One of my greatest joys We’re getting to know our loyal blog readers. Bonus: their dogs! Laura Lauteret (now Laura L.) has been a frequent commenter for several years, and many of us were heartbroken when we learned that her beloved dog, Seamus, passed away from hemangiosarcoma four years ago. We were so happy to meet her new dog, Kyle, who she has had for two months. “intellectual Disobedience” Laura and I discussed its importance to service dogs and I ended up asking her to help me understand more about life with a guide dog. Here is a photo of Laura with her new guide dog, Kyle.
Laura is your comfort zone. She is legally blind because she was born prematurely before medical science knew how to detect or treat blindness.Retinopathy of prematurityYeah.”
We talked at length She talks about her journey to getting a guide dog, the challenges and joys of training a new dog, and what she wants people to know about what guide dog teams want from us ordinary people.
I would like to start with this last topic. Because, it’s important and, needless to say, it made me laugh the most this week. I ask her to tell me about some of the weird questions she’s been asked while out in public with her guide dog. My favorite is when someone asked her, “How do you have sex?” I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair. (Please send me a good answer in case she gets asked that question again.)
A good question I found was: How do you pick up poop? Answer: All dogs are trained to potty on cue. Owners can tell from the tilt or curve of their dog’s back whether it’s pee or poop. If it’s poop, follow the dog’s back to its tail and pick it up.
Most importantly, What does Kyle (more on him later) want us to know about guide dogs for the blind? In Laura’s words, “A dog is a dog! Not a machine.” People seem to think that guide dogs can and do anything because “your dog won’t bite people.” People actually tell her that. Too many guide dogs do things they would never do with other dogs, putting owners in a terrible position. Laura has actually had parents tell her that it’s okay for their child to try to crawl on their Shamus because “kids need to experience this.” Help!
People seem to be fascinated by the idea. Guide dogs are there to “protect” people. Laura said that if her dog tried to protect her from someone, she would have to let it go. I’ll never forget when I was doing a book talk at a local bookstore and a woman in a wheelchair walked in with a giant German shepherd wearing a service dog vest. The store encouraged people to bring their dogs, so there were quite a few of them. The shepherd sat in the front row and spent the first 15 minutes glaring at another dog a few seats away. The owner had told me that the dog was “protective,” so I at least managed to get the dog to sit at the end of the row and continued chatting with the group without taking my eyes off the shepherd. Then smoke started coming out of the dog’s ears (well, maybe it wasn’t all the way out yet) and I was sure it was flying toward the unfortunate Labrador who was desperately trying to shrink a few seats away. While still speaking, I casually stepped off stage, exhaled, and grabbed my shepherd’s leash. In other words, “protective” (usually either “possessive” or “fear-based defensive aggression”) is not what we want in a guide dog owner.
Laura also spoke with love and insight: The difference in the personalities of her four guide dogs. Fascinated by the difference in personalities of working sheepdogs, I loved hearing her story about her first dog, Merlin. Merlin was a “very hard worker” and a good first dog for her. Merlin told her, “I can feel you.” This is a fantasy that everyone, blind or not, has at some point in their lives. (Why I bodyguard movie Lola cried for weeks after Merlin had to be retired and now knows she got a new dog too soon. Torpedo suffered a bit from “second dog syndrome” but they got along well and did a good job for Lola. Torpedo was a “shepherd” guide – always looking far ahead and leaving more space between things than a Labrador-like guide dog (and Merlin, who would approach and then noisily pass by).
And she got Seamus. The dog of her heart. He died suddenly at age 11 from vascular cancer. This cruel cancer hits dogs like an armed attack. One of my first BCs, Mist, died 4 days after she was diagnosed. The speed makes their loss that much harder. Laura felt like she’d been hit by a car and still misses him to this day. Seamus led like a classic shepherd, but never out of fear, more like “I want you to know what’s coming.” Here is this very sweet boy.
Laura had to wait four years. For a new dog Guide dogs (The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to everything. The dogs are specially bred and a lot of effort is put into socializing them and making them stress-resistant from an early age. Once things improved, there was a big bottleneck.) Kyle is young and still trying to get his head around the world, but he is attentive, responsive and very sweet, and she already trusts him completely. Although she knows he still needs training. He’s done a great job for her. ( “Intelligent Disobedience” About him stopping at the crosswalk because a car that Laura couldn’t see was coming into the crosswalk.
Kyle is also relatively calm. Lola is important to Lola, who works at a desk, and sometimes she needs to encourage him by saying, “Kyle, do your best!” Lola has enough experience to know when Kyle is feeling anxious, and I think Kyle is a lucky boy to have Lola. I’ll have a chance to meet Lola and Kyle soon. Midwest Championship Sheepdog Trials We will be making the announcement at the finals on Monday, September 2nd outside of Hudson, Wisconsin. Can’t wait! Pictures will be up soon.
This is Kyle, 2 years old and already Lola’s best friend and partner.
I’d love to hear more from someone For those of you who have working dogs, from service dogs of all kinds to working sheepdogs, scent detectors, etc., please share your experiences with different dogs. Right now my dog Skip is trying to teach me how to handle his particular personality type with the sheep that are being used for trials this time of year. He is great with the “frightened” sheep and the sheep that are easy to move, but is totally lost with the heavy sheep that “lean on the dog”. I took him out of the trial because he did everything I asked him to do in the last trial, but “retired” him because he and the sheep were moving at a snail’s pace. I learned some new exercises that I am trying. We’ll see how it goes. How are your working dogs? What type of dog is best suited for what situation? I can’t wait to read your comments!
Meanwhile on the farm: What could be better than the smell of a barn full of hay in late summer? (Maybe you’re not allergic to it, but you still love the smell!)
Jim’s Habitat for Humanity Thanks to fellow volunteers the Sutter and Zwettler families, we were able to get 315 bales of hay into the barn before the snow set in. Unloading the hay requires ideally two people to carefully load the bale onto the elevator (seen in the lower right corner), which reluctantly defies gravity to carry the bale up to the barn floor.
A bale of rice arrives through the window. The person designated to receive the hay stacks it, but as the number of bales increases, it becomes more difficult to stack them. Here, Jim catches the falling bales and hands them to the stackers.
I brought the sheep To see if they would approve. It’s a tough test, they’re fat as ticks on knee-high grass from the endless rains of spring and summer. Luckily, they’ve eaten enough to please me that they’ll be fine all winter.
asked Skip and Maggie. After the hay was all stacked we were asked to pose on it, which Skip was happy to help out, while old Maggie reverted to being a teenager reluctant to get her camera out.
I look forward to it! There’s nothing your four-legged friend doesn’t like this week. I love supermoons, crickets on snowy trees, and pretending the garden isn’t crying out to “pull the weeds.” Tell me what it’s like to have a working dog with a completely different personality and how that has affected working together. I’d love to hear!
