[Critique Group 1] April Submission DeAnna

[DeAnna Noriega]

1,983 

We Meet

 

In July of 1968, I found myself in a quiet library room cum lounge at The
Seeing Eye Inc.  I sat straight-backed in the large armchair to the right of
the piano as I waited.  My 

long dark hair was drawn around me like a protective cloak reaching almost
to the hem of my pink mini dress.  I attempted to take deep even breaths and
keep my hands folded quietly in my lap as I listened to the measured
footsteps of the man accompanied by the click of claws coming from the hall
past the nurse's office. Tammy was here.  I reviewed what I had been told
last night.  She is fifteen months old, a black Labrador, weighs seventy
pounds and is 24 inches at the shoulder.  Her eyes are amber.  She was
donated to the program by a hunting dog raiser.  They entered the room where
I anxiously waited and I heard the rhythmic thump of the dog's tail against
the man's legs.

 

His quiet voice commanded, "Sit, down, rest." Then he came toward me alone
and handed me a slimy piece of calf liver.  In those days, the dogs were
still being fed a mixture of raw horsemeat and dry kibble.  Once a team left
the school, the dogs were switched to a mixture of canned and dry dog food.


 

"Call her to you and give her the treat," he instructed.  I held out my hand
with the grisly offering on my palm and called to her.  She bounded across
the room and the tail that had stopped wagging while she was in the down
stay position began to beat against the side of my chair.  An eager tongue
licked my hand and wrist ignoring the proffered liver while a curious cold
nose nuzzled my            knees and explored my hands and arms.  After
several more attempts to get her to accept the tidbit, Mr. Boeke, my
instructor took it and she deigned to eat it from his hand.  He explained
that this particular dog was strongly attached to him and he was going to
refuse eye contact or to speak to her from now on so that she would transfer
her love to me.  He instructed that I should mix her food with my bare hands
to transfer my scent to it.  His gentle voice went on to say that dogs like
this one were slow to give their loyalty, but when they did, they were more
deeply bound to their handlers than ones who seemed to love everyone.  He
handed me the leash to clip to her collar and said to take her to my room.
Since I didn't have a roommate, I should allow her to explore off leash.  

 

"She doesn't have the same experience of living in a home that our other
dogs have had through our 4H puppy raiser program.  She came directly from
the kennel at one year and went straight into training as a guide.  So let
her do as she likes and get acquainted.  Don't give her any commands.  Just
pet and play with her and I'll come back to take her out to relieve her
around four thirty."

 

Rising from my seat, I shook back my hair.  I moved toward the door to the
girls' wing of the dormitory with the leash in my left hand.  Tammy pranced
at my side thumping me vigorously with that heavy otter tail which was to be
a part of my life for the next several years.

 

When we arrived at my door, the first one on the right, I led her inside and
closed it.  I unclipped the leash and then the tornado hit.  A large black
dog raced around the room as rapidly as her paws could carry her on the
slippery tiled floors.  She darted into the adjoining bath and I heard her
scramble into the tub and jump out again.  She paused to sample the cool
water in the porcelain toilet bowl.  I dashed into drop the lid.  She jumped
on me and grabbed my hand in her mouth giving it a quick chew and was off
again.  I got up from the floor where her exuberance had landed me.  My
tumble was softened a bit by the heap of towels that had somehow been pulled
down from the towel bar.  I heard the clatter as objects fell from my
dresser.  Hurrying out to see where the whirlwind was, I was startled to be
licked in the face as a dog flew past my shoulder from the top of the chest
of drawers.  As I scrambled to retrieve my brush comb and other small
articles from the floor, I could hear the dog leap onto one bed and then the
other followed by play growls and thumps.  I jumped to my feet and tried to
figure out what she was doing now.  A flying furball hurtled off the bed
dragging pillow and spread with her.  Remembering Mr. Boeke's admonition not
to give her commands, I called her name hoping to catch hold of Tammy and
try to calm this storm with a few gentle pats and soft words.  No such luck,
the whirlwind knocked me to the floor again and chewed my arm from wrist to
shoulder while pounding the side of the bed and dresser with a madly beating
tail.  She then raced around the room once more.  This continued for the
next hour and a half.  Each time I called her name she leapt up to knock me
down and chew my hands wrists and arms until I was soaked with dog saliva,
winded and bruised.  Tammy then raced off for another attack on towels,
pillows and bedspreads.  

 

Finally, I heard the longed for quiet knock on the door signaling that my
instructor was back.  I struggled to my feet and snatched the leash from the
doorknob.  I clipped it to the panting black dynamo that had followed me to
see who was there.  

