A White Dog on a Dark Street

It was thrilling to introduce Suki to my parents for the first time. She sat down in front of them and solemnly gazed at them quietly, seemingly observing them carefully as each tentatively checked the other out. By the end of the afternoon all were friends and Suki was thumping her tail and being patted on her head. I led Suki through the obstacle courses while my father photographed her progress with a video camera, even documenting the one mistake she made and my calling her back to repeat the obstacle she had missed: the four-foot-high horizontal bar that she can pass under, but which she forgets that I cannot.

Suki soon made up for that mistake in the evening walk that we took through Rehovot after dark. For an hour we walked down crowded streets, narrow passageways, and crossed busy intersections.
I found myself walking down a dark street unable to see where I was going. All my instincts screamed at me to slow down or I would bump into something, but suddenly the realization came: I have a guide dog. I don't have to be afraid of walking in the dark any more. I can trust her. Unable to trust my own vision on the dark at all on the dark, crowded street, I had no choice – everything was in Suki's hands (or, more accurately, Suki's eyes). I did not see the phone booth, the motorcycle parked on the sidewalk, or many of the dozens of other obstacles that we walked past. They were reported by my classmates who made comments each time we met up and compared notes. I would have never been able to manage the narrow piece of sidewalk where there was not even room for Suki and me to walk side by side. I felt tearful as we stood at the next corner waiting for Ami to give us the next instructions of the route. I realized that the idea had finally sunk in that I could trust Suki implicitly even when I could not see at all. It had taken a walk at night in order to drive that idea home, and I felt teary-eyed as I praised this wonderful creature, and hopes she would soon learn to trust me as much as I now trusted her.