Thunder Dog - Michael Hingson [10]
“Michael, we’re looking forward to having you come and get a guide dog,” he said. What? I didn’t even know my parents had applied. Maybe they didn’t want me to be disappointed if I had been turned down. I was just fourteen, and the rule was that you had to be sixteen to get a guide dog. For some reason, Guide Dogs bent the rules for me.
In late June, my parents sent Ellery off to Boy Scout camp and then my dad, mom, and I drove up to San Rafael, where they dropped me off at Guide Dogs for the Blind. Back then it was surrounded by rolling green hills and undeveloped land out in the middle of nowhere. As we drove down the gravel road leading into the campus, I was practically wiggling with excitement. I had hardly ever been out of Southern California, and it all seemed like a big adventure. I wasn’t too worried about getting homesick; after all, I had survived a couple of previous stints at summer camp. And I was far too excited about getting a guide dog to be nervous.
My parents dropped me off on Sunday, and I spent the day exploring the eleven-acre campus. At the front of the campus was an administration building. Off to one side was a small dorm with eight double rooms. On the other side was a house for the executive director. There was also a dining room, a common room with a small television and an out-of-tune zither, and a swimming pool. At the back were the dog kennels.
Class started the very next day and I was the youngest person by far. The average age for a guide dog user is fifty-one. Being around so many adults made me slightly nervous, and I had to learn how to behave. One morning we hit town for a training session and ended up at the Downtown Lounge in San Rafael for lunch. I got up and went to the restroom and left the door open, like we did at home. I can’t believe I did that, but I guess because I couldn’t see anything, I didn’t think about other people looking in and seeing me. Or maybe I was just an idiotic adolescent. In any case, I was quickly made aware that my bathroom etiquette needed an upgrade.
One thing I loved about the Guide Dogs campus was that every room had a record player in it for talking books, recorded on twelve-inch vinyl records. Whenever I wasn’t in class or practicing, I spent my time reading books that way.
In class I learned that Guide Dogs for the Blind started with the idea of using shelter dogs as guides for blind service personnel after World War II. Blondie, a German shepherd rescued from the Pasadena Humane Society, became the guide dog for Sgt. Leonard Foulk, the first serviceman to graduate from the school in 1941.
The first skill I learned in training involved basic footwork. Guide Dogs teaches through “Juno” training, with the trainer holding the harness to simulate working with an imaginary dog named Juno. Footwork involved learning to coordinate keeping my left foot by the dog’s right front paw. This may sound simple, but it isn’t if you can’t see the dog’s foot or your own foot. I also learned the verbal commands and hand signals, how to properly use the harness and leash, and how to both correct and praise a guide dog. As a class, we also participated in lectures where we learned techniques for basic dog training and obedience, along with how to keep our dogs healthy and happy.
Three days later, I got my dog. There was an excited buzz in the air on Wednesday, also known as Dog Day. The trainers had been carefully evaluating each of us for personality (quiet or energetic? patient or hotheaded?), gait (fast or slow? small or large stride?), and physical capacity (strong or weak? young or aged?). Trainers had also studied our home environments (busy, big city or small, rural town?) and our lifestyles (frequent traveler or homebody?). Last, they had taken a close look at our day-to-day surroundings (high-rise building, crowded classrooms and hallways, or peaceful home office?).