Have Dog, Will Travel

by Stephen Kuusisto

  Corky raised her face to look at me, her big yellow snout pointing straight up. And every dog in the room did the same. Something palpable went around our circle—the star of praise that only dogs can see was released by our voices. “Good dog!” We said it again and again. Our overdramatized tones were like stylized laughter in an opera. All tails were wagging.

  “We say ‘Good dog’ because Guiding Eyes dogs really want to work,” said Linda. “They have been through many months of training. These dogs enjoy their jobs. But just like you, they require praise. From this moment on you will be saying ‘Good dog’ as much as a hundred times a day.”

  Who affirms good things even a dozen times a day? Who makes “talking goodness” a habit of her or his minutes? I sat with my Corky’s head on my shoe and thought about the “talking blues”—as a literary guy I’d studied vocal sorrow—but never had I considered a running, day-long practice of spoken good. “Good dog” would become my hourly practice and over time (though I didn’t yet know it), dog-praise would change many of my habits of thought.

  “You’re going to say ‘Good dog’ when you come to a flight of stairs and she stops; you’ll say it when she comes to a curb and waits; you’ll say it again on the far side of the street when she shows you the up curb. You’ll say it when she sits obediently in a bank or post office; when she ignores strangers; when she walks past a fenced yard full of barking dogs.”

  We practiced it then, praise, undiluted, with rising notes.

  * * *

  “Praise of various levels and types can be perceived differently by each individual dog,” Linda said.

  “Inflection of praise is so important. We call this ‘directive praise.’ ”

  Some of my classmates were taking notes with talking laptop computers. I could hear sparks of machine-generated language. I heard someone’s dog sigh. I also heard sleet striking the far windows. It was a cold day in March and we were sitting close together in a warm place hearing from a great dog master about the qualities of praise and the lives of dogs. I was happy. I realized I didn’t need to take notes.

  Linda continued to explain:

  “Directive praise is not light and bubbly. It’s motivating and straightforward, but at the same time neutral. That means the praise holds no emotion in any direction. Your dog thinks: my handler is comfortable, and relaxed, so am I. If the inflection of the praise drops or changes suddenly, then the dog may perceive this as something wrong, or that something uncomfortable is coming up. If the praise becomes excitable, then the dog may leave its comfort zone and become stimulated over the handler.”

  I remembered a college professor who said in a class on Buddhism: “Many people think excitement is happiness, but when you’re excited you’re not peaceful, and true happiness comes from peace.” Dog-praise would have to be peaceful.

  I saw that becoming a dog man would require becoming an amateur Buddhist.

  “Every person in this room is unique,” Linda said then. “And every dog is unique. Praise is what brings each team success. Praise is the secret ingredient. You’re all going to bond through praise.

  “From your dog’s perspective we can look at praise in three ways: it motivates and directs to a goal, it validates a correct choice, and it reaffirms what the dog already knows.”

  “Amen to that,” I thought.

  * * *

  I wanted to be equal to Corky’s sweet alacrity. My goal was to be warm and steady for her. By day two at dog college my thoughts were turning empathetic. “What does it mean,” I thought, “to be purposeful and loving?” In the coming days I’d learn what Corky knew—learn that praise and motion, praise and accomplishment are synonymous and find that as I praised her I was praising us.

  “Good dog!” I said. We walked the hallways of the dormitory. “Step one was just saying it—good dog, good man—good for simply doing what you do.” Each step is good. Every footfall. “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet,” said Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen master whose writings I’d always loved. “Now walk as if you are kissing the Earth with six feet,” I thought, “and say, ‘Good dog!’ ”

  We were moving slowly and loosely. We were ambling, getting to know each other. “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it,” said Buddha. It was clear that my job would be to discover life with a dog and this would be walking, open-minded work.

