[NAGDU] FW: [Njagdu] To Prove Their Chops, Guide Dogs Hit Streets of Midtown Manhattan

Wed Nov 21 20:26:16 UTC 2018

Tracy, that is a pretty neat article. Besides, that one woman is 73. This
means there is still hope for me. Only now I have to have my shoulder
repaired first.
Cindy Lou Ray
cindyray at gmail.com

-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione via NAGDU
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2018 1:50 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net>
Subject: [NAGDU] FW: [Njagdu] To Prove Their Chops, Guide Dogs Hit Streets
of Midtown Manhattan

>From the Ne York Times a couple weeks ago.

Tracy

To Prove Their Chops, Guide Dogs Hit Streets of Midtown Manhattan

A school for Seeing Eye dogs uses the chaos of New York City as its ultimate
test when matching young dogs with their blind masters.

The New York Times

By Corey Kilgannon Nov. 6, 2018

Innes, a youthful German shepherd, was trying to make his way across a
frenetic Manhattan intersection near Central Park and found himself facing
down

all sorts of projectiles - yellow cabs, bike messengers, pedicabs - as a
deafening truck horn blasted and the traffic light changed against him.

But Innes was not negotiating this chaotic scene while out for an afternoon
stroll. He was safeguarding his new master, Kathy Faul, 73, a blind woman
from

Swarthmore, Pa.

Both were relative strangers to New York City, but they had ventured into
Manhattan expressly for moments like this, to experience its particular
brand

of street-level chaos, as the culmination of a thorough course of training
by 

the Seeing Eye,

a guide dog school in Morristown, N.J. Founded in 1929, it is the nation's
oldest training school for dogs and one of the largest of its kind. It even

holds the trademark for the phrase "seeing eye."

The school's training is done in a suburban setting far calmer than Midtown
Manhattan, an hour's drive away. But for its ultimate challenge, and to
assess

a dog's focus, trainers take the student-dog pairs into Manhattan as
something of a proving ground.

Ozma, a guide dog, and her new master, Val Gee, 26, from Dayton, Ohio,
navigated Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. They were assisted by an instructor,
Kristen

Oplinger, left.CreditDave Sanders for The New York Times

"There's no more intense place than New York City to train the dogs - it's
the craziest environment they've ever been in," said Brian O'Neal, a Seeing

Eye trainer. "At the end of the training, the idea is, 'O.K., they know the
basics. Now can they handle the grind of the city?' "

"I'm half scared, half so excited," said Ms. Faul, gripping the stiff
leather handle strapped to Innes. "But I figure, like the song says, if I
can make

it here, I can make it anywhere."

Making it here involves navigating obstacles and potential hazards, from
potholes to work zones to throngs of distracted pedestrians - not to mention
the

traffic madness Ms. Faul was now experiencing, which included a close
encounter between Innes and a horse and buggy.

To their credit, Ms. Faul and Innes remained calm. She nudged Innes back on
course, so he could lead her to the curb safely.

They had begun the route in a rooftop parking lot above the Port Authority
Bus Terminal, the starting point of a loop plotted specifically "to get them

the best distractions," said Ms. Faul's trainer, Kristen DeMarco.

After squeezing into a packed elevator, they were soon slipping through
subway turnstiles and being led by their dogs through crowds of commuters.
They

braved a packed stairway to the train platform, while being jostled by
crowds.

The dogs remained calm on the subway platform, despite the clatter of
passing trains and the blare of announcements.

"She keeps her focus really well," Ms. Gee said, patting Ozma, a retriever
mix.

For Ms. Gee, a psychotherapist from Dayton, Ohio, this was only her second
time in New York City, after visiting as a 19-year-old when being paired
with

her first guide dog, which she recently retired.

"This is quite different from Dayton," said Ms. Gee who, with her
instructor, Kristen Oplinger, boarded an uptown C train and sat next to a
sleeping passenger,

while Ozma curled up under the seat.

At Columbus Circle, they headed up the escalator to the street. The first
test was neither traffic- nor pedestrian-related, but rather a tiny dog that

was being walked nearby and intrigued Innes.

It would be the first of many tests of the dogs' concentration. There would
also be countless new smells, from well-visited fire hydrants to aromatic
street

vendors.

