Waffling Along

Yesterday we (my Guide Dog Mobility Instructor and I) did our first training session with my guide dog with a person she knew with us for her to start to learn how to greet a human politely and for me to start to learn firstly to support Sadie in this, and secondly how to take over maintenance of this once we are further established with it.

Last week when I knew my trainer was due I had settled Sadie with a bone putting her on a benching line (like a long lead attached to the wall) so that she couldn’t jump all over the trainer when she arrived, which made a start on stopping Sadie being able to practice her unwanted greeting behaviours. This week, I left her free so our trainer could experience first hand the enthusiasm Sadie puts into her current style of greeting.

True to form, Sadie put on an admirable show of how high she can spring up in order to get a person’s attention, with her persisting normally until she gets the attention she craves, but this time our trainer had more persistence in giving Sadie absolutely no feedback or reaction to her greeting until she had all 4 paws on the floor. At that point, our GDMI clicked her clicker and verbally rewarded Sadie while getting a small piece of food for her. Sadie immediately sat (having learned previously that sit means reward) albeit with a very enthusiastic tail betraying her level of excitement, and as long as she maintained her sit, our trainer periodically clicked – starting immediately as Sadie’s bottom touched the floor, and then asking her to hold the sit for a few seconds longer and longer before she clicked and rewarding the sit.  It was then time to introduce my Dad into the training.  We put Sadie on a short lead, got a big bag of cooked chicken pieces ready ….and took a deep breath!

I had asked my Dad to wait outside in the car (yes, I know not the most polite of requests) until I went out for him, asking him to do exactly what our GDMI asked of him, which was to come into the living room, not look at Sadie and sit down in the chair beside the door.  He entered the living room and Sadie immediately scrambled to try and get to him. She scrambled harder and harder with her at one point on her back legs desperately trying to get to him but to no avail as our trainer held her secure.  As my Dad had entered the room, I had passed him and sat on the couch on the opposite side of the room.  As Sadie couldn’t get to my Dad, she then turned her attention to me, repeating her frantic behaviour. I found it really quite upsetting that Sadie was frantically trying to get to me but I couldn’t respond to her and had to ignore her pleas for attention and her confusion as to why we weren’t giving her what she wanted and also not telling her what we did want her to do.  Knowing Sadie as well as I do, I know my upset will only have made her desire to get to me even greater.  As she was not getting any response or attention from me whatsoever, she then turned towards our trainer, loosening her lead as she did so, which earned her a click, huge verbal praise and a piece of chicken.  Now Sadie realised she was being asked for an alternative behaviour other than scrambling towards me or my Dad, but wasn’t quite ready yet to give up on her attempts.  She quickly learned though that turning her attention away from me and my Dad back to the trainer earned her a click, more huge praise and more chicken. She was getting the hang of it but was still periodically looking to me for reassurance but I had to hold fast in my non-response (possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do) so that she was only getting attention from our trainer.  Once Sadie had her full attention on our trainer with each time she turned to her, loosening her lead, and/or gave a sit, she was rewarded with a click, praise and chicken. It was then time to take a half step at a time towards my Dad.  Sadie’s attention broke, quite naturally, a few times from our trainer to my Dad with scrambling periodically making a reappearance, but by stopping doing that and turning her attention back to our trainer, she soon learned that resulted in click, praise, chicken.  She eventually made it all the way to my Dad with only polite, calm behaviour (with each wanted behaviour being clicked, praised and rewarded with chicken) and was allowed to greet my Dad.

My trainer then asked me to go out into the hall with her and Sadie, fitted on another lead so she could take the brunt of any lunging that Sadie might do, and then it was my turn to walk towards my Dad, clicking, praising and rewarding each time Sadie turned her attention away from my Dad and to me. We managed to walk past him a few times, taking small steps and allowing Sadie time to give me the calm, focussed behaviour I was asking her for (and duly marking and rewarding these). We did allow Sadie to greet my Dad but only when she was showing consistently calm behaviour and I introduced a new cue phrase to her of “say hello” which will become my indication to Sadie that she is free to greet the person but only when she shows and maintains calm behaviour,  He then moved to the other side of the room and we walked towards him and then past him, with each and every time Sadie turning her full attention to me being clicked, praised and rewarded.  This was to teach Sadie that it’s far more rewarding to keep her attention on me than to try and greet anyone she knows. This will be vital once we are outside on our own and someone she knows is in the vicinity with Sadie maintaining focus on me rather than what she does just now, lunging towards them for attention.

The last exercise we did with Sadie was off lead, asking her to maintain her attention on me as I walked around the living room, out into the hall, back in again, past my Dad and trainer, into the kitchen etc. Each time Sadie made the choice to maintain her focus on me and where I was going, I clicked, praised and rewarded with chicken. I always gave her time to make that decision with her love of chicken winning every time.  This is actually something Sadie is familiar with doing as she often ends a free run by walking alongside me, with me periodically giving her a piece of her recall food to both reward her focus on me and maintain it.  After walking around a little, I sat down in the chair with my Dad and GDMI then gently calling Sadie towards them, but although Sadie did approach, she quickly turned back to me, and the instant she did so, I clicked, praised and rewarded. This is again to teach Sadie that keeping her attention on me when others deliberately try to distract her (the bane of every assistance dog owner’s life!) is better rewarded than a sneaky pat from a stranger (which Sadie actually dislikes, in common with the majority of pet dogs who don’t like strangers suddenly patting them).

My trainer then asked me to indicate to Sadie that training was finished, so I asked Sadie to find her teddy…a signal I use to her when we come back home from work or out on route from home.  A big play then ensued with Sadie parading around showing her beloved teddy to everyone.  We had a short discussion about how the training session had gone, making arrangements for the next one and my trainer left. Sadie immediately curled up at my feet and fell asleep. She’d worked hard and very much deserved her rest.

Someone once told me that my dog only loves me because I feed her. I choose to believe otherwise.  In this training session though it’s up for debate as to whether Sadie’s focus on me was solely because of our bond, or because I was the holder of the chicken. I know which option I favour.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy learned that something magical happens when she clicked. In her case, when she clicked the heels of her ruby red slippers together three times, saying “there’s no place like home”, she found herself back in the safety of her Aunty Emm’s house.  Today Sadie (re)learned that something magical happens when she hears a click – she found herself back in the safety of positive reinforcement training.

