I recognize that I’m a bit behind on posting from where I wanted to be. Please understand that I’m starting my days at 5:30 AM and not finishing up training and other activities until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. So please bear with me as I try to capture everything.
So on Monday morning we started our second planned route, called the Elm Street route. This is a route that I’ve had a little trouble understanding the shape of the last two times I was here. Well, third time’s the charm. Also my instructor is an orientation and mobility specialist, so she explained it in a way that just clicked for me.
So this route is basically the shape of a pizza slice or pie slice. We start at the Seeing Eye’s downtown training center, walk down to South Street, where we cross and turn right on South. We walk two blocks on South Street, crossing Pine Street and coming out on Elm. Pine is kind of a tricky intersection, because cars have to creep up into the crosswalk in order to see around the corner. Then on the block between Pine and Elm, the school set up a planned dog distraction, where an instructor holding a safe pet would approach and be a bit obnoxious about trying to get her dog to play with our dogs, even circling us as we try to navigate around them. I never successfully made it through that obstacle on the first try, but more because Frolic was familiar with the instructor holding the dog. She was really good when it was an unfamiliar person and dog, which we encountered frequently. But once we get through the dog distraction, we finish the block and turn left on Elm.
Elm Street is a steep hill down. About halfway along the block, they set up a fake construction barricade for us to work around, including going into the street to get around it. Frolic rocked that every single time!
At the bottom of Elm Street, we turn left on Morris and climb back up to South, curving around and crossing five intersections—some with stop signs, some with traffic lights, and some with no control at all. Morris is like the crust of the pizza or pie slice connecting the edges of South and Elm. The hardest part of this stretch is all the pedestrians and other things on the sidewalk we have to weave around, and of course keeping track of all the intersections and how to cross them. Once we get all the way back up to South Street, we turn left and find the audible pedestrian signal for the mid block crossing, and then it’s just a slight jog around a building and one block back to the training center.
And of course throughout this whole route, we’re following our dogs and responding to their guiding, because our class manager was out to get us with the van to make sure we understand how it feels when our dogs stop or pull back when cars cut us off.
The cool thing about this solo is that I was working in a pair. I did a lot of this when I was training with Neutron, but I haven’t done it so far during this class. Basically, one of us would take the lead on each block, and then that same person would decide when to cross the street, and then we would alternate who leads on the next block. It was nice to have a partner to work with to talk through some of the trickier intersections and keep ourselves oriented on this route. My partner also lives in D.C., and we’ve already started planning some city adventures together, because we work so well together as a team. Actually, our instructor told us if we don’t she might kill us.
It turns out that Frolic has a little competitive streak in her. This little dog wants to be in front all the time, and is constantly trying to make moves to pass my partner when she’s in the lead. Passing is allowed when we work in teams, but only if our dogs can do it safely. I did have to correct Frolic a few times because there were places where there really wasn’t room to pass and she was just tailgating my teammate. But mostly Frolic was great at the maneuvers, and I would just narrate her actions as we passed so my teammate would know I was there and passing: “Frolic is getting close, she’s easing left, she’s pulling ahead, she’s merging back into traffic! FROLIC TAKES THE LEAD!”
Of course, Frolic has also decided that no one is allowed to pass her, and whenever my teammate’s dog tried, Frolic would move me over to block her. Again, this is allowed as long as the dogs are maneuvering safely, which for the most part they were. It was a lot of fun. This girl has some spunk!
We did the Elm Street route four times. Monday morning we got oriented to it, and encountered six buses full of elementary school kids while we were at it. Monday afternoon, our instructor stepped back but was close to coach us through it. Tuesday morning she was farther back. We rocked the Tuesday afternoon trip so much that our instructor actually counted it as our solo. We still had to do the trip on Wednesday morning, but it was more of an encore performance, no pressure. And it’s a good thing too, because Frolic was definitely bored with the route by then and extra distracted. Even then, by this point my partner and I were basically playing Marco Polo to make sure we were relatively close and heading in the same direction, and we were having a blast.
I’ve heard this time in class referred to as hell week. Our dogs are comfortable with us now and are starting to test the boundaries, and it’s right when we’re all starting to get really tired from the constant go! go! go! of class.But even with all the little testing of the boundaries, Frolic is a very good girl, and I can tell we’re going to have so much fun together.
Also during this time we had lectures on…I forget what exactly at this point. We’ve covered so much. Dog care, dog food/treats/toys, vets, how to give doggy massages, probably some other things I’m forgetting. They’ve been throwing a lot of information at us in a short amount of time and what we learned when is a bit of a muddle. But I have it all to look over later if I need to. The lectures are starting to slow down now.
After our solo for Elm Street, we began freelance work Wednesday afternoon, which is basically where we train on all the fun smaller things we might need to navigate with our dogs. I’ll talk about that more later, hopefully tomorrow. But I have to save it for now because 5:30 comes early.