Another reason to love Wisconsin

Me with Gus at Culver's during a recent visit to Wisconsin.

I couldn’t help but notice an article in the Chicago Tribune this past weekend called “Some parents leave Illinois to get disabled kids better services.” The story said that while there is no statistical study showing why families with disabilities might leave one state for another, anecdotal evidence suggests that many parents of children with disabilities here in the Chicago area plan to leave — or have already left — because of the lack of funding for human services here. The writers interviewed many Illinois parents, including the suburban mother of a teenager named Tim who struggles with various cognitive disorders.

Last year, a residential school in Quincy in western Illinois discharged emotionally disturbed students with Individual Care Grants because the state had not paid their bills. Rather than allow Tim to suffer a similar fate, the family is prepared to leave Barrington and establish residency in Wisconsin, where the pockets are perceived as deeper.

Deeper pockets in Wisconsin, and, coincidentally, less political corruption, too. Some people in Illinois joke about the corruption here, but it really isn’t funny. Corruption wastes resources and skews priorities. Despite Wisconsin’s battered economy, the state allocates more resources than Illinois does to people like our son Gus. The Tribune story reported that United Cerebral Palsy ranks Illinois 48th out of 50 for providing services, and the University of Colorado’s Coleman Institute of Cognitive Disorders puts Illinois near the bottom for funding autism spectrum disorders. The National Alliance on Mental Illness gives Illinois a “D.”

It’s been this way for a long, long time — in good economic times and bad. So when it came time for Gus to move away back in 2002, Mike and I felt extremely fortunate and grateful to find Gus a home in a facility hours away in Wisconsin, run by Bethesda Lutheran Communities, Inc. We would rather have Gus live closer to home, you know, drop by whenever we feel like it, take him out for ice cream, bring him home to visit now and then. Just like the families in this Tribune story, though, we feel more confident about services in Wisconsin, and we often talk about relocating their ourselves.

You can find out how your state is doing byvisiting the University of Colorado’s State of the the States in Developmental Disabilities project Web site. Mike and I found the information there extremely helpful when choosing a new home for Gus.

Safe & Sound at the Pfister Hotel

The kids were mesmerized, but Harper? Not so much.

I love the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. So does Harper. He and I stayed at the Pfister last month when we visited General Mitchell Elementary School in West Allis, and we were there again this week for our visit to Wilson Elementary School. They know us at the Pfister, and our appreciation for the place has become legendary: this week the Pfister Hotel blog published a post called Safe and Sound in our honor. Here’s an excerpt:

Beth talks a mile a minute, with vivacious enthusiasm. She spritely tells me about the reason for her 3-day visit: several speaking engagements, including an entire day at a school just outside Milwaukee. Beth and her seeing eye dog Harper travel to schools to visit with kids and talk about what it’s like being blind.

You know, I was a little perky during my conversation with Stacie Williams, the woman who writes the Pfister Hotel blog. I was pretty excited about being interviewed by someone from my beloved Pfister Hotel, and hey, I’d downed more than my share of coffee to keep up with the students at Wilson Elementary School that day. The kids had asked lots of great questions, and I shared one of the more thoughtful ones with Stacie. “Do you ever forget you’re blind, and then you can see?” I told the little girl yes. “When I go to sleep, I forget I’m blind. I dream in color.” Stacie was appreciative, and she used that little story in her blog post.

Mostly, though, we talked about the Pfister. My Hotel stays are Walter Mitty experiences for me. “Hello, Ms. Finke.” “Welcome back, Ms. Finke.” “May I take your bag, Ms. Finke?” The front desk has keycards waiting for me with one corner clipped off — that way I know which end to put in the key slot. The doorman who walks Harper and me to our room always reminds me how the keypad on the phone works so I’ll know how to call the front desk in an emergency. He sets the radio station to public radio, makes sure the alarm clock is turned off and helps me set up the hotel toiletries. The front desk always arms me with rubber bands to wrap around similarly-shaped bottles to differentiate them from each other — I washed my hair with lotion once, and trust me, you don’t want to do that twice. Once my room is set up, I have Harper lead me down to the lobby. The Pfister Hotel blog quotes me complimenting their piano players:

Last night I went downstairs and had a Lakefront IPA — it’s nice to have local beer on tap — while I listened to Dr. Hollander, who was taking requests. I also love Perry. And, I book my train home after 1 p.m. so I can catch them playing for the lunch hour. They’re just wonderful.”

