Author: Shanna

Att the end of my last post, Diamond and I had just met. However, locating my lovely diva took a lot of time and energy, and that’s what I’ll address in this post.

Firstly, I had to decide whether training my own dog would be a good idea. I have some other friends that choose to train their own guides, so I spoke with them to get a good idea about the work and expenses involved. Because cutting corners when it comes to training one’s own dog generally backfires in a major way. To give you all an idea, I spent about 6000 dollars before I even met Diamond. Most of the major expense is always the dog. At least for me, I choose to purchase the nicest prospect I can afford in order to start with the best material, if you will.

I did extensive research on breeders, pedigrees, and wrote down what my ideal dog would be like, and then prioritize that list. I planned initially to get a dog from another breeder, but learned that she wasn’t as ethical as she claimed, among other things, so decided to seek a dog elsewhere. Eventually, I heard about Molly Graf who owns Eichenluft Working German Shepherds and that she’d bred some nice service dogs. I decided to e-mail her about dogs, let her know what my goals were, and see if she’d be willing to work with me. Usually, especially when you’re as picky as I am about dogs for myself, I expected a long wait for the dog I wanted. Well, Molly got back to me the next day to tell me that she happened to have a 6-month-old puppy from a show line litter that she felt would meet my needs. Good with all humans, confident around noise, had a natural retrieve, high pack drive, really wanted a job, and had just taken 2nd place at a regional dog show. She also gave me the option to wait for another litter if the dog she had in mind wasn’t what I wanted. Diamond seemed perfect, at least on paper, but I wanted to get her screened for temperament and prelim health done, and I didn’t want to take that on myself. Not because I couldn’t, but because I wanted an objective look at the dog.She passed her health and temperament evals with no problems, so Leslie, owner of Most Fine Canine, did 30 days board and train on Diamond to get her public access ready for me to come get her myself and fly her home in the cabbin. I expected Leslie to sort of teach her basic obedience and kind of teach her some impulse control , but just enough  to get the dog home in one piece.

I instead got a puppy who was super confident, had very solid basic obedience and started advanced obedience. She could do escalators, elevators, handle crazy airports, etc. Leslie more than fulfilled my expectations, which made it much easier to begin task training.

It was December of 2011. I’d just left California after a successful performance at Carnegie Hall in NYC. My employer did not wish for me to participate in that concert, despite many discussions    about the project and assurances that  participation would not be an issue.  I auditioned for this concert  in March, so clearly I’d given plenty of notice. 
Aside from the above problem, I physically could not work 24-hour shifts all the time, and I finally realized the positions  created for blind people  within the training department no longer had any support from administration and were, in fact, designed to fail from the outset. So for those reasons, among others, it was time  for a change.
I sought happiness by immersing myself in academia for a while, but I still needed to decide where and how I wanted to acquire my successor dog. I should say that I didn’t want another guide, but Nestle was showing signs that she didn’t really like the work anymore. She did her best because she loved me, but not because she wanted to work. I tend to let the dogs tell me when they’re done, and respect that since they  give so much of themselves that allowing  them a happy retirement is the least I can do for them.
All I really knew was that I wanted a German Shepherd.  I applied to the few guide dog schools that still had a lot of decent Shepherds, but  one school wouldn’t let me apply until I’d already retired Nestle, and they had a six-month waiting list. The other school I considered had some very nice GSDS, and others with major temperamental or health problems. After ruling out the programs I was interested in, I decided that training my own dog would keep me in practice and basically allow me to hand-pick my dog. Plus, I felt like the odds of getting a GSD with the drives and  nerve I wanted. I needed a dog who could handle urban areas, walk several miles a day, and who liked children and would be OK with other dogs, crowds, and had a natural retrieve.  Oh, and I was insistent on a female.  Not picky at all, right?
Well, it took some searhing, but I figured if I was going to spend money on a young dog, then I should be able to get what I wanted. 
I first did research to decide on which type of Shepherd would be ideal for me.  I knew right away that I wanted dogs from European lines. I was also pretty sure on West German lines, but couldn’t decide between working or show lines. I picked a breeder to work with that happens to breed both types, and she recommended the show lines to me because they are typically less difficult to handle and are not as intense as the working line dogs.
Those of you who know Diamond well may now proceed to laugh.  A lot.  Diamond is kind of the exception to the norm in terms of drive and temperament. So basically, she is a show line dog that behaves more like a a working line dog. 
I had Diamond evaluated by a 3rd party to be sure her temperament would be suitable for service work, and I had preliminary x-rays done on her hips and elbows to rule out any obvious joint problems. She passed all the screening, and then I had 30 days of obedience and public access so I could fly her home with me on an airplane without my puppy would not feel as stressed on the way home and to prevent any embarrassing or disruptive behavior on the flight.
We made it home with no problems. The next post will go into more depth about meeting Diamond and some people who have been true blessings for us both as a team.

