Shall We Play a Game?

I often think the things Chase does for me are a game to him.  We play a game where he stops whenever we get to a curb.  He stops at the edge and waits for me.  He gets a reward and waits for me to tell him “forward”.  On the other side of the street, he puts his front feet on the up curb, and waits for his praise and reward.  Then he waits again for me to say “forward”. 

We have games where he finds things.  “Find the stairs.”  “Find the escalator.”  “Find the curb.”  “Find the (walk/don’t walk) button.”  “Find the elevator.”  “Find the chair” (useful for everything from chairs to BART train seats to park benches).

But one of his favorite games lately has been the stairs game.  When I make any move toward the stairs at home, Chase goes immediately to the bottom step and puts his front feet on it.  He waits for his praise and reward.  If I start up the stairs, he goes slightly ahead of me and waits at the landing, his front feet on the landing, his back feet one stair down.  Praise.  Reward.  He turns on the landing and puts his feet on the first step of the next flight and waits.  Then at the top, he puts his feet on the second floor level with his back feet one stair down. 

The value for me, of course, is that he is showing me where the stairs start and end.  I’m not sure if he knows that of if he just thinks it’s a great game that can bring as many as four rewards between the bottom and top of the stairs.

Now that I’m at home most of the day, we can play the stairs game twenty times a day.  He didn’t do this so much when we were traveling to and from work every day.  But now he seems to be locked on to the stairs game.  Maybe it’s his need to work.  Maybe it’s his desire for the treats.  Either way, he seems to enjoy it and does it enthusiastically.  

Back From Nowhere in Particular

Well, gosh.  I haven’t been here in a while.  I’d like to say, “I’ve been busy.”  But no busier than usual.   In fact, less busy in the past month.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I retired on April 25^th.  But I still live by lists, if not by routine. 

Chase and I don’t get on BART very often these days.  Instead, we try to get in at least one walk a day down to Todos Santos Plaza in Concord (about a half mile away) or get on the bus and go up to the hardware store on Clayton Road. 

Chase gets mopey if we don’t get out.  He seems to think sleeping on the dog bed in my home office is okay, as far as it goes.  But that’s just it.  It doesn’t go very far.  He seems to want to be in that harness, going places.  So, we try to get out every day. 

On Patti’s days off, we try to work in a trip to the grocery store where he can sniff the things on the low shelves, even though he knows he’s not supposed to.  Or we walk somewhere to have a bite to eat.  We eat.  Chase sleeps under the table in front of me. 

Sometimes something breaks the routine.  Last week, a neighbor’s dog attacked Chase as we walked him and Cody the Wonder Poodle.  (I call him that because sometimes Cody sits there staring, as if he wonders what’s going on.)  The dog came running from one of the houses and lit into Chase, who went down the way he does when he and Cody play.  The dog’s owner was in hot pursuit and pulled him from Chase, after Patti kicked the attacker in the rear end.  Cody cried and barked as if he were the one who had been attacked.  Chase got up and wagged his tail, apparently unaware of the single hole bleeding from his right ear. 

A trip to the emergency vet followed.  Two surgical staples closed the hole, and a head wrap (see picture) kept the ear clean and in place.  Chase seemed offended by the head wrap, but too polite to say anything.  Instead, he just lay there with (if you’ll excuse the expression) a hangdog look.  We’re now in his second week.  The staples are supposed to come out next Monday.  The neighbor was apologetic and will pay the vet bills. 

I allowed myself to a month to decompress, adjust and reorient.  Now Chase and I are looking for new adventures that DON’T involve other dogs attacking him.  Our dream is still to be – as far as we know – the only TV reporting team in America that includes a guide dog.  So far, no takers.  But we’ll keep trying.  I’ll likely get back to a couple of unfinished novels (writing, not reading).  The Giants play almost daily, so we might jump on BART and catch a day game in the middle of the week if we can find anyone who wants to go along.  

Three Weddings and a Funeral

I guess this guide dog thing is getting more routine.    The six-month mark came and went on January 13, and I didn’t even notice.  It could also be that I was in the middle of being sicker than a (guide) dog with the flu and had just come back home from my brother’s funeral in Southern California.

So let’s see.   How’s it gone?  Some of this will be a repeat if you’ve been reading along with the class.

