Planet of the Blind

Thank you, Guiding Eyes

Back in 1998 a book reviewer at The Boston Globe suggested that I am a shill for the guide dog schools. What he meant is that my first book of nonfiction is richly devoted to sharing the experience of training with my first guide dog “Corky”—a life changing event for me and the glue that holds together my book.
I didn’t mind being called a shill. I’ve been called worse.

Today as I was walking in the Iowa snow with my third dog from Guiding Eyes I remembered that old Steve Martin joke where he says to his audience “I want to thank each and every one of you” Then he proceeds to say over and over: “Thank you thank you thank you thank you” etc.

Occupied in this way it dawned on me that Guiding Eyes for the Blind is worthy of every thank you I could pronounce. Guide dogs are expensive creatures to breed, raise, train, and then pair with a blind person. Despite the fact that each dog and person team costs well over 40,000 dollars to create, Guiding Eyes absorbs all the costs through its non-profit program of charitable donations.

I am a comparatively lucky blind person. I have a good job and a wonderful wife and family. Yet I can assure you that if I had to pony up 40K for my street mobility would be very hard pressed indeed. This in turn gets me to my point. Some will doubtless think of me as being too sentimental. Thanking those who have helped you is perhaps, in the minds of some “too old fashioned” or “too caught up in the charity model of disability”.

I believe that as I walk safely and in most cases euphorically that I have a big team behind me. Donors, puppy raisers, puppy breeders, veterinarians, fund raisers, construction and buildings and grounds personnel, volunteers, guide dog trainers, orientation and mobility specialists, dietitians, nurses, folks who work in the kennels, and the blind men and women who have trained alongside me with their new dogs.

Today, walking in the snow I heard in memory the voice of Steve Martin thanking everybody.

S.K.

These Boots are Made for Walkin'

My new guide dog "Nira" has been navigating the campus of the University of Iowa and she's been sporting her red, velcro and nylon snow boots. Today's guide dogs are trained to tolerate footwear since icy sidewalks are often covered with corrosive salts and chemicals that can harm feet. Obviously the sight of a big yellow Labrador in harness trotting along with her red booties is remarkable, particularly for college students who are delighted as Nira prances down the sidewalk like a circus pony. It has been below zero in Iowa all this week and the doggy boots have been valuable as we've marched along the banks of the frozen Iowa River. I hope to have some photos to share with you soon.  Avanti!

S.K.

Partners

Partners

Click the link above for some great photos of Steve and guide dog "Nira".  Photo credits go to Graham Buck of Guiding Eyes for the Blind.  Graham, we're delighted with the photos and again, thanks for the walk down memory lane!

~ Connie

Photo descriptions: The photo link above shows yellow Labrador, Nira, guiding Steve down the sidewalk.  Open the link and there are several photos of Steve and Nira doing obedience, as well as several photos of their working together "in harness".

Don't Sentimentalize Your Dog

Yesterday without warning I was laid low by a 24 hour intestinal virus. I will say no more. But lying there in my fever and chills I found, all of a sudden, my new guide dog Nira was halfway up on my bed and licking my face. "Hey Pal," she almost seemed to say , "Why are you so negligent? You could be going places with me."

I'm not one of those dog sentimentalists who believes his dog was checking to see if I had a pulse. Nira was bored and she was letting me know about it. I was the only game in town and the game wasn't going so well.

Later, as the chills got worse and I lay quaking under several blankets I was deeply grateful for Nira's top notch training. She lay on her bed and worked on her dog bone and stopped worrying about me.

That's the point of course. Sometimes we need to be worried over and sometimes we don't. The guide dogs at Guiding Eyes are self reliant and confident. Nira had been hoping I would get to my feet and go someplace with her. When she saw that this wasn't in the works she was able to find her own place of contentment.

Of course today when we went out again she was moving like a rocket sled. It's good to be back.

S.K.

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My Dynamic Duo

Here they are, Steve and "Nira" -  stepping lively.

Once they're home, I'll be jogging behind just to keep up!   ~ Connie

P.S.  Thanks to Graham Buck, of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, for the photos.

Photo description: yellow Labrador, Nira, is in harness and guiding Steve down the sidewalk.

Blind Date

Here she is.  "Nira".  Steve's ultimate blind date.