My guide dog Sadie greets people in the way a dog will naturally greet a human..rushing towards them and jumping up at them to get the attention she craves.  As soon as she gets the attention she wants, she reverts to her normal calm behaviours, those that she has been taught as a pup and during her training to be a working guide dog.  Dogs like humans don’t learn by us wishing it so. We need to teach them what we want them to do and how to behave in ways we find acceptable.    Telling them off and/or correcting unwanted behaviours merely tells them what not to do, not what to do.

The use of a clicker in dog training marks the behaviour that the dog has given that we want from them. They quickly form an association between doing something that we want and hearing a click. Usually this is followed up by a reinforcer – something that the dog finds pleasant and over time will reinforce repeating that behaviour.  In Sadie’s case, any kind of food and any amount of it is a reinforcer. There is a hierarchy in Sadie’s mind of food, so chicken is favoured over a biscuit, a biscuit is favoured over a piece of her kibble etc.  It’s important to recognise that it’s what the dog finds reinforcing that is important, not what a human thinks should be reinforcing to them if you want to use this to teach them.  You can also pair a click with a word so that over time you can fade out the click, but the spoken word elicits the same wanted response. For example, Sadie sits, she hears a click and is given a piece of food.  Next time Sadie sits, hears “sit” along with a click and is given a piece of food.  Repetitions are required to teach the dog clicking is a good thing as it’s followed by their reinforcer, and over time the preferred spoken word with the click being faded out results in the same wanted reinforcer.

When Sadie greets a human, I want her to walk calmly to them, and keep her 4 paws on the floor as she greets them and is patted and spoken to by that person.  I need to teach Sadie this, not least because she has been using her very successful (to her) natural behaviours for 6 years which have got her exactly what she wants (human attention).  It will take time to teach her this and today we made a start on it with the help of a senior trainer from Guide Dogs. This trainer not only trains the dogs to learn the wanted behaviours to safely guide, but also trains the dog trainers to use positive reinforcement methods to teach the dogs their guiding skills.  Guide Dogs have recently moved to only using positive reinforcement so staff and volunteers are still learning these techniques.

It’s a number of years since Sadie was part-trained using a clicker, so the first thing our trainer did today was to test Sadie’s reaction to a click when Sadie sat…without the trainer saying or doing anything to elicit this behaviour from her.  As soon as Sadie sat in front of her (the trainer was sitting on the couch in my living room), she clicked and Sadie got a piece of kibble.  Sadie had got up to receive the kibble, so the trainer waited until Sadie sat back down again and clicked, with Sadie rapidly learning sitting calmly in front of the trainer meant click which meant food. So Sadie (re)learned the magic not only of a click, but the magic to her of positive reinforcement training.  Food!

Next step was to go outside and reinforce using the clicker the behaviours we wanted from Sadie. We start easy to build confidence in the dog, and in our case when Sadie guided me to the kerb and sat down as she has been trained to do (indicating to me that we are at the kerb and a road is immediately in front of us), I clicked and gave Sadie a piece of kibble. Each time she sat at a kerb, I clicked and rewarded the behaviour with kibble. As we progressed on our walk, I clicked and gave Sadie a piece of kibble for any of her learned guiding behaviours progressing to clicking and rewarding when she walked past a human. It’s important to understand from Sadie’s perspective that she needs to learn that calmly walking past (or in time to) a person is the behaviour I want, so we started today with people she doesn’t know and has no interest in to build the association with being calm around a person.

Along with teaching Sadie to be calm in greeting friends and family, I also need to teach her a behaviour that will interrupt her currently preferred method of galloping towards them and jumping up to refocus her on the behaviour I need.  As Sadie was taught a hand touch by her volunteer puppy walker, a vital skill to have if she was to have been matched with a completely blind person who would need her to touch their hand on recall from play in the park before they rewarded her for doing so, we used this.  I’m fortunate in having a small amount of remaining vision given the right environment, but do put my hand out to Sadie if I’m not sure where she is at home or in the garden so I don’t accidentally stand on her or trip over her. Today I matched that with the word “touch“ holding out a closed hand with Sadie touching my hand with her nose, and then being clicked and given a piece of her kibble.  We used this when Sadie’s attention on our walk spontaneously moved from guiding me to something ahead – I didn’t see what it was but my trainer thought she saw a tail disappear under a fence likely belonging to a cat. This enabled me to interrupt Sadie’s attention on the cat and turn it back to me. Over time we will build on this to using it to interrupt any galloping towards a person Sadie knows…well, that’s the theory anyway.  It will take time and perseverance, which for Sadie I have in abundance.

On our way back and nearing home, our trainer went ahead and then reappeared a little way ahead of Sadie.  She has already primed me that when Sadie saw her in the distance if she remained calm and/or turned her attention back to me, I needed to click and give her a piece of her kibble.  Any excited behaviour meant I stood still and said and did nothing,  Because Sadie has learned early on in the walk that keeping her attention on me and giving me the behaviour I needed from her resulted in a click and food, it took her a nano second from recognising our trainer but immediately looking to me because she knew that would elicit food. As we calmly walked towards our trainer, I repeated the click and kibble reward each and every time Sadie looked to me so that we were able to calmly approach our trainer.

Over the next week or so until I meet with our trainer again, I will continue to use the clicker to mark any and all behaviours I want from Sadie.  If we do happen to meet a friend or family member on route before we have had the chance to formally practice calm behaviour in their presence in a training session, I will endeavour to use the new training with Sadie but it won’t do any immediate harm if we don’t succeed in it; it’s highly unlikely that Sadie will be calm in their presence having only spent around an hour being reinforced for being calm in a stranger’s presence in the street. Realistically, Sadie using previously successful means to reach someone she knows in this very early stage of retraining her won’t seriously and irretrievably harm what we learned today.  It’s not possible for a trainer with multiple responsibilities to many dogs and clients to solely focus on one more than once a week.  And, as we are using purely positive reinforcement techniques to train Sadie, I don’t correct unwanted behaviours. Obviously if our immediate safety depended on it, I would find a way to interrupt or stop the dangerous behaviour, but that would in no way derail what Sadie learned today or will learn in the coming days and weeks.

