, revolving doors, elevators and traffic checks. The morning went as normal and we all loaded into the busses for our last trip into Portland. It was very cold Friday morning and I had a bit of trouble keeping my hands warm until we got on the road and the heat worked on the bus. Jim, Crystal and I went out and first worked at City Hall with different types of stairs and then finally an elevator. That all went fine. Harold did a great job as usual.

We then walked down to the bank and went through the revolving door. I hate these things. I avoid them almost at all costs. I am unsure why as I haven’t had any bad experiences with them really, but I just don’t like them.

We then extended our route on the way back to the bus and Harold kept wanting to go toward the right after the up curbs. It is kind of puzzling but we will work on it next week with Sioux.

In the afternoon we bused into the lounge and four of us did traffic check work. We went on a small route and Jim took the Prius and drove like a mad man (not that he doesn’t when he drives the busses :)), just kidding of course, but really in the case of the traffic checks he kind of did. The objective here is to get Harold to react to both moving traffic at somewhat high speed as well as slower speeds. We also worked on cars blocking our path. We must work our dog around the car into the street and back up on the other side. This is done by issuing either left or right commands to move carefully around the car. Harold did awesome!

In the evening we had a surprise short birthday party for one of our classmates. He was shocked and very happy that we did that.

I called Darrell and Karen and talked with them on the Interactive show they were doing and then listened to my wife Keri call into the show. After that it was pretty much bed time. I did spend some time with one other student working with her on her stream but then called it a night.

Today, Saturday, I got up, had breakfast and then waited for my turn for our interviews about going home with our dogs. Harold and I will for sure be graduating and I talked with them about having Don work with me in our big transit centers down town and on the South West side of Tucson. He will call me later next week.

Jim asked me if I had heard anymore from Harold’s puppy raising family. I have gotten a few emails from them but I don’t think they have been given a number to call me yet. I will most likely email them and give them my cell phone number if they wish to call me prior to receiving my room phone number here. I don’t want to intrude though of course :).

After lunch we are planning on going out around 2:00 or so and I am headed for pizza! I can’t wait. A group of us are going to go so I think it will be a good time. I am planning on taking my external GPS receiver and we will see how well it does in finding the POI (point of interest).

This evening I think we are going through what options are available to purchase from the GDB store. This should be quite interesting :).

I will update you later today or on Sunday. Sunday is a day off and the only thing I know of that is going on is the Super Bowl. Go Cardinals! I will be calling Fred and Casey on Sunday to give them some updates on everything going on here as well as Sue (the person who introduced me to Fred and Casey).

OK, more later. Have a good weekend everyone!

BTW, Mary, the nurse is threatening to write an evil post about me on her blog ;). I will cross post it if she does. It is a funny story and if she wishes to share it you will find it both funny and disgusting, but what the heck. I can handle that. All the picking on I did to her the last two weeks, it is the least she can do to get me back :).

Day 13, More Escallators, learning new route for Saturday and romaing through the night

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:15:44 GMT

When I got up on Thursday I knew it was going to be a very long day and I am feeling it today (Friday morning).

After breakfast (I had cold cereal and toast) we took the dogs out and got on the busses to head to Portland. It seemed like a long ride. I listened to a station that was broadcasting a morning show from Tucson/Phoenix. It was fun to hear that show while I am here in Oregon. I stayed on the bus for quite a while and then it was my time to go.

We worked on escalators once more in the mall. This is a 4 story mall so we took the escalators up and then back down. Things started a bit rough but by the end Harold was fine. It really was just the initial ride that Harold didn’t want to jump on very quickly. Harold did an awesome job throughout the mall. He loves kids which is probably due to the great family he started with and their three kids. I am so excited that I will get a chance to meet them.

The only other situation we kind of struggled with was getting Harold to pull in harness. Jim showed me some tricks to get him to pull better but Sioux really the hit the mark on this problem. More on this later.

Wow, I just heard on the radio that an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.6 hit the Seattle area. I felt nothing. OK, enough weirdness today, we can’t have more of this going on :).

We got back just in time for lunch. Jim sat at our table and told war stories all about Ms. Price, the cook at the California campus. I guess she had a heart of gold but man was she tough about her kitchen. She would lock the kitchen doors tight but the instructors would sneak into the kitchen and eat tons of ice cream. She figured it out too, and man was she not happy.

In the afternoon we worked freelance routes and I learned where Wall Street Pizza was for Saturday when a group of us go on our independent route. I am looking forward to that.

When I got back I fed Harold and took him out. When I got inside it was a frantic dash to get laundry done. I wanted to get it done so I wasn’t doing it over the weekend. I got it loaded into the washer and went to dinner. After dinner I moved the clothes to the dryer and went out for our third route of the evening. This route would be done in Gresham and would be a destination route.

When I met Harold for the first time I met his trainer Mary and her supervisor Sioux. Mary is a pretty new instructor but Sioux has been here with GDB for 15 plus years. Sioux would be the one who I would be working with for the third route. Jim will be out most of next week and Sioux will be taking his place. As Jim told me, “I don’t know your dog as well as others in the class but Sioux sure does”. This was very apparent when we went out on our night route.

