Dreaded Discussions
By Rebecca Kragnes, December 2001

As a blind person and a dog guide user, I'm used to fielding lots of questions. Most are fairly harmless. What is the dog's name? How old is the dog?  How does the dog know when to cross the street? I think I can safely speak for most dog guide users in saying these are pretty common questions. We each have different ways of dealing with them. Some of us won't give the dog's name, and some will, for example.

Although I can't speak for other dog guide users, there is one topic about which I personally do not like to answer questions. It comes in many forms. "Where's your dog?" "No doggy today?" "What happened to your dog?" Then after I've given an answer, people make statements or ask follow-up questions to get more details. "Why?" "What happened?" "He looked healthy to me." "She seemed like she worked ok to me." For some, the "Where's your dog?" question may occur more often, because they choose to leave their dogs at home. It may be mildly annoying to them that people focus on the dog rather than the person. I don't have a problem with the focus on the dog, and I understand all too well that a dog guide becomes a part of me. It is very rare for me to leave my guide at home unless something is wrong with the dog or the environment is not conducive. Many times under one of these conditions, I elect to stay with my dog.

I am asked these questions most often when I am not currently working with a dog. Things happen which force a period of time between dogs, and this is when the same questions tend to repeat again and again. I am very aware of the absence of my dog, and I hope that other people won't point out the obvious. I feel vulnerable — a bit like not having my pants on.

I know these feelings very well, as I have had to part with two dogs in the last year. After four years of working with me, my first guide, a Golden Retriever named Tanner, suddenly got very ill with a kidney disease. Because the effects of this disease could not be reversed or stopped, I decided to put him to sleep in order to avoid inevitable pain. According to my vet, he would have had trouble breathing and eventually would have drowned in his own fluids.

Many people have pet dogs die, and this is hard on animal lovers. I have had some of these people say they know exactly how I feel, because they were close to there pet who died. Although I understand they are trying to be empathic, I grow impatient with such comments. When the dying dog is also someone's eyes, the impact is much greater than having a pet die. I compare it to having someone like a spouse or a child die. During the months between Tanner and Shelly, other people said, "Well, you'll get another one, so what is there to be upset about?" Replacing a dog isn't like replacing a cane or a pair of pants. There is an interdependent relationship which is hard for people who do not use guides to understand. I can't make the reader understand it, but I can say that these kinds of comments feel about as insensitive as telling a mother who's child died that she will have another. Similarly, it's like telling a widower that he can always marry again. Socially, we are taught not to ask for details about a death directly from the family members. It's tacky and tactless. So why is it anymore ok to say such things about someone's guide?

I had to say goodbye to my second guide, another Golden Retriever named Shelly, because she didn't care for working in the city. It stressed her out, and the shortcuts she tried to take to avoid work were putting us both in danger. I had someone compare it to an amicable divorce. I chafed at the analogy at first, but now have come to see how true it is. Even if a person  knows that two people who are divorcing do not hate each other, does he/she ask for details of the divorce? No, so why is it anymore correct to ask about why a person and a dog had to separate? Similarly to last year, I've had people ask why I am so upset, because I can always get another dog. I bet these same people wouldn't tell a divorcing friend not to be upset because they can always find another spouse.

Both of these experiences have involved intense grief for me. I naturally want to feed and relieve my dogs at the given times. I tread carefully around their favorite places and think I hear paws or tags at home. Both at home and in public, I have to keep from reaching down to pet a dog who isn't there. There is also guilt involved in the grieving process. The what ifs and if onlys seem to sneak out of nowhere.

Travel is much more frustrating. Most dog guide users have some cane travel skills, but they haven't been used for a while. In winter if I am between dogs, snow covers up familiar landmarks detected by the cane. My left side isn't protected by the barrier of a dog, and I am just as likely to slip off the sidewalk on that side as the right. I must remember to slow down, or my cane will whack someone in the back of the legs. It's more effort for me to negotiate tight spaces and crowds with a cane. I always listen carefully to traffic before crossing a street, but I don't have the dog to intelligently disobey me if I'm wrong about my judgment. I must try to keep that straight line when crossing the street, and if I stray at all, I hope it's away from traffic. If someone decides to turn in front of me, I no longer have a dog to put on the breaks. I am not arguing that the dog is better than the cane, because it's a personal preference. I am arguing that to be forced to go back to a method of travel I do not prefer is jarring and agonizing.

The final layer of frustration when I am between dogs is the way people treat me. Before getting a dog, I thought that all blind people were treated the same. Granted, there is a lot of similarity, but the public is much more curious about my dog than about my cane. I sit on a bus with the cane, and no one says a word to me (except to ask where the dog is). Most of the time I am ignored. If I have a dog present, we start by talking about the dog and then move onto other topics. Icebreaking isn't the main reason for having a dog, but it sure is a nice side benefit. Suddenly, that's gone too.

All of this grief and frustration is brought to the surface every time I am asked where my dog is. People mean well, but they really don't understand how horrible it feels to constantly be reminded that the dog is gone. I am reminded without them asking, and then they expect detailed explanations!

Like someone going through a death or divorce, sometimes I need to talk about what has happened to my dogs or the fact that I miss them. I would rather choose with whom, when,  and where I have these conversations just as anyone grieving a death or a divorce usually does. It's bad enough when friends and acquaintances ask, but it's twice as bad to be stopped on the street by people I don't even know just so they can ask.

I would like to suggest an alternative to making these queries. It's better to wait until the person brings the topic up themselves. This is often how we socially handle death and divorce. We are present to the grieving person but wait for them to bring it up. Once they do, we are careful to let them talk about what they need to and to just listen. In an ideal world, the public, family, friends, and acquaintances would look at the separation between dog guide and human in a more sensitive light and do these things.

As blind people, most of the time we want people to ask questions, but this is one time when sensitivity should come before education. I know that I'll never be able to stop this from happening to me, but I pray that reading this article will alert someone to how hurtful such inquiries can be. It would be worth the effort I put into writing this to learn that one grieving dog guide user did not have to go through the personal torture of being asked these questions during an extremely painful time.