[NFBofAlaska] Saw this and had to share!

[lucas.bonnie at gmail.com]

Hanging Up the Harness Thursday, September 29, 2022 by Schulzman Walter
Shannon McCann (aka Schulz) My name is Schulzman Walter Shannon McCann, but
most people call me Schulz or "Good Boy." I'm a seven-year-old black lab and
for about five years, I was a Seeing Eye dog. So many people think that just
because guide dog handlers are blind, we, the dogs, do all of the work.
That's inaccurate. I was an equal partner with my mom. (She named herself
that; not all handlers do.) She knew where to go and how to navigate things
such as traffic. I got us where we needed to be, safely. It took both of us
working in tandem to be a successful team. We trained at the Seeing Eye
which is a guide-dog-training school. There are many schools around the
world. There are also programs designed by handlers who train their own
dogs.

While I was working, I went everywhere with Mom. It was legal for me to
accompany her as a service animal though we experienced a lot of
discrimination.

(I'm looking at you Uber/Lyft.)  Of course, I had to be clean and well
behaved, but that wasn't a problem for us. Unfortunately, the biggest
obstacle for us was interference by other people and animals. I can't tell
you how many times people tried talking to me, making noises at me or even
grabbing my harness handle while I was trying to work. Even scarier was the
amount of untrained, uncontrolled dogs who tried to come at me while I was
working. Thankfully, I was never harmed by these animals. Sadly, there have
been many service dogs who have had to retire because of trauma caused by
attacks.

In 2019, I hurt my paw while playing. My veterinarian diagnosed me with
something called lupus. I got medicine, and we had it under control.
However, last summer, I started walking very slowly. Trips that usually took
us five or ten minutes were taking almost twenty. Mom worked with the Seeing
Eye and my veterinarian to figure out what was going on. It turned out that
the lupus was flaring up. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that never goes
away, and since mine affects my paws, my mom knew that it was in my best
interest to retire. You may be wondering what guide dog retirement is. Well,
it's very similar to human retirement. We simply stop working. We are
considered pets during retirement. That means that just like animals who
were always pets, we are not allowed in public places as before. While my
reason for retirement was health related, there are many reasons for service
dogs to end our careers. Some of us go back to the people who raised us,
some of us go to new families, and like me some get to stay with their
handlers. Transitioning from guide dog to pet took some getting used to for
all of us in my family. I had to learn to relax and not worry about working,
and my mom had to rely on her white cane. It's hard for me to watch her
leave with her cane every morning. I very much still want to guide her, but
I know she has the skills to come back to me safely. It is so nice to lounge
around and rest as much as I need to in preparation for when my parents come
home to play with me. You may think that as the daytime queen of the house,
I lay around with nothing to do. This is mostly true, but I do keep my
little cat sister in line and wait for the mail carrier to drop our daily
correspondence through the slot for me to sniff. The thing I miss most about
guiding is working together with Mom to find our destinations. The thing I
miss the least is people distracting me and out-of-control pets crossing my
path. If there is one thing I'd like for people to remember, it is that
guide dogs serve a purpose and should be respected as half of a team trying
to make its way through the world.

 

Bonnie

 

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