Harold’s work was perfect during the night route! Sioux told me many things about Harold and how best to communicate with him. For example, she tells me that I get very strong responses from Harold with my “Good Boys!”, very good considering that our relationship is pretty new. He has associated the phrase somewhat to food, so she is suggesting that I use a different phrase after up curbs and forward commands too keep him moving. She also showed me techniques where I can get Harold pulling better, and man did they work. We were about to end a block but of course dumb me didn’t realize this, so I got him going pretty quickly. He stopped on a dime at the down curb and I had to react very quickly. As Sioux said, “Very good Harold, not so good Jeff ;)”. Oh well, at least I didn’t fall this time.

Speaking of falling, my leg is about healed up. You can still see where it happened but it is nearly gone, thank goodness.

When I got back we told war stories about technology issues and also discussed the non-starting computer in the lounge. It sounds like a bad power strip to me, but heck, what do I know about hardware. I am a much stronger software and development type person. Leave the hardware to the geeks out there that love that stuff. The monitor wasn’t even coming on. My guess is that even though the lights are coming on on the power strip that power is not moving to the outlets on the strip. Aaron, the RA will figure it out. She is quite tech savvy.

Today (Friday) we are going back to Portland and will do work on stairs and elevators. In the afternoon four of us will do traffic check work where basically GDB drivers come at us with vehicles to learn how our dogs react. I better be nice to Jim today, I hear he is driving :). This evening is Yoga and frankly, well, I think I will pass this time. Once was enough. I will probably cocome back to the room and listen to Darrell and Karen do the Desert Skies Show on ACB Radio Interactive, a show I normally do on Friday nights. If you want to listen, it can be found at http://interactive.acbradio.org. I will be calling in and giving some updates as well, so stay tuned for that. I will try and do it in the second hour of the three hour show.

Keep a smile and keep those furry friends tails wagging.

Days 11 and 12 – Snow, Busses and Trains oh my

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:15:53 GMT

Tuesday morning I got up and got ready for the day. After sitting down and starting to read email before taking Harold out my tradition has been to check the weather to see what I was up against today. The news wasn’t good. A winter storm advisory was out for 1 to 2 inches of snow (which turned out to be upgraded to up to 4 inches) and freezing rain and sleet. My first thought was, we aren’t going out in this mess. I fed Harold and attempted to give him water. He doesn’t tend to drink any in the morning. We then proceeded to take our dogs out. Sure enough, snow was on the ground.

After breakfast we took the dogs out and then loaded ourselves into the busses. We didn’t get very far when it was determined that we would stop and go to a department store and work inside today. So, off we went. We sat near a Star Bucks so many got coffee and something to eat. I listened to the radio, made and just hung out waiting for my turn. Jim took me outside to look at the snow. I haven’t seen snow in a long time and man there seemed like a lot of it out there.

Harold did great in the store. Besides just navigating around people and objects we did pick up some items and then proceeded to the check out. I came back to the table and waited to leave. Those on the second bus loaded up and attempted to leave. Guess what? The bus couldn’t leave due to the snow. So, calls to the school where in order and we needed to wait for vans with snow tires to come and get us. So, there we sat. I ordered a coke and just waited. I tried to reach some people at work without much success.

It was decided that we may do a clicker workshop in the afternoon. The staff had a mandatory meeting in the afternoon so things didn’t get started until a bit later. Unfortunately, we didn’t do the clicker workshop but worked on platform discussions and teaching your dog new commands. That pretty much wrapped up Tuesday.

Wednesday’s weather outlook was much better. I stayed here in my room for breakfast and tried to get caught up on the budget issues going on at the State level back in Arizona. It looks very scary.

In the morning we went to a mall again and worked on escalators. Harold had a bit of trouble initially but after a few rides was riding in style :). I reached Kevin at work to check in on an issue which I felt good about. With the huge budget issues going on at work and Keri’s potential surgery my mind has been elsewhere some of the time while I have been here.

After lunch we loaded up in the busses and went out to ride busses and trains, oh my :). The first bus we got on had maintenance issues so we had to get off of the bus and load onto another one. Our goal was to get on the bus at 2:40, but it didn’t happen until 3:15. I was very happy to see that Harold got right under the seat (well, with a bit of coaxing). When we got on the train it certainly didn’t feel like it was going very fast at all but we sure got to our destination pretty quickly.

After getting back it was no more shovel time. It was time for us to pick up after our dogs. This wasn’t a problem but I had heard that the food we are feeding doesn’t generate the nicest things to pick up so we will for sure be changing that when we get home :)

In the evening we had a lecture on returning home with our dogs.

On Thursday we are going into Portland to do more escalator and elevator work.

More soon.

Day 10 – Pictures and more pictures and a walk in the park

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:16:29 GMT

I got up around 5:30 or so and got ready for the day. I spent some time catching up on email list and work email before I fed and took Harold out. I then listened to some local Tucson radio stations to catch up on local and State news. The Arizona University budget gravely concerns me and I am trying to keep up on that while I am here.

