We Warmly Welcome Whit

Hi folks, it’s me again — Mike Knezovich, aka Beth’s husband. Feels like the movie “Groundhog Day,” or “Groundhog Year.” The time since Beth left for the Seeing Eye last November seems to have flown by. And like last year, I’ll be getting dispatches from Beth —  who will be very, very busy, not to mention tired — at The Seeing Eye during training. I’ll try to fill Beth’s blog shoes while she’s gone, and pass along her news as it comes.

And some just came: It’s a girl. Named Whitney. The trainer says she goes by just “Whit” most of the time.

She’s a Yellow Lab/Golden Retriever cross (like Hanni) who Beth guesses to be a little taller than Hanni. They met around 1 p.m. today (Monday), and Beth called with the news while sitting on the floor with Whitney nuzzling up to her. No pictures yet, but I’ll post them as soon as I get any.

Now the real work begins.

Not that Beth hasn’t been busy since she flew to New Jersey on Saturday. She’s been on training walks with instructors, sat in lectures and had her time scheduled solid. When she calls she’s typically interrupted by an intercom announcement calling students to the next activity.

Which is great, because the last three weeks — and really, the last couple months — have been a slog. We both were reminded of how independent Beth is with a Seeing Eye dog, and how much more she has to depend on me without. Plus, there has been sort of a dark cloud around this year’s trip. Last year was certainly bittersweet, what with Hanni heading off to retirement. But it was filled with the excitement of a new dog, and looking forward to another long partnership between Beth and her new dog. That didn’t turn out, and this trip has had a tinge of sadness and fatigue about it from the beginning.

So it was terrific to hear Beth and Whitney on the phone. Beth was upbeat and giggling, and I can’t wait to meet Whit. I’m confident it’ll be a good match, and that with just a bit of luck, this will prove to be a long partnership. By the time the dogs get this far, they have proven they have the right stuff. According to The Seeing Eye, 60 percent of the dogs born at the Seeing Eye make it to the training stage. Eighty percent of the dogs who make it to training stage go on to be placed with a blind person and work as a Seeing Eye dog. So about half the dogs — who are carefully bred by The Seeing Eye  – end up being placed as guides.

Beth’s first dog, Pandora, worked until the age of 12 and lived to 17. Hanni worked until 11 and we hope she matches Dora in longevity. Harper worked less than a year, but it was truly a “dog year.” Besides a harrowing near-miss with a car, he managed to run into a lot of other difficult situations that were mostly a matter of bad luck. Including walking into the elevator that happened to be occupied by two skittish Chows that lunged at and bit him.

So while it’s sad about Harper, I don’t for a second consider the time a failure. I do miss scratching his big lovable head, though. And I’ll always be grateful for the job he did for Beth, and for The Seeing Eye.

How old are guide dogs when they retire?

That's Dora -- my first Seeing Eye dog -- off duty during a stroll on the beach. She retired at age twelve.

The average working life for a Seeing Eye® dog is 7-8 years. Hanni turned ten in February. I was supposed to head back to the Seeing Eye next month to train with a new dog, but I postponed the trip. I can’t let Hanni go.

I had a hard time letting my first Seeing Eye dog retire, too. Dora worked until she was twelve. I know now that it wasn’t fair to keep her working so long — she needed a break. I don’t want to make the same mistake with Hanni, but I’m just not ready to train with a new dog. Not yet.

When I finally do let poor Hanni retire and enjoy her senior years, we’ll have three options:

• I can bring Hanni back too the Seeing Eye, and they’ll find someone to adopt her, or
• we can find a friend who wants to adopt her, or
• we can keep her as a pet, and when I bring my new Seeing Eye dog home we’d have two dogs.

Hanni is healthy. She is good in traffic, and still knows her lefts from her rights. Her tail still wags when I grab her harness off its hook and call her to go outside. But Hanni can’t keep a good pace anymore. Long walks make her tired. Most of her time at home is spent sleeping. As much as I try to avoid thinking about it, it’s time for Hanni to retire.

As if to remind me, an email from the Seeing Eye arrived in my “in box” this week. Subject matter: Seeing Eye grads invited to participate in study

The Seeing Eye has agreed to distribute information about upcoming research into the factors contributing to early retirement of service and working dogs.

The study is being conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. The research team at Penn Veterinary School is seeking the help of owners of service and working dogs. Specifically, they are looking for people whose current guide or service dogs are from The Seeing Eye, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, or Canine Companions for Independence, and are interested in participating in this important study.

Participants will be asked to complete online (web based) surveys about their dogs’ recent health, behavior and activities twice yearly for a period of 2-3 years. You may also be asked to comb some hair samples from your dog’s fur and return them to Penn Vet School in prepaid envelopes. These samples will be analyzed for the stress hormone cortisol.

Send dog fur via U.S. Mail? It sounds so…well..so voodoo! They had me right there. I wanted to sign up just for that. Hanni is so close to retirement, though, they couldn’t possibly want her as part of the study, would they? Yes, they would.

The researchers wish to collect data on working guide and service dogs of all ages regardless of their current health status or proximity to retirement.

I think I’ll sign up. If you happen to be a guide dog user, and you think you’d like to participate, too, you can go to the survey to provide your name and email address (as well as the name, breed and age of your dog) to indicate your willingness to be considered for the study.