  * * *

  By the third day I was already large with affection. “Boy, you two look great together,” said Linda as we entered the dining room. “Corky’s really in love! Look at her face!” I felt the praise and it warmed my insides like brandy. “Make sure,” said Linda, “that you don’t choke up on her training collar, just be loose.”

  “Dare to be loose,” I told myself.

  On the way to breakfast I saw each moment was about practice. Walking to meals we made our dogs sit at the bottom of the dining room steps. Then, one by one, we heeled them up the stairs as Linda observed our form. “Give your dog a little more leash,” she said, because Sally was choking her wiggly Lab, “just tell her to heel and say ‘Good dog’—she knows what to do.” Each instant taught us lessons about how to live with a dog always at our sides. As I buttered my toast I thought: “I will be with a dog every minute. Life will always be a man-dog arrangement from this moment onward.” I knew something beautiful and fortunate was happening to me and I reached down and touched Corky’s ears.

  * * *

  Yes, the “very here and now” was fascinating. There was an art to the smallest things. Boarding a van for a trip into the field we learned to make dogs sit as we climbed the short steps, then to call. “There’s a protocol for getting on and off public transportation,” said Linda. “You don’t want your dog bounding ahead and tripping you up.” The coordinates of dog training and daily activities were seamlessly connected, beckoning a stronger awareness of self for every one of the students. We learned how to put our dogs under seats; how to gently put on and take off their harnesses; how to give them small treats as rewards; how to “love them up”; how to be firm; in effect, how to become superb life-teams. Practicing putting Corky’s harness on and taking it off I thought: “Stability, freedom, harness, self,” and resolved to write it in my notebook.

  * * *

  Things were moving fast. We were all traveling to the city of White Plains together in a twelve-passenger van, people and dogs. We were going to work the dogs in traffic for the first time. We were all in good humor. Linda and Kylie sparred with Sally and Tina about the merits of “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club, which was playing on the radio. Kylie and Tina were fans, Linda and Sally thought he was a sham. I knew nothing about Boy George. I thought the song was catchy, but I kept silent. I loved the mock seriousness of the debate. Their banter reminded me just how much one can love human beings. People can be exceptionally beautiful when they’re silly and trusting and working as a team. “Maybe baseball players experience this?” I thought. I’d never actually done anything that involved teamwork before.

  Corky was tucked safely under my seat. I reached down and ran my hands over her face. Her nose was wet, like a strawberry, but with dimples and adjacent whiskers. Her snout had peachy fur but was also tough with cartilage and tiny hidden turbinate bones. My fingertips reached the top of her head. Her huge head, so laden with life. So broad, I could put two mugs of coffee there. I asked Linda if guide dogs could balance cups on their heads. She said it wasn’t part of the training.

  Soon we would arrive in the city.

  Chapter Seven

  “Your job,” said Kylie, “is to harness your dogs and walk several blocks of Mamaroneck Avenue. It’s the main commercial street in the heart of White Plains.”

  It would be six blocks up, six blocks back. A trainer would always be a half block behind us. Additional trainers would be stationed at street corners. There’d be lots of eyes on us. “You might feel alone,” Linda said, but we’d be watched by “pros.” It oc
curred to me I’d never been watched by “pros.” I didn’t play sports as a kid. I hadn’t been coached in movement of any kind. Now I had a circle of canine-vision, walking masters.

  * * *

  Sometimes I play a mind game called “is it early or too late for different humans”—I try to imagine how much of life’s sweetness remains inside people. It’s a game of admiration. When I meet old acquaintances after years I can see some have managed to keep their joy. They still have the “early” within them. You can play the game with anyone—eyeing strangers on a bus, sitting at a concert.

  The dogs had “early.” The trainers too.

  We climbed from the van. Our dogs shook from side to side, greeting each other and their new surroundings.

  The morning waited.

