Help is No Help

Before I get into the meat of what I want to write about today, I have a couple of business items to cover.

First, for those of you praying for my friend and her Anatolian shepherd, the one I mentioned previously with terminal bone cancer, thank you for your prayers and support. She was put down yesterday. Please continue to pray for her family as they recover from this grief. It’s not their first pet loss, but that doesn’t dull the sting at all.

Secondly, I’d like to give a nod to my tai chi instructor. When I walked into the dojo this morning with Miss Greta for our first class since my return, he looked up and gave me an audible smile and said “we have a visitor! How should we react to her?” ‘Pretend she’s not here” I told him, and he said ‘ok!” and went right back to teaching the last few minutes of his sword class. That simple, short exchange is exactly how people should react to meeting a service dog. No muss, no fuss, as they say. Ask AA quick question, follow the quick answer by going right back to what they were doing beforehand. This morning’s exchange was flawless. I’ve never had a better experience.

And how did Greta do during tai chi? She slept through the first 2/3 of class, got a little squirrelly toward the end, but otherwise just lay still the whole time! I was so impressed! Prada liked martial arts too much – she and I used to wrestle and spar, so she thought all sparring ought to include her. She cried and fussed during classes so I stopped taking her. Maybe Greta will get too comfortable, too, and want to get involved, but for now, she seems like a good fit. Of course, tai chi is a very slow, relaxed art, and in this cases we aren’t terribly physical with one another, so she may react differently to a jujitsu or tae kwon do course, but she is A-OK for tai chi!

Now, on to business. “Help is no help” is a phrase my mother used to describe the “help” files on the Microsoft Office Suite. She could never find the solutions she wanted or comprehensible instructions. Eventually she would just sit back, throw up her hands, and laugh saying “help is no help!” We’d wait for Dad to get home, and of course the problem could evaporate before his very yes, because that’s how computer problems work.

What does this have to do with dog guides?

I know a lot of wonderful, loving, compassionate, thoughtful people. Friends, family, teachers, coworkers, classmates. It is not an unusual experience for me to have someone go above and beyond to help me read or find something, or to set up a space so I won’t trip on anything. Sometimes the help can be a little over-the-top. When I worked at Nasal, the IT gal who set up my computer brought me a 26-inch monitor because she thought I would be able to see it better. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my peripheral vision, or lack thereof, meant that I had to turn my head to see more than just the middle third of the screen! And my new roommates have been exceptionally patience and resourceful and enthusiastic in helping me settle Greta into their house. In general, I am grateful for any help I receive, and will take any help I can get.

But there is one area in which help is no help. When I am working my dog, interference, even with good intentions, is not helpful. It is not uncommon for someone to try to take my arm to guide me when I’m working my dog, or to call the dog to follow them to help me keep up with a group, or to tell me “there’s someone walking in front of you, go left,” or “tell your dog to go right to avoid that wet floor sign.” While most peoples’ intentions are very good in these scenarios, their efforts compromise my ability to focus on and communicate with my dog. It is not my job to tell her to avoid obstacles – I can’t see the obstacles, so that rather defeats the purpose of having the dog in the first place. It’s her job to avoid them, and she will, though not necessarily on your timetable. Be patient, let her make her narrow saves. She will, or she’ll get corrected. It is OK to let me trip or run into a pole for the sake of the dog’s education. Taking hold of my arm, calling the dog, or telling me “she did look both ways” when I correct her for running a down-curb is also harmful to our relationship. Essentially, you are inserting yourself as a third party into our relationship, whether you realise it or not.

I realise that most interference comes from a good place, so it does not make me angry unless the interferer has been warned multiple times and persists in ignoring and disrespecting my wishes. Instances of interference can actually be very dangerous for us, though, so it is critical that you keep your hands, eyes, and mouth to yourself, please. If my dog is used to following you instead of guiding me, then what happens when you’re not there? She’s gotten used to someone else cuing the avoidances, so she will forget to do it. If you take my arm, you’re confusing the signals I send to the dog through my grip on the harness. Trying to interpret her behaviour for me is distracting to me, and therefore I cannot communicate with the dog. You who do not work with dogs only perceive a fraction of the communication taking place through the harness, so please do not presume to know what she is telling me, what I am telling her, and whether she deserves a correction or praise. You simply don’t speak the language, so stop trying to decode our conversation. It’s distracting, confusing, and dangerous. Please treat my relationship with my dog like you want me to treat your relationship with your eyeballs.