The next stage of our training will be to find a willing family member of friend volunteer that Sadie knows well to stand in a pre-arranged place as Sadie and I walk towards them, slowly decreasing the distance as Sadie gives me my wanted calm behaviour until we reach them.  Her kibble will be swapped for a higher value reinforcer as merely giving her kibble won’t hold her attention on me as her assumed human attention she will get by rushing towards the person is a much higher reinforcer than kibble.

If you’ve read this and wondered why as a human behavioural psychologist I haven’t done this training myself to date with Sadie, to maintain my membership of my professional body I should not do any behaviour modification that I have not been specifically trained to do.  Also, I am highly respectful of the staff in Guide Dogs so will always defer to their skills and experience in training my dogs.

When I trained with my first guide dog, Waffle, I was taught to use negative reinforcement methods with her.  That is, to correct the unwanted behaviours using my voice, the lead and/or the harness.  This method of training and working with my dog never sat very comfortably with me so my corrections were pretty pathetic and ineffectual.  It was remarked upon on on more than a few occasions that I needed to get better at using these methods to get the best out of my dog.  That my command of these methods was rather despaired of was actually a matter of pride to me, albeit a secret one.  I very much wanted to continue working with my guide dog and treasured her though so bit my tongue on the occasions I was corrected for my poor performance as I was worried that failure to come up to the required standard could mean my dog would be removed from me.

Towards the end of our partnership I started to do some learning in dog behaviour and psychology and moved further away from the methods I had been taught instead favouring positive reinforcement which focusses on building an association in the dog of the behaviour you do want and something pleasant resulting from that behaviour being given.  So for example using negative reinforcement method for my guide dog being distracted by a pet dog I would need to give a sharp “no” followed by a harness flick (designed to physically remind the dog that she needed to focus on her guiding), and if that didn’t work, a lead flick (designed to physically remind the dog that she needed to focus on her guiding but as it is given on the neck, any physicality of it is felt to a much greater degree than through the harness which is around her chest).  Using positive reinforcement, when Waffle ignored the pet dog, I praised her and would follow this with a small piece of food which helped to strengthen the ‘positive’ from her behaviour and thus reinforcing the behaviour I did want.

Sadly Waffle became seriously unwell when she was 5, was retired early and only had a 4 week retirement with me before gaining her angel wings.  All that I had learned from Waffle meant that I wanted only to use positive reinforcement with any future guide dog.   That was to be her legacy.

When I was matched with Sadie she had been partly trained using positive methods and these were the ones I adopted when training and working with her.  For anyone who has followed my blog, particularly for our refresher training, you’ll know that when the charity who gifted me Sadie didn’t know why she was throwing off certain unwanted behaviours (mainly stopping on the pavement and not budging, and conversely leaping around on the pavement) partly because they didn’t know why Sadie was doing this and partly because at that time punishment methods were still relied upon to alter behaviours in the dogs, particularly the unwanted ones, these were the methods used for the refresher training.  I went with this but my heart was still not in it.  I adored my dog, had spent time trying to understand her and the very last thing I ever wanted to do was to be correcting her all the time.  Had these methods worked, I MIGHT have stuck with them, but they didn’t and both of us were pretty miserable.  So I ditched them and stopped blogging about what I was doing mainly because I was still wary of doing something wrong in the eyes of the charity and risk having my dog removed from me.

One the first things I learned during my human psychology training was that behaviour never occurs in a vacuum. One of the first things I learned from my early days with Sadie was that I might not know why she was behaving in the ways I didn’t want, but correcting her out of them wasn’t going to work.  I was adamant that her “problem” behaviours were stress led, others disagreed and argued that it didn’t matter why she was doing what she was doing, we just needed to get her to stop them.  Punishment methods do work, but they are not in my personal and professional opinion ethical or moral when superior methods exist which do not cause the dog any physical or emotional harm.  I moved from correcting unwanted behaviours, to solely focussing on rewarding the behaviours I did want.  Over time Sadie became less stressed, and as she did so the problem behaviours started to disappear.  She learned that she had no need to be stressed with me, I wasn’t going to correct her if she gave me an unwanted behaviour, I was just going to refocus her on the behaviour I did want, and as soon as she gave me that, reinforce it.  She learned it was much more fun to be out and about in the world being praised and being fed little food rewards for helping me.

However,  2 problem behaviours remained and over the past 4 years of our partnership I have asked at various times for help with these, but it was still punishment methods being recommended to resolve them.  As I wouldn’t use them, I effectively socially isolated myself and Sadie so she didn’t have the opportunity to keep practicing the unwanted behaviours.  At our recent annual follow up visit from the charity I spoke in depth about my feelings of being isolated and not wanting to use punishment methods to train Sadie to give me the behaviours I wanted.  Happily they listened and fortuitously had themselves moved to only using positive reinforcement with their dogs.  Yes there are still a substantial number of working dogs who have been trained and currently work to punishment methods, but all new pups and training (both canine and human) is done using only positive reinforcement.

Today Sadie and I met with a senior trainer with the charity and we started working on her unwanted behaviours.  I’m hoping to blog about our training to share the methods Guide Dogs now use and, hopefully, our success using them.  The most important thing for me in this training will be that at (long) last I will be taught how to teach Sadie the behaviours I do want, and not to punish/correct those I don’t want.  Dogs are no different from humans – they don’t learn what you do want them to do unless you teach them that.

Although I have talked in this post about the methods used by the charity who gifted me Waffle and Sadie, and may do so in future blogs, I am in no way intending that to be viewed as casting a negative light on them, or any of their staff.  They care passionately for all their dogs and will always do their very utmost, often going way above and beyond anything that could be reasonably expected of them to train the dogs and help visually impaired people like myself to get out and about.  They are to be commended for moving to training techniques that have been shown to be superior, to being committed to only using those going forward and to retrain an entire workforce to only use these methods along with all their volunteers; a not insignificant undertaking.

