Deborah Kendrick of Hyde Park writes the Alive and Well column in Sunday's Tempo section. She has won many awards for stories and columns about people with disabilities.

        SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Out of the numbness that we all experienced following the atrocities of Sept. 11, one of my own first returns to routine was to come here to train with a new guide dog.

        For months now, I had been scheduled to return to Guide Dogs for the Blind, the school that has trained dogs to guide blind people safely throughout the United States and Canada since 1942. They have trained dogs that have guided me since 1982 through every major American city, countless small towns, amusement parks, board rooms, the preschool circle times, high school football games with my children and countless other places.

Deborah Kendrick and Jonelle, or "Joni". (Guide Dogs for the Blind Inc. photo) | ZOOM |

        During a follow-up visit, I decided in June to retire my 11-year-old dog, Clarice, and schedule training with a new guide.

        Despite experience, I was apprehensive about returning to school. Flying just 10 days after the Sept. 11 tragedies brought some measure of anxiety. Added to that was another more personal concern. Could any dog measure up to Clarice, who I am keeping as a pet? Interviews both face-to-face and on the telephone had covered the details of my lifestyle, (a flexible and sometimes frenetic schedule of activities), along with my personal preferences in dog breeds and personalities.

        The first 24 hours on Guide Dog campus wasfilled with lectures and test walks, familiarizing ourselves with the dormitory, and becoming acquainted with our instructors (two) and fellow classmates. Training typically entails a 28-day stay at the school. Our class,however, is an accelerated 13-day version, offered to blind and visually impaired people who have trained previously with guide dogs and who can't schedule an entire month of training.

        There were seven in my class, one man and six women, each with a fascinating story and unique needs in a dog. Most students have some usable vision; a few of us have none. Other than visual impairment and previous use of a guide dog, we had little in common. Yet, we instantly become a family of sorts, supporting and reassuring one another, invested in the single solidarity of learning to be safe and confident travelers with seven individually matched dogs, selected for us by our trainers, Stacy Burrow and Jenna Bullis.

Meeting Jonelle

        Finally, we are gathered in the lounge for the moment we have eagerly anticipated: Stacy's reading of “the list” — the names and breeds of each of our dogs.

        “You will be receiving a female Golden Retriever named Jonelle,” Stacy reads when she comes to my name, and I return to my room to await our introduction.

        Jonelle greets me with a wagging tail and a gentle nudge of the nose in my hand, eager to be loved, but not effusive. I see immediately that she is a princess — and I am instantly in love.

        The remainder of the day is spent heeling our dogs through the corridors of the dormitory, teaching them to lie at our feet for meals and generally becoming acquainted.

        As seasoned guide dog handlers, we know the basics. But each dog has a unique style, and, as young dogs, our new companions need to learn to receive the commands they know from us, their new blind handlers.

        In our first obedience routine Monday morning, Jonelle was perfect. On the first route in harness, however, she moved more slowly than the rapid pace I wanted, and I tried not to be discouraged. By Tuesday, she had already picked it up, and I was elated anew at the thrill of striding swiftly, safely down a crowded street while holding the harness handle of a smart dog with a mission.

        Throughout our two weeks, the schedule is relentless — beginning at 6:45 a.m., ending at 9:30 p.m., with little or no spare time. Besides doing obedience each morning, working routes throughout downtown San Rafael and several areas of San Francisco, we have scheduled times for grooming, relieving and feeding the dogs. Most afternoons and evenings, Stacy and Jenna lecture on everything from feeding and veterinary care to how to respond to encounters with aggressive dogs.

        We have lectures and subsequent practice working the dogs in buildings, through city congestion, onto subway platforms, on and off buses, up and down escalators and through obstacle courses of traffic cones. We learn about coping with the distractions of other animals and interfering humans, and how to correct errors when the inevitable mistakes are made.

        When humans and dogs alike perform admirably in our lesson called “Working Sidewalkless Areas” in a quiet residential neighborhood, we lobby for (and are surprised to get) a detour to Muir Woods, the home of the tallest Redwoods in the world. There, Jonelle trots proudly through the trees, pausing only when I ask her to, so I can climb inside the hollow one to see what it's like.

Years of training

        Jonelle, like her canine classmates, was a busy dog preparing for her class with me. Bred by the Guide Dogs breeding program for intelligence, friendliness and eagerness to please, she spent herfirst year being raised by two of the school's 1,200 volunteer puppy raisers.

        There, she learned her pretty manners and social skills. She was taught obedience, house behavior, and was exposed to a variety of environments.

        After about a year, puppies return to the school and begin the more complicated course of study: five months of learning to be a Guide Dog.

        Through repetition, patterning, constant praise and gentle corrections, the dogs are taught to pull into the harness, to go forward, left, right, inside or outside in response to verbal commands and simple gestures. Trained to move in a continuous straight line of travel until directed otherwise, they learn to steer clear of obstacles, halt at stairs, and stop, awaiting command, at every street crossing. Through repeated exposure and lavish praise, they learn simple significant word associations like escalator, elevator and stairs.

        Although instructors are all sighted, they eventually wear blindfolds while working every dog, to ensure the dog's appropriateness for being matched with a blind person. With and without blindfolds, Stacy and Jenna worked each of our dogs before we came to class. Jonelle's primary trainer, however, was Lani Dacosta, and by the second week, I was calling my dog “Joni” as Lani told me she had done.

Magic and miracle

        There is no magic in this process, but there is a decided presence of miracle. One miracle, certainly, is the power of a bond that can form between animal and human.

        The last day was graduation, and the puppy raisers who provided our dogs' first homes were invited to come and present our dogs to us. My dog, I learned, was raised by two women — Sandra McGettigan and Linda Maples of Tucson, Ariz.

        A former airline pilot, Sandra was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1999, and was assisted by Tucson Puppy Raising leader, Linda Maples in achieving her goal of “giving back.” Two and a half years ago, she says, she was given six months to live. She attributed the extension of that sentence to the bond that was formed in raising a sweet golden retriever to be a guide dog. “It isn't easy to give her up,” she tells me, “but I know she will be a good dog for you.”

        After only two weeks of confident travel with this self-assured, adoring canine, I know that Joni will indeed be a good dog for me. As for the experience as a whole, Bob Phillips, president and CEO executive director for Guide Dogs for the Blind, sums it up well for all of us in his graduation remarks. “We have all shed many tears since Sept. 11,” he said. “It is wonderful today to shed tears of joy.”

        E-mail dkkendrick@earthlink.net. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/kendrick

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