Photo description: Nira, a yellow Labrador, is in a down position.  She and Steve are doing obedience.  Although we can't see Steve, we can see the leash he's holding attached to Nira's collar.  She is looking up in his direction.  It's a great head shot, compliments of Graham Buck of Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

Dog Day Afternoon

I am pleased to announce that my new guide dog is "Nira"--a female yellow Labrador. I will be meeting her for the first time in about ten minutes.

All I know for sure is that she's a tall, fast, and poised guide dog.

I feel a little like an adoptive parent waiting in the anteroom of the orphanage. Or maybe I feel a little like a Sweepstakes winner.

One thing's for sure: I feel very lucky to be making her acquaintance.

S.K.

Make It Strong, Please.

Over breakfast at Guiding Eyes I hear assorted stories about blindness.  How often one hears the refrain: "My eye doctor said, well now you’re blind, go home, there’s nothing more we can do for you."  I think that the national ophthalmologic societies should be having breakfast at the guide dog school.  Blindness isn’t a calamity unless the "professionals" make it so.  I drink coffee with people who have recently lost their eye sight and I’m reminded all over again just how clotted and befuddled our "normative" society is when it comes to blindness or disability in general.  Good God.  You’d think that these ophthalmologists are getting their scripts for communicating with their patients from Victorian novels. "I’m sorry but you’ve been struck blind by a force mightier than humankind.  You must now go and wander the forests of Germany." 

Thank the Lord there’s strong coffee here at Guiding Eyes.

S.K.

Vespers

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will be united with my third guide dog. This will happen in the early afternoon. Once more the circle of blindness (at least for me) will be entered by a safe and reliable creature who was raised and trained by innumerable loving people. I’ve written about this in my memoir Planet of the Blind and I don’t think I can do more than reiterate that having a new guide dog is absolutely the "ultimate blind date". There’s a difference though for this dog will be poised and self reliant which is more than one can say about your average human blind date. They know what they’re doing at Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

By early afternoon I will have a remarkable four legged companion and together we will work over the next two weeks to earn each other’s trust and loving kindness None of us can claim any more for our relationships.

Blessings on the puppy raisers and the guide dog trainers and the superb staff here in Yorktown Heights, New York.

And thanks, Al Roker, for the temperatures which are in the mid sixties.

S.K. .

Greetings from Guiding Eyes

After two canceled flights and a long day's journey I arrived back at Guiding Eyes for the Blind last evening. I'm embarking on a fabulous adventure, training with a brand new guide dog. In twenty minutes I'll be heading to my first full day of training--a humbling process for although I've had two previous guide dogs, the training has evolved and the dogs nowadays are trained to follow some new commands. Can an old blind guy learn new tricks? We shall most certainly find out.

Guiding Eyes is one of the nation's premier guide dog training schools and my wife Connie and I used to work here before we moved to Ohio and then westward to Iowa City. The school has undergone some significant changes since Con and I were last here in 2000, most notably there's a brand new student residence and a fabulous new dining hall and a beautiful new multi-purpose room for classes and events.

There's also the "march of time" because of course the new guide dog trainers are ever younger. And they have new training techniques and I already feel like a slightly disreputable uncle whose  manners need to be seriously improved.

As always, the other students come from every corner of the United States and they are made up of new guide dog users and old timers; young folks and those of us who are middling old. There's a nice camaraderie and I know I'll be hearing  all kinds of disability related stories over the next 10 days. I'm immediately reminded that disability is entirely democratic in its discriminations: we are a diverse group from all kinds of backgrounds and we have only blindness in common. And soon we shall have dogs in common and that's a beautiful fact. We will get our new guide dogs on Wednesday.

I got my first dog "Corky" when I was 39 and now I'm 52 and the veteran staff keep telling me that I look good and haven't changed and aside from the decency of that premise, maybe in a small way I'm lucky to have had two good dogs to work with and travel alongside as a principle means both of being safe and staying young. Dogs after all are important for human physical and emotional well being.

I must go now into the busy day with its lessons and unimagined astonishments. Here's to the good dogs and their human pals. 

S.K.

Photo description:  Black & white of Steve and yellow Labrador "Corky".  This is the photo that was used on the cover of Steve's memoir: Planet of the Blind.  While we only see this "headshot", Steve is actually lying on his left side with his face propped against his left hand.  He's wearing tinted glasses.  Corky is sitting next to him in such a way that we see her profile, and because her head is higher than Steve's because of their positioning, it almost looks as if she could be resting her head on top of Steve's. Many have said that Steve looks like a young Paul McCartney in this photo.  Photo Credit: Marion Ettlinger