July 11th, 2023

This day started at about 6 AM where I got up and dressed for the day. After getting ready I headed to breakfast. Once everyone finished breakfast we loaded up into the van where we went to White Plains to start our instruction for the day.

When we arrived in White Plains the instructors chose who they were going to take first on a Juno walk. I ended up going second in my group, so since I stayed back, one of the staff members gave me and another student in orientation of the lounge.   

Once the other student got back, we switched, and I went out on my Juno walk. It felt odd doing this at first, but as time went on, it felt more natural. I was also pleasantly surprised that I was able to complete this Juno walk and later work the dog that my instructors had in mind for me on my left side, which meant that I would not need the help of specialized training. I also realized that all of the additional occupational therapy that I had completed during my undergraduate degree paid off. 

After finishing my Juno walk one of the instructors decided to bring in the dogs that we would be walking with after lunch so that we could get to know them. You might be thinking that they mentioned the dog’s names to us, but no, we use the name Juno for each dog, since we didn’t know their names yet. It wouldn’t be until the next morning when we would learn their names. Shortly after having the dogs with us, we were able to get them to settle. This especially helped because we had them with us while eating lunch.

After lunch, I went on my first walk with a yellow lab female. It definitely felt very different than using a cane because she was able to get me around the obstacles that my cane would come in contact with. Although she was able to get me around obstacles, my instructor and I realized very quickly that this may not be the dog for me. She walked about three paces slower than I did. 

In guide work having a dog that is able to match a person's pace is extremely important because as a team, we should be walking at the same pace. As a result of this dog not walking at my pace, I knew that I would most likely have to walk with a second dog at some point that day. 

After doing this walk, we gave the dogs back to the instructors so that they could go back in the van. Once we gave the dogs back to the instructors, they gave us an obedience lesson on how to do proper leash corrections, which is a skill that we were going to need once we received our dogs the next day. 

After this lesson was completed, we headed back to campus to do potential walks with second dogs. In my case, this is exactly what I did because the original dog that I walked with was not the right one. The second dog, however, that I walked with was amazing. She gave me the ability to walk at a pace that I haven’t been able to comfortably in at least 10 years, if not more. I love how she was able to match my pace perfectly and was able to stop at landmarks that I didn’t even know were there. After doing this walk, my instructor asked me if she was the one and I confidently said yes.

After this second dog walk my classmates and I had a meeting with the client experience team. This meeting was to go over the responsibilities of the client experience team, as well as to discuss an extra waiver we had to sign because part of my class was being filmed for an HBO documentary.

Once all of this was completed, we had some downtime before dinner. 

Around 6 PM I headed up to dinner with my classmates. During dinner, we got to meet our sixth classmate as she wasn’t able to get a flight the previous day. After dinner, we had more downtime, but it was really hard because we knew potentially who our dogs were, but we had no idea what their names were.