Chase now goes pretty much everywhere I go.  He has indeed been to three weddings and a funeral with me.  He attended his first wedding the first day we were on our own.  On our way home from guide dogs graduation in San Rafael, we stopped at St. Mary’s College in Moraga where our son’s life-long best friend was getting married.  Next came the wedding of another our son’s contemporaries, the son of our good friends.  And then our niece, Leni, got married. 

At all three, he was the perfect gentledog.  He guided me where I needed to go and curled up at my feet most of the rest of the time.  My brother-in-law, Bob, made an interesting observation.  He said something to the effect that “before you used to follow.  Now you lead, even in the dark on a gravel parking lot.” 

At the funeral, Chase led me up the steep steps of the dais to the lectern so I could speak.  He lay down behind me, and then proved to be the perfect straight man (dog) for a blind joke or two.  (“People tell me my brother and I looked a lot alike.  I guess you’d have to be blind not to see the resemblance.”  Pause.  Look at the dog.  Rim shot.)   He negotiated the crowd very well, but I think he was annoyed with me that I wouldn’t let him swim in my niece’s pool at the gathering after the graveside service.  Margaret Baker, Chase’s puppy raiser, told me he loves to swim.  We haven’t had the opportunity to let him do that safely yet.

Chase is now up to six airplane rides (three round trips). He came with us to Milwaukee in late November and to Southern California in early January.  He rides under the seat in front of me.  Yes, a sixty pound Labrador retriever with a skinny butt can fit under the seat comfortably.  Patti and I pre-board (isn’t that a funny term?  How do you board before you board?) and sit in the window and middle seats.  Chase does all his shifting around and settles under the window seat in front of me.  Somewhere in mid-flight the person who sat down in the aisle seat looks over and notices there’s a black dog between my feet.

He is a good hotel dog.  I usually tether Chase to a desk or easy chair in the hotel room, and he curls up to sleep there.  We find a nice, grassy, out of the way place for periodic outside visits and bliss ensues.

At work, Chase is on a schedule like Mussolini’s trains.  Arrive, water, relieve, get a Kong (google it) filled with peanut butter, sleep, eat lunch, relieve, retrieve a tennis ball for about fifteen minutes, sleep, eat, relieve, get harnessed up, go home on BART.  People come by to visit.  Sometimes Chase gives them the full butt-wag greeting.  Sometimes he just lies there and rotates his eyes up toward them. 

At home, he’s getting increasing freedom.  He is off-leash quite a bit now inside.  He still sleeps in his big wire crate.  He and Cody, our small standard poodle, are best buddies.  They growl and wrestle, run and nip, chew on each other, and then find separate places to lie down and collapse.  They take turns being the instigator.  Cody will bark at Chase until Chase engages.  Chase will chew on Cody’s neck until Cody counter attacks.  They both have waggily tails and smiley dog faces. 

The representative from Guide Dogs for the Blind came by a few weeks ago to see how we’re doing.  He gave me some specific instructions on how to keep Chase from engaging with other dogs when he’s guiding and on how to teach Chase not to walk me into the backs of people in crowded places. 

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of stuff about six months of me and Chase.  If I remember it, I’ll try to write more.

A Mutt in Milwaukee

Chase and I went back to work today after a week-long adventure.  Last Tuesday, Patti, Chase and I flew from San Francisco to Milwaukee to visit our son and daughter-in-law.  It’s the first time Chase and I have flown together. 

He did a great job clearing the TSA checkpoint.  I was delayed because it took some time to find a TSA agent who could swab my hands (because of my insulin pump) and pat me down.  So Chase went with Patti and did just fine. 

We preboarded our flight on Southwest Airlines.  I had to make a choice whether to take a bulkhead seat or a regular one.  After reading several posts on the forum of the National Association of Guide Dog Users, I decided to take a regular seat and have Chase go under the seat in front of me.  People on the forum assured me he would fit, and he did.  They suggested it was safer to have him under the seat if we hit turbulence.  He did a little circling and settling, and finally come to rest with his back half under the seat and his head by my feet.  He pretty much stayed that way for the full four hour flight. 

As usual, Chase found a crowded place to be stimulating.  We had brisk walks through the airport going to and from our gate. 

