Rolling, rolling, rolling

Hey, everybody — Beth found time to update her “day in the life of a Seeing Eye Trainee” post from last year. So I’m off the hook for today, will check in again in a couple days–Mike.

Had a visitor–Maria–last weekend. (Photo: Stephanie Bellucci)

• 5:30 a.m. dog-related Music comes through intercoms to wake us up. Today it was “Rawhide.” You know, rolling, rolling, rolling, keep your doggies rolling…”
• 5:35 Put bell on Whitney’s collar.
• 5:40 Trainer comes to each door with a bowl of food; Whitney must stay in her assigned place by my bedpost as I answer the door. The bell on her collar gives her away if she moves off her place, and she has to go back if she ever wants me to place the bowl of food in front of her: she can’t have her food until she stays in her place.
• 5:45 Whitney inhales her food, then I heel her to the bathroom (heal as in walk with leash, but no harness), measure out three cups of water, she drinks what she wants, and I empty out any water she didn’t drink into our bathroom sink.
• 5:47 Buckle Whitney’s harness onto her, snap my raincoat onto me.
• 6:50 am Give Whitney “forward,” left,” and “right” commands so she can guide me out to the courtyard for her “park time.” I unbuckle Whitney’s harness and join the other 18 blind people with our dogs circling around us, all of us urging our dog to empty. Trainers are with us and call out to let us know when we’ve had success: “#1 for Dilbert!” and Dilbert’s owner whoops it up to encourage him to always go on command. “Harry has a #2!” And his owner squeals with delight. Whitney usually does her #1 AND #2 fairly quickly, and once your dog does both you can buckle their harness back on and have your happy dog lead you back into the building, where it’s warm and dry. using the “inside!” command.
• 6:00 a.m. Whitney guides me back to our room, I pick up her empty bowl and give her “right” and “left” commands so she can guide me to the nearest lounge to set her empty bowl in the sink there. I bring a “to go” cup of coffee I’d brought back from dinner the night before, too, and use the microwave (it has Braille on it) and push the buttons to warm the coffee.
• 6:15 Back in room, unbuckle Whit’s harness again. She heels on leash when we’re in our room. I take Shower. Get dressed again.
• 6:30 Buckle Whitney’s harness on again, she follows my commands to lead me to nurse’s office. Whit slinks under my chair while nurse checks my blood sugar level. I inject appropriate insulin
• 6:45 Announcement over intercom “first floor ladies, head down to the dining room” or “men from upstairs, start heading to breakfast.” We all parade down to the dining room, our dogs leading the way.
• 7:00 Each student has an assigned seat in the dining room, we give dogs a series of commands to go “left” “forward” or “right” to get to our seat and praise them when they achieve their goal.
• 7:15 Breakfast. The dining room is lovely, white tablecloths and all. Waiters and waitresses come to get our orders so the dogs will know how to act in a restaurant. After breakfast, waiters and waitresses become housekeepers, they vacuum our rooms, make our beds, supply new towels in our rooms. People who are blind are capable of cooking and cleaning (shhhh! Don’t tell Mike), it’s just that while we’re here the Seeing Eye wants us to devote every second to our dogs.
• 8:00 Off in vans to training center in downtown Morristown.
• 8:15 Today we worked a route that includes T-intersections, four-way stoplights, a two-way stop sign, talking walk signals, left turns, two right turns. Our trainer walks behind Whitney and me, observing how she leads and how I follow her moves. He gives me verbal clues to let me know where we are or what might lie ahead: a barricade across the sidewalk that will force Whitney to lead me into the street, then back up a curb and onto the sidewalk again, a woman walking her dog and coming our way, and traffic checks provided by the Seeing Eye.
• 9:30 Catch shuttle from the training center back to the Seeing Eye school
• 9:50 Down to nurse’s office for blood sugar test. At home I don’t test my blood sugar this often, but the schedule here is so different than at home it’s good to have it checked to make sure.
• 10:00 Tea time. This is optional, but I usually go. Another opportunity for Whitney to learn to sit quietly under a table, plus get to meet other Seeing Eye students and staff.
• 10:35 Take walk alone with Whitney on the leisure path, this is a path on the grounds here with no intersections, no traffic. A chance for dogs to work in harness without much stress put on them.
• 11:00 am Announcement over intercom tells us to give dogs three cups of water again, empty out any water they didn’t drink and then take them to park time.
• 11:15 Down to nurse’s office for blood test
• 11:30 Make my way with Whitney to the grand piano in the Eustis Lounge — it’s a Yamaha and sounds beautifully bright. Play the piano until they announce it’s time for lunch.
• Noon Lunch
• 12:45 Take Whitney for an additional park time, always a good idea to give the dogs an extra chance to park before we go out and work. Don’t want them to have to empty while en route.
• 1:00 p.m. Van ride with fellow students and their dogs down to training center in downtown Morristown.
• 1:15 We rework the route we did this morning,our trainer fine-tuning his suggestions for correcting, scolding, praising and following our dogs.
• 2:30 Shuttle bus back to living quarters.
• 2:45 Whitney follows my commands to guide me downstairs to the grooming room. “Good girl, Whitney!” , I groom her.
• 3:00 Nurses office for blood test.
• 3:15 Downstairs to do laundry, they have Braille labels on the washers and dryers so we know “small” or medium” loads, that sort of thing.
• 4:15 go through our daily obedience ritual: heal, come, sit, down. Rest. “Good girl, Mizz Whit!”
• 4:25 Unbuckle Whitney’s harness, put bell on her collar, throw a kong toy around for her to fetch, play with nyla bone.
• 4:40 Announcement over intercom says to tell our dogs to “go to your place” and sit still there, Whitney’s place is a rug in the corner near the head of my bed. . Trainer comes to each door with a bowl of food. Same drill as the morning: Whitney has to stay in her place by our bedpost as I answer the door. The bell on her collar gives heraway if she moves off her place. Today the bell finked on her, she had moved away from her place , so she had to go back. Second time was the charm. She stayed at her place, and she was rewarded with her bowl of food.
• 4:45 Whitney inhales her delicious dry dogfood dinner, I heal her to bathroom, measure out three cups of water, she drinks what she wants, I empty out any water she didn’t drink.
• 4:47 Buckle Whitney’s harness on again, I don my raincoat, and out to courtyard for “park time.”
• 5:15 Call for dinner.
• 6:30 Upstairs to common lounge for class lecture. There’s a lecture on a different topic every night, topics include: handling traffic, appropriate corrections, clicker training, dealing with dog distractions, and one by a Seeing Eye veterinarian on keeping our dogs healthy. Having to go upstairs for these lectures teaches our dogs to negotiate stairways. We also go down a flight of stairs for park time, plus downstairs for grooming and laundry purposes.
• 7:30 Free time: I usually play with Whitney during this free time, playtime is encouraged to keep up the bonding. Plus, it’s fun!
• 8:00 Announcement over intercom: Give each dog one cup of water, dress warm and out for park time.
• 8:15 See nurse for one last blood sugar and injection of overnight insulin.
• 8:30 Put Whitney on chain near head of the bed. Whitney usually falls asleep right away, and I’m never far behind her. Tomorrow morning we’ll be doing that complicated route solo — our trainer will be watching, but far behind us, out of earshot. We’ll need a good night’s rest. Zzzzzzzzz…

Please keep those encouraging blog comments coming, they really do motivate us to keep working!