I’m writing this blog post from my seat on the train ride back to Chicago, matter of fact. Harper is sound asleep at my feet, and I’m considering leaning my seat back to take a
quick nap myself. All day and evening at an elementary school followed by a nightcap at the magical Pfister Hotel piano bar can leave a woman, well…dog tired!

Money, money, money, money

Back in 2009 I wrote a piece for the Chicago Tribune about how difficult it can be for people who are blind to keep track of U.S. currency. From the article:

180 countries use printed paper money, and the United States is the only one that prints bills all the same size and color, no matter how much each bill is worth.

A federal appeals court had ruled in 2008 that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people, but Henry M. Paulson, Jr., (the Treasury Secretary back then) had testified against the ruling. He said that people who are blind can function fine using credit cards or electronic scanners to identify different bills, and if that didn’t work they could rely on help from others.

Treasury Secretary Paulson did have a point. I’ve been blind for 25 years now, and in all that time I have never been shortchanged by a cashier. Even Chicago cab drivers — who have an undeserved reputation for being rude — have been honest with me, correcting me when I’ve made mistakes and tried to pay them too much. Still, I feel pretty stupid sometimes when a bill unfolds itself — or gets mangled up in my wallet — and I have to ask what money I’m carrying. So I was happy to find out this week that the U. S. Bureau of Engraving has developed a free app that people like me can use to increase accessibility to U.S. paper money. I was even happier still when Mike offered to download the EyeNote app onto my iPhone for me — I’m still crawling up the learning curve on using that thing!

I’m gaining ground, though — after a bit of a hitch at the start, Mike and I were able to get the EyeNote app working pretty quickly. The app is available as a free download at the Apple App Store. It runs without any special filters or background material, and you don’t have to have a data connection for the app to work. I double tapped on the EyeNote app, My iPhone read the directions out loud to me, I pulled a bill out of my wallet, pointed the iPhone camera lens at it, listened for the shutter to sound, waited a few seconds and…voila! A woman who sounds like she’s from Ireland called out the denomination! EyeNote was designed to work when the banknote is held in one hand and the mobile device is in the other hand — real life conditions. We played around with it, and it didn’t matter if I pointed the lens to the front or the back of the bill — I could even point it at an angle and that Irish woman inside the phone got it right. And if there comes a time I don’t want to hear her sweet little voice, I can go to “privacy mode.” Specially keyed vibrations/tones will identify the denomination for me. The U.S. government’s Money Factory site claims the EyePhone app is not in lieu-of any other accommodation they are considering, but in addition to other ideas.

It simply provides another option for the public which would preclude a user from having to carry a separate reader if they also own a compatible mobile device.

Recent studies say that over 100,000 people who are blind or visually impaired own Apple iPhones. The EyeNote app is one of a variety of measures the government is working on to help us keep track of our cash. A recent Federal Register notice says other measures include

• implementing a Currency Reader Program whereby a United States resident, who is blind or visually impaired, may obtain a coupon that can be applied toward the purchase of a device to denominate United States currency,
• continuing to add large high contrast numerals and different background colors to redesigned currency, and
• raised tactile features may be added to redesigned currency, which would provide users with a means of identifying each denomination via touch.

EyeNote will not be able to tell me if a bill is counterfeit, but the app will be updated to recognize when the design of U.S. paper money changes from time to time. The Bureau of Engraving says my EyeNote will work with the new $100 banknote after its introduction into circulation, so if any of you want to send one of those my way, let me know and I’ll give you my mailing address. I’d be happy to check that out.

Harper is clicking right along

A lot of you have been asking about Harper’s progress after that home visit from a Seeing Eye instructor last month. How about I start with some details about that visit?

The refresher course is working--Harper's starting to work the corners just right.

Nicole flew in from Morristown on Monday, April 24 and spent that first afternoon observing my work with Harper. He did not hold back. In one short walk, Harper refused to go all the way to the corner at an intersection, he veered right when we crossed, and then wouldn’t follow my command to turn right so we could take a walk to the park. He did get me home, though and over a cup of tea Nicole assured me I hadn’t done anything wrong to cause Harper’s behavior. “We’ve just gotta work on how you react when he behaves like this,” she said.

