Finally Arrived

Where to begin? I suppose at the beginning would do as well as any for a place to start.

After a day of snow-storms and chaotic flight reschedulings, I'm finally here at The Seeing Eye. I'm a day late, but by no means a dollar short. I actually forgot how awesome this place really is. The instructors are just amazing people. They will challenge you, they will laugh with you, and they will even cry with you if you need them to. (I have not needed this as yet, of course, but I had forgotten the full extent of their amazingness till now.)

I think we have a great group of people. There are two people whom I know in my class, and that's amazing. The last time, there was no one I knew. Of course, that was just fine with me, as meeting new people is a joy of mine, but it's nice to have some people whom I know whom I will be able to talk to during what promises to be an emotional rollercoaster of a few weeks.

We will be getting our dogs tomorrow afternoon, so far as the schedule stands at this point. It really depends on whether we can get Juno walks done in town tomorrow morning or not. Snow has hampered the efforts so far, not to mention late arrivals like myself. Juno walks are something the instructor does with you to determine how fast you like and how much of a pull you will need the dog to generate as you go. You use a harness handle and a leash and the instructor has one end and you have the business end, and you command Juno, the imaginary dog, and the instructor walks as though he or she is the dog. (Don't worry. They don't do this on all fours.) The point is simply to assess your pace and to do the absolute best in matching you and a dog in terms of pace and pull and gait and such.

The dorm rooms are very well equipped. They have changed somewhat since I was here last. They now have mini fridges that we can use if we want to. They also have Serius Satelite Radio and such. One big change is that there are now dog crates in the rooms. We didn't train using crates before. I rather like the crate idea because it's a nice little space for the dog to make his or her own. I'm hoping I don't have to bring the crate home. I doubt I will have to. We'll see however.

As you can tell, my writing is not up to snuff--or sniff, I should say perhaps. This is because I am rather tired and have to get to bed. So, I will close this post for now and I will write more tomorrow. Suffice to say that I love this place just as much as I loved it before, and I can't wait to get out there and work.