I wasn’t feeling to well but went down and had a very light breakfast. After that we went over to the visitors center and had the class photo taken. They talked with us on our plans for the weekend. On Saturday we will be dropped off where we would like and we can go where ever we want to head to (within reason of course). On Sunday we can go out with some volunteers to do something but we all have to decide what we want to do. So far, I haven’t heard any definitive plans.

We then loaded into the busses after relieving the dogs and off we went to the lounge. We were going to do freelance work. I was in group 2. I had the nurse Belva bandage up my leg before I went out. When she saw it her first word was, “wow”! That scared me a bit.

Group 2 went out at 10:15. Many of us ended up at Jazzy Bagels. We picked the spot and then worked it with very minimal instructor involvement. Accept for two issues I encountered, all went well. One was a pretty severe dog distraction issue on the way there and the other was forgetting that a curb was not available in front of the establishment.

We finished up early and came back to campus. I took it easy and checked my email to see if any work issues came in. I called Keri to check in and all was going OK at home. David was home sick but doing a bit better.

After lunch we did obedience at the Visitor’s center. We did dog distraction work with our dogs. We then talked about dog work and communicating with the public. After this we loaded into the busses, again after relieving the dogs and went to a park. All of the trees in this park blew down into the pond. They had crews chopping them up into firewood sized pieces and loading them into trucks. We had to do some teaching to Harold with right clearances and dog distractions.

We got back quite late. After dinner we did our individual pictures. We will try and get you something to see after we receive our photos as far as how they came out. The Puppy Raising family will also get a picture. I will also get a 4X6 of the picture to take home.

After this I went to see the nurse Mary. She checked my leg and all is looking well. We talked a bit about books we are reading and then talked about blogging. In fact, a comment can be seen by her here on the blog. She posted it just a bit earlier.

On Tuesday we are moving into busier areas of Portland Oregon. In the afternoon we are doing a bus to lounge route. These are the plans as I recall them. We will have a bit of time after lunch on Tuesday due to required meetings for GDB staff members. I suspect I will get some grooming and play time in during that time.

See you on day 11.

day 9 – a day of rest

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:41:15 GMT

Today was a lazy day. I got up around 6:25 or so and rushed to be ready to take Harold out after feeding him. The wonderful surprise we had was about an inch of snow on the ground. It felt neat walking on it as we took the dogs out. It didn’t feel to cold either really considering that their was snow on the ground. Due to the snow our 8:15 and noon relieving times were done on the patios from our room. We finished up outside and I went back to my room and relaxed for a while. Today was brunch day so we weren’t going to be eating until 10:00 in the morning. They had muffins for us earlier but I wasn’t hungry. At about 8:30 or so I went to the nurses office after taking Harold out. I had the nurse look at my leg and was surprised to see Mary their. She would have normally been there later in the day but the other nurse was not feeling well so Mary came in to replace her. What a trooper. As usual, Mary and I spent about 30 minutes talking. She is a fun lady and I really admire her. I came back to the room and stripped my bed and waited for the new sheets to come. I made up my bed and then checked email and rss feeds. Soon it was brunch time. I spent about 90 minutes down their and man was the food yummy!.

After lunch I took a nap after taking Harold out at noon. I needed it. I got up just before 2:00 and through my shoes on and out we went again.

After taking our dogs out at 2:00 I met with one of the weekend instructors to work on harness checks and turning foot positioning. We had a good session which lasted about 30 to 40 minutes or so and it really helped.

I then spent the rest of the day just surfing the net, checking on work email, and listening to some music. I talked with Keri and Brian for quite a while as well. Brian posted the pictures on the site for me and added descriptions for each picture. Thank you Brian.

After we fed our dogs and took them out at 4:30 I waited for dinner. We had to put boodies on our dogs paws for practice and all went well with Harold accept the last paw. I think it was strictly a balance issue for him though. We will work on better techniques for this later.

This brings me to now. I am planning on spending time down in the fireplace room getting warm and then zonking earlier after we water and take our dogs out later this evening.

Stay tuned for day 10! Monday we are getting pictures taken for the class photo and individual IDs.

Keep a smile and happy wagging to your furry friends.

Pictures of Harold

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:35:50 GMT

a better picture of Harold

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:31:03 GMT

Here is a picture of Harold just one week prior to him leaving for Guide Dog training. It was taken in October 2008. I want to thank his puppy raising family for the picture.

Day 8 continued

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:35:59 GMT

My plan was to groom Harold and then go for a walk. Well, we had to go relieve the dogs at 1:45 or so and then a gang of classmates wanted to do the walkabout right after. So, off we went. After I got back I groomed Harold, brushed his teeth (what a challenge that was ) and then went back to the room to play a good solid game of tug. After doing that I read some email, called Keri and did some other stuff. Then came feeding time and relieving again. Oh, I forgot to mention, it was snowing a lot today as we were outside. Some of it stuck to the dirt but not enough to make a snowball.

