Have Dog, Will Travel

by Stephen Kuusisto

  “To everyone, I think, there is always something particularly pathetic about a blind man . . . His other senses may rally to his aid, but they cannot replace his eyesight. To man’s never-failing friend has been accorded this special privilege. Gentlemen, I give you the German Shepherd dog.”

  * * *

  In 1927 there was no systematic means of training blind people in how to travel. Almost no one knew how to help Morris Frank. The opening scenes of Love Leads the Way show Frank struggling unsuccessfully with a cane, bumping into strangers, nearly helpless on Nashville’s sidewalks.

  Accordingly Eustis’s article offered Frank some hope—Europeans were training dogs and blind people to move safely and independently, and perhaps best of all, with dignity. Frank wrote to Eustis: “Is what you say really true? If so, I want one of those dogs! And I am not alone. Frank added: “Thousands of blind like me abhor being dependent on others. Help me and I will help them. Train me and I will bring back my dog and show people here how a blind man can be absolutely on his own. We can then set up an instruction center in this country to give all those here who want it a chance at a new life.”

  Eustis called Frank and invited him to Fortunate Fields, her dog-training school in Switzerland.

  He replied: “Mrs. Eustis, to get my independence back, I’d go to hell.”

  * * *

  I was captivated by the film. Frank met his dog, Buddy, and learned to trust not only his dog but a team of people. Eustis assigned a dog trainer named Jack Humphrey to train Buddy and in turn train Frank. Humphrey worked the team hard.

  Every scene in the film offered a vignette of “firsts”—returning to New York, Frank was met by reporters who didn’t believe a dog could guide a blind person. Together Buddy and Frank crossed West End Avenue, at the time one of New York’s busiest streets, and with that feat, the guide dog “arrived” in America, both as a fact, and as a figure that effectively captured the public’s imagination.

  Frank was as good as his word, and with Dorothy Eustis’s help, he founded the first guide-dog school in the United States—The Seeing Eye—in 1929. They started the program in Nashville, then moved it to Morristown, New Jersey, where it remains today.

  When the film was over I needed to know more about Morris Frank. Luckily, Guiding Eyes had a taped copy of Frank’s 1957 book The First Lady of the Seeing Eye in its library and I listened to it rather religiously between training walks.

  Though I’d been reluctant to admit my blindness, or at least to say I needed help, and had been slow to get a guide dog, I’d always imagined dogs for the blind were a part of the natural order. I’d never thought about dogs and blindness and civil rights. But as I learned more about Morris Frank’s history, I found that his freedom of mobility with Buddy was blocked in many places.

  Before he left Switzerland, Dorothy Eustis forewarned him that being the first guide-dog user in America would require tremendous persistence and poise. According to Frank she told him: “. . . you must not forget that signs saying ‘No Dogs Allowed’ are almost everywhere—in restaurants, hotels, office buildings, and stores. If the blind man’s dog can’t be with him in the places he has to go, of what value is it to him? And what about restrictions on trains, streetcars, and busses? If a person can’t use his dog to get to work, it’s obvious he can’t hold down a job. How will it ever be possible for the organization to succeed unless the guide dogs are welcome in all public places?”

  At home in Tennessee Frank saw what Eustis meant: many businesses wouldn’t let his guide dog in. He was refused transport by buses and trains. For the rest of his life he fought for the right to travel where the public goes—a fight guide-dog users ultimately won with persistence and the exemplary behavior of their dogs. By the 1960s the public accepted guides as professional animals, understanding they weren’t the sloppy pets many business owners initially declared them to be.

  * * *

  I thought of Morris Frank during our remaining days at Guiding Eyes. We learned how to tuck our dogs under chairs; how to give leash corrections to keep them “on task.” We practiced “daily obedience” by having them sit, stay, and lie down, then come to us. They were trained to heel when we were standing and to sit when we needed them to sit. Our dogs had manners. We learned that like Morris Frank we’d be ambassadors for the guide-dog movement, that it was important for each of us to become a superior dog handler. Henceforth, every time we’d enter a supermarket or restaurant or ride on a train—we needed to think like Morris Frank. I was keenly impressed by this. I felt the honor of being a small part of guide-dog tradition.

