[Ohio-talk] White Cane Guy guidedogs and white canes

[Marianne Denning]

David, that is great!  I have a dog and people think the dog takes me
to Kroeger, Dollar General...  How can you, a blind man, be let out in
the world without, at least, a dog to take care of you?  You know dogs
are smarter than blind people.  You are really their pet and your dogs
take you out for walks.  I am sure they fix your meals too.

On 11/11/14, David Cohen via Ohio-talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> If you enjoyed reading about White Cane Guy I think this is twice as
> good.  If you didn't then let Del eat it.
>
> If ever there was a loaded statement, seeing is believing packs the
> equivalent of the funniest Looney Tunes gags.  I’m thinking of
> Yosemite Sam in the episode about the singing sword wherein he finds
> himself along with the loveably innocent resident dragon inside the
> castle turret surrounded with explosives and the dragon’s desperate
> need to sneeze fire again.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUCUQJBmpdQ
>
> Seeing and believing is one thing and it is quick and easy.  Observing
> and allowing the facts to be revealed takes time and patience, and
> very often that which is revealed needs no words of explanation for
> the truth of it is a feeling of knowing.  Or, if any words at all are
> spoken the result is an “Oh my God” moment and that’s all folks.  The
> question is then, how many times has public education about blindness
> resulted in an oh my God moment?  In short, there’s a whole lot more
> of them than there is of us, us and them is an expression of division
> and when you think you know more about them than they do about you
> works both ways and includes so many peopled examples.
>
> I have two black dogs which I walk routinely.  The elder is Maggie and
> she is 100% Labrador and the younger male is Snerdley and he is at
> least half Labrador and possibly more as he is always mistaken for
> Labrador but his crescent-curve tail, his pinched-short ears and his
> twin elongated canine teeth which bow inwards to his mouth leads me to
> think he’s got something else in his bloodline...  possibly Burmese
> Python or the vampire Lestat.  So when I am asked, and I am very often
> asked about the dogs I like to say that I have 1.5 servings of the
> recommended daily allowance of Labrador.
>
> The three of us were out walking as we do at least twice daily and
> this particular day is the late afternoon of the Labor Day holiday and
> parade.  The parade began at ten o’clock in the morning and finished
> by noon.  Now the traffic outside on State Route 48 passes at a
> reduced volume like a Sunday evening as opposed to the normal weekday
> ever-present and rushing volume one can expect from the most
> heavily-traveled road within the state of Ohio’s second largest
> suburb.
>
> The sidewalk on which we are walking is blocked entirely by twin
> aluminum bleachers positioned outside the board of education building
> two blocks north of my home, and additionally the city has stationed
> portable toilets intermittently a few yards from the corners of select
> blocks both north and south along the one mile stretch of the parade’s
> route.  Years ago when I was passing one such port-o-John and struck
> the backside of the molded plastic enclosure with my cane a bit too
> forcefully a surprised voice called out from within, “Just a minute.
> Occupied.”  The smile that spread across my face had a life of its own
> as I recalled how many times I had accidentally knocked the doors of
> hotel rooms, apartment doors and cubicle walls at work before I
> thought to apply a softer touch in such a situation.
>
> We circumnavigated the portable toilet stationed on the sidewalk
> between my driveway and the nearest corner to my house and I’ve
> knocked and identified with my cane the wooden sawhorse barriers
> placed in the crosswalk of this first street adjacent to my house to
> block any through traffic from entering the parade procession.  My
> cane tap echoes the location of the upcoming curb and I sweep for the
> wheelchair ramp on the other side and we three step up onto the next
> block.  Maggie stops after a few yards to sniff at a routine spot, and
> ahead of me I hear a voice and several footsteps and the voice is
> rising in volume as it approaches.  I realize as the voice draws
> closer that it is the voice of a man and walking along with him and
> behind him are younger people.
>
> “Stay to the side everybody those dogs are working” he announces and
> as the group of persons passes I exchange neighborly greetings
> perfunctorily because it’s important that my primary focus remain on
> Maggie who on occasion relieves herself at this spot and I need to
> attend my civic duty and pick up if nature calls.
>
> “Hi. Hello. How are ya.”