  * * *

  I wasn’t the first to go walking. I had to wait in a lounge with a cup of coffee and my notebook. I wrote some lines from memory:

  Journal, March 3, 1994:

  “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” (Meister Eckhart)

  “Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.” (Walt Whitman)

  “You know, it’s quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don’t do it.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

  * * *

  Then Kylie came and said it was my turn. Our turn.

  It was Corky’s moment. She’d show me what she could do.

  I’d show her I wasn’t afraid.

  There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice . . .

  We hurried past storefronts. Corky pulled and I concentrated on my breathing, trying to stay loose. My arm was straight, my shoulders squared, my posture upright. In lecture it had sounded so easy, but now I was moving very fast. I was scared and joyous. Kylie was behind us, monitoring. We were “stepping out,” as they say in guide-dog work. Corky was going so swiftly I didn’t have time to worry about oncoming shadows—people, street signs—whatever they were, they just dropped behind us.

  I’d always been a tippy-toe walker. Now I was putting everything into my feet and for the first time I felt vital in relation to my footfalls. It was a circumstance for which I had no prior lingo: a dog-driven invitation to living full forward. Racing up the sidewalk we were forwardness itself.

  Then Corky hit the brakes. Firmly. She’d arrived at our first curb. “God,” I thought, “she’s doing what the trainers said she’d do.” Then she backed up slightly. The harness, the well-known guide-dog accoutrement, is perfectly rigid. Its handle is a steel fork with a skin of leather. As your dog moves you move.

  I felt safe at the curb. “Earth will be safe,” said the the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, “when we feel in us enough safety.”

  “Nice stop,” said Barbara, a trainer stationed just a few feet away. “That’s our Corky girl!”

  “And she’ll always do that?” I said—it was half a question, half an exclamation.

  “Yep,” said Barbara. “She’ll always do that.”

  Block two came next.

  We stepped out again.

  Corky guided, watching, looking a block ahead.

  “Man,” I thought, “I could let go of all my panic. All my fight-or-flee guesswork walks might just be a thing of the past.”

  Corky’s harness jingled. Her harness actually jingled!

  A man called out: “That’s a great-looking dog! And you look pretty good too!”

  “Thanks,” I said, “so do you!” I was feeling good, and more than a little proud.

  * * *

  We walked another block.

  Again Corky came to a stop. We were at the corner of Mamaroneck Avenue and Martine, a tough intersection. Urban. Lots of cars. Metro New York drivers. It certainly wasn’t Ithaca. It was all a blur of motion to me.

  Corky tracked movement like a predator. I felt her shoulders sway as she looked from side to side. Dogs track movement better than people and have a wider visual field. A Labrador retriever sees 250 degrees while staring straight ahead. A human being sees only 180.

  Without turning her head a dog can see a car with her peripheral vision, even if it’s still a block away. She sees fields of action. It’s a dog’s version of Cubism, a Cubist cartoon—each zone filled with activity. Standing on the corner of Mamaroneck and Martine I imagined what Corky might be seeing. As I listened she saw a skateboarder weaving from 85 degrees right. From our left she saw a taxi encroaching the crosswalk and ready to accelerate. In the middle distance, on the far side of the street, a man with a hot dog stand struggled to raise an umbrella. Far off, one hundred yards away, she saw a motorized street-sweeping machine churning up dust.

  “Listen to the traffic going with you,” said Barbara, who was just behind us. I’d forgotten she was there. I liked the fact she was nearby but wasn’t intrusive. Then the traffic began flowing and it was our turn to cross.

  I commanded Corky forward. Most people think guide dogs are responsible for deciding when to cross the street, but it’s not true. The dog watches traffic. This is why she differs from a family pet. Guide dogs possess a trait called “intelligent disobedience.” A blind person hears traffic and decides when to cross the street but a guide won’t budge if her handler has made a bad choice. She may in fact back up. So when you enter the crosswalk you can count on a safe crossing.