You know, it is days like this that I truly miss Keri who is the master of all things laundry not to mention good night hugs and kisses. I spilled some chocolate pudding on my shirt and frantically was trying how to treat it so the stain didn’t set in. It looks like we got it out (I hope) thanks to the nurse and the weekend instructor. Man, it is times like this I feel like a klutz.

After we take Harold out once more I will be getting ready for bed. Even though we have Sunday off we still need to get up at 6:45 and take our dogs out. Well, that is the time we take them out, so I will be up more like 5:30 or so. My roommate is now here so I want to try and beat him to the shower and such things so I am ready for the day.

I will post activities for Sunday late in the day. Keep a smile and those tails wagging for your furry friends.

Day’s 7 and 8

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:57:51 GMT

This entry is being written on Saturday afternoon, just after lunch. I am just about to go and groom Harold before we take the loop around the campus.

Day 7 actually kind of starts with the evening of day 6. Harold and I went to bed around 10:30 after I finished doing laundry. I was laying on the left side of the bed, if you were facing it, and I gently reached down and gave Harold a long pet. I then attempted to sleep. Harold had other plans ;). He wanted more attention and wanted to play. This really didn’t surprise me as he was probably a bit nervous in his new situation, it being the first night and all. Suffice it to say, I got some sleep but Harold kept me up a bit. He whimpered when I wasn’t petting him and he didn’t stop for quite some time and then would start up again later in the night. I think he missed his friends down the road a bit . Poor Harold. I am a bit ahead of my self in saying that on Friday night he slept like a baby and I didn’t hear a word from him. I was very happy about that, both of us slept like babies :).

We went out at 6:45 to take our dogs out to relieve and then we went to breakfast at 7:30. Due to the new matching of Harold route work would be done with instructors as though we just got started. This is to insure Harold understands how I communicate with him and my gate as well as size. In the morning we did a quick route around the lounge and then in the afternoon we went to a bagel shop. The wind was bitter cold on Friday and according to weather reports will continue to be so next week as well. I switched to an offset handle which is something I never had with my other 3 guide dogs. I tended to crowd both Harold and Declan a bit on the left so the offsetted handle really helps. The only problem now, right side clearances. In fact, I fell down in the morning while working with Harold. It was really probably mostly my fault. I scraped up my left leg pretty good but Mary (the nurse) fixed me up. I felt like a little kid again with Mommy fixing up my scrapes as a kid :). The medicine she put on it stung like crazy and she told me”yup, your acting like a male alright”. I told her that she was no longer the number one nurse, the continuing running joke with her and Belva, the actual head nurse ;). The nursing staff here has been fantastic and I am continuing to see them about this on Friday night and Saturday morning.

After route work we got to experience the Toyota Prius up and close. It simply amazes me how quiet these cars are. Jim sped the car around in the parking lot and then gave a few of us a ride in it. With the windows rolled up you can not hear a thing until the engine comes on when needed. I will be doing traffic work with the 2 weekers that came into class this weekend and we will be using the Prius. The rest of my classmates did their traffic work on Friday.

I was planning a quiet evening until I was encouraged to join the Yoga class. Normally this wouldn’t interest me one bit, but I thought, why not. Well, it was all going well, until… You see, she had us laying on our backs and she wanted us to put our feet up on this bench in front of us. I had these eye pillows on my eyes and I had to scoot forward to place my feet on this bench. She came over and I was telling her that these are falling down. She said, “what, your pants”? Oh my gosh, that made the whole class just erupt in laughter. She got so embarrassed and it made my night. I doubt she will forget that one. She is coming back next week and I am sure I will come up with something clever to tell her when I see her again ;).

I got to bed around 9:30 and Harold did great! I was so proud of him. When I got up and saw him he was so very excited to see me. He grabs his bone and and jumps all around showing it to me. He certainly loves to eat but is really quite patient with his food being served to him.

After taking Harold out I stopped by to see Mary to have her examine my leg and we ended up talking for about 30 minutes. She loves to sew so I told her all about my wife Keri and how she loves to do this as well. It was a fun discussion.

Saturday morning was spent doing student interviews. We have this afternoon off as well as Sunday. My interview with Jim went well. My goals for the remaining weeks of class are:

Patterning

Refining foot positioning for turns

Mastering the different style of obedience drills done here at GDB.

Working on Right Clearance issues as well as just overall communication between Harold and me.

One last comment, I just checked my email and I am so very excited. Let me first say that I am so grateful for those of you that are reading the blog. Your comments are so uplifting. One special comment which is now visible on the blog is from Harold’s puppy raising family. I had tears in my eyes when I read it. I will email them shortly, but I want to say here and now a very very sincere thank you to them for the hard work and love for Harold that they will always have. I sincerely appreciate your hard work and willingness to serve and provide me the opportunity to work with the dog you raised, it means more to me then you know . I am eager to meet them.

One very cute thing about Harold is his tail. It has this very cute bend to it and it just looks so cute. I have received a number of comments from people here about it. It is a shorter tail but fat and fluffy. It is so cute .

OK, well, it is off to grooming land and after grooming Harold I will be taking him for a walk around the campus with a few other classmates. It is best to pair up around here.

