July 27th, 2023

On this day I started my morning at 6am like I had been doing and fed Eve at 7am after taking her outside. When I went outside, both my instructor and the instructor that my instructor wanted to get with silly string were outside. As Eve was finding a spot to go to the bathroom, I asked the other instructor her thoughts on theme parks and guide dogs. When she was about to give her answer my instructor got her with the silly string. Because I knew what he was up to I had a really hard time not laughing as I asked the theme park question. After this happened, she asked if I was in on this, and I said maybe? Once these shenanigans ended, we all headed up to breakfast. 

Once breakfast concluded we were instructed to listen to the going home lecture to understand our expectations once we returned home. After we did this, we met as a larger group to have any questions answered. At this time, we were also given a starting supply of food and training treats. 

Once this lecture concluded we were instructed to relieve our dogs before heading to Ridgefield, Connecticut to watch the Barbie Movie at the Prospector Theater.  

As I was in the process of relieving Eve, Thomas Panik the CEO of Guiding Eyes and his guide dog Blaze came to meet the class, so that we would not have any issues the next day during graduation. As a result of Thomas and Blaze coming to visit us at this very moment Eve was more interested in making friends with Blaze than focusing on the task at hand, so I knew I would have to try again later. 

After this encounter concluded as a class, we got in the van to head to the movies. Once at the movie theater the instructors chose who they were going to take on a simple route, while the other students sat in the Ridgefield Library until it was their turn. I went first for my instructor, but before I went, I also tried relieving Eve again without any luck. This route went well with limited dog and sent distractions. Once returning to the library I sat and waited for my classmates to finish. Once everyone finished, we headed outside to give our dogs water before heading into the movie theater. As I was walking with our class supervisor, I could not help but notice that Eve was more sent distracted and pulling me over to grass. As a result, I said to my class supervisor, “Is there a spot to relieve her nearby? I can tell she might need to poop.” I then proceeded to tell the class supervisor that I had been trying to relieve her since we had left campus, but Blaze was a bit of a distraction. Once we found a good spot Eve did what she had to do, and we were on our way to get her water. 

Once all the dogs had their water, we headed into the movie theater. Before going into our individual movie theater each student took pictures with the Barbie movie props. 

Lindsay and Eve standing in the Barbie movie prop.

When we entered the theater, we were treated like royalty, as Guiding Eyes has taken many of their classes to The Prospector Theater. This theater is not like any other theater in that they have captions, audio description, sensory theaters, and much more to make their guests with disabilities feel welcome and included. What makes The Prospector Theater more inclusive is that 75% of their employees are persons with disabilities.   

The Barbie Movie overall was good and portrayed many of the issues faced in adult culture today. I would not recommend it for young girls, as there are portions that they may not understand. 

Once the movie concluded we all got ready to leave. Before we could leave a few of us had to make a bathroom break, since we had an hour drive back to campus. As a result of the chaos of everyone trying to leave the movie theater the class supervisor offered to take Eve to the van and have me go sighted guide with another instructor. As a result of doing this I had many young girls saying how cute Eve was once I returned to the van. 

Once everyone took care of what they needed we headed back to campus. When arriving on campus we gave our dogs dinner and a bathroom break. When our dogs were taken care of, we were instructed to go to different rooms throughout campus to meet the individual trainers that worked with our dogs before we got them. Funny enough, one of the people that worked with Eve was the staff member at the National Federation of the Blind convention that said to me “Your dog has four legs and fur.”  As a result of this previous encounter, we talked about the convention in addition to Eve. 

After meeting with the trainers, we headed up to dinner at about 6 Pm. Once dinner concluded we took the dogs out at 7:30 pm and at 9 Pm. In between these two bathroom breaks I started the sad process of packing to go home. After the 9 PM bathroom break I went to bed.