Out, Into the Great Big World

When we bring home a new dog from The Seeing Eye, the instructions are clear. Keep things quiet. The dogs have been through a lot of changes in their short lives and the idea is to make the transition to their new home and new life as smooth as possible.

Once in my home environment, I tried to provide my new dog, Kasey, with loads of positive experiences. We started with simple routes in our little village, branched out to walks in the nearby Botanical and Japanese Gardens, and then added some hikes in nearby parks.

When Kasey wasn’t working, I dutifully did obedience, grooming, clicker work, and other tasks to which she was accustomed. Consistency and praise were the goals for those first few weeks.

I hadn’t planned to travel with Kasey so soon after we left training. It just happened that way. We had been looking for a home to buy in Michigan for months. Just two weeks after bringing Kasey home we found it.

We found the house on a Tuesday and by Thursday, we made an offer. The wheels of buying real estate don’t generally go  ‘round as fast as these wheels went. But go ‘round they did.

By the end of May, we settled into our seats on a flight headed for Michigan.

The first issue that arose was that Kasey didn’t completely empty on my first trip outside. Okay, what that actually means is she didn’t poop. We had an early flight, and her outing was earlier than usual. No problem, thought I, I’ll give her another chance at the airport. But that didn’t work out as planned. It took us way longer than usual to get checked in and, by that time, there just wasn’t time to take her out again.

That little problem wasn’t solved until we got to Michigan. But it worked out fine. Good girl, Kasey.

Once I was on the plane in Birmingham and got to the row where my seat was located, I took off Kasey’s harness, spun her around and backed her into the row of seats. I followed her in, had her sit facing me, and asked her to sit. Then I slid her as far as I could beneath the seat in front of me. And there she stayed for the duration of the flight. Good girl, Kasey.

The flight was late leaving Birmingham, and we only had a few minutes to make our connection in Detroit. Kasey hit her “shepherd trot” and we made it just in time to board. Good girl, Kasey.

We spent a good part of the next two days touring the new house, first with the realtor and then with the home inspector. The first go ‘round, I asked Kasey to follow Jim as we learned the layout of the new place. During the time with the home inspector, I branched out on my own, going where I wanted to go, both inside and outside the home.

In situations where I had to stand still for long periods of time to listen to explanations, ask questions, or just plain wait, I asked Kasey to either sit or lie down and rest. She did so without breaking the rest command, whining, or showing any restlessness. Good girl, Kasey.

At the hotel, I had Kasey sit at the door to our room as well as the door to get inside from the parking lot. Only once did I reinforce that these were good doors that I wanted to find again and she did it every time. Good girl, Kasey.

All of these may seem insignificant in the bigger picture of a guide dog’s work. But they really added up. It was our first trip out into the great big world.