Sarah Blake LaRose

My most recent posts about dog guides were made during the fall of 2018, while I was training with my sixth dog, Pepper. I enjoyed helping sighted readers of my Facebook feed learn about my training experiences and how Pepper worked; but at home I abandoned my blogging project despite good intentions. Therefore, today I must update my blog readers regarding two things. One is the fact that Pepper’s health did not remain stable. She retired due to Addison’s Disease in Octobet 2019. Today she iw stabilized and is retired with a couple who love her deeply and provide a relaxed retirement homr for her with opportunities to play and exercise frequently.

this month, I have returned to The Seeing Eye for training with dog number 7, a beautiful black Lab/golden cross named Ursula. She is a superb worker and an excellent companion! My presence here and work with Ursula prompted me to examine my blogging project, and I realized how much there is still to be done in my writing.

Time is short here and I am not as energetic as I was in the past. I will attempt to take short bits of time to update the FAQ project as well as to give particular bits of information that are unique to my training with Ursula. I have written about the training routine itself with my past dogs. It has not changed greatly over time. My routes have been modified as I have gotten older, developed chronic pain, and have become less tolerant of long walks on uneven terrain. Even the short walks here are on uneven terrain. I often walk on sidewalks where one foot is slightly higher than the other; and at street corners I stand beside other graduates with one foot on the outside of the corner that has not been cut out and the other foot at the bottom of the cut-out. The result is that I develop shin splints in addition to my existing chronic pain and spend the afternoons and evenings doing stretches and resting.

Ursula is a beautiful dog with a thick coat. She needs frequent grooming. This is different from a dog who simply benefits from daily grooming. Here, dogs are groomed either in the grooming room in the basement or outside. Since it is winter, no one is grooming outside. Grooming does not take long; but it does take some time to gather her supplies, go down to the basement, do the work of grooming her thoroughly, and returning. It is not something I can do during one of the frequent 15-minute time blocks that we have available during the day. At home, my house is her house and my personal bedroom is grooming space. Her supplies are available at the space where I work. The time is cut in half because there is no gathering and moving involved.

There are many of these small things that will be different at home; and I feel very conscious of them right now as i note some things that are stressful for me and some things that are stressful for Ursula. I choose consciously not to react to them. They will be different at home and I can let them work themselves out over time there. Both Ursula and I may be hore relaxed in the environment that is ours, where our routine and space is our own and I can modify it to suit our needs if necessary. That is the beauty of being at home: if something isn’t working, I can identify it and fix it. Here, the routines are fairly fixed and are often for the benefit of an entire team of people and dogs instead of one single team that may have its own particular needs. While I am here, I have to adjust to that routine. I am ahuman and I have those adjustment abilities. Over time, Ursula will be able to adjust with my help. right now she is a dog who is not only transitioning to a new routine but also to a new human. It means she needs far more from me than she may need in the norm of her working life. It is time for me to stop writing and get ready for [my] breakfast.

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About Sarah Blake LaRose

Sarah Blake LaRose teaches Biblical Hebrew and Greek at Anderson University School of Theology and Christian Ministry in Anderson, Indiana. She is one of three blind academic scholars who received the Jacob Bolotin Award from the National Federation of the Blind in 2016 in recognition of innovative work in the field of access to biblical language texts and tools for people who are blind. In addition to her work as a professor, she provides braille transcription services specializing in ancient languages. Her research interests concern the intersection of disability, poverty, and biblical studies.

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