Tailed A Blind Person

So last night I was walking down Smith Street around 6ish and I saw a woman up ahead who was blind and walking along with a seeing eye dog. I decided to follow them a while to see how they navigate around. I was little paranoid that she was sixth sense aware that I was sort of following her but I'm always amazed when I see someone blind walking around so I couldn't resist. I mean just close your eyes and walk around in your own place. I just tried it and it ain't easy or fun. The idea of walking around outside like that (let alone on brooklyn streets is really friggin wowish). I realize that there's not much of a choice if you're blind but still..

Anyway, the first obstacle they came across was one storefront that was under construction. There was some plywood action that blocked half the sidewalk. This forced them to walk closer to the road but there were parking meters making the sidewalk even narrower. Sort of like an alleywayish thing. I noticed the dog was actually walking a bit cockeyed to make extra room for the blind girl to walk. Like it was sacrificing its own space to stay as close as possible to the wall knowing that the parking meters were a hazard for her.

The next thing that came up was another dog walking by in the other direction. I thought for sure there would have to be some acknowledgement in the dog world. But it was weird. Not only did the seeing eye dog not really react but the other dog didn't seem to get all excited either. Like it knew not to bother the seeing eye dog while it was working. They just sort of looked at each other and communicated something visually and passed by without even a sniff.

The third thing was a cat that wandered out of one of the bars (actually the bar that I mentioned a while ago that I met people at and stuff). They have a black cat and it was sitting in front of the bar. I thought for sure the dog was gonna veer off to mess with the cat. But it totally didn't. The cat looked like it was ready to spring but the dog just walked by without a second look. I was like, 'Wow! That dog is trained!'

Then they crossed the street and went around a corner.

I realize that this is why the seeing eye dog thing works. I mean if seeing eye dogs chased cats or stopped to sniff every dogs butt it would defeat their purpose. Then it would just be a dog. But if you really take a look at these dogs they're pretty frickin amazing and the person that they're leading around who trust them completely to not do dog stuff.. more so.

ok bye!

tOdd