February 4 - Coincidence?

Do you believe in coincidence? I’m not sure that I do, but certainly the world is a small place. On the last leg of our flight home from Maui, I was seated across the aisle from Bryan and his guide dog, Rugby. This was an even stranger quirk of fate because quite a number of years ago I remember meeting Bryan and his first guide dog, Forest. Forest was probably the largest guide dog I had ever seen and because of his size, he definitely stood out in my memory. He was a one hundred and twenty pound German Shepherd. Rugby, Bryan’s dog of these past five years isn’t quite as large, weighing in at only one hundred pounds. He is also a German shepherd.

During the flight, I was very aware of Rugby. He was able to squeeze himself into a relatively small floor space at the bulkhead, and dozed contently for most of the flight. When I asked, Bryan said that Rugby was an excellent traveller. Bryan travels frequently and fairly extensively and Rugby has come to know his way around many of the airports. Bryan explained one instance of this. When Bryan and Rugby catch a cab to Vancouver Airport, Rugby can lead him unfailingly from the terminal doors through the crowds to the Customer Care counter where he needs to check in. All of this is in direct contrast to my white cane. My cane, although it might alert others to my visual challenges, does not lead or guide me anywhere.

A guide dog also seems to attract more attention than a cane. The Vancouver/Edmonton flight of yesterday began with a pre-flight briefing by the flight attendant. Bryan and I both explained that we were okay with the briefing but that we had flown before. The flight attendant said that nevertheless, the briefing was mandatory for visually impaired passengers and she was required by the airline to give it. I thought that it was interesting in that on the previous seven segments I had flown with the same airline, I hadn’t been offered this same briefing. I always tag myself as legally blind on the passenger information list and enter the aircraft using my white cane. Preflight briefings have been offered to me before but only on a sporadic basis. I do think that Bryan’s guide dog made the difference to yesterday’s explanation.

I was curious to know how Rugby reacted to the actual flying experience. I know that sometimes on descent, my ears will pop. Did this also happen with dogs? Lyle had noticed that Rugby did yawn a few times during the descent into Edmonton.  Bryan said that sometimes he might give Rugby a cookie to munch on if the pressure became difficult. With his previous dog, Forest, he would sometimes give him a few ice cubes to munch on and that also seemed to work well. From what I could discern on yesterday’s flight, Rugby didn’t have any difficulty at all and was just as Bryan had said, an excellent and experienced air traveller.

As we chatted, Bryan mentioned that he was in the process of looking for a new guide dog. I was curious about this because guide dogs usually have a longer working life than five years. However, apparently Rugby is going blind. He has an unusual condition, which has begun at the corner of his eyes and will cause his sight to deteriorate. I found it quite sad to think that this beautiful animal who has been Bryan’s eyes for this past half decade will soon lose his own sight. 

So, the world is a small place. I had already told my son-in-law that I wouldn’t be putting up any more posts on the blog for a few days, but I couldn’t let my meeting with Bryan and Rugby go unrecorded. I would like to dedicate this particular post to all of the guide dogs and their owners whom I have met on my travels.