Happy wagging everyone and keep a smile, I sure am!

a change on day 6 and a tribue to Declan

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:08:44 GMT

This post is going to be a tough one to write. Thursday was a very hard day for me. A decision was reached after a lot of tears to make a switch to a new dog. Let me be very clear. Declan’s work was brilliant and for the person who will get him he will serve that person well. After a lot of discussion with GDB staff and my wife and very close friends it was determined to switch to a guide that would better fit within my family environment. I am not going to get into those specifics here as it isn’t the place really. Suffice it to say, it really affected me having to come to this conclusion and I want to sincerely think those that helped me make these tough decisions. I love you Declan and will miss you. I am so very sorry.

A new yellow lab named Harold is now a part of my life. In the morning Jim and I went out to do a route as part of the determining process. We came back for lunch. Kim (a GDB staff member who played a vital role in this day to help me) sat at our table. They brought her her piece of cake (it was the desert for lunch). A devilish character back in the kitchen put a candle in it and we all sang happy birthday to her. Well, it wasn’t her birthday. She turned bright red, it was pretty funny.

Jim and I left early to do another route with Harold. His pull is much stronger then Declan’s, and Declan’s was very strong as well. The route went fine. Harold and I spent time at the lounge as other students came back from their route work. We then made the announcement to the class that Harold was now a part of the class.

For dinner we had turkey and mashed potatoes. Yummy! After dinner we gave Harold a bath. That was a lot of fun but they wouldn’t let me use the sprayer. Now, that would have for sure added a different element too that bath for the RA on staff . I then got laundry started. Unfortunately, I didn’t finish that process until 10:30 so it was late getting to bed. I really didn’t want to compete on the weekend for the washing machines. The only day we have off is Sunday and that will be a day of catch up sleep for me and playing a mean game of Scrabble. Oh, they are expecting snow on Sunday. I am actually looking forward to it. I hope it sticks as I haven’t seen snow in a long tiime.

Wrapping this up, I again want to make it clear that Declan is a GREAT dog and will serve someone well very soon. For those that raised Declan and for those that trained him, I want to sincerely thank you for doing so. He will serve well and his work is impeccable.

I will get more specifics on height and weight on Harold later on Friday and will report those later today.

A picture of Harold is seen below.

Day’s 3 through 5 – let the guiding begin and refining command structure

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:26:07 GMT

I haven’t written for a while. The main reason is due to the very hectic schedule and me being very tired in the evenings. OK, well, let’s review the last three days:

Day Three:
Let the Guiding Begin

Today was the big day. The day that the three week students got to take their dogs out on their first route. We all got up, fed, watered and relieved our dogs and then went to breakfast. After breakfast we went for short meetings and then loaded into the busses. This is the first time we got into the busses. They are like a small city bus with seats that face forward in the front, benches that face outward on the side, and even a bathroom onboard for emergency use only. I have been sitting in the back or in the very front. The first thing we heard as we traveled down to Gresham was that the lights may be out. Sure enough, due to the very strong winds we had no power in the lounge. So, no TVs, no heating, no fridge to keep things cool, nada. Suffice it to say it was cold in and out side. My main instructor is Jim Dugan (the class supervisor). He took me out first. We had to wait to harness the dogs until it was just time to go out. The new harness feels much different to my hand then the old harness I used to use. Their are not links in the harness to perform a “steady” command while pumping the harness handle and this harness is very quiet. I love it. It is very light as well. I buttoned up my coat and put my gloves on and out we went. Declan is a big boy and of course so am I. This made for some very interesting dynamics as we traveled together. He had always guided smaller people (well, mostly). Jim took him out for some guide work and he looks about my size. I tended to crowd him a bit and made him move more toward the left. Part of the reason for this was due to the length of the harness handle I was initially given. We also use food reward in our training so I also needed to get a longer strap too attach the food pouch around me. We handled this after lunch in the instructors office. Our first trip ultimately went well. I had a hard time slowing down. Jim wanted to make sure that I walked slower then the dog did to have Declan gain confidence in guiding me. Jim kept a second lead or leash attached to the collar of Declan during our first trip so that he could control Declan to make the first experience a more rewarding one if issues arose. This is normal and I fully expected this.

There was only one huge problem with our first trip together, the wind. The wind was simply amazing. My coat was literally blowing up over my head and it was horribly cold. Declan didn’t want to turn into the wind and it took a lot of coaxing to get him moving. Can you blame him? My hands were literally freezing cold. I had a hard time getting out food to reward Declan with due to the fact that I couldn’t feel my hands with having gloves on not to mention the cold. How these Oregon people put up with this is beyond me . They tell me it is very common. Luckily we don’t have this much wind on campus, thank goodness. Jim informed us that we would be doing other activities inside due to the very cold wind. About an hour or so after we arrived back to the lounge from our route work the power came back on and oh how beautiful that was to have warmth again.

After all students were done, we went back to campus and relieved and watered our dogs. I checked email for work and then proceeded to go to lunch. After lunch I went to see the instructors to get a longer harness handle and longer strap. Toby brought me the strap on the bus and Jim gave me the harness handle in the office. We then proceeded to go too the mall due to the very cold weather. This went quite smoothly. We mainly did the circling of the entire mall inside and went into one store to work on suggestive turns as well as just general guide work around a lot of people.

