Sometimes members of the public do not understand the role of a guide dog. Some people do not know how to treat the dog, or the person with the dog, or know how to behave when they encounter a person with a guide dog. They do not understand the relationship between dog and handler, or are uncertain how to approach either. Inspired by a friend, I have been answering some common questions about how I got my guide dog and how the relationship works between us works. Here, I address some common questions about caring for a guide dog over the span of their careers. Question: What kind of food does…

Sometimes members of the public do not understand how to behave when they encounter a person with a guide dog. They do not always know how to treat the handler, or what to do with the dog. The first thing you should remember is that a guide dog is a working dog, not a family pet. A friend of mine, another Chatham resident, asked me about how I got my guide dog and how people should act. As I answered his questions, I could hear his enthusiasm building. "You should write about this and let other people know," he said. So I did. Question: How does one get a guide dog (or dog guide, as some …

Blindness—the word, the concept—can mean different things to different people, especially to those who have had no experience with it.  To people who have been blind or visually impaired since birth, it is simply something that contributes to their ongoing development. The same can be said for children with gradual vision loss. Adults who experience vision loss after having seen well, however, can see blindness as incapacitating and futile, at least according to people with whom I've spoken. They often feel this way even if they have been left with some residual vision. Blindness, as more …

This coming July will mark my 40th year as a borough resident. Over these many years, my family and I experienced and learned much about the borough, its geography, its services and its people. What is perhaps relevant to my own life here in Chatham is that I have lived it as aperson with a congenital vision deficit and, eventually, total vision loss. In years past, I traveled throughout many of Chatham's streets using my straight white and red cane. Since 1998, each of my black lab Seeing Eye dogs have replaced the cane, and thankfully so. When we leave the Seeing Eye, we do so knowing that …