I’d been talking sweetly to Harper when he cowered down on the sidewalk. “C’mon, Harper, it’s okay,” I’d coo, telling him he didn’t have to be scared, then urging him to get up and continue working. My sweet-talk rewarded Harper for his bad behavior. Not good. And when he veered during street crossings, I’d pull back on the harness, which only made him want to pull harder the wrong way. Nicole assured me that Harper wants to do the right thing. When he isn’t sure what the right thing is, though, he cowers. “You need to tell him what you want from him,” she said. “And you need to say it like you mean it!”

She pointed out another problem, too. Harper loves to retrace his steps. “I’ve never seen a dog with such a strong homing instinct!” Nicole told me. One of the many, many reasons dogs have been selected to guide people who are blind is that strong canine homing instinct. Harper’s determination to retrace his steps, however, is a bit extreme. Example: We’ve visited my doctor at his office on Michigan Avenue once. Just once. Now Harper drags me to that building any time we get near it.

I like my doctor and all, but there are other places I like to visit on Michigan Avenue. When Harper veered towards the building, I’d say a gentle “no” and command “forward.” Harper would cower, then plant himself on the sidewalk. We were going into that doctor’s office, or nowhere at all.

Some of Nicole’s suggestions to remedy Harper’s behavior were simple. When Harper veers left at the doctor’s office, I keep my arm at my side, drop the harness and keep my body facing forward. Harper’s leash is looped around my wrist. If I keep my arm stiff when he veers towards the building, he is naturally jerked back to my side. I pick up the harness again, command “forward!” He may test this a few times, but once Harper realizes I really do know where I want to go, he leads me forward. Good boy, Harper!

Other suggestions were a bit more complicated. Clicker training, for example. Award-winning Seeing Eye instructor Lukas Franck taught us clicker training while we were in Morristown last December, and I’ve used it at home to teach Harper to find the elevator button in our hallway. When Nicole was here she taught me how to use the clicker method out on the street, too.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been clicking the clicker every time Harper gets me to the end of a block. He understands that the click means “you got it!” and he knows that the sound of the click means he gets a small treat. Harper hardly ever cowers anymore, he’s in such a rush to get to the end of the block to collect his reward! He’s also learned that he doesn’t hear the click if he tries to turn left or right before we get to the end of the block. I don’t click the clicker until I can feel the curb or curb cut with my feet. The lack of a click tells Harper that he has to adjust position to hear his click. Then, and only then, does he get his food reward. From the clicker training web site:

Traditional guide dog training utilizes praise to inform the dog of what behavior we want them to continue to perform. It relies on using a verbal word or phrase (“Good dog!”, “Atta boy”) immediately when the dog performs in order to tell the dog it has done well. Although this clearly works, it is not nearly as precise as communicating with an audible event marker like a clicker. The clicker’s sound has meaning to the dog because the trainer first conditions the dog to expect high value reward following the sound of the click.

Giving Harper a treat to reward him for getting to the curb goes directly against what I’d learned when training with my previous Seeing Eye dogs Pandora and Hanni. Back then we were strongly discouraged from rewarding our dogs with food. Heap on the praise instead, they told us. Guide dogs are allowed in restaurants, amusement parks, receptions, food courts, you name it. They have to be able to keep on task without being distracted by food.

Lukas — and then Nicole — assured me that the Seeing Eye had tested the clicker training method extensively. I could use treats as rewards and still expect Harper to ignore food distractions in restaurants and the like.

And you know what? It’s working. Harper’s work is not perfect – well, not yet, at least — But it has really, really improved. This week I’ve started weaning him off the clicker; IOW, I don’t click at each and every curb anymore. So far he’s still getting me to the end of each block without cowering, and his tail wags with pride when he does. Atta boy, Harper. Good boy!

The Unsinkable Lindy Bergman

My friend Lindy Bergman was an art collector. Then macular degeneration set in.

When the disease became so severe that Lindy could no longer see the surrealist works on her apartment walls, she donated the collection to the Art Institute of Chicago. From a

The unsinkable Lindy Bergman

New York Times review of the Art Institute’s new modern wing:

…and a wonderful little tropical fantasy by Leonora Carrington. This last work is part of the museum’s extraordinary Bergman Collection of mostly Surrealist art, which forms a kind of cabinet of curiosities at the heart of the third-floor galleries.

The Bergman trove includes a phalanx of 30 boxes by Joseph Cornell, an American. That collection contains the only artists on this floor who developed outside Europe, primarily Arshile Gorky, Matta and Wifredo Lam. (The exception is the Parisian expatriate Man Ray, who is in the Bergman collection and elsewhere in these galleries.)