The sidewalks themselves were obstacle courses, with open basement doors
creating gaping shaftways. There were gridlocked intersections, fluttering
pigeons

and jackhammers loud enough to interfere with dog-owner communication.

Columbus Circle was flooded with lunchtime crowds. The first challenge was
the traffic rotary. The dogs stopped at the curb, as they were trained, and

both Ms. Faul and Ms. Gee listened to the flow of traffic, to detect if the
cars had stopped for the light. Then each gave her dog a forward command and

proceeded to cross.

The dogs receive four months of training at the Seeing Eye, learning to
guide around obstacles and obey commands, as well as street-crossing skills,
including

how to watch for traffic and keep their handlers safe from vehicles that
might be turning or running lights.

Officials with the Seeing Eye said they pair roughly 260 dogs each year with
blind people living in the United States and Canada. Most live in some urban

environment - largely because of public transportation, walkability and
other services - and a handful live in New York City.

Dogs who do not prefer an urban setting can be paired with owners who tend
not to be city-goers. Owners train alongside their dogs while boarding at
the

school for several weeks. Their stay culminates with the trip to Manhattan.

While not exactly a test, Manhattan's conditions present the dogs with
intense conditions that can help reveal training aspects to work on.

"It's a training experience that offers more than anywhere else we can take
them," said Dave Johnson, director of instruction and training at the Seeing

Eye. "Almost anything can happen in one day in New York - it's a culmination
of sensory overload, even for humans."

The dogs partnered with Ms. Faul and Ms. Gee were handling it all pretty
well. They wove through pedestrians like a slalom course. Like harried New
Yorkers,

the dogs seemed stymied by slow-walking tourists. They nudged up to them and
waited for a narrow opening to lead their owners past.

"She's so smooth about it," said Ms. Gee, who began losing her vision in
early childhood because of a genetic disorder.

Ms. Faul said she was happy with Innes's confidence.

"You need to have that gumption," said Ms. Faul, a retired computer
programmer who lost her sight in a car accident while in college. "When I
felt him

go through those people, I knew he was a New Yorker."

Ahead was a hot dog cart whose vendor was playing Middle Eastern music. Ms.
Gee avoided the cart but hit her head on a plastic sign that was hanging off

it. She circled Ozma back to remind him to see obstacles at eye level.

Guiding Eyes For the Blind, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., in Westchester
County, and the 

Guide Dog Foundation in Smithtown, N.Y., on Long Island, also train dogs in
Manhattan.

Many other schools train dogs in urban environments. But New York stands
apart, said Marion Gwizdala, president of the National Association of Guide
Dog

Users. "Most cities," he said, "don't have the hustle and bustle of Midtown
Manhattan."

Even for dogs and owners who do not visit cities, urban training can help
prepare them for chaotic situations, such as shopping malls or carnivals, he

added.

As Ms. Faul and Ms. Gee headed along Seventh Avenue, the dogs guided them
around 

scaffolding supports that partially blocked sidewalk

s and around a work zone. The dogs looped around a Coca-Cola truck blocking
a crosswalk and later avoided a yellow cab that swooped around a corner
toward

them.

There were moments for instruction, too, as when Innes suddenly made a sharp
right - toward the open door of a perfume store. The dogs would soon get
used

to such distractions, Ms. DeMarco said. For now, Ms. Faul pulled him back on
course.

As visual as Times Square is, with its billboards and swarm of activity, Ms.
Faul said that its aural energy was also impressive.

"I feel like I'm in a carnival city," she said. "All the noise, all the
beeps, all the people, the different languages you hear. The noise echoes
off the

buildings. It's like being at Mardi Gras. Crowds of people everywhere."

They walked by the TKTS booth selling theater tickets and headed past
Broadway theaters. Ms. Gee praised the way Ozma ignored the blaring sirens
and kept

her away from creeping tour buses and rumbling dump trucks.

"She seems to focus even better in the chaos," she said, adding that there
was only one problem.

"She's going to be disappointed when we go home."

Follow Corey Kilgannon on Twitter: 

@coreykilgannon

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 6, 2018, on Page A23 of
the New York edition with the headline: To Prove Their Chops, Guide Dogs Hit

Streets of Midtown. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/nyregion/guide-dogs-blind.html