>
> “Hello sir, hi, hi sir” three voices of younger people speak in
> passing and I smile but do not take my full attention away from Maggie
> who is rooting in the grass to my left at the end of her leash like an
> Iowa hog and snorting just as loudly.  This informs me that she is not
> thinking of relieving but searching for edibles probably.  If you have
> a Labrador of your own or have ever lived with such a dog you know
> that no other appetite on earth compares, not even that of
> professional athletes injected with HGH and steroids.  I do believe
> that if I ever spilled mustard or ketchup onto her that she’d consume
> herself into nothingness and find a way of communicating with me
> spiritually to beg for something else.
>
> “Those dogs are working the man tells the kids behind him and I hear
> his voice like the informational voice that interrupts television
> broadcasts to announce that a test of the Emergency Broadcast System
> is taking place, that such is only a test and that if such was not a
> test that I would be advised to take shelter and only to Tweet or post
> to Facebook if the tornado strikes my neighbor’s home.
>
> I give Maggie a cursory leash tug to signal to her to come along and
> the three of us are walking northwards again.  I have the twin leashes
> in my left hand, my cane in my right and keep the dogs always to my
> left which took some patience and a lot of repetition to train into
> them.  Obviously I cannot have one or both of them crossing in front
> of me to my right side to sniff routinely but sometimes they cannot
> resist.  Two legs or four, you cannot beat the arc of the cane is what
> I like to say, and many times I’ve tickled the pad of a dog foot.  Dog
> feat are so cool and especially Labrador duck-style feat.
>
> The way I went about managing this dog-walking coordination was to
> simply use the common stainless steel choker chains so that I could
> heel them both quickly with a catch and release tug/signal, and
> shorten the length of leash or leashes as necessary – Maggie always
> the culprit - without the vinyl cloth collar rubbing and/or holding
> uncomfortably against the neck.  This is not at all as cumbersome as
> one might think although I do experience times when Snerdley sights a
> rabbit or cat and he rockets ahead and will cross to my right side but
> I simply stop, reattach my shoulder into the socket joint and think of
> something equally as disappointing to myself like the fact that
> Chipotle does not deliver in order to quell my guilt for restraining
> his nature.
>
> “I know Snerdley.  I know.  You missed the rabbit.  I love fast food
> too but can’t always have it” I tell him and he chuffs at me
> disgustedly.  A twin portal blow through his dog nostrils is his way
> of dismissing me I’m sure.
>
> The three of us have been walking together for five years now.  Prior
> to engaging this twin walk I would walk one dog and return home to
> walk the other but after months of their competitive bickering and
> hearing “She always gets to go first,” and “that’s my leash! Why
> doesn’t he get his own” I’d had enough and made the change to walking
> them syemul-dog-taneously.
>
> “Now listen you two” I would demand.  “If you do not stop with this
> bickering I’ll go myself.  Caine and I are Abel” ha ha ha.  I
> routinely engage them with playful language this way as a means of
> both annoyance and distraction.
>
> At present both dogs are pulling ahead strongly to be the first to
> capture the next freshest inhalation of oxygen and I pick up my own
> pace.  The sidewalk beneath my feat soon begins to slope downward and
> informs me that we’re approaching the end of this block.  I mentally
> throw my ears forward to the cross-street, the crosswalk and include
> the passing traffic on State Route 48 to my left as I reel and shorten
> their leashes in toward me.  Hearing predictability ahead we cross
> this next street without stopping and maintain our pace.  It’s a
> perfectly executed crossing; even the Russian orientation and mobility
> instructors are pleased and their scorecard displays a 9.7 score
> rating.  For me it is just one of those days when alignment is
> Zen-like, and no other people approach with dogs, and no remnant of
> parade food has been discarded in the crosswalk for distraction.
>
> In this next block is where the aluminum bleachers is positioned and
> both block the entirety of the sidewalk which is at least twice the
> width of suburban sidewalk path because it accommodates a very nicely
> cobbled-brick area surrounding a city bus stop and shelter.  I am so
> very familiar with the parade bleacher setup because at least twice in
> the early years of my residency here I took a five foot nine-inch
> bleacher seat or step to my forehead, my cane sweeping beneath and my
> ears and mind elsewhere, probably dreaming of the advent of Diane
> Sawyer’s voice in my computer’s synthesizer or a Wendy’s double burger
> with everything the size of a Frisbee.
>
> Today as in previous years since my last headshot I have stepped off
> the sidewalk well before the placement of the bleachers and along with
> the dogs walk up the sloping grass of the Board of Education lawn to
> go around the blockade.
