Upon arriving in Elizabeth, I met Mark and Kathy Murphy, and their family of assorted Basset Hounds with whom I spent the next year of my life. My Guide Dog Puppy Raiser dad Mark Murphy became my most constant companion. He "socialized" me, daily bringing me along to his workplace at Lucent Technologies. From Mark I learned such valuable lessons as coming when called, sitting, staying, healing, playing, refraining from relieving myself while indoors, and waiting during long meetings. He gave me a green vest with a "Guide Dog Puppy In Training" logo that allowed me to accompany him everywhere. We even flew across country together. By the time I was six months old, I had visited the Statue of Liberty and The Washington Monument.

At home in Elizabeth, I romped constantly with my Basset brothers and sisters. I thrived on Mom Kathy's kindness. Life was good. Some human mood changes are subtle. They approach softly, like September in Central California. Something sad seemed to approach Mark and Kathy. One morning we received a visitor, the same man from Guide Dogs who had driven me to Colorado. Kathy and Mark gently settled me into my crate and kissed me. Then the Guide Dog man and I drove all the way back to California.

Once again I found myself in San Rafael. I now shared a kennel with a roommate, Concord, a Golden Retriever who like me was about fourteen months old. I missed Mark and Kathy, but now my days were filled with a man named Adam, who introduced me to many challenging games. First I learned to wear a big leather something called a harness. Once I realized that it wouldn't bite me, I rather liked it. Mr. Adam held the handle of this harness thing and pretended that he couldn't see. My part in the game was to lead him around and not bump him into anything. To do this, I had to acquire a vocabulary. I learned such words and phrases as "Forward," "Right," "left," "halt," "find the door," "find the bus," "find the stairs" "outside," "hop up," and "wait." I learned to pause at the top of steps and at curb cuts. I learned to cross busy intersections, maneuver through people crowds and bicycles, and negotiate noisy train platforms. I also learned to protect Adam from bad drivers and other human unpredictability. My favorite game, however, involved riding escalators in department stores and airports. Leaping on and off without my claws or paw hair catching in their mechanisms was quite a fete.
One day about four months into my games with Adam, I was invited to a part of the Guide Dog campus I'd never visited before called The Dormitory. That's where I met Susan Schulter, who actually was -and is still - blind, and who, like Adam, loves to play the guidework game with me.

The rest, as your journalists say, is history. Susan and I spent a month at the Guide Dog campus learning to be a team. Then we attended something called a Graduation Ceremony where I again saw my friends Mark and Kathy Murphy. Finally, Susan and I went home to San Jose California.

Do I like my life? Yes indeed! I have a new sister, Kelsey, a twelve-year-old Yellow Labrador who was Susan's guide before I was. Now retired, Kelsey gets away with certain mischief that I am not allowed. She has developed the arts of selective hearing and convenient amnesia. She likes pretending that we haven't yet eaten dinner when in fact we have. Usually she is unable to fool either Susan or our human dad Marty. Kelsey and I enjoy pulling on our double cong chew toy, as well as stealing one another's beds. A cockatoo named Mr. Higgins also lives with us, and he has a most annoying habit of chasing us through the house and biting our feet. We tolerate this because Mr. Higgins, a sloppy eater, drops many delicious treats from his cage.

As for my career, I travel to and from West Valley College five days a week where I help teach all of Susan's classes. I am the Honorary Canine Feminist member of the Women's Studies Faculty. I guide Susan through many San Francisco Bay Area locations, and am especially fond of riding Cal Trains to her parents' home in San Mateo. I've been to an academic conference in Austin Texas, and a vacation in Northern Wisconsin, where I fell in love with lake swimming. I love camping trips, naps, Miles Davis solos, ice cubes, poetry about animals, and bananas.