We're home! Ralph drove Paige and me home this week and worked with us in my home neighborhood for several hours.
I guess most people fly home, so the trainers take them to the airport and go through security with them to the gate. This is great, since the dogs have not flown before and often the people don't have much experience with it, either. And, getting a dog through an airport is different from getting a cane through. I'll have that experience sometime in the near future.
Being so close to the school meant I could show Ralph the problem spots in my neighborhood and he could work through them with me. The worst was a subway stop that I use as a backup or when I want to go to the Bronx. It's on an island with busy streets all around. We crossed and went to the steps several times so Paige and I would learn the convoluted route.
Paige is quickly learning my regular destinations. She truly amazed me when we went home through Penn Station. We had been there for the first time that morning on our way to work. It was hard getting her to all the right staircases an hallways through the crowds of people at 7:15 AM, but we did it. Then, I thought I'd have a similar effort going home. But instead, she knew the route an barreled through the crowd back to the entrance to my subway train! I never thought she'd be able to turn the route around and do it backwards.
We found a perfect place for her under my desk. My desk is L-shaped and the side to my right is huge. I used to keep plant repotting materials under it. I moved those things out and Paige found her perfect cubby-hole where she can peek out and see who's in my doorway. She stands up to leave every time I say good by to someone on the phone.
We had our first day in Central Park without a trainer. The park is loaded with distractions, but Paige did her job. She pulls very hard, though, and tries to sniff.
I ran a race yesterday morning in the park and a friend held Paige for me for the hour or so that I was gone. All reports are that she was well behaved and my guide said she was sitting quietly when we went by during the race. Rumor has it she was distracted by one dog while I was gone. We're working on that.
I wondered what it would be like to be turned loose in the world with no trainer to straighten us out. The trainers had been working farther and farther back, of course, and we had done many walks with walkie-talkies, so that we were effectively on our own. But, it wasn't that long ago that Paige would hardly do anything I told her to do without looking to Ralph as the Big Boss. She eventually started to get the idea that I was her boss and that Ralph was mine, and now seems not to notice at all that Ralph isn't here, except that she goes to Ralph's parking place on my street each time we walk that way.