>
> “Hello.  I like your dogs” a woman’s voice speaks to me and Maggie and
> Snerdley are heading directly for her until Maggie stops short to root
> at what I can only imagine is food droppings from parade-attendees.
>
> “Oh I’m sorry” the woman says as I tug on Maggie’s leash – Snerdley is
> not a constantly begging, sniffing or food-on-the-brained kind of dog
> – and I am again giving Maggie a smart leash correction of the sort I
> learned how to administer when in guide dog school 20 years ago.  It
> is a mental check at best, and the equivalent of a tap on the
> shoulder.
>
> “I’m sorry” the woman repeats.  “I know they’re working… I shouldn’t
> have distracted them” she says apologetically but I hear she’s smiling
> because well… dogs have this effect on people unlike politicians.
>
> “No problem” I say loosening my hold on Maggie because she’s now
> sweep-sniffing and no longer rooting which tells me she’s not eating
> or about to eat.
>
> “I know you’re not supposed to pet working dogs but can I…” the woman asks
> me.
>
> I worked with a Black Labrador guide dog for many years and I never
> did get use to this question of simultaneous acknowledgement and
> dismissal.  I wonder if this is limited to those who work with service
> dogs only or if it is spoken elsewhere.
>
> “I know you’re not supposed to smoke in the maternity ward but can I?
> I know the sign reads 12 items or less but...I know it’s a school zone
> and the cautionary light is flashing but c’mon man, it’s a Porsche.”
>
> “Sure” I say and ask if she attended the parade attempting to
> non-sequitur a guide dog conversation which as you know is not the
> reality of the situation, but seeing is believing.  I cannot imagine
> being so equipped as a blind person with a cane, all my senses in
> working order and only four dogs short of a sled-team of guide dogs
> but this is what is seen and spoken to me routinely when we three are
> out for a walk.  My blindness experience has taught me that we see
> what we know and that knowing is not the same as understanding.
> Knowing is good for multiple-choice tests and Jeopardy, but
> understanding has very little to do with memorization.
>
> “Yes.  We’re cleaning up and are waiting for the trucks to remove the
> bleachers.  Were you here for the parade” she asks?
>
> “Yes and no “ I tell her.  “I live just two blocks south of here and
> the parade… well it passes in front of my house.  It’s like having a
> marching band playing in your living room” I say to her and feel
> chills on the nape of my neck as I recall the scene I’ve just
> inadvertently described from The Amityville Horror movie.
>
> “Oh I know you” she says.  “You’re the guy with the dogs” and I know
> she’s saying that I am the white cane guy with the dogs more or less.
> But herein I am not WCG but the blind guy with two guide dogs, working
> dogs or service dogs… whatever.
>
> “Yes that is me” I reply acknowledging her with a glance.
>
> “I think these dogs are so amazing… I mean what they do for you” she
> says bending over to pet one then the other.
>
> What do I say” I ask myself.  Do I tell her truth, that my dogs are
> regular walking, trashcan-sniffing, rabbit-chasing and obviously
> harnessless dogs with no formal training?  This is a uniquely
> dissonant situation for everything in plain view contradicts the
> woman’s belief.  “God why are you doing this to me?  I ask internally.
> “Why am I doing this to myself?  Please turn my head into a plasma
> flat screen so I might be seen” I muse patiently.  “Give me the radio
> voice of Art Schreiber, Rush Limbaugh or Teri Gross so I might be
> heard.”
>
> “Now where did you get them” she asks still petting and cooing to them.
>
> “Maggie is from a breeder in Tampa and Snerdley comes from the Tampa
> Humane Society where he was doing 3 to six for civil disobedience” I
> reply.
>
> “Whaaat” she asks laughing at me but I know she’s sincere and believes
> the twain are working.
>
> “The truth is neither dog is a working dog” and this I relate
> seriously.  “I sort of rescued them and they are from Tampa, Florida.”
>
> “But they work for you right” she states more than asks.
>
> “Nope.  This works with me” I say softly, smiling sincerely and
> holding my cane upright to my side above the recently shorn front lawn
> I feel beneath my feet.  I know my cane’s simple utilitarian power,
> but most folk know it only as an accessory to the DMV driver exam
> picture and functionally like a candy-striped barber pole mounted on
> the wall outside the shop.
>
> “They’re not working for you… They’re not service animals” she replies
> and I can hear the disbelief in her voice.