Around a year ago Guide Dogs started running an advert on TV for Gifts in Wills. They used pieces of film they had previously taken from various partnerships for varying campaigns and fundraising activities. The member of staff who contacted me for permission to use a piece of film from when Waffle won Guide Dog of the Year – Life Changing category in December 2014 did not appear to be aware that I had lost Waffle less than six months after her award. I have always been determined though that Waffle’s legacy will continue so am always happy for footage to be used, albeit with a sizeable lump in my throat when I view it especially when she is happily running around. A lady I sometimes see on the local bus said weeks ago to me that she had seen the advert and recognised me because of the hat that I’m wearing in the advert. Another unknown lady approached me in the park and asked if I was the person in the advert because she was sure it was the same hat I was wearing that day to the one she had seen in the advert. Three other people I have never met or spoken to previously, two in Edinburgh and one locally, also spoke to me for the first time after recognising me from my hat!

Many of my visually impaired and blind peers have blogged and vlogged their tips for technology that assists them. And, more recently, the hash tag #Blind PeopleUsePhones was sparked by an image on social media of a lady seen with a long guide cane using her phone – the insinuation being that the two items were incongruous at best, and she was faking her disability at worst. My own eye condition means that I am both highly light dependent to optimise my remaining vision while also being highly light sensitive (photophobia) so am for ever trying to optimise levels of light for my own needs. One way I do this outdoors is with my hat – the one I wore for the Guide Dogs filming is a black cord Baker Boy style hat from Marks and Spencers.

(Photo of my black cord Baker Boy style hat sitting on my bed)

I have more hats in a similar style than I have pairs of shoes!

(Photo of all my Baker Boy and hats with peaks sitting on my bed)

The peak of the hat helps to level out the amount of light that gets to my eyes so reduces glare blindness as well as limiting direct sunlight which totally blinds me (and also damages my eyes). Wearing a hat also keeps my hair from obscuring my small window of sight on windy days. So for me, hats are an essential tool to help me safely and comfortably mobilise outside, as well as of course being an accessory of choice. The peak of this style of hat is also a good safety accessory for me not otherwise hitting my head off something (or someone!) as my eye condition can make judging distance difficult and my severely restricted field of vision can mean objects surrounding me are in my blind area and thus I do not see them.

I have a smaller than average head size. On my (in)famous black hat (the one I wore for the Guide Dogs filming) I used a brooch to pull in the head band to make it fit.

(A close up photo of the faux cameo antique brooch I used to reduce the size of the head band in my hat)

Many high street shops sell only one size hats, but Accessorize often have hats in my preferred style with an elasticated back which means without extension of the elastic, the hat is a good fit.

(Photos of my new ‘favoured’ hat which is in the Baker Boy style and is a mix of black, cream and brown check colours; the second photo shows the elasticated back to the hat).

I have also bought hats from Village Hats, and along with Marks and Spencers they also sell hats in various sizes. Both retailers sell sizing bands that help you optimise the fit – M&S sell a “custom fit” band that attaches with buttons into the hat’s inner head band and Village Hats have Hat Sizers with a sticky back to them that you can put either on the front aspect of the inner head band of the hat, or the back of it to find your perfect fit. A milliner once told me that you can optimise the fit of a hat using a piece of Velcro (the hook part) sewn or stuck in to the hat to help the hat grip your hair…it does work, but it also makes my head incredibly itchy and uncomfortable.

(Photos showing the M&S custom fit band (left photo) and Village Hats hat sizers (right Photo) sitting on my bed)

My like of hats does not end with the Baker Boy style and I use my prescription sunglasses with bobble hats and berets which I also have in a range of colours.

(Photo showing many of my hats laid out on my bed).

I also have many pairs of gloves that match or co-ordinate with my outfit, most of which are fingerless to aid working with Sadie, eg giving a small food reward to Sadie is much easier when she completes a task I’ve asked her help with with bare fingers than gloved ones. And needless to say, I have a range of scarves in different colours, patterns and weight of material to go along with them too.

(Photo showing some of my fingerless gloves; I have at least as many with full fingers in them)

I am as much a technophobe today as I was when I wrote my first blog post (I still haven’t found the answer to why use of technology is not included in visual impairment rehabilitation given how useful it is, but not intuitive to someone like me) but my hats are essential tools for me to aid my safe mobilisation and independence. I do believe though that I got my love of hats from my much missed Grandma who always wore a hat when going out, and all day on a Sunday as she made the frequent visits to the church at the top of her street for the various services. I spent many happy days and weeks with my Grandma through my formative years, and in many ways she was a more influential adult when I was growing up than my parents were. I might wear a hat for very practical reasons, but I know she would approve of me having my head covered, which she maintained was one of the ways “a lady differentiated herself”.

[“If you want to get ahead, get a hat” was the advertising slogan in the 1940s by Dunn & Co hatmakers. The advert showed a man going for an interview, the suggestion being that to make yourself stand out, you should wear a hat…something that would have met with my Grandma’s approval].

#Hats #MarksAndSpencers #VillageHats #Accessorize #BlindPeopleUsePhones #GuideDogs

I came across this poem after seeing a couple of lines from it on the internet. It’s by Linda Ori, called Radiance.

I did not bring you roses

when you searched for something rare,

instead I brought you daisies

and I hoped you wouldn’t care;

And now I look behind me

with a wistful little smile –

You would have taken dandelions

and loved me all the while.

Standing at the bus stop this morning chatting to a friend I noticed a female and her dog approaching on my left. Despite Sadie being in full working guide dog regalia (white harness with resplendent fluorescent yellow chest flash, two guide dog insignia to the sides of her harness, a not insignificantly sized fluorescent yellow sign at the top of the harness handle which implores “Please do not distract me. I am a working guide dog”, and a sleeve on her lead denoting her working assistance dog status) the lady allowed her dog to come right up to Sadie. I asked Sadie to wait (indicating to her that I didn’t want her to interact with the other dog) with barely a pause in my conversation. Then I heard the lady say something and I somewhat distracted replied “what?” – admittedly my reply should have been “sorry I didn’t hear what you said” – and the woman said “Is that dog not allowed near other dogs?”. I replied “no she’s a guide dog, she’s working” which illicited the response of “All right, I only asked a F-ing question, there’s no F-ing need to look at me like that!” and stormed off with her continued mutterings punctuated with some further expletives. Both my friend and I looked at each other asking ‘what the heck was that about?’ before chuckling to ourselves.