In Milwaukee, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown.  Part of the fun of having a guide dog is finding a place to relieve him three or four time s day.  For this Californian, it was especially challenging to take the dog out in sub-freezing weather. 

Chase got to meet a new dog in Milwaukee.  Georgia belongs to our son and daughter-in-law.

They played together like the two young dogs that they are.

We took a drive down to Chicago to see our daughter’s home.  Chase met her cat there and was properly cautious.  He was also appropriately deferential and did not incur the wrath of the kitty claws.  In Lincoln Square, we encountered the first person who has told me I can’t bring my pet dog into their restaurant.  When I explained he was my guide dog, they apologized and backed off.

All in all, we had a great adventure.

Rainy Day Dog

It finally rained this week in the Bay Area.  So Chase got to wear the rain coat I bought for him in July.  It's a nice safe yellow, with a reflective stripe on the side.  Stylish, no? 

 

 

It kept me from having a wet, smelly dog when I arrived at work. 

As with most things, Chase just went with it.  He's very mellow about new things and new experiences.  We also road the bus over to the veterinarian's office.  I weighed him and he came in at 59 pounds (compared to 63 pounds when we left Guide Dogs in July). 

I called Guide Dogs' support center, and Beth said to feed him more.  So he's now getting four cups of kibble a day instead of three.  I'll weigh him again in a couple weeks.

 
 

This Little Light of Mine

In my last post, I mentioned that Chase and I are well-lighted now that it’s getting darker earlier.  I asked Patti to shoot a little video of us walking in the dark.

Here are the devices we use.  The front two are arm bands.  The back two are LED strips that I put on the harness handle. Behind them are a couple of velcro straps I use to keep them from coming off.  I bought the LED lights from NiteIze.com.

 

Three Months On

Today marks three months since Chase and I graduated from Guide Dogs for the Blind.  It seems to be a good time to reflect on how things have gone and how things have changed since then.

I have thought throughout that one fundamental change is that I’m less likely to procrastinate.  With the added demands of caring for Chase and keeping our schedule, I now try to do things as soon as I think of them.  I don’t make mental lists of what I’ll do later. 

This blog is the one thing that puts the lie to that previous paragraph.  I write all day long for a living and sometimes find it hard to sit down at night and write some more.  So I put it off.  To those of you who have been kind enough to say you enjoy reading about me and Chase, I apologize that my posts have become less regular and less frequent.

I have learned that no matter how well trained, a dog is still a dog.  Chase does his job well, but he can be distracted.  He is drawn to other dogs.  He is drawn to things on the ground.  So I have to be aware of what he’s doing.  In terms of dog behavior, Chase sometimes seems unaware of certain basic rules.  When we walk down the street, he turns his head and stares at passing dogs.  Sometimes they seem  to find that provocative.  As a result, I have begun using his Gentle Leader, a leash attachment that goes over his snout and makes it easy to direct his head.  It also helps me keep his nose from scanning the ground around him.

Our daily ride on BART generally goes smoothly.  Chase knows the rhythm of our schedule.  He now not only sits and lies down in front the side-facing seats, but slides himself back under the seat.  Then as we depart the station before the one where we change trains or the station before the one where we get off, he gets up so I can put his harness handle back on.  He also knows how to jump up on the bus bench so I can put his shoes on or take them off. 

At work, people come by to visit us through the day.  By us, I mean Chase.  Chase is always happy to see them (if his tail and full body curl are any indicators).  And I think he provides therapeutic relief for some of them. 

At home, he and Cody have become good friends.  I think they would wrestle, growl and chew on each other without end if we let them.  When off his lead, Chase loves to bound across the living room and engage his skinny adopted brother.  It makes the rugs slides across the wood floors and the dogs slide across the rugs. 

A couple weeks ago, Chase attended a meeting of the San Ramon Valley School District.  The club there that raises puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind has been encouraging the district in its efforts to develop a policy that would allow students to bring guide dog puppies on campus with them.  They asked me to offer some perspective from a person with a guide dog on the value of the puppy training.  Chase slept through most of the meeting.  I suspect he is not the first to do that.

Chase is proving to be a good guide and a good companion.  As the darkness comes earlier, it really helps to have him lead me down the street.  We wear lots of flashing lights to let people know a man wearing dark clothes and a black guide dog are there.  So far, so good.