  * * *

  On day seven the whole class went to a local supermarket. I hadn’t realized how tricky this would be when Linda announced the exercise. The plan was for us to work through the crowded aisles. Corky and I entered the A&P through the familiar electric door and proceeded to walk among mountains of oranges. We walked rather deftly through an intersection of pineapples and packaged roses and then we hit the cheese section where Corky was literally stunned by the fragrances of Asiago and blue, Gruyère and Parmesan. I don’t know which cheese stopped her in her tracks—maybe the Fontina with its odor of honey and mushrooms—but she hit the brakes, raised her head, and scented deeply. She stopped so fast I ran into her and stumbled slightly. Corky was stupefied. I wondered if Morris Frank had a moment like this. The heroic guide dog and man, clobbered by Brie and Camembert. I asked myself: “What would Morris Frank do?”

  “Tell her to hup up,” said Linda, who was behind me. “Yes,” I thought, “that’s just what Morris Frank would have done.”

  “Hup up,” I said, and gave Corky a quick leash correction. We were off again, heading toward the seafood department.

  She sailed through the store, avoiding shopping carts and towering displays of cereal. We walked without distraction beside an open refrigerator case filled with steaks and lamb chops. “Good girl,” I said. “Good girl.”

  * * *

  In the evening lecture Kylie said: “One thing you will discover when you get home is that going places with a guide dog is like being a movie star.” I heard Aaron laugh.

  “Wherever you go, you’ll be the main focus of public attention.”

  Linda joined in: “It’s funny to think about, but there aren’t very many guide dog teams in the United States. There are approximately ten thousand. This means most people have never seen a guide dog. So it also means you’re an emissary.”

  Kylie said, “Though your dog is trained to go everywhere—planes, trains, and escalators—you’ll meet airline personnel who’ve never seen a working dog. Hotel clerks. Waiters. Cab drivers.”

  Kylie continued: “As trainers we encounter this all the time. At movie theaters; shopping malls; at Grand Central Station—people say, ‘Is that a guide dog? I’ve never seen one before.’

  “So you and your dog really are celebrities,” she said. “And you’re true ambassadors whether you like it or not.”

  “This means you can’t let your dog eat off the floor in a restaurant; can’t feed her French fries,” said Linda.

  “When dining out, your dog must always be tucked safely under a table where people can’t step on her,” she added.

  “And no matter where you are, you need to have control of her,” said Linda. “Service animals are allowed everywhere but the biggest rule, the ‘supreme directive,’ is that your dog must always be under your control.”

  Again I thought of Frank. I remembered Dorothy Eustis telling him his dog would always have to be under control and that his second challenge upon returning to America (after fighting his way into public places) would be to demonstrate a guide dog was no more fuss than a cane.

  In the days to come as we worked in more and more public spaces this would be our focus. We’d be tracing Morris Frank’s journey all the way to the end.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was in great spirits—even a bit merry. I felt it from the instant I woke. I felt it all day. It wasn’t
just simple contentment.

  I was working, sweating, half running in traffic, giving Corky all my heart, every ounce. Over midmorning coffee Kylie told me she’d never meant to be a dog trainer. “I was planning on graduate school in sociology,” she said. “Anyway, one day I was in downtown White Plains in a savings bank. I was cashing a check. And out the window I saw three or four guide dogs going by with blind people—or maybe they were trainers—I didn’t know. But the sight really pulled me, I mean it took me over. I could really see myself with the blind and guide dogs. It was as if I’d been waiting for that moment.”

  She laughed. “Looking back on it, grad school would have been easier.

  “I’d no idea how hard the work would be.

