Because of all the rain, we haven’t gotten to go for many walks during the day, except for Nash to go to the bathroom, oh yeah, and the Yanks have been playing a few day games, and Nash, I mean me, needs his Yankees fix. I caught the end of the Yankees pregame show, and the final few seconds, they were doing a segment on a Blind Beeping Baseball league out on Long Island. I have been googling it, but haven’t been able to find out a ton of info about it. One of the things I miss most about losing my vision is being able to play sports. As a kid, every day after school, it was football or baseball. Even as I was severly losing my night vision in college, I played on our fraternity intramural soccerr team, and one year led the team in goals. No, I wasn’t great, we were just that bad. I would love to find out if they have one of these blind baseball leagues in the city, or some kind of blind football league, not sure how the latter might work. I wish they had the segment online, as I missed most of it, and would have loved to have seen it.
Since Nash and more me could use the exercise, we went for a nice walk early this evening, and it was already dark out. We went for a walk up 8th and then over to Broadway. I should have put Nash’s prong collar on, as his sniffing was a little out of control, and one time when I gave him the proper right hand leash correction to get him to stop sniffing, it had to look pretty bad, as I could feel him herk up a little, but hey, he wouldn’t stop sniffing, and I don’t think I did anything wrong, but it did get his attention, and as soon as he resumed walking I was quick to give him a good boy Nash, good boy. A lot of people kept saying, oh what a cute puppy, and I assume they were talking about Nash, I just can’t tell if they were trying to pet him, and not sure how a blind guy is supposed to be able to tell if someone is trying to pet their dog while walking. As a few times Nash would wonder off to one side, so he could have been being petted, or just sniffing. Hard to tell. He did have a nice stride while walking down Broadway, and it was pretty crowded out, as it is a gorgeous August evening. I bet you don’t hear that too often, gorgeous August evening. Besides a few days, we really haven’t had a summer in NYC, which I do not mind, as I hate the hot muggy weather, so these overcast days are quite the delight. Another thing I bet you don’t hear too often. The bright sunny days are the worst for me, as I see absolutely zero because of the awful glare issues I have. On my last doctor visit, he was amazed and disappointed that I didn’t have cataracts, as that would have at least explained the glare issues. The glare issues are even getting worst, as I now have them in doors, and I had to increase the magnification on the zoomtext program I use to see the computer screen. That’s twice in the last two months, so it is a little worrisome. Hopefully it is just from a lack of sleep and stress, but how can you tell. Very frustrating, well, at least Nash is lying on my feet again, so he can’t be too mad with me about the leash corrections on our walk tonight. Stop sniffing Nash. I am beginning to think he had or had a coke problem.
Blindgator's Weblog 
August 30, 2009 at 9:33 am |
Hey Brian,
I had just finished a fairly lengthy response to your latest entry and when I clicked ‘submit comment’ I got an error message so I tried opening another page on an new tab and couldn’t. Would you care to guess what happened?…Abner had been under the computer table and had put the modem on standby! This isn’t the first time it’s happened so I knew what to look for and could easily correct it. I don’t know what it is about being under a desk that Nash and Abner like so much…maybe it’s their little man cave. Maybe I should put a little TV and a wet bar under there.
So here’s what I wrote regarding people and service dogs:
There are basically four types of people:
1) Those who say from a short distance things like, “Oh, what a cute puppy, but I know I’m not supposed to pet him while he’s working.” Clearly making a bid to be invited ot pet him which sometimes I allow as a good training exercise and other times say thank you for understanding.
2) The responsible adult with or without children who take time to explain about working dogs and proper etiquitte. For this I usually reward them by thanking them for instructing their children, explaining that they can pet the dog if they ask, and allow them to do so.
3) The ‘charger’ who walks straight up to the dog, sometimes kneeling down and grabbing their head scratching behind their ears and asking for kisses and
4) The ‘stealth swipper’ who just casually croutches down and runs their hand along the dogs back or gives their butt a little scrutch while walking by or when behind you in a line or on a crowded street or in an elevator, etc.
Oh wait…there’s a fifth type, those who just plain don’t care and think it’s funny to try to distract your dog. This happened to Nash and me once in our local mall. We were being followed by 3 teenage boys – the dumbest of all human beings – who clearly thought I was blind, it happens sometimes which I don’t get because there’s no harness, and were actively trying to distract Nash with non-verbal behaviors such as crowding him and making annimated gestures. Like I said, not the sharpest knives in the drawer. I wanted so badly to spin around and yell, “Hey! Leave my dog alone!” which would have freaked them out because they thought I didn’t see any of what they were doing. But being the responsible raiser that I am, I took the high road – something I have been know not to do 😦 – and just walked Nash on figuring it was a good distraction training exercise for him. He did great by the way.
So there’s MY list. Only five items I know, but it’s a list. I feel like one of the boys now :).
August 30, 2009 at 5:24 pm |
Hey Lorraine, I hope you don’t mind, but I am going to repost your list in the blog, as I am not sure how many people read the comments, and I have some extra stuff I want to add. I seem to have gotten Nash out of the habit of going underneath the desk, as he lies on my feet while I am at the desk. I just can’t put my feet underneath the desk. Nash did knock out my wireless connection that one time, and I still have not been able to get my wireless network back up and running.
September 3, 2009 at 11:28 am |
Nash is a child and as one has to be reminded to do the right thing. He will always love his daddy.