And there it was – the awareness of a right of passage; being able to laugh off today’s rant and swearing by a member of the public. Although I was stunned by her reaction to my answer, I didn’t allow it to upset me, although feeling a little incredulous, or knock me off my stride as the bus arrived moments later. I can, however, still remember the first occasion doing nothing other than standing at a kerb with my guide dog, Waffle, waiting for it to be safe for us to cross the road that apparently warranted a tirade of swearing and anger from a female I’d never seen before, or thankfully since, that reduced me to tears. So as I reflected on today’s female’s behaviour as I journeyed home, I wondered when did I move from being shocked and upset by a stranger’s vehement and vitriolic reaction to my disability (and/or perhaps aid of a guide dog) to accepting it as an almost daily occurrence and one which no longer shocks or unduly upsets me? Why is there an acceptance of that on my part, but with no intended implication of acceptability of such behaviour? Furthermore, why have disabled people in this country come to accept this sort of behaviour as part and parcel of being disabled?

Day and daily disabled people are exposed to what appears to me to be an acceptance of the right of a stranger to commentate on our lives and our disability. On the one hand, we are labelled as scroungers [1] but mocked as faking our disability if we dare be witnessed using an aid to negotiate it [2]. I was raised in a world where manners abounded, my care givers taught me to show respect to others, to say please and thank you, to not interrupt others when they were speaking, to show patience and tolerance to others and acceptance of individuality, regardless of the form that individuality took. And yet in my daily life manners from someone other than a family member or friend surprises me. It’s become a thing of exception, and I do occasionally muse as to how we (ie society) came to that position.

When I entered Waffle into the Guide Dog of the Year Awards I didn’t do so because I fancied a new frock or night out in London with the rich and famous (which was just as well as due to work commitments I got neither), but rather to raise awareness of the services Guide Dogs for the Blind Association can provide, to pay homage to Waffle’s puppy walker and to seek to reassure anyone finding themselves trying to chart the unknown landscape of sight loss and disability status that there is a fulfilling and rewarding life possible, albeit a renegotiated one in my case. I took on all of the interactions with the various media, mainstream and social, with gusto, I overlooked the distortions of my story by those more interested in sales figures than factual accuracy, and answered endless questions about my eye condition ignoring the stereotyping of disability let alone my own and laid myself bare to the temporal loss of anonymity as I sought to educate and awareness raise. Four years on I still patiently tolerate intrusion into my personal life by strangers who feel the need to comment on it, and excuse those who appear to have a metaphoric and literal belief in their right to crash into my personal space, all by virtue of me having a disability, in the hope of reaching those who genuinely seek to learn or be assisted by my experiences.

Two things occurred to me after this morning’s incident. Firstly, I had noticed the woman in the park where Sadie was at play a little earlier (a so called free run in guide dog parlance – free of her lead, harness and guiding work) where I ensured Sadie didn’t go near her dog because it was on lead and secondly, I was more than likely squinting when I replied to the woman at the bus stop. Contrary to what I was taught with my guide dogs, I do not let them do anything they want in the park because in this particular instance it is bad manners to allow your off lead dog to approach an on lead dog (it’s on a lead for a reason, and by virtue of its lead it may not be able to easily communicate to my dog whether it welcomes her attention and thus an orchestrated, by me, breakdown in polite dog to dog interaction may occur), and in general, the laws of dog control apply to a guide dog at play just as they do a pet dog. Had that been the reason behind the woman’s question as she approached me at the bus stop? Although if it was, why allow her dog to come right up to Sadie when she was in ‘working mode’ as her question inferred some level of awareness that I was keeping Sadie away from her dog in the park and/or at the bus stop? And was me squinting in the sunlight because of glare blindness as I sought to locate the woman to reply to her the cause of her disapproval to how I looked when I did so? If so, I refuse to be bad mannered to those who are poorly mannered to me and my dog (it’s at least a daily occurrence and often a multiple occurrence that I have to attempt to block a pet dog owner allowing and often encouraging their dog to approach Sadie when she is actively guiding me), and I’ve no intention of playing tit-for-tat by showing no manners to other dogs being walked in the park because I’m disgruntled by someone’s else’s poor awareness. But what I absolutely refuse to do is in anyway apologise for the nature of my disability and how other’s perceive it. Butting in on my conversation with my friend is annoying and bad mannered, but taking offence at my squinting in bright sunlight, childish and unacceptable.

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2012/11/scroungers-fraudsters-and-parasites-how-media-coverage-affects-our-view-benefit-cl

2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-47031509

First day back at work for Sadie and I today after our Easter holidays.  My trainer is on holiday this week so Sadie and I will be practising our various lunchtime routes so we can identify any problem areas my trainer can help with on her return.  Never one to shirk a challenge I decided the first route we’d practice would be the one Sadie has historically stuck on.  Today she made the right turn smoothly with no hesitation or reluctance at all! Almost jinxed it by wanting to do a little happy dance on the pavement but I did one in my head instead so I didn’t throw her off kilter.  Sadie is still a little slow in places on the return route but that’s coming along nicely, and what’s a little dawdle now and then between friends.

Sadie is very much looking for our trainer both at the exit to the hospital where we have been meeting her and also around the shopping centre area…anyone dressed in even vaguely Guide Dog-esque attire gets Sadie’s full attention.  I’m not sure if she is missing her friend who has taught her so much or if she’s on the look out in case she gets corrected for something I’m not picking up on, she was certainly having a little fly look around just after making the previously problematic right turn….bit of a shame really that my trainer wasn’t hiding out somewhere to have seen the massive progress Sadie has achieved but I’ll be sure to give her a glowing report for today’s work.