  “For one thing,” she said, “becoming a guide-dog trainer is an apprentice process like a Renaissance guild. You study with a senior trainer, who’s like an artist.

  “Being an apprentice trainer starts out hard because you’re in the kennel,” she said. “It’s much worse than mixing colors for Michelangelo, because you shovel dog poop, lug fifty-pound sacks of food, real grunt work.

  “You don’t get to the training part of the job until you’ve proven your mettle,” she said.

  “How long does that take?” I asked.

  “Sometimes two or three years,” she said. “But you know it’s not all in the kennel. We get to follow what’s going on in classes, assist the students, follow guide-dog teams. We live in the dorm and wear blindfolds for an extended time just so we can better appreciate the daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute experience of navigating without sight. We learn a lot.”

  * * *

  There really was a lot to learn.

  It seemed sometimes there were a hundred techniques to this dog business. We learned how to enter and pass through revolving doors. Corky went on the outside—the larger side of the moving cubicle—and I learned to guard her tail from being pinched. We practiced this several times, my lovely dog in agreement, over and over again through the spinning wicket. We took baby steps, inching our way ahead, pushing the door slowly. “These will soon be replaced by wheelchair-friendly doors because of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” said Linda. “But you need to know how to do this in case you find yourself someplace where this is the only type of door.”

  “Here’s to alternative doors,” I thought. “Who invented the revolving door?” I wondered. “Some torturer—maybe the same guy who conceived of the iron maiden.” Later I actually looked it up; the revolving door was invented in 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel, a Philadelphia inventor, who is reputed to have had a phobia of opening conventional doors, especially for women. Go figure. In any case, I resolved to avoid the damned things wherever I could.

  Every day in training was a classic ballroom dance: turning, feeling with hands and toes, turning again, leading Corky, being led by her, all to the rhythms of whispering cars.

  I learned that Corky would curl up tight on the floor of a car, right beneath the glove compartment in the front seat. We practiced the maneuver, man and dog, in and out of a sedan. I stepped part way in with my left leg and called her. She climbed in delicately and lay down. Then I sat, pulling my right leg in. It was cramped and awkward. I’d need to learn some yoga. But Corky could ride this way if we had to. And I knew how to accomplish her positioning. Guide-dog work was all about the accomplishment of daily techniques, all of them necessary if you’re taking a dog everywhere.

  * * *

  The techniques of working with a dog were about safety, companionship, and looking out for each other. This was easy to say but harder to put into action. My mind was occupied with details: how to put the harness on and take it off without smacking Corky in the face; how to adjust her belly strap so she’d be comfortable; how to put on her training collar—it was trickier than it sounds—if the collar was backwards you couldn’t give your dog a leash correction. One had to learn how to feel for the chain as it passed through the rings. If the chain met the ring at the bottom it was incorrectly positioned. Off with the collar, on with the collar, Corky sat, her face reflecting concern. Good old Empathy Dog. Worried about her owner’s efforts. I imagined her thinking: “I want my man to look better than the other students.” But I wasn’t better than the others. I put her collar on, took it off, and saw I was only batting 500. I felt inept, and resolved when alone to practice by putting Corky’s collar over my wrist. It was tricky all right, but not as hard as cleaning her ears. We were instructed how to reach deep into our dogs’ ear canals with cotton pads. We were given bottles of Otic Cleanser and we learned how to apply it. We learned how to brush our dogs’ teeth with chicken-flavored toothpaste. We were given heartworm prevention tablets and flea-and-tick repellent. They gave us a brush and comb; a set of aluminum dog dishes. All I could think was, “How am I going to fit this stuff in my tiny suitcase?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Day eighteen and it was time to go to New York City. Kylie noted the trip was a choice. “Some students really want to go to Manhattan with their dogs, and some don’t,” she said. It was up to us. Tina and Aaron elected to stay behind. “Been there and done that,” Aaron said.

