[nabs-l] Back for a Seeing Eye Dog, One Year Later

[Joe]

You guys remember my controversial post about guide dogs? 5 reasons why it's
a terrible idea? Well, here's a sequel of sorts. Life one year later,
primarily aimed at anyone still weighing the pros and cons of getting a
guide dog:

***

What's it like to use a Seeing Eye dog? Think of it this way:

You close your eyes and take the elbow of a well-known person willing to
guide you around tables, chairs, out the door, across the street, down the
stairs and along a platform until you find the door to a train car where
this traveling companion can be trusted to help you find an open seat. And
your trust is absolute because between the ears of this human companion you
know there is an intelligent brain capable of negotiating obstacles,
anticipating danger and prioritizing safety.

But, that's a human. Would you put the same level of trust in an animal?
Even a highly trained canine?

The Decision Process

I first went to The Seeing Eye in the summer of 2004 to get my first dog, a
two-year-old German shepherd named Gator. We worked together until the
winter of 2012. He worked until I had to put him down, because the abdominal
cancer had grown too large for anything to be done about it. Never mind that
his health results had come back clean only six weeks prior.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://joeorozco.com/blog_back_for_a_seeing_eye_dog_one_year_later

Joe

--
Musings of a Work in Progress:
www.JoeOrozco.com/

Twitter: @ScribblingJoe