I’ve mentioned previously that one of the significant problems I had with Sadie shortly after class finished last year was that she would stick on a particular route, with me initially not being able to get her moving at all and then with the input of my trainer tempting her along with the reward of cheese before things deteriorated with her behaviour and we jointly decided to pare Sadie’s workload back to allow her time to find her feet as a working guide dog.  We deliberately avoided this route during early refresher training but one of my more recent posts detailed that Sadie was starting to stick on the alternative route we found back to my workplace from the shopping centre.  My trainer had specifically asked me to avoid both sticking points until she had time to do some focussed training with us.

When I met my trainer on the day we planned to tackle the lesser of Sadie’s sticking points, after a discussion and for a variety of reasons we decided we would instead tackle Sadie’s sticking head on and attempt the worst return route that day.  For me this would be a litmus test of just how confident I now was in handling Sadie’s behaviour and her stubbornness in particular.  If I had been asked to do this, even with my trainer present, last year or earlier this year prior to refresher training it would have reduced me to a doubt filled wreck….but that day I relished the challenge!

We walked our usual route to the shopping centre with no issues whatsoever, taking time to give Sadie some work within Sainsburys to reinforce to her that there was a destination she liked on this route but that she would have to leave the shops using the route I decided rather than one of her choice, and at a time of my choosing.  I noticed as we were walking back out of the shopping centre Sadie was giving me definite indications of other shops I use so acknowledged her indications to me but encouraged her on past them.  During refresher training we have purposively been giving Sadie more responsibility than during initial class as I have a greater reliance on Sadie keeping me safe than I did when I worked with Waffle, and as my vision will continue to deteriorate its important that Sadie uses all the skills she has been trained to use and be confident doing so so we don’t find ourselves in a short space of time in the situation where my sight has all but gone (or indeed completely gone) and Sadie is unable to accept a sudden and increased level of responsibility and workload during her working years.  Therefore I’m continuing to openly encourage Sadie to locate things for me whether I need them that day or not.  And its been a joy to know that Sadie is flourishing with the increased level of responsibility and workload; my trainer reminds me frequently of how bright a dog Sadie is and that she needs to make use of her intelligence so she enjoys her working life (she still gets oodles of down time and play time too of course).

After leaving the shopping centre completely we reached the point where Sadie wants to cross a road but I need her to turn right.  This is where she has spectacularly stuck previously.  I allowed her to enthusiastically find the kerb as if to cross the road (simply giving her the “straight on”command) and praising her when she sat at the pavement.  I then told her “right” and she initially turned and then thought better of it.  Three times she tried to take me to the kerb edge and three times I corrected her (calm, even tone saying “no”) and told her “straight on”.  After she did move straight on the third time she stopped completely and I asked my trainer for help.  Going back to the basics of foot position one (both my feet together standing at Sadie’s shoulders) and then back to foot position two (I step back to Sadie’s hip, my left foot a step forward of my right foot, my weight on the my back foot) and telling Sadie “forward” got her to move a minuscule amount.  My trainer told me to do the same again, but if Sadie failed to continue moving forward adjust my tone to a more corrective one, take the lead in my right hand, give Sadie a harness flick and if need be a lead flick thereafter all the while telling Sadie “straight on”.  This worked although Sadie walked very, very slowly forward and kept this up for about 50 yards. With no fuss, and with Sadie still moving forward, I put the lead back in my left hand and reverting back to my encouraging voice and command to “hop up” she rocketed off having got over her initial huff at not being allowed to cross the road.  Success! And not a piece of cheese in sight.

I gave Sadie lots of praise when we reached the next down kerb as a way of rewarding her good behaviour and hopefully reinforcing the need to guide me to this kerb point in her mind.  (As an aside, a dog’s working memory lasts approx 30 seconds so this is the best window of opportunity to praise or correct a behaviour before you risk correcting or praising a different one from that which you intended….at the kerb point upper most in Sadie’s mind was her good guiding and not her stubbornness further back).  The next section of the route passed unremarkably and then we came upon the wobbly manhole cover that Sadie had taken a dislike to last year.  She walked over it and I praised her…and then she stopped completely.  I knew she was demanding a treat which she would have been given last year, but the new rule in place is no treats for Sadie doing things other than locating a door or a pole or button for me…so no treats were forthcoming…and Sadie sat down on the pavement in protest.  For a fraction of a second I considered asking my trainer for help but decided I did know what to do (or at least try) so gave Sadie a harness flick and told her “forward”, which she did albeit in a major huff.  I got Sadie to “hop up” again but only for a few short steps for the next two sections of the route, it almost feeling like Sadie would remember she was supposed to be in a huff with me so would revert back to slow walking.    Ever heard of the terrible twos in a child’s developmental stage?!

Before Sadie and I parted company with my trainer that day, we agreed to meet again the next day repeating the same route to reinforce to Sadie she needs to do what I ask of her and not what she likes to do….what on earth is over that road crossing that Sadie is so intent on getting to?

The next day we walked the same route to and from the shopping centre (going to M&S this time to continue mixing up destinations for Sadie’s interest and hopefully motivation to keep working).  Sadie once again approached the down kerb of the crossing she wanted to make enthusiastically and once again I told her “right”.  No movement from Miss Pops. Harness flick from me and “right” with a reluctant right turn by Sadie.  We walked a few steps on and my trainer asked me to stop, get Sadie to take us back to the crossing and repeat the right turn.  At the third time of going back and forward Sadie was starting to lose her reluctance to make the right turn (yay!) but she was also starting to predict that we would turn back so my trainer said to continue straight on to the next down kerb.  I did something in that moment that I shouldn’t have done, but I really couldn’t stop myself from doing.  I put my hand on Sadie’s head and gave her a wee pat.  My trainer rightly picked up that I was giving Sadie mixed messages and that I need to always be consistent with Sadie; voice must match command, tone of voice must match Sadie’s behaviour.  Anyone who knows me knows how much of a stickler for consistency I always am.  So why did I pat Sadie on the head on that particular part of the route when her behaviour didn’t warrant it?  Because in that moment I made my peace with Sadie being a stubborn wee bum, because I wanted to let Sadie know that no matter how often she strops or how badly I still adore her, that no matter how slowly she walks or how big a huff she is in, I love her to bits.  There are moments in developing partnerships that stand out in cementing your working relationship with your dog.  That moment when I put my hand on Sadie’s head was one of them for us.  At the very end of the walk I told my trainer that if an occasional battle with Sadie is part of having her in my life, I embrace it wholeheartedly.  Sadie can be a pickle, she is a conundrum to the most experienced of guide dog trainers and she’s an enigma to us all. But she’s my pickle, my wee conundrum and my much loved enigma. I’m way beyond attached to Sadie to ever want to part with her (that’s why when she was back with Guide Dogs for her assessment I said I’d have her back in a heartbeat).  Refresher training has given me the skills I need to manage Sadie’s behaviour, but its also given me the confidence to use them.  I no longer worry that Sadie doesn’t want to be a guide dog, or doesn’t want to be my guide dog if she’s throwing a strop on the pavement. Sadie loves being a guide dog and she loves being a little madam sometimes.   I never asked for, or expected, a perfect dog.  To my mind there is no such thing as a perfect dog, but there can be a dog who is perfect for you.  And Sadie is perfect for me.

