Since my last blog, Heath, my sixth guide dog, and I have spent another week at Guiding Eyes for the Blind and ten days at home. At Guiding Eyes, we worked with Irma, another Guiding Eyes student, and her guide dog, a golden retriever named Kira, with Graham serving as instructor, driver, storyteller, coach, and snackfetcher. The five of us walked together on a trail near the Hudson River on a windy and humid Sunday morning so that the dogs…..
Last Wednesday at around 9:30 AM, I was sitting in a circle with a high school wrestler, an aspiring English teacher, a nun, the owner of a small business, a circus clown, an administrative assistant, the matriarch of a large family, and several other men and women from a variety of backgrounds. All of us were blind, and each of us was eagerly waiting to learn the name, gender, and breed of the guide dog with which we would soon…..
In Parts I and II of my book “Breaking Barriers: Working and Loving While Blind,” I described how I began forging a relationship with Jules, a black Labrador-Retriever and fifth Guiding Eyes for the Blind guide dog. In Parts III and IV, I wrote about how Jules assisted me in my professional endeavors in New York City and Washington, DC; how he was by my side as I dealt with the deaths of my stepmother and father; and how we…..