  In my junior year of college I’d wanted desperately to travel to Manhattan to hear a renowned poet read his work at the 92nd Street Y. But I had no one to accompany me. I stayed home in Geneva and listened to Billie Holiday records and in the manner of young people, felt my deprivation bitterly. I could have taken the Greyhound bus, but what then? How would I walk alone? How would I manage the subway? The world had been beyond my reach. Now going to New York with a dog, a powerful dog, seemed like something out of a superhero comic. As our train moved beside the Hudson River I stroked Corky’s silky ears and then, softly, I began to cry. I’d spent my adult life living as a pallid child. And fearful. But with my dog, the mill wheel of progress was turning inside me. I was poised to walk New York City, to learn it—to learn I could do it. A woman across the aisle asked if I was okay. I told her I was fine, that I was about to be free.

  * * *

  Many people think New York must be a tough place for the blind, but in truth once you’ve had training with a white cane or a dog, it’s a great place. The layout of its avenues and streets forms a grid which makes knowing your location rather simple. Though the sidewalks are crowded and the traffic is intense, New Yorkers are helpful, perhaps because so many come from someplace else, and when you ask questions on a street corner strangers are kind. Walking from the train with Corky and entering the main concourse of Grand Central was like a dream—we moved among throngs of commuters, zipping around clusters of people reading signs. In the majesty of the railway palace we stopped too. I wanted to take it all in. Our trainer Linda was behind us, watching. A stray passenger asked if I needed directions. “No,” I said, “I’m just absorbing the glory of this place!” As I stood there two other people approached wanting to help. “This is a New York I didn’t know existed,” I thought. It’s the New York a guide dog attracts. “Nice dog,” said the second man who wanted to point me in the right direction. We headed toward the Forty-Second Street exit. Corky was delighted. Her tail thumped against my leg. She was in her element. I felt it in our speed. This was no unpleasant test. We were nimble and commanding. We exited the station and entered a sunny spring day. We were in. Were in New York. I wanted to cry again but we were walking too fast.

  We passed some men playing a curbside card game; we skirted left and passed a girl with a rolling suitcase. We stepped around a subway grate, pushed to the curb at Forty-Second and Vanderbilt. Corky looked left and right. Two people jaywalked but she didn’t budge. A car accelerated in front of us. I smelled a cigar. I wondered if it was from the taxi or the far side of the street. Linda said we were looking good.

  * * *

  Corky was calm but even so, the bustle of Fifth Avenue overloaded my circuits. It felt as though I’d had a dozen cups of coffee. Then I had a bizarre experience, a neurological hijacking—a fight-or-flee reflex�
�and ordered Corky to cross Forty-Ninth Street though we didn’t “have the light.” She looked left and right, saw a gap in the traffic, and took off. We were jay walking like ten million other New Yorkers and though we reached the far side safely, Linda caught up with us and said, “You almost gave me a heart attack. Listen for the traffic flow.”

  Walking the next few blocks I felt better. My mistake crossing against the light came from energy rather than fear and this was an achievement, failing to be afraid.

  We walked up Park Avenue and entered the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The doorman bade us welcome. He displayed gladness. My “no longer being afraid” meant I could hear notes of optimism. In the past, strange places had often seemed forbidding.

  “Welcome to the Waldorf, sir,” said the doorman, adding, “What a sharp dog!”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I remembered to say “Good dog.”

  We swayed together side by side on the red carpet in the foyer.

  There was a general fragrance of lilies.

  “We can come to places like this; we can find our way; we’re New Yorkers!” I said to Corky, though not loudly.

  The rug was soft as a cloud.

  There was something august and funereal about the odors of furniture wax and flowers and the odd hush of the place. And as I would do so many times over the coming years I got down on one knee and hugged my dog.

  Men and women passed us, headed for the Park Avenue exit.

  “Wow,” said a woman, seeing us.

  I heard the smile in her voice.

  I heard an elevator open.