Monday evening was a relaxing one. The RA on duty gave us our toys for our dogs. I picked a tug ring and bone for Declan. All I can say is that I definitely get a work out when playing with him. He is very strong and refuses to give up . It felt good to play with him as I have been struggling with him from a personality perspective. He is very much the type of dog where respect must be earned. He is very eager to please in his work but is pretty reserved right now for the most part. All of the instructors and trainers who trained him tell me that this is just him and that after a while the bond will be fine. I certainly hope so, it worries me a bit.

I hit the sack at about 9:00 or so listening to some old time radio shows I brought along.

Day Four:
Inauguration Day

We all got up, fed, watered and relieved our dogs. We went to breakfast and then went to the discussion room for about 45 minutes of instruction. After that we relieved our dogs and took them to the busses. I was listening to the ACB Radio coverage of the inauguration events prior to leaving for route work and continued to do that on my walkman in the lounge. That was an amazing event to listen to.

Tuesday was a day of routes in the morning and afternoon. The longer handle was the trick. That really helped. In the morning we did about a mile walk around the area of the lounge. Jim was not connected to Declan’s collar this time and we both did quite well. I am still getting used to the feel of the new harness and trying to determine what Declan is communicating as we travel together. I was not crowding him as much this time and I think he began to feel better about our guide work.

In the morning Aaron gave us our head collars or gentle leaders as some call them. This gives you finer control of the dog. The collar goes over the nose and around the back of the head by the ears. Corrections can be very slight sense you have much finer control over the dogs head.

After lunch they took our requests from the grocery store. I ordered some soda and gave the very nice lady some money. When I got back in the room the soda was on my desk along with an envelope with the remaining cash. How cool is that. The nurse gave me a fridge to keep stuff in so I put some of the soda in it for later. Good stuff!

We then went and did obedience with our dogs. This was very interesting. They had us heeling and doing other work with our dogs as they put bowls of dog food and other toys in front of them to distract them as we worked with them. I must say that overall Declan did fine. I am still getting used to the difference in positioning, command structure and other things related to the obedience drills. In many ways they are the same but in others they are significantly different. All in time.

In the afternoon we did a drop off route. This is where Jim and I get off of the bus about 1.5 miles or so from the lounge and work our way back to it. This went even better. We had to do some rework with these interesting cracks in the sidewalk. You see, when trees blow down here they fill in the area where the tree was with brick. This of course makes for an interesting situation as far as guiding around these things. Declan wanted to either plow right through them or do other interesting things. Suffice it to say we had some teaching to do with Declan as well as me.

Aaron gave us these carabineers’ to attach to our food pouches. These are construction grade and can hold up to 150 pounds of weight. These are meant to be used too attach your dog’s leash to if you need both hands. Velcro is wrapped around it and is used to assist in attaching it to the pouch.

In the evening I worked with some classmates in putting the Victor Reader Stream Audio Tutorial mp3 files on their streams. I was very happy to do it for them and was happy that my card reader was behaving itself because it usually gives me fits. Gerry from Humanware would have been proud .

It was again a short evening. I decided to shower and prep for the morning before heading to bed and man was I glad I did that because I got up kind of late on Wednesday morning. It wasn’t enough to be late for anything, but much later then I wanted to get up that is for sure.

Day 5:
Obedience drills and sidewalkless traveling

Today we had some lecture in the morning and then went out for our routes. This time we staid on the bus the entire time as apposed to going to the lounge. We did work on roads without sidewalks. This is very challenging for the dogs as they need to keep very close on the curb line on the left as we travel. It is for this reason that you must stop somewhat frequently and reward for good work in keeping close watch on the curbs. Once the dogs confidence builds between both the handler and the dog then this can be lessened. The dogs are even trained to show you the curb once in a while to insure that the world is good. The main reason for this is to insure you know when one block ends to get ready to travel to the next one. Once the dog reaches the end of the block the dog will move around to the left and start guiding along the new street. This is where the handler will stop, turn to the left show the dog the curb, praise them, reward, turn around and square up on the curb and cross the street if that is desired.

The main problem with this mornings route was, guess it, the wind. It was amazingly cold this morning and many students had to have routes shortened due to going over time for lunch as well as the cold. It was just amazing how cold it was. I felt sorry for Jim and the other instructors as he had to go out multiple times with multiple students. Burrrrr!

We got back to lunch and I was attempting to work on solutions to work issues on the bus as well as some short time prior to lunch, which made me even later for lunch. No worries, I still made it to our 1:30 meeting. For lunch we had hamburgers and french fries. The bread and fries were home made and man that was yummy!

This time it was cat time for obedience work. I must say that Declan did superbly with this work. In fact, his only distraction was another human and not the cat. After drills I did pet the cat and he did seem a bit interested in that and came over and licked the cats entire head with his big tongue. After I finished I was told to go back to the dorm area and wait in our rooms. Then, while talking with Toni from work on my cell phone about a interface issue a knock came at the door. Apparently, nobody told me we were all about ready to leave for our routes in the afternoon. I quickly got off of the phone and proceeded outside to relieve Declan and got on the bus.