Before we talk about the actual training of Diamond, or Diamond at all for that matter, it’s probably ideal to give you all a brief snapshot of my life pre-Diamond, just for the sake of perspective.

I received my first guide dog in 2001 from an organization called Guide Dogs for the Blind located in northern California. He was a black Labrador who did adequate guide work and had unbelievably atrocious house manners. I do not blame the agency that trained this dog for his behavioral issues outside of the work, but my guess is that the family who raised him as a puppy understated the dog’s problems when returning the dog to GDB to complete his formal harness training. I opted to retire the dog in March of 2004 after he learned the most efficient way to break out of an airline crate and destroyed and/or ingested all kinds of things while I left him home for a few hours. The ddog’s guidework was not good enough for me to justify keeping him, so I placed him with a friend who wanted him for Agility and/or Flyball.

I left that March of 2004 in order to receive my second guide, who after several dog changes while in class (one dog switch is pretty common, 3 is not,) ultimately received a male yellow Labrador. He retired after only a few months of service because he had a lot of trouble dealing with the very intense traffic we had to deal with on a rregular basis. He was a super sweet boy and did nice work, but he needed to live in a less stressful working environment.

So onward to dog number 3, a female yellow Labrador, mostly a dark reddish color and had, from what I can recall, wonderful physical structure. Plus, she worked like a dream…fast, flashy, and accurate…except when she wasn’t. Again, this rarely happens, but my lovely little dog, the dog I thought would be my perfect match, decided that guiding was just too stressful, and had the canine equivalent of a nervous breakdown. It was  nobodies fault, although a few trainers tried to make it mine, but we’ll move past that to January, 2006.

The retirement of the dog I’d assumed to be my perfect fit caused me an incredible amount of distress. I thought that the dog’s meltdown and subsequent retirement were my fault and that I had ruined my dog. So when a trainer I trusted implicitly called me to let me know he had a female black Lab for me, I truly didn’t know if I should train with another guide. I’m so glad I trusted my instructor and came to class despite many reservations. On January 15, 2006, I met Nestle, a 19-month old female black Labrador.

Nestle was 55 pounds of cuddles and instantly demanded ear scratches once I got my leash on her collar. 😀 We spent our first day together just working on some basic obedience and getting to know one another. And then, the next morning I finally got to work her, and while there were no angels singing from on high, rainbows, or anything, Nestle and I were a good fit for each other.

I’m not dwelling too much on the rest of my time with Nestle, except to say that she was the perfect balance between confidence and controllability. She moved all kinds of places with me and worked everywhere from the chaos of Berkeley to the tranquility of Mure Woods. She  was truly the consummate guide dog, and taught me how it feels to have a reliable, intelligent, and ever-loyal partner at my side. She was truly one of the extraordinary, once in a lifetime dogs.

In August of 2011, I believe, or perhaps just before then, Nestle began exhibiting weird behaviors. Mainly, she began to hate anything to do with crates. A dog who used to often curl up on her fluffy crate matt or lie on a rug under my desk while I worked suddenly refused to enter any crate for any reason. One of the advantages of working at a guide dog school was that I got lots of ideas to try in order to get my princess through this problem, but nothing worked. One of GDB’s graduate services instructors asked if he could observe Nestle and I in general and go on a route together. He had a theory at that point, which he didn’t tell me until later, and his theory was proven to be correct. The route we took that day was from the GDB campus to a local coffee shop. We got there, bought our respective beverages, and then we had the talk. Everyone who has worked multiple service dogs knows what kind of talk I mean. For the rest of you, this was the “it’s ttime to start the process for a new dog” talk. From what I can recall, my trainer friend basically explained that Nestle was beginning to show signs of stress and that working her on a guide dog school campus was causing her a lot of burnout, so he figured we’d need to retire her in about 6 months or so.

I actually got about another year out of my Nestles because I left GDB for a number of reasons, and subsequently decided to train Nestle’s successor myself rather than attend another guide dog program.

The reasons I made that choice and how Diamond and I found each other will be covered in my next post.