The home visit

                I'd done a guide dog school evaluation before, but I was nervous nevertheless. The night before my home visit, I could barely sleep. Morning came slowly, and my hart was in my throat as I showered and dressed for the day. That was a bit of a disaster too, as I wasn't sure whether or not it was going to rain.

The instructor arrived on time, and we chatted in my living room for a bit. He was interested in my experiences with my past guide dogs, as well as the reasons I was switching schools. I hesitated when answering him, because despite feeling that my decision to switch schools was justified, I was in no hurry to cast my former school in a light that it didn't necessarily deserve. He was quick to reassure me that the schools themselves are really not all that competitive; as I'd suspected, much of the competition resides in the handlers. People leave all schools for all sorts of reasons, he said, and I felt reassured. We talked a little more about the type of dog I was hoping to be paired with, though this conversation was rather vague, as the evaluation itself had not been done yet. He referred to the notes that had been taken during my phone interview though, and asked me a few questions to clarify.

"So," he said, "It almost seems as though you have a utilitarian view of guide dogs."

I stiffened. What did that even mean? So I asked him exactly that.

"Well, it says here for instance that you don't want an overly licky dog, not too stimulated, stuff like that."

"I can elaborate." I offered. "I grew up in a traditional Pakistani Muslim household, and never really had much exposure to dogs. In fact, I'd been afraid of them as a child, and continued to be afraid into my teen years. I still don't really know how it all ended up working out, because I literally woke up one day when I was nineteen and decided that I was going to apply for a guide dog. Until the very day I met my first guide dog, I was still hesitant and a bit afraid of dogs. So I do like dogs, my dog that is, but I still wouldn't call myself a dog person per-see, and dogs who are overly "mouthy" still make me uncomfortable. I know I'll have to feed them food rewards by hand though, which I'm already used to."

"Thanks," he said, "That really cleared things up for me. GDB is used to serving people from all backgrounds, and we've certainly heard of this before."

We then headed out to do the evaluation route. At first, he said to just walk as if he weren't there. That always makes me feel as though I'm being scrutinized by some silent god though, so I asked if it was ok if we just chatted casually as I walked. Thankfully he was ok with this, and the knot of anxiety in my stomach eased a little. For the most part, the walk went without a hitch. I picked a relatively straight forward route with a few lighted intersections. I was worried that he'd be scrutinizing my cane skills (which sucked royally as I haven't been a cane user in several years). I was swinging that stick around all over the place, but provided that I was safe and responsible, I don't think the instructor really cared how I got somewhere.

On our walk back, we did the juno route portion of the walk. This is a simulation of a route-with the instructor acting as the guide dog (Juno) and holding the harness so that you'd hold the handle as you normally would when walking with a guide dog. The walk has several purposes. The instructor has an opportunity to show you what walking with a dog would actually be like by simulating the same type of pressure you'd feel in the harness handle with an actual dog. The walks are also used to get a more accurate reading of your preferred walking speed (since obviously not all dogs walk at the same pace). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it's used to see how quickly you'd be able to respond to a dog turning the wrong direction, sniffing, or generally being distracted. So the instructor turned left when I told him to go straight, started drifting quite perceptibly in the middle of streets, and would sniff at the occasional bush. Obviously, guide dogs don't typically dottle and drift all over the place, but they're still dogs, and the handler needs to be able to keep on top of them--because although the dogs do all the seeing, the handler does all the route planning.

Anyway, that portion of the walk was actually really fun, and a welcome stress relief following the first portion. It made me miss having a real guide dog so badly. When we got back to my place, the instructor told me that although he couldn't get his formal written report into GDB admissions until later the following week, he'd be calling them immediately with a recommendation that I be put in the August class so that a spot could be held for me. My relief was so palpable, I think.

After that, it took about a month until I heard formal word from the admissions committee. I think you can typically hear sooner, but I was dealing with a combination of the report taking a while to get in, people taking holidays, and a long weekend. Anyway, I'm scheduled to go in August, and plan to keep a daily log while I'm there (god knows how many random search strings I typed into Google looking for other peoples' blogs during training!). So, the count-down officially began twelve days ago, and as of today, I've got 50 more to go! I'll update when something else exciting happens.