Tomorrow Paige and I will have been working together for three weeks (I'm at the Seeing Eye getting my first guide dog, if you're just tuning in). We're really starting to work together as a team. We're a little rough around the edges in a few places, but we do mostly look like we know what we're doing.
On Friday we did a solo, where we walked in partly unfamiliar territory without a trainer on hand. I had a walkie-talkie and Pete, the trainer, walked far enough away that Paige couldn't really see him, but if I got stuck I could ask him questions. I didn't get stuck, though, and we made the trip easily. We had one spot where a truck partially blocked the sidewalk and I was worried it would start up as we passed in front, so we went around behind it. Pete told me later that there was no driver in the truck.
On Wednesday we went into New York. That was the most fun ever. I kept saying "Anybody want to buy a cane, cheap?" We zipped through the lunch-time crowds on Fifth Avenue. A fire truck blocked the crosswalk an we moved around it without any problem. We walked through scaffolding and past the street vendors as if they weren't there. Paige started out the trip down Fifth Avenue showing me every door, then quickly figured out I wasn't interested in any of them and focused on walking.
We had our funniest moments, though, with all the wild animals that stalk the streets of the city. First, we walked along the Southern edge of Central Park where the carriage horses line up. When she saw the first one, about twelve feet away, she started barking and growling. Tom, our trainer that day, coaxed her closer to the horse, but she wasn't comfortable with the whole thing. I patted the horse and tried to show her that the creature didn't eat me. When that horse had to leave, the horse dispatcher brought the next one up right onto the sidewalk so Paige could see how harmless they were and how close they could come. After that, Paige calmed down and after a few more horses passed she treated them like part of the traffic. One blocked the crosswalk, and she walked around it the way she would a car. This is great, because I go to Central Park about three times a week and horses will be a regular part of Paige's new life.
Later, she barked at the statue of a lion. I patted the lion's head and put my hands on its face so she could see it didn't bite. Finally, she came right up to it. After that, nothing could perturb her. She's seen it all.
The best part of the trip to New York was the subway platform. Tom chose an especially tricky one that was open on both sides. Paige had been trained in how to deal with open platforms, of course, but I had not. Tom showed us how, if I tried to direct Paige toward the edge, she veered and kept me away from it. She wasn't bothered by the crowd, the musicians, or the trains. She showed me the staircases, too, which will be very handy since we'll be traveling via subway every day and will need them.
On Friday Pete showed me how to get Paige to show me every door on a street and how to let her know when I want to know about doors and when I just want to move down the street. This is wonderful. If I want her to, she'll turn in and take me right up to each door. This is nice if I know the Radio Shack is here someplace, but I'm not sure exactly which store it is. If I don't want to go up to each door, though, she'll sort of bob her head and shoulders each time we pass a door, as if to say, "This one? This one?" When I really want to move I say "Hup-up" and she, maybe with a little persuasion, forgets about the doors and just moves out. We need to work on this quite a lot, but when we get it together, it works beautifully. Of course, she's fabulous at finding doors to places we've been before.
This week we'll get into the city some more. We'll work more in the subway and in some areas we haven't seen yet.