  I said “forward” and we entered the no-man’s-land of a crosswalk where a line of impatient cars emitted exhaust. Corky zipped. Before I could think, we were at the far curb. As I found the sidewalk with my foot, Barbara reminded me to praise her. I was so wrapped in wonder I was forgetting to say “Good dog.”

  “Love her up,” said Barbara. Though it wasn’t in the lesson plan, I dropped to my knees and hugged my big yellow ox-headed Labrador girl and told her she was the best thing ever. Then I laughed because I was neither here nor there—not the old blind guy, and not quite the new—but I was happy. Phase one of trust—laughing . . .

  Chapter Eight

  Safely back in our room I thought about confident walking and wrote in my notebook. I’d felt the power of Corky’s authority. She owned the street. I wondered what this might mean for me. Could her poise, her very speed, become, ironically, the key to outstepping a lot of bad thinking? One of the trainers said: “An advantage to the guide dog is you can stop trying to use your limited vision. You can actually walk with your eyes shut.” Corky knew lots about it. She nuzzled my arm with her cold nose and I put away my notebook and got down on the floor and held her tightly.

  * * *

  We embarked on another outing the following morning. We crossed the busy streets of White Plains during rush hour. I made directional choices. I knew where we were going. Boy does a dog appreciate that! “Corky, right,” I’d say, and we’d turn, her tail wagging. “She’s happy,” I thought, “because I can do my part and relieve her of uncertainty. She’s got enough on her mind. Knowing our destination—that’s my job. Balance. I have something to give.”

  In turn she got us places. Looking into the distance she made decisions. She angled right anticipating an approaching woman jogging with a stroller. Corky pulled right gently, knowing how to avoid a collision many yards in advance. Corky saw joggers and walkers as clueless creatures. All pedestrians were disarming. She kept tabs on them. I was her beneficiary.

  In college I once jotted down a sentiment by Helen Keller: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. I’d copied her lines because I was uncertain about their accuracy. I thought Keller was a version of Pollyanna. Now I saw I’d failed to recognize how hope and conviction are like a map’s coordinates. Helen Keller, Cartographer, I wrote in my notebook during “down time” between walks.

  * * *

  There are many values associated with guide-dog training. The pursu
it of peaceful steps is one of them. Corky day by day took me into new realms of footing.

  This “peace walking breakthrough” is central to working with a guide. You learn how to read your dog’s confidence. And when everything works, your footfalls become peaceful. You say, “Good dog, good dog,” and inside you’re saying, “Good feet, good us.”

  Somewhere around day six Linda said: “Corky’s turning over to you! She’s your girl now!”

  She meant we were a team.

  * * *

  That night I sat up late with students in the coffee lounge. I was interested in what the longtime guide-dog users had to say about life with dogs.

  Joseph had been a guide-dog user since the early sixties. He’d had a successful career in insurance. Now he was retired. He was training with “Tinsel,” a female chocolate Labrador who he said he was going to call “Tinny.”

  Although Joseph was completely blind he said he always knew when his dogs were watching him. “A dog’s eyes speak,” he said. “It’s like a light beam or something. And it makes you feel good.”

  Harriet, who was from Brooklyn and training with her third dog, said, “It’s more than just their eyes—I always feel my dog is interested in me. Even when I’m not interesting my dog thinks I’m the best companion.”

  “You never know how interesting you are,” said Aaron. He was from Mississippi and generally reserved. “I mean,” he said, “when you open a window, you’re a magician for your dog.”

  “Yes,” said Tina, who was getting her second dog. “We’re lovable in the ordinary.”

  I confessed: “It’s been just a week for me with Corky, and I don’t know quite how to say this—but I’ve never felt so fast on my feet. Does that feeling stick? Will I always feel like I’m flying?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Joseph. “Every day.”

  “It’s so much quicker than cane travel, it’s not funny,” said Aaron.

  “I hate cane travel,” said Tina. “It’s just endless guesswork.”

  I thought I knew what she was getting at but I asked her to say more.