Before I came to the Seeing Eye to get my dog, all my friends and coworkers wanted to know what I would do when I wasn't in class. I wondered the same thing. Would I be able to work? Could I train for a marathon? How about a triathlon? Could I catch up on my reading? I imagine other people planning to get a dog might be wondering the same thing. To what extent is my life on hold?
The first-timer's program is 26 days long. People getting a second dog are here for a shorter time. Training time involves a lot of walking with the dog and trainer, lectures and discussions, and hands-on practice with grooming, care, harness assembly, and so on.
I would divide non-class time into two categories: waiting time and free time.
Friends had told me about the waiting. There isn't as much of it as I thought there would be. Sometimes the trainer takes two of us out in the van to a route and leaves one of us in the van while the other is working. For this, a book is great. Other times you're waiting in your room for ten or twenty minutes, so a book or a computer both work well. It can be a good time to make a quick phone call, too.
Free time usually comes in chunks of an hour or two. Every night after 8:00 is free, and so is most of the early morning before 7:00. We feed and take our dogs out at 5:30, so this chunk of free time is broken up a little. There are sometimes opportunities to do your own things while half of your group is with your trainer. For example, during most of the class Ralph took two people out after breakfast, then came back for the other two mid-morning. So, those in the second group had free time from about 7:30 to about 9:15.
What can you do with these blocks of time? That depends a lot on your energy level and technical expertise. The first week I played with Paige, groomed her, called the office, responded to e-mail, wrote blog posts, and ran on the treadmill. Mostly, though, I just laid on the floor. I was exhausted. I felt like I was chasing a two-year-old. I wasn't even chasing her, she was on a leash the whole time.
Once things settled down, though, I got a bit of a routine going. I managed to get a treadmill run in most days, including two long runs, both on Saturdays. I managed to work on several small projects on my computer. I managed to get most e-mail questions attended to. I did my laundry, groomed Paige, and did my homework. I didn't get much of the reading I had brought done, though. I found the waits in the van to be short and often had someone to talk to.
The most important free-time activity, though, I think, is socializing. It might not sound important, but my dog is going to need to lie quietly while I work, eat in restaurants, go to parties, sit in meetings... So, the instructors really encourage socializing. We go to one of the several lounges and make sure our dogs are on their best behavior. We sit in different places so we can learn how to get the dogs under chairs and where to put them when there's no space under the chair. We stroll on the leisure path and sit in one of the gazebos.
Quick update: we've been in New York the last few days and are going in again today. Most students get to go in once, but we're going in several times because that will be our regular working environment. We need to get very good at stairs, subway platforms, busy streets, horses, roller-bladers, construction... so we've been having a lot of fun. It's raining today, so we get to practice umbrella-dodging.