We did more sidewalkless work this afternoon. This time we were on a road with no curbs. Declan did superbly at this and we got back pretty quickly.

We then went to the visitors center to do work on corrections and rework. This is where a lot of refining was done for me. It finally clicked for me and breaking old working methods is going to take some time but at least I think I fully understand the direction they gave me.

Before and after dinner I worked on more work related tasks. After completing them around 7:30 or so I chatted with Darrell and Karen on Skype. I also got good news from Keri, my wife, that it looks like we are getting a tax refund this year, hurray for us!

I just listened to the schedule for Thursday and it looks like it is a store in the morning and a bus to Lounge route in the afternoon. The rumor is that we will be able to start working our dogs inside of the dorm areas. This will be awesome. Right now we have to heel them all around the living areas.

Well, I had to take a bit of a break from writing this long post to go play with Declan. He plays a very rough game of tug and I am quite tired after doing it. His head is resting on my leg as I am wring this, well, it was. I think it is time to put him to bed and me also. Stay tuned folks for more information in the coming days. Declan’s work is progressing and I am beginning to feel more confident that this is going to be a good match. Go Declan!

Day 2

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:21:31 GMT

Day 2 started pretty late in the morning (well, at least relative to the rest of my stay here). We met for breakfast at 7:30 and then proceeded to the discussion room at the end of the hall to wrap up final lecture items before we got our dogs. The morning went amazingly fast. Sense I had done the obedience and guide dog work the evening before I was pretty much set at 10:00. We all thought that that was the time to get our dogs but Amy came back after a short break and discussed with us what we should be doing after we receive our dogs. She then gave each of the class members their dogs names and breeds. I asked that this information not be given to me until we were introduced.

We then went back to our rooms and I frantically gathered up my recording equipment and did quite a bit of testing before it was dog time. I then went down to the nurse to show her how the camera worked and then went back to my room.

The nurse knocked on the door and we proceeded down to the instructors office. Here is the

recording of the introduction of Declan to me

Download the audio recording. Declan is pronounced “deck len” and is an Irish Saint as well as a computer programming language ;). Not only that, but two computer terms if you hyphenated it ;).

We then went to lunch. Getting him under the table was a very interesting challenge for a big boy. He is 25 inches in height and weighs 69 pounds.

We took the dogs out and then came back to our rooms to relax. I took a bit of a nap and listened to the Cardinals make it into the Super Bowl. It was again time to take our dogs out. After dinner we had a lecture on grooming and then I did a bit of targeting work with Amy on foot placement with my left foot which tends to turn in pretty badly. I then went to bed. It was a long day and boy was I tired.

I want to sincerely thank Karen and Darrell for preparing the audio file for all of you. It is sincerely appreciated.

New Guide dog

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:08:32 GMT

I will put up audio later today but I wanted to get a picture up. Here it is.

Day 1

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:13:18 GMT

The journey started early this morning, or should we take you back even further.

On Friday night Keri and I finished up packing and she got to bed around 10:30 or so. I chatted with Darrell and Karen on the phone for a while and then I proceeded to finish up last email work and copying files to thumb drives and getting the wireless information ready for GDB. I finally went to bed at 12:30 in the morning but I didn’t sleep a wink. I gave up on the idea of sleep and got up around 3:00 or so (keeping in mind that it is really 2:00AM in Oregon).

I read email in the early morning hours and listened to some music. I then packed some remaining things into my laptop bag and loaded the car. It was now about 4:30 in the morning and I awoke Keri. She got ready to go and we loaded the one remaining suitcase into the car.

We reached the airport at 5:15 and proceeded to work our way through security. This time Keri came with me which was very nice. It certainly made going through security a heck of a lot easier.

We waited at the gate and I finally boarded the plane. We boarded about 20 or 30 minutes late due to some maintenance issues. This made me nervous as I thought I would miss my connecting flight. The flight to Phoenix was uneventful once we got on the road. Assistance was ready for me as soon as I got off of the plane and we literally ran to the next gate and made it with about 30 minutes to spare thank goodness.

The flight to Oregon was very bumpy. It was probably one of the worst flights I was on as far as how rough the flight was. Not only was it rough but it was hugely boring. It felt like I was on that plane forever.

Once I got off of the plane assistance was there waiting for me. I must say that that was a pleasant surprise.

We walked down to the information desk and Molly from GDB (she is one of the instructors) met me with my already found luggage. I was so worried that it had been lost as I tend to have that track record when flying.

We met one other student and we went out to the GDB van and loaded our luggage into it. I then started up Mobile Geo and tracked our progress as we traveled. We first went to the train station to pick up one other student and then it was off to the GDB campus. They served us sack lunches on the van (a turkey sandwich, crackers and apple juice, yum!).