>
> “No, they’re served animals” I reply.  “They get served meals in the
> morning and the afternoon, dog snacks from who laid the rail and take
> routine walks with me to the pet store where they are served treats
> and God only knows how many discounts that I am unaware of which they
> steal from the store’s lower shelves.”
>
> The woman is laughing.  I am laughing.  I think she’s definitely a
> dog-person.  This mistake has occurred so many many times since I
> began walking the dogs I’ve cared for in the past ten years since my
> former guide passed.  Who knows, maybe I’ll educate someone or even
> better… Maybe she’ll want two dogs.
>
> “I don’t understand.  I always thought they guided you.  I’ve seen
> them take you across the street” she says.
>
> “Take me across the street” I consider incredulously to myself?
> Chinese emperors are taken places by rickshaw inside the Imperial
> City.  The New York Yankees are taken by floats or convertibles
> through the streets of Brooklyn in parades celebrating victory, but
> the last time I was taken across a street was by pram by my mother in
> the very early seventies.
>
> “do you have a dog” I ask mild in tone and turning my gaze away so as
> to make sure I am communicating understandingly.  I do not want to
> give the impression that I am at all incredulous.  I do not want this
> kind woman to feel anything but openness to the reality of me walking
> the dogs.  I do not want to communicate a corrective “Well duh” tone
> of voice to her.
>
> “Yes, a Beagle mix” she says and hearing Beagle I so want to reply
> “BeagleJuice BeagleJuice BeagleJuice” but even I know now is the time
> for seriousness.
>
> “When you walk the Beagle the Beagle sometimes walks ahead of you and
> sometimes at your side.  Beagle turns at all the routine corners and
> after certain street crossings. The Beagle marks territory at the
> usual places and walks down curbs and up wheelchair ramps along with
> you” I am explaining and she is understanding this I know because she
> is now speaking to me engagingly and truth be told laughing at herself
> which I can appreciate because I’ve walked into bleachers in broad
> daylight.
>
> “Oh my God.  You’re just walking these dogs.  You’re blind though,
> right” she asks and she is most definitely in need of confirmation.
> If ever there was an opportune time for me to walk into a tree or
> bleachers it is now.  This would be called taking one for the team.
>
> This is true I say.  You know it is, that moment when engaged by a
> person unfamiliar with blindness but simultaneously in-the-know of
> blindness who needs you to confirm something obvious in its
> functionality like reading Braille in an elevator and pressing the
> corresponding button so the light illuminates the seeing is believing
> truth.  It’s like asking someone at a costume party to remove their
> Batman mask even though you know this person planned to arrive as such
> despite the fact that the entirety of the event is a pre-planned
> Barack and Michelle Abama look-a-like costume party.
>
> “Yes” I reply now looking uncomfortably directly at her for only a
> second or two.
>
> “Ohhhh” she exclaims and she’s cool in manner and not at all
> uncomfortable with the word blind which I really appreciate.
>
> “Sweet!” I’m elated.  “She’s cool with it.  I can get on with my
> walk,” but now I’m hearing the dismantling of square one and the
> proposal of site excavation and remodeling plans being offered to the
> department of my ways and means ha ha ha.
>
> “But how…?  You just walk… alone…, with that” she states a bit
> incredulously and obviously pointing at my cane as if I’m holding a
> soiled diaper.
>
> I have a choice to make.  I can prolong the exchange which has turned
> into a whole bunch of everything regarding blindness and maybe dispel
> her disbelief.  I could make another joke and tell her that yes I do
> use the cane, it works for free, I incur no health insurance costs, it
> requires no room and board, does not cheat at cards and also functions
> as a sweeping tool for the identification and retrieval of all the
> single socks that have gone amiss beneath beds and behind the washing
> machine and dryer in my home.  I could answer yes and excuse myself
> and continue walking and this is what I did more or less.
>
> “My name is David” I say holding out my hand to her and we shake.
> “This cane is to me, a literal extension of my arm and hand with five
> fingers each with an eyeball for a fingerprint.  It informs me of
> everything I need to know 65 inches ahead of my scheduled arrival.  It
> really works wonderfully in its simplicity.”
>
> “Oh I guess so” she replied in a tone of challenged consideration.  “I
> never really thought…  But don’t you need a service dog” she asked?
>
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-- 
Marianne Denning, TVI, MA
Teacher of students who are blind or visually impaired
(513) 607-6053