 

"I have come for your dog Miss Smith," came the quiet voice.  All I had
energy to reply was a heartfelt, "Thank God!"  As he moved away, with Tammy
walking sedately beside him, he chuckled and responded, "I will bring her
back in about ten minutes."  Just then, I wasn't sure he would find me
waiting to receive her.

 

I slumped to the foot of my bed and wondered what I had gotten myself into
this time.  I had always had pets.  When I was about six, I had coaxed a
yearling buck to venture out from the forest edge to eat carrots from my
hand.  At nine I got an adult male squirrel to accept treats from me before
racing back up his tree to share them with his family.  If it had fur or
feathers and could be coaxed to trust me with patience and food, I tamed it.
Before leaving to attend this class at The Seeing Eye Inc. of Morristown New
Jersey, I had spent the last few months of my senior year in high school
finding good homes for all my rescued animal dependents.  Among my menagerie
were two parakeets, a canary, a mynah bird, goldfish, two ducks, a blind
rabbit and four small dogs.  Mom had nicknamed these four my circus because
I had trained them to do a number of tricks.  It was always easier to find
new homes for dogs if they could at least shake hands, come when called and
obey some simple commands.  My foursome all vied for attention trying to out
perform each other.   It seemed a logical decision to apply for training
with a guide dog in the summer between high school and my freshman year of
college.  My stepfather an ex-trucker, now working in construction viewed it
as a necessity for my safety.  Mom was afraid of large dogs.  As a teenager,
she had been badly bitten by a German shepherd.  I would soon be leaving
home to live in a college dorm.  I would have to find my way around campus
without anyone to help me orient to the unfamiliar environment.  Mom
conceded that getting a dog guide made sense.  My three younger brothers and
baby sister just figured that at least they would get rid of their bossy
older sister for a month and then I would be out of their hair come fall.

 

Although my high school had hired a woman to serve as a resource room
teacher, she wasn't qualified to teach the use of the long white mobility
cane.  I had employed the barge and bang method of getting around at school.
I could walk with friends without holding on to them by keeping track of
their location by sound.  I learned new routes quickly and just went.  Of
course, a moment's inattention could land me in a flower bed or slam me into
an open locker door.  I had a nice collection of bruises.  I thought getting
where I needed to go was worth being various shades of purple, yellow and
green.  A good sense of direction and an ability to use my entire body to
give me information made it possible for me to operate in my neighborhood,
large high school and anywhere else I went a lot.  But, I seldom had to
cross a street alone or venture into new unexplored places.  That would all
be changing come fall.  Close high school friends would scatter.  My loving
quarrelsome family would not be there to show me how to find each new class.
I would be going out into a much larger more dangerous world.  I thought
that it would be easier with a friend along, trained to help me deal with
all the new challenges awaiting me.  As I began restoring my room to rights,
I wondered if my decision would work out.  Tammy was thin at 70 pounds.  She
was a lot more dog to control than my four rescued waifs, a Chihuahua, a
poodle, a beagle and a terrier mix put together.

 

             I liked my instructor.  His quiet manner didn't disguise a
certain firmness of character or a gentle humor.  When we went for a Juno
walk, a testing procedure in which the trainer takes the part of the guide
dog, he was surprised I had never had white cane lessons.  Walking with my
stepfather and brothers who were much taller than I had made me a rapid
walker. When I had first lost my vision, mom had put me in ballet lessons
explaining to my teacher that now that I would be running into things and
tripping a lot more, she wanted me to at least do it gracefully.  I had been
an active child who had never been told that blind girls didn't climb trees,
jump rope or skip and run everywhere.  I had good balance and a sense of
direction.  I loved animals.  Although my family had crossed and recrossed
the country in a variety of old battered cars, I had never flown on a plane.
Flying to New Jersey from California was an adventure I couldn't pass up.  

 

I knew that The Seeing Eye was the oldest dog guide school in the country.
Dorothy Harrison Eustis had founded the school in 1929.  She had raised
German shepherd dogs in Switzerland and knew their potential as working
dogs.  After observing a program in Germany training German Shepherd Dogs to
lead blinded World War I. Veterans, she was inspired to write an article
describing the German training program that was published in The Saturday
Evening Post, When a young blind man from Tennessee named Morris Frank
entreated her to train a dog for him, The Seeing Eye was born.  Surely the
oldest dog guide training school in the country knew what it was doing when
choosing to match me with this black whirlwind with teeth and a tail, didn't
they?   

 

DeAnna Quietwater Noriega

Quieth2o at socket.net

573-544-3511 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group1/attachments/20170328/7a23a418/attachment-0001.html>