I don’t mention it often, but I’ve been in the midst of writing a book, well several, for years now. The one in particular that I hope to finish before my life expires is basically a memoir focusing on my life as a guide dog user. Much like maintaining this blog, writing the book brings to mind a great many things that I wasn’t aware of before obtaining my first guide dog. For instance, the astounding amount of time one will spend talking to complete strangers about everything remotely related to your dog. These conversations could be as basic as your dog’s name and as complicated as why you’ve chosen to work with a service.
This blog may seem to prove otherwise, but I actually am not comfortable constantly talking to complete strangers. There are some ocassions where I can chatter on even more than I ramble here, but for the most part I am far from comfortable engaging in constant conversation. I think living alone has contributed to this moreso than my own social awkwardness, I have become quite comfortable in silence. Regardless, I don’t have any specific issue with talking about my dogs or my blindness. I’m not easily offended and so far as the dogs are concerned I readily admit I’m five times more interested in them than any stranger who may run across me.
There is a downside to this, of course. People seem to expect that a handler is always going to want to stop their lives and chat about whatever curiousness they have. It doesn’t matter how wrapped up you clearly may be. You could be engaged in a conversation with other people, at an intersection preparing to cross, with your free hand loaded down with bags and that curious stranger will still bombard you with questions. What’s more, if you don’t take the time to answer them or in any way try to dissuade them, no matter how politely, they will immediately classify you as a rude bitch. (This is perversly amusing to me because there are times that I’ve been literally hostile with people in situations where such a distracted excuse wasn’t even applicable.)
Now, rationally speaking I understand their point of view. They don’t know anything about me, and have no idea that I’ve probably had the same set of questions asked of me several times that very day. They’re only seeing the fact that a handler and her guide dog are there in front of them and ignoring any other factors. And they’re so wrapped up in their own eager curiosity that anything but a lengthy discussion is just plain unacceptable. It’s also expected that you want to talk with a person and answer their probing questions. An example, on the bus this morning a man across from me noticed Yara’s new Fidelco tag. He asked if her name was “Fidelco.” I replied that it was not. And when I didn’t supply any further information, I heard him mutter under his breath that I was a snob for not telling him my dog’s name. You could argue that he was right, and I won’t disagree especially since I was half asleep at the time, but (a.) he didn’t ask me what my dog’s name was and (b.) her name is, frankly, none of his buisness.
In my years working with guide dogs, I’ve learned to basically suck it up and accept this for what it is. There are times that I just can’t stop and answer every question a person might have. And there are times I’m just too distracted by my own life to care. Rationality aside, though, I am petty enough to find that it’s unfair.
Going back to what I said above, though, there was and is a lot that I didn’t know before getting my first dog. And this entire thing could be summed up thusly: “when you work a service animal, you become a walking encyclopedia of all service animals to any person you come across.” It manifests itself in even more ways than I’ve outlined here, too. I have to admit, I don’t really know if it would have been better to have been told this beforehand. On the one hand it’s sort of obvious, I guess, so I can understand how no one would think to mention it. But I don’t know if it would have been an assett to have this information anyway. For one, I was a teenager when I was first applying for a dog — as such, of course, I knew everything — and would have probably ignored this information. Second, I am nearly positive I’d have taken any such warning as a complete exaggeration and promptly thought it unimportant.
Suffice it to say, I’d have been wrong on both counts.