Repeating that particular route on two days turned out to be a watershed moment for me.  Sadie may look at me with her “make me why don’t you!” look on her face as she goes into full on stubborn mode, but it’s now met with a fierce but calm determination in my mind, and confidence level, that I will rise to any challenge she throws at me and we will go where I need us to go and no matter how slowly we go, we will go there.  And this new found confidence was reflected in my observed handling of Sadie a few days later when my trainer visited us in our home town.  For me its an almost palpable step change in my confidence in handling Sadie.

At the end of the second day of working through Sadie’s most stubborn of behaviour and getting her to walk at her true guiding pace, my trainer asked me how I know when to ask Sadie to “hop up” and when to remain quiet and matter of fact with Sadie just telling her on occasional “straight on” as no matter who tried what technique when Sadie was back in for her assessment, no one could get her to “hop up” if Sadie decided to dawdle.  I can only say its a combination of learning to initially work with Sadie and all my GDMI taught me then, getting to know Sadie as an individual (when best to speak and when best to shut up),  and putting into practice what I’ve been taught during refresher training, but also, and for me of most importance, not being in the slightest bit bothered by Sadie’s slow walking.  The little bit of absolute silence, with me having both the harness handle and lead in my left hand, ensuring my correct body position relative to Sadie’s and not flinching literally or figuratively if Sadie doesn’t want to “hop up”  seems to be the perfect recipe in getting her to increase her pace, but in a way that Sadie seems to believe is of her doing and not mine (she is part retriever after all).  Having a guide dog who will walk at vastly different paces on occasions would not suit many if anyone other than me but it really doesn’t phase me at all if Sadie walks slowly, and I’m really not in that much of a rush to lead my life.  Like I said, Sadie and I are perfect for each other and for every “make me why don’t you” she throws at me, its now met with a “watch me why don’t you” back at her.  And all the while my trainer still saying I could be sterner with my voice and better at my harness and lead flicks.  I could be, but I don’t seem to need to be.

I’m back to work today after having the Easter weekend off work.  I had planned some long walks with Sadie, completing one of them, when my unstable pelvis made its presence felt once again.  Sadie shone on the new route we walked on the Friday, even although most of it was new to her and its been around two years since I walked the route so was a little unsure of part of it and residents and visitors alike to our town were out in their droves making sections very busy.  Saturday became a rest day courtesy of said pelvis with a family visit on the Sunday and a short bus trip to access another new route for Sadie on Monday, again which she shone on….I love to see how she takes in new environments and makes sense of them.

Today we set off at lunchtime to negotiate the path works that are still on going on the route to Waitrose, although they have moved further along the route.  I’ve had the privilege of having guide dogs for around 4 years and it still amazes me how they make sense of the temporary fencing put up to protect pedestrians and how they negotiate moving off the pavement and back on again so fluidly all the while keeping us safe.  Another one of a guide dog’s core skills is traffic awareness and knowing when to either ignore an owner’s command to cross the road if they detect a moving vehicle too close which could cause harm or to react appropriately when a previously clear crossing becomes unsafe because a vehicle unexpectedly moves on to the road.  Because of the way part of the temporary path has been set up, there was no indication of us having come to the end of the what would have been pavement and reaching a kerb point.  Had I not known where we were on the route, and asked Sadie to wait, we would potentially have walked straight into the path of oncoming traffic.  Had I not known to ask Sadie to wait so I could check for traffic, I would have been entirely reliant on her ability to make appropriate decisions to keep me safe around traffic.  It did make me grateful for having a guide dog by my side as a long guide cane can never replicate the safety Sadie affords me.

While making decisions and problem solving are core skills for a guide dog, I did smile at Sadie’s use of her ability to do so to avoid the wobbly temporary ramp from the roadside back up onto the path on our return trip to my workplace as she really does have a dislike of wobbly surfaces.  She choose to take me to the smaller, but wide enough, step back up on to the pavement rather than use the temporary ramp on her left side, pausing briefly with her front paws on the pavement edge to indicate to me that I needed to step up.  I’m not sure that my trainer would have said it was acceptable guiding from Sadie but for me it was one of the occasions when I need to decide what is acceptable behaviour from Sadie and on this occasion she kept me safe and alerted to a step appropriately so for me her decision making and problem solving skills were put to good use.  Its also another indication that Sadie and I are well matched and are becoming an ever more successful working partnership….I allow her to slightly bend the rules but trust her all the same to keep me safe.

Yesterday I arranged to meet my trainer at the shopping centre to do some more practice on a route within it to a particular shop.  Or so I thought!  My trainer is clearly getting to know me well and knows that if she tells me something ahead of time that I would find stressful, I will endlessly worry about it.  So when making our arrangements for yesterday’s training session she suggested a meeting point (with Sadie and I doing the first part of the route on our own) and then that we would be practicing a route within the shopping centre.  We met up as arranged and then she told me that she had arranged with the other trainer, as well as the trainee trainer, to come along with a dog and sit in the outdoor Costa café area.  I have mentioned previously that I can get anxious if a dog comes too close to Sadie, even if they show no aggression, which reflects my anxiety to keep Sadie safe but also that if a dog is overly friendly to Sadie, she has a tendency to respond in like which she shouldn’t do so my trainer had said we would do some specific work on this…and yesterday was the day.