After donating her collection, Lindy took to writing. Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind chronicles Lindy’s journey with macular degeneration and offers suggestions on how to keep your head above water when vision loss is trying to pull you under. Lindy is the perfect role model. In her 90s now, she swims a quarter mile each day, works out with her trainer, attends meetings of organizations where she is a board member and goes to concerts and lectures. She is particularly enthusiastic about the audio cassette that comes along with her book — it features recordings of classical music as well as Lindy’s children and grandchildren. I recognized the voices of a few of the experts on the cassette — they are the same caring University of Chicago doctors that did my eye surgeries back in the 1980s. “I didn’t want it to just be my old voice droning on and on. Who’d want to listen to that?” she says with a self-deprecating laugh.”I wanted the book to be uplifting, not depressing!”

My friend Bonita has known Lindy a long time and was wise enough to introduce us when Mike and I moved to Chicago. On our first lunch date, I showed Lindy how to fix her talking watch so it’d quit announcing the time out loud every hour on the hour. We’ve been friends ever since.

The stories Lindy tells me about tracking down art with her late husband Ed sound like Hemingway novels to me. “Ed always was a collector of something or other,” Lindy says with a shrug, describing a sun porch full of aquariums when Ed was collecting tropical fish, or his enormous shell collection.

“Not just a few shells. We had a lot of them. So he really was always a collector, and I just went along with it.” They’d already been married about 10 years when she and Ed decided to take a course on the Great Books at University of Chicago. A teacher there recommended a book by the Museum of Modern Art called Masters in Modern Art. “We had a lot of books to read for class, but every night we would start reading about art. That’s how it all began. We really educated ourselves.” By the late 1950s, the Bergmans were established as Surrealist collectors. They met Wifredo Lam on a visit to Cuba in the mid-50s, and the painter met them again in Paris in 1959 to show them around. Aside from that Salvador Dali poster with the melting clocks we hung in our college dorm rooms,I don’t know a whole lot about surrealism. Lindy met a couple artists in Paris whose names I actually do recognize, though: Man Ray and Max Ernst. They met Dali on another trip to Europe.

Time flies when I’m with Lindy. She loves hearing stories about my travels with my Seeing Eye dogs, and delights when Hanni — and now, Harper — sneak away from me under the table to lie on her feet. “It keeps me warm!” she laughs. The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind is honoring Lindy Bergman at a gala at The Four Seasons tonight, and Bonita is generously sponsoring me to attend. A description of Lindy from the invitation reads like this:

Lindy has been living with macular degeneration for nearly fifteen years and has become an exemplary benefactor of The Chicago Lighthouse. In 2009, she was among those who played a critical role in helping The Lighthouse realize its goal of a new building addition. Most recently, she has helped establish the Bergman Institute for Psychological Support, where our professional rehabilitation staff counsel people who are blind or are losing their sight. Finally, she has partnered with our professional rehabilitation staff on a second “Lighthouse” edition of her book on macular degeneration, Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind.

With all of Lindy’s accomplishments, the one area where she lacks confidence is…public speaking. At our last dinner together, and in subsequent phone calls, I’ve been coaching her for the short talk she’s been asked to give at tonight’s gala. I know she’s gonna wow them. She sure has wowed me!

An extremely generous Mother’s Day gift

With a last name like Knezovich, you’d think Mike would love accordion music.

But alas, he does not.

About a year ago, the F sharp key on my accordion got stuck. Every time I’d squeeze the squeeze box, it’d play F sharp. Which would be fine if any of the tunes in my accordion repertoire were in F sharp. None are.

Mike did not weep when I told him last year that my accordion was broken. I was near tears, though, when he dialed the number for the “Buttons and Keys” division at Andy’s Music Chicago yesterday and handed me the phone. “See if they can fix your accordion,” he said. “I’ll drive you there on our way to get groceries.”

Mike may not like accordion much, but our son Gus does. The one thing Gus has always enjoyed, the one thing that motivates him and, at times, soothes him, is…music. Hip hop, jazz, new age, Cajun, punk, country & western, African…even accordion. If it’s music, Gus loves it.

