“Oh My God!!!!! A puppy!! Hi puppy!”
“Oh, he’s so cute. Hi puppy!”
Two girls walk by me, their hair in ponytails and their mouths pursed into loud kissy shapes as they wave and swoon over my three-year-old Golden Retriever, Blanco. They giggle to themselves as I try to regain his focus—something which can be difficult to do for a relatively new team.
Across his bright-blue vest, it reads in bold, dark letters “SERVICE DOG. DO NOT DISTRACT.” He trots, now on the lookout for more people to say hi to, and I call his name, hoping that he will snap right back to being the helpful and well-trained dog he is. Except he can’t focus now, thrown off for a few minutes by that one interaction. And I am exhausted from this game of back and forth. From using the little effort I have left over from an intense chronic-pain episode to make sure that he is doing okay, rather than directing that weaning energy towards studying for the mid-term I have next week.
I am many things: a freshman, an elementary education major, a writer, a reader. I also have multiple chronic illnesses that make a lot of day-to-day activities less of a chore and more of a marathon. And this, readers, is exactly where Blanco steps in. Though we have only been a team for just under three months now, he has been trained professionally to make my life so much easier. He has truly given me a sense of physical and emotional freedom I didn’t think possible.
So, I assumed that in college –a place adults go to expand their minds— there would be a mutual understanding. There would be an interaction, yes, but a small one. A head nod in recognition, the squinty-eyed-smile people get as they are able to both recognize Blanco’s cuteness and realize that it is common courtesy that service dogs like him are working, so it’s best not to distract them. And, sure, I’ve had many experiences like that in the two months I’ve lived on campus, but I have had many much more unpleasant experiences too. Things that I was not at all prepared for.
People will reach for him, touch him as if they are simply reaching for a bottle of water in a community cooler. As if they have the right to, a stake in his job, in his existence. Parents, students, once even faculty. And this is the part where I recite my script—something I say so often it’s almost a reflex at this point: “Please don’t touch him, he’s working.” Many will say “oh, sorry”, but most will just furrow their brow as if I was the one to cross a boundary. I’ve even had people bark at him, in order to get some sort of reaction.
Those that know me, know my rule: ‘vest on, don’t pet, vest off, come say hi!’, something I firmly try to stick to, a reasonable request so that I am able to live without the added anxiety of this odd gameshow; my eyes darting back and forth, scanning who might be inching a little too close, who will see a dog and forget all personal courtesy. Trust me, I know how sweet he is, how tempting it is to say hello, but whether it is out and about or even in class as I try to take vigorous notes on something I may not yet understand, it is important to remember that I’m a student too. My medical equipment and best friend may look a little different than yours, but I am here, just as you are, trying to learn.
I thank those of you who I see every day, a quick smile to him or to me, then off to your next lecture. There are many of you and I am incredibly appreciative. But to the rest of you, Blanco is a service dog, yes, but he is just a dog. With enough external digs at his ability to just walk to and from class with me, to sleep in-between or to play when we get home, he will be reversing his years of training little by little, and won’t be able to support me in the ways that I need him to in order to live as normally as I can.
I believed that there was an understanding when it came to him. How we as a collective of students could agree to let the most hard-working dog I know do his job. And while I may have overestimated how easily that would come, I still believe that by increasing awareness on proper etiquette, we can create an environment where every service dog and their disabled handler can go to class without the humming anticipation in their chest that something might go wrong.