[nagdu] Description of my achievement walk at Pilot

[Carmella Broome]

For those  who are interested, here is  the description I wrote in a FaceBook note about my achievement walk at Pilot Dogs with Brooklyn on June 11 2014. This walk takes place a couple days before  the team is scheduled to graduate so they can  redo it the next day if necessary.  

Excerpts from  my note:
I knew we would have our achievement walk the next day so we tried to get to bed early that night. They tell us not to get nervous about these walks, but its hard to help it, of course. Successful completion of this walk means a student and their Pilot Dog will "graduate" and go home together as a new working team. 

I wondered which trainer  would be  going withus. Our regular trainer  does not  take us on this  walk.   We go out with  a trainer who hasn't done any formal work with the team so they can  give an objective report back to our primary trainer on what they observed. The trainers who  accompanied me and my first two dogs on what used to be called the "test walk" were still there.  I'd  enjoyed  saying  hello and joking around with both of them on several occasions during my  training with Brooklyn. 

Long-time trainer Steve G came in  right at 8:00 the next morning and asked me to go ahead and harness Brooklyn up.    Several classmates wished us luck and we headed  for the front gate. As we were leaving, our trainer Ryan said, "Have fun!"  I said, "That's the best  you've got for me?" He said, "That's all you need." 

We were gone for  over an hour. We  did several crossings near the school,  got a van ride downtown from another trainer, did some work there, caught a  bus back to a couple blocks from Pilot Dogs,  and walked back to the school.  This route was similar to  my previous "test walks," but  I didn't have to memorize the whole route and carry it out  the way I'd had to when doing my "test walks" with Poppy and Maggie. Steve gave me  small pieces of the route as we went.  For example, he would say, "We're going to go to the end of this block, turn right, cross the street next to us, and  then walk another block."  Once we completed  a set of instructions, Steve would give me the next few things he wanted us to do. He would include the names of the streets, as well, since we'd done all of the crossings at least a couple times before. 

We didn't talk much other than that.  Steve walked a few feet behind us and watched our work. Again, this was similar to previous "test walks." This wasn't the time for chatting, though we did  talk some about what we were doing along the way. My job was to  show that Brooklyn and I could communicate  and travel together reliably when faced with  traffic,  obstacles, and distractions. Steve would be paying attention to how I was giving Brooklyn commands, responding to her  movements and  the information I was receiving through the harness,   praising or correcting her  as I'd been taught, making decisions about  street crossings, and staying oriented to my surroundings. 

I liked  doing the achievement walk this way much better than how the "test walk" had been done before. I'd successfully completed it the first time with Poppy and Maggie and had felt good about my ability to remember, and carry out, an entire route safely and efficiently with my  new dog.  This  format   was less distracting and  less anxiety-provoking, though.   Just keeping track of a piece of the route at  a time freed up a lot of mental energy so I could stay much more focussed on  Brooklyn and our teamwork. 

When we got downtown, rush hour traffic was still  going.  Then, at 9:00,  some church bells started ringing.  They kept going for what must have been 20 minutes (no exaggeration).  Song after song. They were distracting, made it harder for me to hear traffic, and my ears didn't exactly find them pleasant (I like church bells, but these were a little too clangy).  Every time I thought they were finally done, they'd start again! I  must have said, "No way! You've got to be kidding!?!" three different times.  By the time they finally stopped, I was completely annoyed.  Steve said they didn't plan  that into  the route on purpose and that those bells had been broken for a while.  He didn't even know they were working again much less that they would go on for so long.  

We got back before the rain started, at around 9:30. I thanked Steve and he said he would talk with Ryan about how things went. I knew Ryan would be the one to deliver the "final verdict." I took Brooklyn's harness off, and went to get her some water and give her the chance to  go potty again. I wished a few things had gone a little better, but overall, I thought  we'd done fine and  stayed safe, which is obviously the most important thing for a guide dog team to be able to do. I'd taken  my time calling the intersections and knew I'd  made good decisions about when to  tell Brooklyn to cross. 

Brooklyn had handled several things particularly well, including  confidently leading me to the  front door when  Steve instructed  me to tell her to "find out"  when we were  in CVS. For the  most part, she had been focussed and  steady. We'd shown good teamwork. I'd let her guide me and  make the decisions she was supposed to make. She'd been responsive to my commands, praise,  and   verbal encouragement or redirection. We'd communicated and  done what  we'd been asked to do.  

I  told myself that, if we had to do the walk again for whatever reason, that would just mean more practice and that would be okay. I wasn't there to impress anyone. I was there to learn and to  leave feeling confident that my dog and I were a safe and   solid working team. I went to my room and stayed busy on my computer instead of sitting around thinking about  it.  The outcome would be what it would be. 

We finally found out  around 11:45. We passed!  Wayne shook our hands and hugged us. He said congratulations and  that he knew we'd worked hard.  It was touching how genuinely happy for us and excited he seemed.  I knew he'd  seen hundreds of teams go through this process  but he acted like  it really mattered to him that  we'd done well. Ryan said he was  proud of us and reminded us how far we'd come  in just over  a week. It was a relief  to know we'd successfully completed this  final formal assessment of our ability to work together. I still wanted to make the most of my time there under trainer supervision, and we still had things to do as part of the formal training experience, but the pressure was off. Brooklyn and I would be headed back to SC on Friday.    

End of Excerpt