Gus was born with a genetic disorder that left him physically and mentally disabled. Mike and I didn’t know a whole lot about music therapy when Gus was young, but our love of music rubbed off on our son. From the time Mike met me, he has always seen to it that we have a piano in the house. When I started losing my sight, I was also losing the ability to do things on my own — I couldn’t drive anymore, had trouble reading print, I tripped over curbs. Recognizing how important it was for me to learn to do something new, Mike went to a second-hand store and bought me a fiddle. It only took one year of screechy lessons to convince me to sell my fiddle. Earnings from the sale went towards paying a graduate student to teach me to play my piano by ear. Gus would lie across my lap as I practiced.

My former fiddle teacher recommended me to a local old-time string ban that needed a piano player. I passed the audition, and I arranged for the band to practice at our house for Gus’ sake. I started experimenting with jazz, surprising my traditional string band with an occasional flat five or minor seventh. They tolerated it.

They tolerated a lot, really. When I first joined, “Oh, Susanna” was the only old-time tune I knew. I brought my handheld tape recorder to every practice, listening and registering at home to differentiate and memorize their repertoire. At gigs, my memory would fail me. I had to be reminded what key every tune was in. And instead of the traditional eye movement or foot kick to signify song endings, the lead musician yelled “last time!” loudly enough for me to hear over my playing. I didn’t know it, but practices and performances served as therapy — I’d pound out chords when I was angry, play painfully slow on melancholy days.

Sequestered at home with a newborn, I practiced a lot.

Our old-time string band was successful enough to garner gigs outside in the summer. I couldn’t carry an upright piano with me, so I taught myself to play the accordion. Poor Mike. Who would have guessed that his thoughtful notion to buy me a used fiddle would lead to a lifetime listening to polkas on the accordion?

Good ol' Gus.

Mike and I couldn’t get away this weekend to visit Gus in his group home in Wisconsin, but that’s okay. Gus doesn’t understand that today is Mother’s Day, so we’ll just go up next weekend and celebrate Mother’s Day then. As always, it will be great just to be with him. Gus doesn’t have a piano in his group home, but if “Buttons and Keys” gets that F sharp key fixed, thanks to Mike’s generous Mother’s Day gift, maybe I’ll bring my accordion.

One well-deserved award

Harper and I are making progress! Yesterday morning he guided me downtown to teach my memoir class for senior citizens at the Chicago Cultural Center. We made it back and forth safely, and he didn’t cower once. “Attaboy, Harper!” Later that afternoon I had him guide me to Michigan Avenue to the pool where I swim. No problem. “Good dog, Harper! Way to go!”

Our successes yesterday make me feel confident about heading to Union Station with Harper this afternoon. We’re taking a train down to Champaign again, this time for a very, very happy occasion: my young friend Sandra Murillo won an award!

Loyal blog readers know about Sandra Murillo – she lost her sight when she was three and has always attended regular public schools. I met Sandra when she was still in high school – I interviewed her for a Chicago Tribune story exploring how kids who are blind are educated in the public school system. Sandra is a very impressive young woman – she’s bilingual, a great writer, sweet, smart, and funny, too. The thing that impressed me most about Sandra when I first met her, though? Her math skills! From my Tribune article:

In geometry, however, learning can be far more complicated. Using raised line drawings to read graphics, push pins and rubber bands to form angles, and special paper and pens to create diagrams, Sandra is managing a 96% in geometry so far.

Sandra and I have kept in touch ever since that article came out. We talk a lot about writing – she’s known for years that she wants to be a journalist, and she is getting A’s and B’s (mostly A’s, actually!) at the University of Illinois. The award she won will help pay her tuition next year so she can continue pursuing her degree. An email from Maureen Gilbert at U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) described the award:

The James E. Seybold Scholarship was created by his mother to provide financial support to students with disabilities who are pursuing degrees in the College of Media. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, James E. Seybold became disabled as a result of injuries sustained during the Korean War. He enrolled in the University of Illinois to pursue a degree in communications and journalism and was extremely grateful for the services provided by the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services which led to his successful career with the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

It’s hard to think of anyone more deserving of this award then Sandra Murillo. She had to draw on her own bravery and courage after surviving a terrible car crash on her way home for Thanksgiving Break during her first semester at the University of Illinois. Sandra’s father was critically injured in the accident, but thankfully he survived. Sandra’s beloved brother — and only sibling — Chris died at the scene. Sandra walked away with minor injuries. Well, minor physical injuries. The emotional injuries are, of course, more serious.

Award-winner Sandra Murillo.