My trainer very patiently talked me through how I should handle Sadie if she showed any dog distraction and reassured me she would be right behind me for support and any further instruction needed.  As I was about to set off with Sadie my trainer then told me that the dog they had brought along wasn’t a guide dog puppy or even a guide dog in training but a pet dog.  Gosh, she was really piling on the pressure now!  So with me starting to shake and my mouth dry as a bone I set off with Sadie to walk past the café area.  Because the other trainer’s dog (who is a withdrawn guide dog puppy, although he is no longer a puppy but a mature dog) was very interested in Sadie she responded with great interest too and was corrected by me.  We walked back and forward a few times with me getting practice in keeping Sadie focussed on safely guiding, but each time we walked past, the other trainer allowed her dog to get closer to Sadie, at one point deliberately dropping her dog’s lead entirely.  We then moved away from the café area and started to walk around the shopping centre with the other trainer going ahead of us to position her dog to walk past us or come up behind us, again getting closer with each passing and with her giving her dog less correction so it was initiating a greater level of interest in Sadie who happily (for me) quickly picked up she needed to completely ignore it but with my trainer being able to see that Sadie couldn’t quite resist a peek at the dog as they passed each other but responded really well each time I instructed her “straight on”.

After we had gone past the dog a few times in different situations, my trainer asked me how I was finding the training. I confessed that I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and also felt that although I was successfully getting Sadie past the other dog, it felt very messy.  She said she wanted to continue for a short while longer but reassured me that even if I felt my handling of Sadie was messy, it was being very successful and Sadie was responding appropriately to each command or correction I gave her.  On one of the final passes to the other dog, Sadie, bless her, tried to take me in to a shop clearly realising that she was going to be asked to guide past the dog and be expected to ignore it so tried a diversionary tactic.  It didn’t work as I told her “straight on” so she resigned herself to her fate but also to completely ignoring the dog, not even a sneaky little peek.

I then popped into M&S for a sandwich while my trainer caught up with her colleagues and prepared to accompany me on the route back to work as I had mentioned Sadie was a little slower and more unfocussed on part of it than she had been previously and I wanted to ensure there wasn’t something I was missing or forgetting to do.  As it turned out I was much relieved my trainer did accompany us as Sadie decided to stick on a turn she had previously done fine, if a little reluctantly.  I did get her to make the turn successfully by being very firm with her, but even I heard the too high pitched tone in my voice which reflected my anxiety at her sticking (this is the first full stick Sadie has done since she came back from her assessment period).  Sadie walked up the hill clearly in a huff with me for not allowing her to stick or go towards our trainer and ignored my attempts to get her moving a little faster until we were nearly at the top of the hill. She wasn’t very pleased either when my trainer asked me to go back down the hill a little and practice getting Sadie moving and was quite unco-operative.  Despite this, Sadie is learning that I am more determined than she is so will persist no matter what behaviours she throws off now, whereas previously I accepted them and tried to placate her.  Once we reached the brow of the hill Sadie took off with her usual gusto.

At the end of the walk my trainer said she didn’t want me to walk the last part of the route without her being there as she wants to work with me to be more confident and assertive with Sadie when she starts to stick.  She did say she wonders if Sadie is having an extinction burst on the turn she doesn’t want to make, partly because she knows she has to walk up a steep hill but also because she wants to go straight on rather than turning.  An extinction burst is when the dog makes one last gasp attempt to get their own way before giving in and doing what they have been asked to do with no resistance; this is when it pays to be more stubborn and determined than your dog is because if you do give in or alter the route to avoid the sticking point, it effectively reinforces the unwanted behaviour of your dog and it persists.  It does mean however that I now have a sticking point at both ends of the shopping centre routes so need to avoid walking back to my workplace, getting the bus instead, until my trainer has the opportunity to do some focussed work with me. As I said earlier, I am actually pleased that Sadie has stuck as it gave my trainer the opportunity to see her doing so and to come up with a plan of action to tackle it.  And this is one challenge with Sadie’s behaviour that I am actually relishing learning how to manage.

Both Sadie and I really benefitted from yesterday’s training with me gaining confidence in handling her around another dog, but a safe dog, with Sadie hopefully remembering in future that I will correct her and not allow her to respond to another dog (somewhat ironically Sadie had walked past a guide dog puppy earlier in the week being completely calm and disinterested despite the pup being up on his back legs and straining on his lead to get to Sadie…was that because I recognised it as a guide dog pup so felt no threat from the dog so was completely confident in my handling of Sadie?).  Before we parted, my trainer asked me if I felt I had learned what I wanted to from the dog distraction training and whether I felt I needed another session.  It would have been very easy to say that I was completely confident and avoid another training session I found daunting but that would do Sadie and I no favours in the future so said that while I was more confident, if it was possible, please could we do a little more training even just so I felt my handling of Sadie was more automatic and felt less messy and disjointed.  My trainer will kindly arrange this at a future date that I will have no prior knowledge of thankfully, but in the meantime I will endeavour to put into practice all that I learned yesterday.

When reflecting on my training yesterday, I realised I wasn’t the least bit self conscious at doing dog distraction training in such a public place and didn’t even notice other people, really only hearing my trainer’s voice as she supported me through it as well as spotting the other trainer and her dog.  From the very first time I held a guide dog’s harness and was guided by them, I have felt completely comfortable with such an outwardly visible and obvious sign of my disability as well as knowing without a doubt that this is my preferred method of safe mobility.  For me it feels very natural to walk with a dog which allows me to concentrate fully on working with them to go about my everyday life and not think or worry about anyone else’s perceptions of us.  Despite all the work the other trainer’s dog put in for us, it was clearly a fun activity for him and hopefully also a useful learning experience for the trainee trainer in how to personalise the training an individual partnership needs, although I have to confess to not knowing where she was for most of it.

I have always viewed guide dog ownership as a privilege rather than a right.  I also feel very privileged and enormously grateful for Sadie and I to be given the ongoing support we need at this time in our partnership.