We were guided to our rooms and our bags were brought to us. Unlike what I had told others I went ahead and unpacked non-techie stuff (well, I did put the laptop on the desk but I didn’t do anything with it). It did not take long to have all bags unpacked and put away. After this I got the laptop configured to talk on their wireless network and was very happy to get online and check with the rest of the world.

I met with Jim Dugan (the class supervisor) and Molly to talk with them further on matching me to a dog. I will discuss this more on the day 2 update.

We then got a tour of the dorm area. Unlike the Seeing Eye, my former school, this dorm is laid out like a big letter P. We have one long hall with rooms on each side and then one room that is the loop of the letter P where public meetings are held. The nurses office is in the inside of the loop. During the tour we ran into the cooking staff and placed our orders for meals for this evening and all three meals on Sunday. I must say that they are hugely accommodating to even my very odd tastes or lack their of in this case ;). Just ask my wife about that, no, never mind, please don’t do that.

For dinner this evening we had this very interesting pasta dish with a Greek sauce and hamburger in it. It looked like a meatloaf and was very yummy. Think of meat loaf with sauce and noodles in it. I don’t think I have ever had that combination before. I had milk to drink as well as ice water and sugar free chocolate pudding for desert. It hit the spot.

For breakfast we are having scrambled eggs with bacon in them as well as parmesan cheese, toast (if I recall correctly) and fruit. More on the meals for day 2 on Sundays report.

I asked the nurse for two more pillows for my left arm which has major problems if I do not keep it propped up at night.

After dinner we had a 6:30 meeting where the retrains were given leashes, food pouches, and a grooming pouch. We talked all about the schedule, dorm rules, all that normal junk. We finished up about 7:30 or so and she asked if others were willing to get a jump on work for Sunday. Even though I was tired I raised my hand. Amy and I worked for what seemed like about an hour or more on very cool stuff:

1. GDB techniques for obedience drills.

2. Differences between Seeing Eye methods of obedience and dog guide work.

3. Characteristics of a dogs personality and a way to gage that with your dog.

The time was just so rewarding. It was one on one time with Amy who made me feel proud that I stayed up to work with her. She listened to my frustrations and patiently worked through all of my questions and she felt very good about all of the questions I was asking. I will have more to say about this after I meet my new guide dog on Sunday morning (that is the plan anyway). We talked about all kinds of things and I will share them in the context of my new dog when we all know that detail which is coming soon.

They had this very cool make believe dog called wheeler. Think of a dog on wheels. It looked very real and even had the dog’s harness, collar and leash on him. I will try and get pictures. All work this evening was done using wheeler. The only draw back was getting wheeler to properly sit or lay down. Sorry, this dog isn’t that sophisticated .

I am very very excited about the progress made today. I feel the time spent was just amazing and look forward to continuing that with Amy if she has the time.

Well, as I am writing this it is going on 20 hours that I have been awake so I am going to call it a night. See everyone on day 2!

Boring Oregon, does it really exist?

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:12:59 GMT

As I was preparing last weekend for my 3 week trip to Guide Dogs for the Blind I thought I would set up Mobile Geo to have the school’s address set as a route. This way I could follow the route as we drive to the school Saturday afternoon. I entered the city name of Boring and was quickly told that Boring doesn’t exist. I was a bit surprised about this so seeked the advice of a friend at Sendero. He suggested looking up the address using latitude and longitude coordinates. I did this and found that according to the version 4.0 Sendero maps, Boring Oregon is really Sandy Area, Oregon. Go figure. Finding this location on the map wasn’t Boring at all. If this is just one example of how this next three weeks is going to go I am in for a ride, which I am going to love.

My Hero Jacinda

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:26:21 GMT

Jacinda past away on January 3, 2009. I will miss her dearly. The picture above shows her loving smile and great personality that she shared with all of us throughout her life. I want to thank Fred and Kasey for taking care of her during the month of December for the last part of her life. Her death was a shock to all of us and she will be deeply missed.

Jacinda was probably the most playful of the three guide dogs I have had and she sure made sure she was noticed. She often wanted to be the center of attention until that harness went on. Once that was done her personality dramatically changed and for the most part it was down to business.

She always would make sure that she got what she wanted and even developed a way of talking to us in a special barking kind of way. She loved wearing bandanas. In fact, it was kind of a ritual to see her run into it every time. When she got sick of the one she was waring she would run to Keri jumping up and down and barking until Keri picked out a new one for her to wear. She would run to the dresser where we kept them and would point her nose at the drawer. If the drawer was open she would often pick one out. Once it was put on she would prance around the house wagging her tail and making sure she showed everyone that she had a new one on. Keri had a heck of a time getting it on. She always wanted Keri to pick them out for her.

Her guide work was awesome and she loved to serve with that wonderful wagging tail that she held up so proudly. I want to sincerely thank The Seeing Eye for the opportunity to work with such a great guide dog. Ralph (the trainer that trained Jacinda and worked with me with her) was a great person to work with and without him bringing us together we wouldn’t have had the 6 plus years as a team. Thank you Seeing Eye.

Jacinda, I will miss you and I love you very much. Click here to

listen to a song

Download the audio recording that expresses this even more.