Working through grief is unbelievably difficult. Sandra did not return to school until January, when she completed the finals she had missed and took on a whole new load of Spring semester classes. She made the Dean’s List.

When Sandra returned home for the summer, some people told her mother that the crash must have been easier on Sandra, her being blind and all. The reason she’d done so well in school that Spring was because she hadn’t experienced severe trauma, they said. “After all, Sandra couldn’t see what was going on.”

This attitude bothered Sandra so much that she struck up her courage and shared some of her own personal thoughts about the accident in a post here last August. I called the post Sandra the Survivor, and she definitely deserves that title.

I am so very, very proud of Sandra, and so impressed with Disability Resources and Educational Services at the University of Illinois for choosing her as the recipient of this award. I can’t wait to get to Champaign and give Sandra a big hug at the ceremony tonight.

All aboard!

Another post from the sighted guide

Hey all–I’m sort of spent after this week–so Mike’s filling in for me on this one.

Intervention

I'm rooting for them both.

So when Beth has been in New Jersey to match up with her Seeing Eye dogs in the past, people ask me where she is. After I say, “What am I, chopped liver?”– I give them the story. And I usually say something like, “You know, really, the three weeks at The Seeing Eye is to train the people, not the dogs.” And I’m not joking.

By the time Beth parted with Hanni last November, they’d been together for ten years. And I’d been there for most of that time. And I can’t remember a single thing about what it was like when Beth and Hanni came home to Urbana. All I could remember was how well they worked  together the day before Beth headed to New Jersey. Hanni had developed an uncanny sense of Beth’s routine and our routine.

So when Harper started having problems, I literally couldn’t recall what it had been like with Hanni. I think that means Beth didn’t have any problems with her in the early months–otherwise I’d remember. Then again, Hanni had come home to Urbana–which presents its own challenges, to be sure. For one, sometimes the lack of traffic means an absence of audible cues for Beth to use to make crossing decisions. And Urbana, for all its quaintness, has–at least in our old neighborhood–horrible sidewalks. The old paving-block things are in horrible repair and pretty much impassable in spots–people routinely walk on the street instead. If you’re in a wheelchair, forget it. Drivers are erratic–students from the suburbs, just-licensed international students, farmers, parents of college students–not a good mix.

But all in all, Urbana ain’t nothin’ compared to coming home to the center of Chicago. So it’s hard to compare Harper’s performance to Hanni’s in the early months. And the important thing is, it doesn’t matter–Harper has to cut it or, eventually, cut out.

That’s not what anyone wants. Not The Seeing Eye, which spends tens of thousands of dollars breeding, raising, and training each dog. Not Beth, who’s already invested three weeks of her time in New Jersey and has worked hard to get her and Harper on the same page. And not me. I loved the guy the first time I laid eyes on him.

So The Seeing Eye sent one of their fine instructors to the rescue–we hope–last week. Nicole is a twenty-something with a presence that belies her age. She went for a walk with Beth on day one, and I sat in on the debriefing afterward. It was something of a relief to hear her thinking through what she guessed Harper was thinking when he clenched up and froze in his tracks on route. This anthropomorphizing is something Beth and I do routinely and then check ourselves. Who knows what Harper thinks? We just need him to work. But Nicole studied him–just as we had been doing–for clues.

In the end, she decided that he wants to do well so badly and wants not to screw up so badly that when it comes to decisions and ambiguity, he’d rather just fade away. Faced with ambiguity, all he sees is the opportunity to screw up. So he freezes. I wish I didn’t understand exactly what Nicole was talking about, but I did–and it made a lot of sense.

And, we learned, it doesn’t make a lick of difference unless Beth changes her behavior. The long and short of it is, Beth hadn’t been doing anything that explains Harper’s behavior. She didn’t cause these bad-dog days. But she had forgotten a lot–mostly, how to correct mistakes and to provide Harper clear cues about what was expected. After all, Beth hadn’t needed to for years.

So she and Harper are back to the basics. They’re doing really dreary things like this: At an intersection where they both know they always turn left, they still have to go to the curb as if they’re going straight. Harper needs to wait there until Beth commands “left.” She has to be the one in charge, the one deciding when and if they turn. Not Harper. So back to boot camp. It’s a total grind. But so far, it seems to be helping. And I hope that continues. Because Harper’s a really good guy, and I don’t want Beth to be gone another three weeks. Once every 10 years or so is OK, but that’s quite enough.